Leadville 100MTB Adventure + Bonus Leadville 10KM Run
I have to begin this race story with the background of how this race came to be. Arguably the most famous and hardcore mountain biking race in the US, this isn’t just like a sign up and pay money and go race situation. With it’s fame comes qualifying to get into this race or alternatively, the lottery. In a world that seems a distant past in late 2019, pre-covid, I had a crazy idea one night to just throw Kit and I’s name into this said lottery. Now from what I had heard, people spent years entering the lottery and not making it, so it was just a whim I never thought anything would come from. Little did I know…
The night the lottery results went live I was in shock to see both Kit and my name flash across the screen. Apparently this lottery is read live in Leadville, but is also live-streamed online for all those entrants to see. I was in disbelief, as was Kit, and with that it was decided- I just we had to buy some mountain bikes… we were in for Leadville 2020.
We did end up purchasing mountain bikes soon after, but as primarily triathletes who were also balancing full-time jobs as well as board exams (mainly Kit), ultimately even before covid wrecked the 2020 race season we elected to defer our race to 2021. This was a multi-factorial decision given Kit had two different board exams and we felt that we didn’t have enough vacation time to make the trip and acclimate well to elevation. After all, Leadville starts close to 11k feet, which is a big change for sea level dwellers. As we all know, 2020 was an interesting year. Despite us deferring, the Leadville race like many others was a victim of covid 19. Silver linings- this gave us more time to spend and train on a mountain bike and plan for the race in August 2021.
Best laid plans to prioritize the mountain bike kind of went by the wayside as there were several life pressures over the last several months. After being in the real estate game for nearly two years, Kit and I finally found a house and closed on it early summer of 2021. This came with some renovation work, and combined with light remodeling of the old place to get market-ready, switching between two houses and then ultimately moving about a week before Leadville, things were stressful. It definitely took significant time away from my training. Kit also had oral boards for his radiation oncology certification hovering the near future, which was also challenging his stress levels. Finally, work stress seemed to be compounding daily with the new delta covid variant, cases climbing exponentially by day and more and more burn out with my partners and colleagues- including myself. Not excuses here, but let’s just say mountain bike time wasn’t ideal. I still was able to keep fitness and training volume pretty high, which was good. I also was able to do a nice tune up off-road triathlon and spent a good chunk of time on single track trails for that race.
The week of Leadville very much seemed to creep up on us quickly. Probably would attribute that to the busyness of moving, but before I knew it, I was dropping bikes off to be shipped by our local bike shop, Bicycle Face. We flew out of Cincinnati as we had a family wedding to attend the night before leaving, and Cincinnati was also nice enough to offer direct flight options into Denver. We arrived into Denver Sunday afternoon to be met by extremely smoky air- so smoky you couldn’t see. Apparently wildfires in California had blown in very smoky air for the weekend, just our luck. In fact, when we arrived at our hotel, they mentioned the air quality in Denver was some of the worst globally that day.
Speaking about our hotel, we chose not to stay in Leadville. Having been there before, we knew the town was very small with limited options. We opted to stay near Beaver Creek at the lovely Ritz Carlton at Bachelor Gulch. The accommodations were superb and location settled right at the base on the ski slopes. The drive to Leadville wasn’t bad- only about 45 min to an hour and very scenic.
Race day was early. Luckily, I don’t think either of us truly shifted to mountain time, which was helpful for the 4am wakeup race day (more like 6est). Our race start time was 649am in the white corall, or “back” corall… as an explanation on that, basically this race has several coralls (starting places)- with the gold being for pros/elites and others in which you can qualify for based on times achieved in qualifying races. Kit and I had been scheduled to go to a qualifying race in New York earlier in the summer, unfortunately though it was cancelled (thanks covid), so here we were starting with the party in back corrall. The start was crisp at about freezing temps (high elevation and mountains cause this), and we were glad to have our Walmart “warm clothes” purchased the day before. Mass chaos bikes were everywhere with a very tense atmosphere, but before I knew it (though my whole body was numb with cold)- a shot gun fired and we were off. Ready or not, we were mountain bike racing.
I didn’t see Kit after about 30 seconds into the race. I knew this would be the case, he’s been racing bikes his whole life and I was under no auspices he would be waiting around for his slow wife. I was happy to see him go as my goals were slow and steady, don’t die and don’t die. The first 5 or so miles was pavement, EXTREMELY cold and downhill. By the time we made the turn on the dirt I couldn’t feel about any part of my body despite 2 jackets, bib/bike jersey, gloves, hot hands, arm/leg warmers. I was just begging for a hill. Anything for warmth.
The hills, they came. And then they just wouldn’t quit. We were climbing or should I say walking steep grades within the first thirty minutes. Due to this back corrall, you had a wide variety of skill levels, and due to the steep grade/rocks, this created a bottleneck and racers and essentially forced walking. The first climb up Kevan’s I swear I was walking for like an hour, I could feel my calves just burning from the hike a bike up what felt like 15-20% grade at times. I was surprised at a few things, mainly though how technical some of this terrain seemed. Everything I had heard about the race was that “oh Leadville isn’t technical, it’s all an endurance race”.. I would argue those people must have had some serious mountain bike background because I beg to differ on that opinion. While most was ok, there was a good portion of this course that was just rock garden after rock garden, fighting two way traffic on climbs/ascents overlooking serious drop-offs, single track with a lot of switch backs and just seriously steep descents that were downright dangerous. But again, this opinion is through the lens of a “non-mountain biker”, but it tops as one of the scariest things I have done.
