Some Quick Notes from Leadville

Since I'm leaving for the British Virgin Islands tomorrow and won't get a chance for a couple weeks to post any pics or a summary on Leadville, I thought I would send out the following notes which I mostly copied from an email I sent to my coach:

Actual finish time was 11:30:15, which was of course better than the 12 hr finish required to get the coveted belt buckle!

Many people were talking about the bottle neck at the beginning of the race, and were worried about how much time they were losing to it... I felt just the opposite, it was a nice easy pace for the first climb and amazingly my HR never got out of hand, (especially considering it was around 170-180 for the Firecracker and the Silver Rush), I felt good and stayed calm and steady around 155 bpm for first couple hours. I would also have to say I was well prepared for this race and most likely made significant performance improvements in the last few weeks as I felt I rode stronger than I have all summer!

I'm sure you heard it rained for the first couple hours and was cold, I'm really not sure where I came up with the strength to make it through that, especially when I could no longer feel my hands or feet, then if that wasn't enough I nailed a tree at the bottom of powerline while attempting to go around the huge water crossing! I hit the tree branch hard enough to knock me off the bike and I nearly face planted in the water crossing, I was one step away from falling in -it was close! I nearly passed out it hurt so bad, it was another 20 minutes before I could even think straight. fortuneately the arm was still useful for holding the handlebar but that was about it, I couldn't lift it much farther than 6 inches from my waist... That was all the bad luck I had, from there on out the race went well, I didn't drink as much as I had planned, but evidently still drank enough, food was much tougher to eact than I expected and I will be changing my plan for next year. I had a few logistical/planning errors, but overall everything worked out well!

Amazingly my arm feels nearly fine today, which is good for the sailing trip as I was worried about whether or not I would be able to do any scuba diving... It is disappointing however that for as bad as it hurt in the race there really doesn't seem to be any damage, this certainly casts a shadow of doubt on how much I really suffered in the race due to the arm...

It certainly was getting a bit scary as to whether or not I was really going to make the 12hr cut-off, around hour 8 is when I really started to fade, I think this is when the good nutrition/hydration plan really came into play (and training), although I was fading I never actually ran out of power, it always seemed like I was getting a second wind and while I was definately slowing, I know I still climbed the final pavement section faster than I did on the first day of the CTS camp!

When Lance came by, he was a flash, he was already down the Columbine climb when I saw him, and we were on a flat section, I was probably doing 18 mph and most likely Lance was doing 25+
Also, on Friday CTS hosted a pre-race dinner where we dropped off our drop-bags for the aid stations. I got to meet Chris Carmichael, so that was also pretty cool.

My friends took tons of pictures, but doubt I'll get any posted until after I get back from the sailing trip.

finished! in 11 hrs 30 min

ust

just saw jason around mile 60...looks good still...would have beat lance if not for that darn tree. -llg

3 hours in and he was looking strong. lance is in 1st and Wiens is 15 min behind him.

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9 hours and counting.....heading to bed and signing off from the roach motel...TBM (text by Maureen)

pic of the motel room this place is a dump ! too many ridiculous things to tell about by text

race meeting was packed!

arrived in leadville around 7:30 am, got checked in and now waiting for the racer meeting to start.

Leadville Nutrition Plan

Here's my nutrition plan for Leadville and estimated time splits, I'm planning for a 10 hr 20 min finish time:

Mobile Texting Ready Also!

test text message 2

Mobile Blogging (w/pics) Ready for Leadville!

Just figured out how to send mobile blogs from my phone! So now if I can talk my friends into sending in a few updates during the race, you'll be able to keep track of my progress during the race this Saturday. Below is a snapshot of the race food plan send from my cell phone. I'll post an actual readable pic of this plan later.

test picture

Silver Rush Pictures

These pictures are backward if you start from the bottom and go up then they are in the right timeline...

Pictures by Sandra Halverstadt

I look as bad as I felt in this photo, barely able to even conjure up a smile. Only thing I was happy about at this point was that the race was over!
Finished 293 out of 357 with a time of 7:01:37

The sad thing about this photo is that I'm not leading the pack, I'm about to be passed by all these people...

Top of the hill, just got on the bike after hiking up the hill.

Here's looking down the ski hill at the mass start, there was no riding up this hill, you had to carry the bike and hike!