We ate nasty Mexican food in Leadville for dinner. When we finally got back in the car to drive back to Silverthorne, the emotion set it. The girls were soooooo proud that I finished. It was very difficult to explain to them that I couldn’t continue on in the Leadwoman series because I didn’t make the 12-hour cutoff time. They just didn’t get it. Audrey was upset but also relieved that she didn’t have to run a 10k the next day with me. I was receiving so many texts and calls. I was so overwhelmed with all of it. And I was tired. From the reading I had done prior and from what people were telling me right then, I could still continue as an individual. I just needed to email the race people to let them know my intention. It was not clear that if I was continuing as an individual (instead of the Leadwoman series) if I had to go to the 10K the next day. What was clear is if you were doing the Leadwoman series, you had to do all of the events. So, I emailed them and went to bed. We slept in on Sunday. Until like 10 a.m. All of us. We went about our day. LP had to fly out that day at 4 p.m. so we just made it a family day. It was brought to my attention AFTER skipping the 10k on Sunday from a different group of people that I had made a mistake. Why didn’t I show up for the 10k? Why didn’t they mention this yesterday?! Based on my reading and several others interpretations, I didn’t know I had to if I wasn’t continuing as Leadwoman since I did not make the 12-hour bike cutoff. They seemed to think that was a big mistake. I emailed the race people again. The 100-mile run was the following Saturday. I still had not heard from them by Tuesday. I had my friend, Jen, flying in Wednesday to take care of the girls during that event. The rest of my crew would be there Thursday morning. I was staying an hour away from Leadville so I asked Eugene (who was staying closer) to go by the office and see if he can find out anything from Quinn (the person I had been emailing.) He went by the office and instead of Quinn, he got Cole, Ken Chlouber’s (one of the founders) son. You could tell at the athlete meeting Friday they were grooming Cole for a bigger role. They let him do part of the athlete meeting. Honestly, I wasn’t a fan of him that day. And I’m still not a fan of him today. Eugene talked to Cole and Cole was not the nicest person in the world and certainly not the person you wanted to be talking to about this. Eugene didn’t have a good report for me. On Wednesday, we were planning to summit a 14er. I would just go by the office and try to talk to Quinn then. We did our 14er. The girls did great! We had extremely gusty winds a few times. Like blow a kid over gusty. It was a good workout to get moving again.
We got back to town and I headed to the Leadville Race office. There was Cole. I asked if Quinn was there. She was hiding behind a wall. I can only imagine the number of emails she was getting during this time. I would be hiding too. But, it seems to me that is the most important time to be answering them. I had emailed her in the past and not heard back. This wasn’t the first time. I told her I had emailed her after the bike race telling her I still wanted to run the 100-mile run as an individual. I explained that I did not make the 12-hour cutoff to continue as a Leadwoman but that I did finish in until 13 hours. She asked if I had run the 10k. I told her no that I read that I could still do the 100-mile run if I emailed them and that I didn’t know that included the 10k too. Clearly, I can run 10k if I still want to run 100. This is the point where Cole started in on me. He was basically yelling at me that I had made a commitment to him and his dad and I had failed to keep it. This blindsided me. I tried to continue speaking to Quinn as this is the person they said to email online. Not Cole. I explained to her that my crew was coming in for the race Saturday and I had trained for it, etc., etc. I explained that online it does not state you have to do the 10k if you’re not continuing as Leadwoman. Cole continued to yell at me. Finally, I looked at him and said, “Are you really talking to me like that in front of my kids? I thought this race series was family friendly. Clearly, it’s not.” And, I walked out. That was it. No 100-mile run that weekend. Jen came in town that night. We were exhausted from the 14er. I was emotionally exhausted. I called the rest of my crew and told them not to come.
Tired from first 14er!
Tired from first 14er!
