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.

Week in Review (June 11 - June 17)

Tuesday (13,780 steps) - Work in the office. Took Olive for a walk after work. Nothing else? Went to 4 Noses.

Wednesday (15,137 steps) - Work in the office. Did some strength work at lunch. Hurried home to meet Ben so we could go to "run" club. Met up with Larry and Terri and walked with Olive. We had just gotten to Murphy's for a beer and snack when we finally heard from Chuck (AC guy) that he was at the house and was able to fix our unit. Thankfully he had the part in his truck and we didn't need to be there.

Thursday (13,578 steps) - Work from home. Drove to the north side of the lake so that we could see the goats and take Olive for a walk. 

It's been a while since we headed towards the dog park, but there is now a paved path on the south end by 100th. That's interesting. We ended up working from 4 Noses in the afternoon because even with the AC working it was still insanely hot and miserable. 

Friday (19,713 steps) - Wash Park and Stella's! Ben and Olive joined since it was Ben's last day of freedom and he was bringing Pete back the canopies and tables we borrowed for Ariel's graduation party. Work in the office and then had a pretty good evening of driving.  

Saturday (31,175 steps) - Up early to go to Highlands Ranch to meet Christina and Jandy for a run at 6:30. I only had 90 minutes on schedule, but we ended up running 10 miles. Oops. The run was actually fine, except I wore a skirt I haven't worn in a bit and I got some chafing on my inner thighs. Sad.

We went to #hashtag for mimosas (I only had one) and breakfast (which was delicious, Ben and I shared an entree and it was plenty for both of us). Headed home to take Olive out. Sweltering. 

Went to Torchy's for dinner.

Sunday (20,233 steps) - Slept in as much as we ever do. Came up with a plan to go to lake near Guanella Pass to avoid another day of horrible heat. Went with Ariel to get Dutch Bros. before she went to work and then we headed home to pack for a day in the mountains. We had planned on a route to Shelf Lake, which looked to be 3.5 miles (each way), with the promise of hitting 12,000' and a lake. Neither of us had been there before, and it turns out the last few miles getting to the trail head were a bit sporty (dirt road). There didn't seem to be any actual trail head, but we had Gaia open and found our way up. We didn't see very many people all day, so it was funny that the second people we saw were Ryan and Kelly. The first mile was a sporty climb and felt really hot.

The weather was gorgeous, and the views were so pretty!

We were promised snow fields as we got closer to the lake. We didn't realize how many water crossings there would be even lower. About 3/4 of a mile up was the first crossing. There was a "bridge" of logs that Olive didn't seem to want to cross. At this point we were still trying to keep our feet dry, so Ben was going to carry her over, but she was flailing, so he tossed her to the shore. That made her panic and then she turned around and went back into the water and we ended up having to leash her and walk through the water (which wasn't even that big a deal).

Did I mention there were REALLY pretty views?

The lower snow fields were nothing compared to what we found when we got up higher. We were thankfully not post holing, but it wasn't the easiest to walk across.

Finally, we were almost there!!

We saw a couple with a dog that told us the lake was right over the ridge. There was NO ONE ELSE THERE, which was quite lovely.

Olive and I investigated a bit, but she seemed wary about getting in the water. Crazy to still see so much ice and snow in mid June.

We didn't stick around too long, and thankfully it took a lot less time to go down the mountain than up.

My knee was bothering me a bit on the way down, hope it's nothing I have to worry about. By the time we got back to the truck, Olive was mostly dry, but still muddy. We gave her some food and water and then loaded up to go into town to get some food. We finally saw some sheep on the drive down the pass.

We are not super fans of Cabin Creek, but we wanted a beer and we hadn't eaten anything all day (other than a waffle and an applesauce). Their food is good, the beer is marginal and the service is pretty terrible.

We made a second stop at Parry's on the way home for some better, less expensive beer. Goodbye, weekend.

Monday (21,511 steps) - Ben's first day at his new job. I got up early so I could run before work since a). it was supposed to be hot and b). because I had lunch plans. Work from home and Ariel and I got coffee before she went to work. Took Olive for a walk. Went to Torchy's for lunch so I could be there when Ariel did her dorm room selection. Did laundry and finished up the work day before going out to drive, but didn't stay out too long because it was slow and hot. Ben picked up pizza for dinner and we took Olive for a walk. 4 Noses for a beer and then home to watch TV. Power went out about 15 minutes before we would normally go to bed. Unfortunately, it didn't come back on until after midnight, so I spent a lot of time flopping around because I was hot. Ugh.

