Leadville Heavy Half (Race Recap)

Leadville, CO

Saturday, June 28

Half Marathon #199

Weather - sunny and warm

I definitely do not love this race for a lot of reasons. I ran the marathon back in 2012 and hate Mosquito Pass - like A LOT. I said I would probably not run it again, but then signed up to run in 2019. There was a course re-route that did NOT have us going up Mosquito - which I was more than fine with - and I ran a pretty fast time (for me). ANYWAY, I signed up back in January to run the half again, but with the purpose of being IN a race at higher elevation. Since I am giving Summit 200 another go, I want to do some harder/faster paced activities above 12,000' - and this fit the bill. 

We had talked about hypothetically camping or staying in the mountains the night before, but since I was STILL in jury duty, we didn't get around to making any last minute plans - which meant we would have to drive up in the morning. With a 9 am start, it wasn't that early and actually was later than when I did the Sunset Trail 28k earlier in the week.

Race Day

Alarm was set for 5:00 am. I had pre-prepped my pack and all my gear, so I felt that an hour was plenty of time to braid my hair, eat breakfast and fill my bottles. Once I was mostly ready, I took Olive for a walk. Ariel had agreed to take her out at lunch so we wouldn't have to rush home right after I finished.

The drive was estimated to be 1:45, which also gave us time to stop in Frisco to get some gas and for me to use the bathroom. We were parked in town shortly before 8, which gave me plenty of time to wander around the start area and get my packet. The race shirt is nice, and I will keep it (along with my other two shirts that are still in rotation, years later). I pinned my bib on and used the bathroom before deciding I might as well get my pack and be ready to go. 

Christina, Josephine, Me

Met up with Josephine and Christina and chatted until about 10 minutes before the start, when I decided I wanted to use the bathroom one more time. The rest of our friends (Kristin, Doug, Janet and Alison) were nearby. I had planned to seed in for a sub 4:30 finish with Christina and Josephine. 

The starting corral was a disaster. It really reminded me of a road race where everyone is just packed in like sardines and the "self seeded" signage was so close together it was impossible to position where I wanted to be. 

After the national anthem, we started right on time (I think). The first half mile or so is a gradual climb up 6th street out of town. I ran for probably 2-3 minutes before I started my walk breaks. I have been working (again) on my faster walk/hike pace and it seemed like I had positioned myself pretty well. I also knew that there was no single track on the half course, so it didn't really matter how well I squeezed in on the course.

We turned right and began the long, hot climb on the dirt road out of town. I had taken an "early lead" from Josephine and Christina, although maybe 3/4 of a mile in Josephine got ahead of me for a bit. I ended up walking next to a lady for maybe 15 minutes. Turns out we live sorta close together and we have the same first name. It was REALLY warm when we were heading up. I had worn a sun shirt under my RAD tee because I remembered how sunburned I had gotten the last time I ran and I was mildly regretting wearing so many layers. Once I finally started to sweat more I cooled down. 

I was not doing any running at this point, just hiking at a brisk pace. The climbing stopped briefly at around 2.7 miles in and we had maybe a mile of downhill where I was able to pass people who were really cautious with the loose rocks. Maybe 4 miles in was when we hit a stretch of spectators - really had a lot of energy for the 1/3 of a mile or so that they lined the road to the aid station. I took a cup of coke and a packet of skratch chews. 

I made the mistake of not looking at any race information beforehand, so in my mind, I was relying on my memory from when I'd run the marathon and I thought we would have another aid station at the base of Mosquito Pass. Imagine my dismay when we had a long and rocky ascent and NO aid station :(

I definitely struggled on the climb and mildly regretted not bringing my poles. I decided since I don't normally use them in training I shouldn't use in this "training race" - and the year I ran the marathon I didn't have them either. Like the last time I ran this event, I took a lot of pictures on the way up to distract myself from how horrible it was.

Marmot!

Multiple times I had to stop and catch my breath and I even took a few breaks of sitting on a boulder on the side of the trail. I do think that my time climbing was less than the last time, however. I talked with a couple from Indiana that was worried about being too slow and I told them they were fine on the cutoffs. I was still chasing Janet up to the summit. With maybe a tenth of a mile to go I saw a mountain goat on the side of the trail! I'm also glad that I remembered that the last push to the summit wasn't as steep.

I grabbed Ginger Ale (since they were out of coke) and wanted some chips, but only crumbs were left. We were also told that they barely had any water left, so unless we REALLY needed it we had to run down for more. Wth...  I got my picture taken with the Mosquito Pass sign and headed down.

I have gotten a little more confident on technical downs, and even though I wasn't going very fast, I did some "running" on the descent. Saw lots of people I know! Jen, Jen (yes, a second Jen), Christina, Janet, Alison, Kristin, and probably more I can't remember.

Saw the goat again, which was fun! 

Also, the clouds finally came out, and thankfully things started to cool down. The further down the mountain I got, the faster I was able to run. I stopped at the aid station, knowing I had about 4.5 miles left and only grabbed a cup of coke. I had an arbitrary goal of going sub 4:30, and honestly, if the course had measured accurately, I think I could have gotten there. I ran my fastest miles of the day at the end (which makes sense) and up until the last mile I felt really good. I got a side cramp that had me taking a few walk breaks towards the end. Ben was waiting about 1/4 mile from the finish line and ran alongside me to the finish.

Garmin time - 4:32:26

Garmin pace - 17:26

Official time - 4:32:26

Overall Place - 486/738

Gender Place - 192/331

Elevation gain - 3,982'

Mile 1 - 15:09

Mile 2 - 17:49

Mile 3 - 17:32

Mile 4 - 12:36

Mile 5 - 19:25

Mile 6 - 26:45

Mile 7 - 34:31

Mile 8 - 28:38

Mile 9 - 16:19

Mile 10 - 13:51

Mile 11 - 14:43

Mile 12 - 14:36

Mile 13 - 14:36

Mile 14 - 9:31

Mile 15 - 10:07

Mile 15.63 - 10:06

I had to sit down immediately after finishing. Once I found Ben again we went to collect our free beer and find somewhere to sit in the shade. It was at least a half hour after finishing before I felt like eating anything. The race had BBQ, which was pretty good. We headed back to the finish line to watch everyone come in. Apparently lots of people were bamboozled by a weird time cutoff at the last aid station, Josephine and Christina almost got pulled there, even though they had a TON of time to finish the rest of the course.

We stuck around the finish socializing, and buying the limited edition Leadville rabbit button done, before we decided we needed to start heading down the mountain so we could take care of Olive.

Thoughts:

• I really have a love/hate with this race. I intentionally ran because I wanted some high elevation stuff to prepare (more, hopefully) for Summit, Round 2. But!! There are a zillion people on these trails, and the organization seems to really skimp on supplies. I was happy to see that there was medical on course, which was a concern leading up to the event.
• The medal is HUGE and the race shirt is nice.
• Will I run again? I mean, probably, at some point, but I don't feel like I "have" to.