Adventures of a Leadville 100 Pacer
I have never been to Leadville. I heard the stories from many of my
friends. The race has haunted one friend
in particular, Rich Wessels (aka The Matrix for clarity if my references bounce
back and forth). He was going to make
another go at the 100 mile run known as the Leadville Trail 100. Basically, I think you have 30 hours to drag
yourself over mountain terrain and there are cut offs that must be adhered to
or you are pulled from the competition.
Matrix asked a few of us who run together to crew and pace him this
year. Me, John Winstead (aka PoJo) and
Joe were going to handle the pacing duties.
We have a friend in Vail named Ladislov who would be running as well so
we were helping him during the race too.
The Matrix is a very good trail runner. He is fast and strong. His previous attempts had nothing to do with
the physical ability to finish the race.
The issue had always been nutrition, keeping enough calories in your
system to get you to the finish. Running
100 miles is as much an eating competition as it is the actual running.
My journey this year was busy before the race. On August 6, Joe and me did the River Cities
Triathlon in Shreveport. I was in
Galveston the next weekend to run a 10k night race on the beach with my
daughter on August 12. Drove home on the
13th and boarded a plane for Philadelphia. I made a tour of law schools with my son and
my wife for the next four days. We were
in Philly, New York City, Washington DC and Charlottesville. We boarded a plan home on Thursday
evening. The next morning I had a 6:55am
flight to Denver on the 18th with Joe and Rich’s wife Holly.
Leadville Pre-Race
We drove from Denver to Leadville on Friday morning. When the plane landed, we made a quick stop
at a Wal-Mart to get some supplies.
Water for sure, since dehydration at altitude is an issue. We also got some snacks and a few cheap
camping chairs. The drive from Denver is
really nice. You start at about a mile
high and Leadville is at 10k feet so you
are about two miles up. We found the
house Rich rented and unloaded. At that
altitude in the mountains, the sun is just searing when you are in it. The temp is only 70 but the sun just burns
right through you. Joe and Ladislov took
me on a ride to a few of the aid stations we would be using in the first part
of the race. May Queen was the first aid
station. It was about 13.5 miles from
the start and the trail left town and then circled around Turquoise Lake. We agreed to a meeting spot coming through
the aid station. Parking was going to be
a zoo with limited access to the aid station.
Next stop was the Power Line climb and we went by the Fish
Hatchery. I guess that used to be an aid
station but wasn’t any longer. I was
going to take the Matrix up the Power Line climb so we went to take a look at
it. The climb is crazy. It’s actually four climbs to the top. We went about halfway up the first
climb. By my Garmin, it was about 150
feet and I was not feeling good.
Probably altitude issues for me with no acclimation. I’m fairly sure it is at least 1000 feet over
the top. This was a little scary.
Rich was going to be at 76+ miles in so I
figured we wouldn’t be moving fast but is was a very hard climb. I didn’t want to let him down. From there, we went to the Outward Bound aid
station which was only a few miles away.
Outward Bound is 24 miles from the start and was in this big open field
with lots of parking. After Outward
Bound the next crew location was Half Pipe and it was only 3-4 miles from
OB. We could crew at Half Pipe. The gravel road to the gravel pit was a good
crewing spot with lots of parking. Rich
wanted us as far down the road as possible to minimize the distance to the next
aid station where we could crew at Twin Lakes.
This was mile 40. After checking
out aid stations we went back to town and ate a late lunch/early dinner at
Tennessee Pass. The food was really good
there. We went back to the house and
went through a detail plan for what was required at all of the aid
stations.
Ladislov has a van that is
basically a mobile house. Joe and
Ladislov dropped it off in Twin Lakes next to the course. We would use that as a base camp at Twin
Lakes since we wouldn’t see anyone between mile 40 and 60. PoJo was going to meet Rich at Winfield on
the other side of Hope Pass and pace him back down to us. I had a splitting headache and laid down to
take a nap that lasted until the race started at 4am.
Race Day Start:
I think we were all up and moving at 3am. It was cold.
Mid 30s outside. I failed in my
packing for milling around in the dark.
I packed for running more than sitting.
The house Rich rented was literally around the corner from the start
line. We walked over at 3:30am, took
some pictures and said our good lucks and good byes. I have a video of the start which was really
cool. Once the race train left the
station, we loaded up the vehicles and drove to May Queen.
May Queen:
Seemed like it took a while to get to May Queen with all the
traffic, but we finally found a place to park.
The chart Rich gave us said he would arrive at about 6:20am. We tried to sleep in the van for about 30-45
minutes. After a quick nap, we gathered
the bags, camping chairs and cooler for what seemed like a mile hike up a hill
and around the corner to the aid station.
