Leadwoman – Leadville Marathon (6/15/19) (1st/5 events)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I went to Leadville for the first time this month to run the marathon.  This was the first of the five events.  I went alone.  It was at this race I realized the layer of stress that bringing the girls caused. It wasn’t until I didn’t bring them that I realized this.  This would become important for the later races.  My friend, Eugene, was there with his camper.  And his amazing camera skills.  We have him to thank for all the amazing photos from that weekend.  This day could not have gone any better.  Which is weird, because the days leading up were nuts.  I had to uber from the Denver airport to Leadville in the middle of the night.  My flight got in late after midnight and we didn’t arrive in Leadville until after 3 am. That was Wed. night before a Saturday race.  I slept in that Thurs as long as I could, but Leadville starts hopping at about 7 a.m. so that was hard.  I had rented a bike to ride some of the MTB course with Eugene that Thurs. and Fri.  The plan was to train through this marathon. Meaning, I did not taper for it. It turned out my new friend, Jello, has a mountain house in Avon, CO and was there also (she had friends staying for the marathon-I didn’t know who at the time.)  She got to ride with us as well.  There were quite a few people from Fort Worth doing this race!  Amy, Amy, Sarah Caldwell, Chris Wright, Betsy K, Tiffany D (who I also just met for the first time this weekend).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The marathon couldn’t have gone any better. I felt the altitude for only two miles at the start and a little bit at the highest point (16 miles in), but other than that, I was sooooo surprised when I crossed the finish line, feeling great, in a sub 6:00 time.  I kept asking the volunteers, is this clock really correct?  I’m sure I didn’t finish in 5:43.  For this race, I raced on Clif shot bloks, Tailwind and Gu Roctane, and solid food from the course (potato chips, fig newtons).  I had changed a lot of things for this race based on experience from the others.  I had been chafing pretty bad on my sternum where my sports bra rubs.  Body glide worked well for that.  I had intended on putting some rocktape there (idea from my friend Shane) and kept forgetting.  I also had one toenail that poked the other toe during long distances (over marathon) but I wanted to try and use trail toes or something similar and forgot.  I had purchased a new Osprey pack for this race. I bought the pack at REI in Fort Worth and the salesman there showed my how to store my trekking poles on the pack when I wasn’t holding them.  I could never replicate that again for some reason so I started getting concerned about carrying poles.  I ended up with a similar pack to the one I had before (that all the zippers were sweat shut on).  I really liked to have the pockets in the front for small bottles because I don’t like putting anything other than water in the bladders of any of my packs.  The pack worked well.  The only thing that went wrong is when the bladder was pretty full at the marathon, it became tight around me and my phone barely fit in one of the pockets.  It ended up bruising my collarbone.  This is where I decided I would not be taking my phone with me on the 100 mile run.  Not worth it.  I needed the pocket for my bottles and nutrition.  Also, they had to change the course due to all the snowfall this year and since the climbing wasn’t going to be as much, I decided against poles for this race.  That ended up being a good idea.  But, just another race that I didn’t get to practice with them.

 

I was fortunate enough to stay at Jello’s (very last minute decision) the night before the race and the rest of the trip.  Since I was training through it, we hiked the following day.  It ended up being a 5 day trip.  I needed it.  Even though I ran a marathon, hiked and rode, the mountains always calm me down.