Crewing and Pacing at Leaville 100

Last year when my friend, Margaret, said she put her name on the napkin to run the Leadville 100 mile race I immediately asked her if I could crew or pace her. As an endurance junkie I have done some crazy things but never have I considered doing a 100 mile run, and a hard 100 mile run to boot. So, it sounded like it was going to be a lot of fun.
During the last year I’ve watched her preparing for the run, we’ve done several Ironman races together but her eye has always been on the prize, Leadville. Her runs have been totally outrageous; back to back long runs, runs up and down mountains, high mileage weeks and just plain hard runs, sometimes hitting 90 miles per week. I just can’t imagine doing some of the stuff she’s done, she’s totally hardcore.
During the course of the year I found out another friend, Brian, was also doing Leadville and I volunteered to help pace him. What the heck, I was going to be up there anyway! Brian is another one that has kept is eye on the prize and has done some outrageous amounts of running.

I arrived early at Leadville to help acclimate myself to the high altitude, the hotel is at over 10k feet and the race goes well above 12k feet. I decided to hike around Independence pass to speed up the acclimation process. It was gorgeous up there. I’ll be pacing “my runners” ( I love saying that) along the two highest passes, Hope and Sugarloaf passes, so hiking around Independence seemed like a really good idea. The first few miles were tough, the air is thin and the hills felt steep, but amazingly after a few miles I felt pretty normal.

Margaret threw a party at the Leadhouse (the Leadville version of the Ironhouse) she rented for her family and college friends. I got to meet a bunch of the Albuquerque runners that were running Leadville, some extremely experienced and some first timers. Lot’s of pasta and a lot of energy, two of my favorite things!

I had two 10ish mile legs to pace over plus what ever happened during the day. I was more nervous about pacing than I am about racing. Go figure. The night before the race I just couldn’t sleep and ended up taking an antihistamine around 12:30 to knock me out. I decided to sleep in and miss the start of the race because I wouldn’t be any good to anyone if I didn’t at least get some sleep. I’m still bummed that I missed the start of the race.
To be continued. ..