My date with destiny...

Well, fast forward 17-months from my pacing experience at the Leadville 100 trail run and I’ve done the unthinkable. This week I pulled the trigger on a race registration that has my stomach feeling like I ate some bad sushi. Somehow I have gone from “why would you ever think about a 100 mile run, those people are crazy” to finishing my first 50-miler last year and blurting out “#@%^ ever doing 100!” to registering for the Leadville 100.

The reality is after finishing my pacing segment with Kristina in 2014, I had the bug to see what I was capable of. I remember Julie asking me in the car on the way back to our hotel how the experience was, and I had ‘that look’ in my eyes. That ‘look’ that no doubt made her heart sink knowing that I would have my date with Leadville 100 destiny in the future.

My friend Seth had a quote last year that summed it up well for me, "endurance racing is like heroin, buddy. Once you get a taste you cant quit." The truth of this is spot on to the demise of many other priorities in life.

What is really interesting to me about this race is that I don’t have any desire to do 100 mile race anywhere else. With Ironman, it was much different. Finishing an Ironman was the goal and I chose a location. For this race, Leadville chose me, and the LT100 is calling me like the ring calling to Frodo.

I’m terrified to be honest. Especially since I am still recovering from some minor injuries I obtained in my 50-miler last year. I don’t do well with no sleep. I have never raced over 12 ½ hours straight.

The unknown of it all is daunting.

Still yet, I am thrilled. I will prepare for this mentally and physically for the next 8 months and be at the start line ready to go. I have a lot to research and learn before then. I am thankful to be sponsored by Pearl Izumi this year as part of the 2016 Pearl Izumi Run Championship Team so I know that I will have the best technical apparel to keep me going. I am putting early thoughts to my pacing team and crew and researching all I can about the course and pacing strategies. For those that care, I’ll be posting my training and prep updates here.

Here we go!

Comments

An Excited Heart

It’s no big secret that I was not feeling super great heading into my last race. It was the perfect storm in many ways. I had a stressful week at work two weeks prior working on a massive deadline followed by a heavy training volume week where I nearly doubled my weekly mileage and then fell behind in sleep the week leading into Quad Rock. I was super stressed out heading into Quad Rock due to the distance and vertical gain. I felt comfortably trained up to the 35 mile distance, but I had failed to put in the back-to-back days in training that would have given me confidence to make the jump to 50. The night leading into my race I had some significant arrhythmia while I was lying in bed. The feeling was not new to me. 10-years ago I was diagnosed with benign PVC’s. The condition takes place when nodes in the ventricles fire off signals that interfere with the main SA pace-making node in the heart. The result is a feeling of a skipped heartbeat followed by a hard thud in your chest ...

Tall Trees and Tough Trails. The 2024 Cascade Crest 100

Welcome to Easton! The welcome sign that we stopped to take a picture of just about summed up our experience here. On the hour or so drive up from Seattle, Julie and I couldn't stop taking about the amazing trees and dense forest that lined the highway. The trees were so tall that you couldn't even catch a view of the entire towns that laid just behind them. Definitely a contrast to Colorado where the main attraction are the 14ers that line our skylines. I'm so happy that Cascade Crest 100 found me. The idea to travel to Washington for a 100 mile race started when I looked into doing a race close to a good college friend of mine that moved to Washington several years ago. I hadn't seen him or his family in years, and it would be an excuse to both see them and have an epic adventure at the same time. I had heard about the Cascade Crest 100 from a couple of friends that had raced it previously. As a Hard Rock 100 Qualifier, the race had a reputation of both difficul...

Quad Rock 25

For some reason every time I know I have to wake up early the next day, I can’t sleep. I set my alarm the night before for 4:45 AM and went to bed around 10. I woke up just about every hour on the nose and looked at the clock. By the time 4:15AM rolled around, I just laid in bed and waited for my iPhone to tell me it was time to get up. Buzz….It was time to get up. My pre-race plan I rolled out of bed virtually exhausted and put on my battle armor for the day -- shorts, socks, compression, t-shirt, jacket, and my signature trucker hat. I had loaded up my car the night before with all my gear and nutrition so I was good to go. I kissed Julie on the forehead, she wished me luck as I left to go grab some coffee, pick up Chris and carpool to the race. We made it up to Horsetooth about an hour before the race start. Since we carpooled, we were able to park about 100 feet from the start line. This was clutch because outside it was 37 degrees, raining and windy. View close...

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