Stats:

• 135,127 steps
• 22.65 miles run
• 24.77 miles walked
• 0 minutes of cardio
• 15 minutes of strength

Week in Review (June 4 - June 10)

Tuesday (20,166 steps) - Work in the office. With it being a taper week I didn't have to get up early to cross train. Did a mobility workout at lunch. I got off work to head home and noticed the calendar on my carplay said that I was supposed to be volunteering?? I had my dates totally confused and I thought it was supposed to be on Wednesday. Felt really bad about bailing, but I didn't have the proper clothing for trail maintenance. 

Wednesday (18,318 steps) - Actually got up early to do my run before I had to work since it was short. Not as bad as I feared, although I still don't love running first thing in the morning. Work in the office. I had randomly done an impulse buy of a Squish bed/house for the cats. Batman seems to like it so far.

Ariel went with me for a dog walk.

Thursday (15,296 steps) - Initially my flight was supposed to be in the morning, so I had taken the whole day off. My flight got changed to mid afternoon, but I figured I might as well just stay home. Took Olive for her walk early since it was supposed to be hot later and Ben was driving me to the airport anyway. Got back with enough time for last minute packing and the mail had arrived with my new rabbit kit!

There was zero line to get through security, which was nice. Since I was traveling with Kristin and Doug, we decided to have a beer before getting on the flight. It took multiple locations before we finally found a spot at Great Divide. DIA really needs to get additional restaurants - the wait times are ridiculous. I watched "Something Borrowed" on the flight, which was quick and uneventful. 

Our bags were some of the last off the plane and then we walked over to pick up our cars. I immediately headed to the lot since with my status I should have had my car ready. Unfortunately, my name was NOT on the board, so I had to go back in and wait in line. Wouldn't have been so annoying if there had been more than one person working and everyone renting a car had done it before and wasn't chatty. FINALLY got my car and thankfully I had booked a hotel close to the airport. I had mapped out a place to get food on the way. The pub was small and dingy, but I got a Sweet Cow and ordered food.

The sandwich was sadly really bland. 

I was sitting at the bar and got a really creepy vibe from the guy sitting next to me. I sent Ben a text with my location and told him I was going to head out. Thankfully, the guy didn't follow me and Ben actually called the bar to make sure I got out ok. With that said, I finally arrived at the hotel and got all settled in and decided to walk to the gas station to get beer. Only they didn't sell any. And I found out from the guy at the desk that you can't even buy beer after 9 pm. Ok. So I went to bed relatively early. 

Friday (15,000 steps) - Thankfully, I slept REALLY well. I stayed in bed for a bit before heading to get breakfast. Good buffet and I got cinnamon roll waffles and they had Heath bar chunks for toppings, which was so tasty!

I took a quick shower and packed up all my stuff and drove to the Lakeshore area to a path I found for my shake out run. It was windy and warm, but overall the run felt good, and was blissfully short. I wasn't sure how far the trail went and just turned around.

Of course I was wearing my donut button down from rabbit for National Donut Day!! I still needed to get all my steps in, so I opted to walk the other direction on the trail for a bit. 

I found a spur of the path that looked like it would take me down to the water.

Lake Michigan is HUGE, looked like I was at the ocean!

I was hungry and thirsty by the time I got done and had mapped to a burger place on the way to packet pick up for lunch - Badger Burgers. Not surprisingly, the beer I wanted was out, but I got a decent porter.

The burger I picked was spicy and phenomenal!

I figured I had the right about of time to get to packet pick up. When I got in the car, I couldn't get the navigation to load. I kept getting a network error. I also was seemingly unable to get a text message to go out. I thought that maybe I was in a weird "fake coverage area" because I had all service bars, but nothing was working. I knew I just needed to get back on the same highway, and then suddenly nothing looked familiar. Maps still weren't working and I just needed to be sure I was going the right way. I pulled over and still couldn't get the map to load. AT ALL. I tried calling Ben to see if he could help and I couldn't get a call to go through either. I was getting very stressed and mad. Thankfully since I had pinned the location, I could SEE it on  the map and I figured I just needed to head that general direction and hope the mapping started to work. I googled issues with mapping and reset my phone and disconnected carplay and set everything up again. STILL wasn't working. Started driving. Maybe 10 minutes down the road, the map came up! It had me driving on a few country roads and then after a few minutes I was wondering WHERE it was mapping me to. TURNS OUT, BACK TO WHERE I HAD LUNCH. WTF. I had to pull over again to set up the map, but thankfully finally made it to the Nordic trail head without further issues. 

