For the last 30 hours Mike and Mark ran the Leadville 100. The race is an out and back of forest roads, the Colorado Trail, and the Continental Divide Trail. The significant features at the end is Hope Pass. The Pass is 12,400ft tall and very steep on the far side, I picked Mike up there with the intention to take him pack the 50 miles. We started climbing up Hope and Mike was struggling keeping up.
As we got near the top, the sun was setting and it was extraordinary,
I ended up hanging with Mike for only 42 miles, He needed to move very fast at the end and my toe was hurting too much to keep up. Mike and Mark both finished the race and were in the 334 finisher of the 650+ starters.
Mike’s Strava:
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Jim’s Strava – last 42 miles:
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Over the past day and a half, my buddy Mike has been running the Big Horn 100. This race is one of the few qualifiers for the Hard Rock 100 which means its tough and has a lot of climbing. Mike’s entire family came out for the race. The plan was for us to see Mike once along the course and then I’d meet him at the halfway point. Below is Mike with his nephew, Noah, right before the start.
At 11am, 300 runners took off up a dirt road which turned into a single track trail that ascended a ridge 3,500ft above at 8,100ft.
We met Mike at the 13 mile aid station. He looked good and was ahead of his goal time.
The race had internet tracking at several locations and Mike fell a little behind his time at the 30 mile mark. We were speculating that it was due to weather.
Mike and I left the turn around point aid station around 3:30am. He told me how hard the climbs were, but the really painful spot was his legs…. it was going to be a long day since our total drop was supposed to be over 11,000ft.
Everything is better in day light and this far north, the sun comes up around 5:30am.
The terrain was beautiful – rolling hills that paralleled a river.
The course took us to the bottom of the river down to an altitude of 4,500ft.
Unfortunately, going down meant that we had to go up; and with temperatures near all time record highs, climbing out of the canyon was incredibly tough and hot. The picture below shows the canyon that we climbed out of.
The trail kept going up and up. We finally made it back to the aid station where Mike’s family would be waiting (mile 83).
The trail was slightly downhill until one giant climb at the end back up to 8,100ft.
From there, it was all down hill. In some places very steep. Good news is we made great time, bad news is that it crushed out quads and feet.
At the end, Mike finished in 33 hours and climbed over 18,000ft.
I am in Story, Wyoming this week… never been here, but I’ll be back since it’s really pretty.
Mike, Tina, and I drove to different points on the course in preparation for Mike running the Bighorn 100 tomorrow. The 4 pictures below are from the canyon he will start in.
Within a mile of the start, Mike will climb to the plateau of the Big Horn mountains and slowly work his way towards the crest, which is the turn around point of the “out and back” race. The picture below is from the car traveling along a gentle 8% grade road; Mike will be climbing a single track incline up almost a vertical mile.
We will see him about 4 hours into the race at the 13 mile aid station. The terrain is rolling green hills that rise and fall over many miles.
I will meet Mike at mile 48 and pace the remaining 53 miles with him. I expect to meet him around 2am Saturday morning. The weather is expected to be in the high 40’s at night and low 70’s during the day. Perfect running weather, but 101 miles in the mountains is tough no matter what.
I think this was my 6th or 7th Shadow of the Giants 50k. Every time, Baz (the RD) has said it’s his last, but since his 75th birthday is coming up, I think it might be his last one. While Baz probably doesn’t know my name, he has offered an incredible amount of inspiration and amusement to me, Tracy, and Preston. I wouldn’t think that Preston cared about the race, but since he was going to Yosemite instead of racing this time, he was worried he wouldn’t make it for Baz’s raffle time. Raffle is basically a trivial pursuit game that allows Baz to pass on surplus race material and make inappropriate comments to everyone (totally allowed when you are 75) . Raffle was fun, with Brad winning duffle and Preston catching a shirt. The picture below is Baz (far right) and his crew from over 30 years ago…. crazy thing is most of these guys are still running. A 77 year old finished Shadow this year.