We finally got on the top of that first climb, and we were met by descending Kevan’s which was just as crazy as the up- now just steep down. I was trying to take it conservatively, but unfortunately took a bad line down a super steep section and couldn’t maneuver my bike fast enough to avoid a rock which threw me over the handlebars. Luckily, I wasn’t going too fast, but still enough to get bruised/road rash on my knees/elbows. Also this was very mentally rattling as it was within the first 10 miles. I ended up being more cautious and taking descents now even more cautious— a price to be paid for this later.
I continued to grind along, I was actually enjoying things at times taking it easy up the climbs, not taking any chances on the descents and finding some friends along the way. It finally warmed up to lose some layers and actually felt fairly pleasant. More dusty dirt paths with scenic views as well as some paved descents were welcome changes. Powerline was coming and I was already having tons of anxiety in my mind surrounding this. Powerline is a famed part of this race, the first half of the race features the Powerline descent after the Sugarloaf climb while the back half features the Powerline inbound climb. Powerline is a highly technical and steep section, with only usually one or two good lines, deep ruts, big rocks and very steep grades. Just my style…
I actually didn’t find many of the climbs bad after we spread out and it wasn’t forced walking. I was proud of myself for being able to stay on my bike, deal with the rock gardens and just keep moving. I felt like a true mountain biker on some of those climbs. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the descents. These were just scary, no other words accurately describe. There were times I was just praying my lines were ok, other times it was exhilarating, but mostly I was just praying for the downs to be over soon. Powerline was maybe slightly better than I made it out in my mind, but it was still pretty sketchy. Luckily, I was able to stay on my bike and just take it cautiously with good lines.
My legs were still feeling pretty good moving through the first aid station. I grabbed some more water and nutrition out of my drop bag and kept moving through, thinking I was fine within the time cuts. I was with a good group of people who all seemed to be taking a chill pace and light hearted attitude. We went through some other very scenic sections- a cool winding single track trail and a few more small rollers/descents and some other road sections. The course was very well marked and fans abundant throughout the course.
Fast forward to about mile 50, when we get to Twin Lakes Dam. I was still feeling very good, legs felt fine though I know this was coming up on the big Columbine climb. Twin Lakes is an aid station where many of the crews sit, so it was busy and filled with a lot of energy. Unfortunately, despite feeling good, this is where my race ended. I was met by a volunteer who had the misfortune to pull myself and many others off the course due to not quite making the time cut.
In the moment I was very sad, and also mad, frustrated. Here I was stuck out in basically the middle of the course, not allowed to finish just because of some stupid time cut. I knew I was probably close, and I knew I had lost time to the crash and taking the descents super slow. At least though, I was in the company of probably about twenty other riders also cut at this spot. After much deliberation, a new friend and I elected to ride back into Leadville downtown using the roads. I’ll admit, it was kind of a sketchy ride back on a busy-ish road into a headwind, but it was nice to be in a group socially and to get some more miles in. All in all, end up with 65ish miles once back to Leadville and was mostly done having my own DNF pity party. Honestly, in some ways I was relieved as a lot of that course was just scary and what I knew was coming was probably worse.
Tracking was a little difficult with this race. They had set up some sort of Athlinks tracking, however it wasn’t working for Kit, and it probably also didn’t help that Kit and I had accidentally switched our race bibs. Our fault, but easy to do when you’re the same last name and 1405 and 1406. I say this because we basically had no idea where Kit was or when he would finish. We estimated based on him coming down Columbine he’d be somewhere between 9:30h-11h but that was a big window.
Sitting at the finisher chute was hot but also really cool. I was able to see everything from the first female finisher to lots of families/kids/pets crossing the line together. It was apparent that this race finish meant a whole lot to these finishers and it was cool to see. In many ways reminded me of Ironman finisher chute. After much anticipation for Kit, we finally spotted him coming up the huge hill on 6th street. He looked super strong and was able to finish with time to spare for his belt buckle at 10h 40 min.
After the post race frenzy of food/medals/finding the car/loading the bikes etc, it was time to process the event. Kit’s comments echoed my own that he felt the course was extremely sketchy, downright dangerous in parts but also strikingly beautiful. I think he was super proud of me and surprised I was able to finish as much as I did given how ridiculous it was. After both of us doing several Ironmans and even Ultra Marathons, both of us echoed this was the hardest thing we have ever done. I will caveat it was hard in a different way, as neither one of us was as destroyed the next day as post-Ironman, but this was just something.
The following day we made it down to Leadville again for Kit to pick up his belt buckle and sweatshirt (in which they accidentally printed my name- bib mix up). On a complete whim, I decided to run the Leadville 10k. I was feeling good and felt like running so I just went with it. Known as the “highest 10k in the US” it was also probably the most beautiful 10km or maybe any running race I’ve down. The course featured the first and last 3.1 miles of the 100 mile running race, which meant that we went down 500 ft for the first 5k and then just climbed that back up for the last 5k. I had a strong race on tired legs and a difficult course, but it definitely wasn’t a negative split given the uphill finish. Nonetheless, I was happy to finish something and was top third of my age group in a very elite field.
So will we do this again? Honestly I doubt it. This was definitely an experience, from the atmosphere to the race to the even training before, and all of that I’m glad I did. I was glad to be a part of this race and honestly this effort was one of the hardest I’ve done, in different ways as I’ve described. I won’t swear off mountain biking as I do enjoy it (in a safer way), but risking what seemed like death or injury frequently in a race like this I’m not sure is worth it. I think Ironman is where it’s at for me but I also feel more well versed and confident as an athlete after doing something like this.
So what’s next? Ironman Chattanooga, more in my wheelhouse and hopeful for some Ironman redemption.
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