I arrived right at 3 when packet pick up was supposed to start. There were already a ton of people there. There was a delay in getting things started, but it gave me a minute to say hi to Michele and Megan. Got my packet and picture taken, then headed out to go to my hotel. I was down the street from it when I decided I should get my groceries DID YOU KNOW THAT HY-VEES HAS A BAR IN THE STORE??? It was also happy hour, so it was a very inexpensive beer.  

I picked up random groceries - frozen dinner and something for breakfast, water, canned coffee and cheesecake. The hotel I picked seemed to be the "bargain" hotel for Hilton. Apparently NO microwave in the room??? There was ONE in the lobby. Didn't even occur to me to check that before!

Decided to go back to the store for one more beer before happy hour ended, and grabbed this fun canned beer for the evening.

I wasn't even hungry for dinner, but since I had bought food I headed it up and forced myself to eat (most of) it.

I had to get to bed relatively early with a longer drive in the morning but the room was unfortunately hot and I did NOT sleep well at all. Spent the whole night tossing and turning.

Saturday (144,548 steps) - Kettle Moraine

Sunday (35,521 steps) - Kettle Moraine

It was early in the morning, but we wanted to get a drink and breakfast. Doug found a cute cafe that was open early and we got Bloody Mary's.

And a plate of delicious (not aid station) food. 

They were heading back to Janesville for their hotel and I had to head east for mine in Oconomowoc. My room wouldn't be ready for a while so I found a brewery down the street. The beer was meh.

I was ecstatic to get the message that my room was ready - since I still hadn't showered!! 

I figured this would be fake, but I am always SO HOT when I sleep, I figured I would crank the AC and see how cold I could get it.

Spoiler, I don't think it went below 60. Took a nap and woke up hungry, so I drove to Rocky Rococo's! I have fond memories of this pizza. Spoiler, it's not the same :(

Ben surprised me with another Lyft to a bar on the lake and I rushed back to the hotel to catch my ride. There wasn't anything that exciting on tap, and the bartenders basically ignored me, but it was nice to be out and the view was pretty!

He called in and paid my tab, so I also ordered some Ahi Tuna - which was delicious!

The place closed earlier than I expected, so I got my Lyft back and then did a virtual beer with Ben at the bar in the hotel lobby.

Monday (13,907 steps) - I slept reasonably well and got breakfast in the lobby. I somehow picked one that didn't have free breakfast, but the French Toast was good and worth paying for. 

I was debating how to spend my day and took a shower. I was starting to pack stuff up when housekeeping got persistent with knocking. I also apparently chose the only hotel on earth with an 11 am check out??! I had figured it was noon. I had to rush to get everything packed.

I had found a trail on the way back to Milwaukee. It started out as a paved bike path, but I ended up doing a choose your own adventure and wandered around on random trails for over an hour. At some point I wondered if I was actually lost.

I expected the map to look way more chaotic than this:

I figured I might as well start to get close to the airport, so I mapped out breweries that were on the way and closer. I actually went into downtown Milwaukee. The first place that I picked? CLOSED. The second place that picked CLOSED. (|Even though their website said they were open). I finally ended up at a bar called "Who's on Third." Friendly service, ok beer, and I finally got my order of cheese curds (even though I wasn't that hungry after a late breakfast, I knew I needed to eat before flying).

I still needed to get gas and go the airport. For a small airport, I found everything about it to be confusing. I missed the turn for the rental car returns, then it was awkward navigating the car back. By the time I figured out where to check my bag and go through security, I definitely needed this:

Doug and Kristin met up with me shortly before our flight, which was delayed about 20 minutes.

Flight was more turbulent than the way out, but not horrible. Our bags actually came relatively quick and Ben picked me up. We went to 4 Noses for a nightcap, ooof, and didn't get home until it was bedtime. Olive was very happy to see me.

Stats:

• 262,756 steps
• 84.86 miles run
• 18.61 miles walked
• 0 minutes of cardio
• 15 minutes of strength