Tracy after retiring from running crushed the 20k in just over 2 hours in 2013…
Preston was like Baz’s little pet for several years being the only kid to run the 20k….
This post is a big tribute to someone that was founder of the sport and brought inspiration and joy to so many…. Baz’s farewell is here: http://www.bigbaztrailraces.com/16/50K-ShadowG-Jun11.htm (make sure you look at #98 in the 50k)
In regards to the race this year, I beat my best time by 48 seconds, making it my fastest 50k ever…. Lots of football and poker was played during the week – below is a cool shot.
A friend said that it’s a 50, but run like a 100; and he was right. My day was spent, climbing, descending, and more climbing. The graph below is the output from my watch – there is not a lot of flat on this course.
The weather started out in the low 50’s and since I was gain in elevation as the sun came up, it was a fairly constant temperature. I pulled off all layers at the top since it warmed up considerably for my 2nd big climb.
This picture is towards the end of the course, but gives you an idea of what the terrain looks like.
For the “stat cats” out there, I linked my Strava results below. Later in the week, I’ll put together a quick video of the race.
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Early this morning, I went back to the ski resort to explore the next leg of the race. This leg is less than 3 miles long, but I will travel it twice. I was interested in how technical it was since I will be running it after a brutal downhill off of the mountain. The picture below shows how far I have to drop in the previous leg. The course starts on top and weaves it’s way down through the different runs – dropping about 1000ft.
This leg turned out to be tame – a little single track and jeep trail with a gentle uphill. You skirt a deep canyon that leads back to town.
Half of the leg is through a beautiful meadow with a lot of bright blue mountain birds. I tried to get close enough for a picture, but I guess my hoodie scared them.
The leg ends at a very steep downhill into the caldera. For those that have done Bandera; think of the steepest part down on Lucky Peak, but for 500ft. Coincidentally, 3 guys were marking the trail (one of them was the race director) and told me that staying right through the trees offered the slimmest chance of ending up on my head.
Race starts at 5am tomorrow… weather will be wonderful.
I’m in Los Alamos, NM this weekend for the Jemez 50. It’s a race around the city and through the Jemez mountains. It’s a little more than 50 miles – closer to a double trail marathon. This should prove to be my hardest 50 miler since it involves an incredible amount of climbing and the lowest point is around 8,000ft. I’m staying in the City and the park in the picture is just across the street.
I walked through the downtown area last night looking for a place for dinner. Found a nice cafe with awesome food. I went back there for lunch today.
I was on the trail by sunrise. I wanted to hike what looks to be the hardest section of the trail. It’s an 8 mile stretch that climbs to the top of the ski resort, ~3000ft. Heat won’t be a problem in this race – it was 38 degrees when I left the car.
When I passed 10,000ft there was a sprinkling of snow. The picture below is a cool bench that is on the summit.
The climb was as expected and I only got turned around twice. Both times, I back tracked to understand where I missed the turn so I wouldn’t do it in the race. I took about 3 hours to do the stretch today, but that was with pictures, 2 phone calls, getting lost, etc…. on race day, I need to do it in 2:35. I pasted my race card below. I’m expecting 15 hours which makes it my slowest 50 miler ever – but I’ve never done one with this many climbs.
The last few months have been very busy. I announced my retirement in February and luckily was able to promote someone on my team so the transition didn’t have to take long. Before I left, my team was given the presidents award for the project it spent the last year working on.
The weeks flew by and before long, I was given a retirement party. Below is a great picture on me and my team.
Tracy has been really busy with work, but has spent a lot of time on the water. This is her rowing in her first singles race.
I signed up for a crazy 50 mile race at the end of May in the Jemez Mountains (http://www.highaltitudeathletics.org/JemezMt.htm) so I’ve been putting in a lot of miles. I’ve been busy with races – Bandera 100k, Pandora trail marathon, Maze 30k, Tangle 30k, and Paleface trail marathon.
This is me ending my 2nd loop at the Tangle. That’s the winner passing me to complete his 3rd 10k loop.
The Maze:
Found a new app that lets me import my data. This is for Paleface this weekend:
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