Leadville Trail Marathon

This weekend was my 5th trip up for the Leadville Trail Marathon; I raced it two times, then ran unofficially with Judy one year, then with my Dad in 2007. Today I'd be again accompanying my dad, trying to help him get under 5:00. His time in 2007 was 5:25 but he had a lot of cramping that day. In addition to my dad, it was to be a DeWitt family affair with my Mom and sister (Laura) running the Heavy Half, and my sister's fiance Matt running the marathon. They are all from North Carolina, but my parents had been camping in Leadville for the last 3 weeks and were more acclimated than Laura and Matt.

And then there was CRUD; we had 8 other CRUD runners up there doing either the marathon or Half and I did my best to get photos of most of them (I missed Keith, Dave, and John because I was running down when they were going up and couldn't get the camera out quick enough).

The Leadville Trail marathon is often compared to the Pikes Peak marathon, but they are actually quite different, with the main commonality being the altitude. Pikes Peak is basically all up, then all down. The LT marathon has less total elevation gain (approx 6000 feet), but quite a bit of that is later in the race on the way "down." Pikes Peak is certainly harder, if harder means it takes longer, but LT will get you if you don't stay fueled and hydrated since you can't just let gravity do the work in the 2nd half.

My dad ended up running 4:57, and Matt was right ahead of us at 4:56 so they were both very pleased. My mom was 2nd in her age group in the Heavy Half, and Laura also finished it. My CR finally fell (about time!) but to a runner I'm not familiar with; will be interesting to see how Dennis does at the 50 and 100, which I heard he was also running this year. Nice to see a number of runners under 4hrs this year; the weather was quite good and no snow on the course for the first time I can remember. All in all a great day in the mountains.

These photos are in no particular order, but hopefully do a good job of showing the terrain and amazing views of the course.


Dad at top of Pass


Dad on Ball Mountain Singletrack


Larry


Jill


Laura K


Laura (sister)


Matt (fiance)


Mom


Rebekha


Rich


Rich's Ass


Rich in Mining District


Steve


Dad and Rich


Dad in Mining District


Dad climbing


Dad going around Ball Mountain


Dad around 9 miles

Drunk Badgers and Coked up Kitties

I saw this, taken from Reuters, and just had to pass it along...

BERLIN - A badger in Germany got so drunk on over-ripe cherries it staggered into the middle of a road and refused to budge, police said Wednesday.

A motorist called police near the central town of Goslar to report a dead badger on a road — only for officers to turn up and discover the animal alive and well, but drunk.

Police discovered the nocturnal beast had eaten cherries from a nearby tree which had turned to alcohol and given the badger diarrhea.

Having failed to scare the animal away, officers eventually chased it from the road with a broom.

******

Hurricane Canyon and Lake Manitou

We had a great CRUD long run today, exploring some fairly off-beat trails on the flank of Pikes Peak. As nice as Barr trail is, there are literally hundreds of miles of better trails on the mountain where you don't have to pick your way around oxygen-deprived tourists with ski poles. Anyway, today's route started in downtown Manitou and headed up Williams Canyon, my favorite canyon in the area. The wet spring and recent (yesterday) rains made for nice lush surroundings and we were all soaked well before the creek crossing later in the morning.

Williams Canyon (next 2 photos):




We took a connector trail up to Waldo Canyon and then ran Waldo to the trailhead on Highway 24, getting in a bit of speed work crossing the road with its 55 MPH traffic (think Frogger).

Waldo:



Longs Ranch Road has a similar grade and surface to the Powerlines climb during the LT100, though it is hard to simulate the 75 miles on your legs at that point during the 100 miler. As steep as it is, if you've ever "run" this dirt road in hip deep snow, the dirt is a welcome relief.

Longs Ranch Rd (next 2 photos):



Longs Ranch Road tops out around 9000 feet where several trails branch off. You can go down through the Manitou Experimental Forest to No Name Creek, take a trail over through Eagles Nest to the top of the Incline, take Bob's Road over to Barr Trail, or take a nice overgrown single track trail through Hurricane Canyon to the French Creek drainage at the base of the Manitou Lake dam, which was our route today.

Hurricane Canyon (next 3 photos):






Lots of Elk scat and wildflowers along with plenty of fallen trees since this is not a highly used trail. From the dam, we scooted down trail 638 to the 7.8 mile sign on Barr trail, and then back down Barr Trail which was teeming with people on this holiday day.

Trail 638:


Route Specifics: 4:38 total time. 21.27 miles and 9000 feet of altitude gain. That amount of gain seems too much to me, but that is what Steve's GPS said. I'm guessing more like 6000 ft gain.

As for me - I'm finally feeling like a real runner again and not holding up the group on these long days. Next weekend is the Leadville Trail marathon where I'll be running with my Dad; we did this in 2007 and this year he hopes to break 5Hrs.

Ultra Gear Checklist

I have a few runners doing their first 100s this summer, and was remembering back to my first 100 (2001 LT100) when we had the back of a pickup truck literally stuffed with food and supplies, most of which was not needed and just made it harder for Judy to find what I did want at each crew stop. While we went overboard that first year, there certainly are some critical items to have when doing a 100 mile race. The nature of the race makes a big difference; you probably don't need as many different types of clothing for the Umstead 100 as for the LT100 for example, so keep that in mind when planning out your supplies. Also keep in mind that at some races, your crew will need to hike in a ways to see you; this requires more planning so your crew can simply carry a small backpack with everything you might need. Finally, remember that you can never guarantee that your crew will get to the crew stop as planned. Things do happen (we met someone at LT100 a few years ago whose car died sometime during race morning). You should make use of the drop bags too as a back-up. It will be a long day for your crew as well as for you so they should remember to bring plenty of food and drinks for themselves too.

1. Cooler with ice and plenty of water. You don't want your crew to have to count on getting water at the aid stations so have plenty of your own.
2. Bug spray
3. Sunscreen
4. Toilet paper
5. Lights (for runner and for crew)
6. Extra batteries
7. Ibuprofen/salt pills/antacid pills
8. Sunglasses/hat
9. Maps and Racer/Crew instructions from website
10. Extra running shoes/socks/running shirts/shorts
11. Warm clothes for night
12. Drugstore poncho and/or rain clothes
13. Runner food - gels, bars, lunch meat, PBJs, etc.
14. Runner drinks - powder for mixing, Ensure, Boost, flat Coke, etc.
15. Basic first aid kit for blisters
16. Split sheet* for runner (so you know when to expect your runner at each crew stop)
17. Extra plastic ziploc bags
18. Handwipes
19. Chairs (for crew and runner)
20. Bodyglide or similar

*As a runner you should try to let your crew know ahead of time where you may want different things. This will be a seperate post but as a runner I always liked to give my crew a sheet with my expected splits and what I wanted to get at each crew stop.

Did I forget anything important that you always are sure to bring to a big race? Let me know and I'll add it to the list.