I went up to the farthest point they would let spectators go to grab
Rich and bring him to our stuff. He
showed up on time and we reloaded him per instructions from the day
before. He looked good. Hike the gear back to the cars and move along
to Outward Bound. At least the sun was
coming up, it was so cold outside my fingers felt like they were going to fall
off. It had to be in the low 30s. I ran in these gloves at Bandera in sleet and
I was really warm. The cold air in the
mountains seems to penetrate the cold to your bones.
Outward Bound:
By the time we
arrived at Outward bound, the sun was up and that was great. Joe grabbed the camping chairs and set up a
location right before the aid station on the chute off of the road. When it was about 15 minutes prior to the
ETA, I walked up the road for maybe half a mile to talk to him on the way
in. If he needed to deviate off of plan
for some reason, I would call ahead and let them know. I think he showed up about 8:50am which was
an hour+ ahead of the cutoff. I ran up
the road with him to check on things. He was moving good. Running up that little hill had me winded but
he was doing well. We got him in and out
in less than 2 minutes.
Alternate Crew Zone Before Half Pipe:
It was only 3 or 4 miles to the alternate crew zone before
the Half Pipe aid station. He was there
within a half hour of us parking at the gravel pit. He sat in the chair and we reloaded him. He was eating and still looked really
good. He put on his hot weather gear and
was off within a few minutes. We didn’t
have to carry stuff very far at this aid station so that was a plus. We waited for Ladislov to come through before
we moved on the Twin Lakes since we had plenty of time.
Twin Lakes:
Twin Lakes is a mess.
Unless you get there before the race starts, there is no way to get
close to the aid station at all. The race
route goes through the town and there is nowhere to park except on the side of
the road. Imagine the support teams for
hundreds of runners descending on this one location. The race had shuttle buses to transport gear
and people to the aid station because it was at least a mile from town where we
parked. We walked to the shuttle stop
with all of our stuff and boarded. We
would need to make at least two trips but were going to figure it out
later. Once in Twin Lakes, finding a
base camp near the aid station was a priority.
We walked to the Ladislov van but it was parked on the side of the road
and was too hot to sit in. There was a
parking lot next to the van with trees as shade next to the trail before the
runners ran to the mountain to go over Hope pass. Holly was going back to town to get us some
subway sandwiches and some other stuff so she took the shuttle back to the van,
drove down to town, and dropped the rest of our gear. There was no place to park on the side of the
road but there was a little gas station with a coned off area so people could
buy gas. The name of the station was
Pass Gas which was kind of funny. Holly
went there, pulled off the road and I was going to quickly grab the remaining
gear so she could drive back to town.
When she pulled in, someone from the gas station walked out and started
in on us about no parking allowed. I had
seen several people do this without issue.
I told her we would only be unloading a few bags and then moving along
so we wouldn’t block the two lane highway.
Apparently, she said something about me being from Texas and muttered to
herself back to the store. I was wearing
Texas flag shorts so I can confirm the Colorado attitude towards Texans is
still alive and well. Rich came through
the aid station at 11:50am which was a solid two hours before the cutoff. He looked great and said he was doing
well. For 40 miles of running, I
couldn’t imagine it going any better at this point. Looking back, we asked him to eat something
and he kind of balked at that but nobody thought anything of it since he looked
good. He changed shoes for the river
crossings before heading up the mountain and took off. After 30 minutes or so, Joe took off to the
aid station to look for Ladislov. He
called me and asked if I wanted to swap with him around 1pm so I headed up
there. Cut off was 2pm so this was
getting serious. The runners come down
this steep embankment before hitting the aid station. It is dicey for some of the people coming
down there. One of the volunteers
handing out cold bandanas saw my Grasslands shirt (Grasslands is a trail race
in Decatur Texas) and told me he was the race director at Grasslands for that
year. We talked for a little bit while
people were coming in. I asked him if
that was the storm year with rain, sleet, thunder, lightning, and the calf
being born next to the trail. He
confirmed that was the year. A very
memorable race because Joe, Rich and me raced that year. It’s still a running joke between us. Rich declared there was a hole in the weather
and we would get the race in without a problem.
Any time we have bad weather for a race, we ask Rich if there is a
hole. While standing there, someone
tapped me on the shoulder and asked if he could get my picture for the current
race director for Grasslands.
He
introduced himself as John Studebaker. I
told him I knew exactly who he was. He
is really fast and was the reason I finished fourth at many a trail race in
Texas. He was also in Shreveport for the
race I did a few weeks earlier. He rode
a mountain bike with an aero helmet during the race and was only a few seconds
behind me. He said he passed two guys
with disk wheels during that race.
Imagine the sense of defeat to be passed by a guy on a mountain bike in
a road race. 30-40 minutes before the
cut off, Ladislov came through the aid station and he did not look good. We took him to his van and he turned on a
shower head on the outside of the van and let water run over him for a few
minutes. I had to help him over to our
set up in the shade. He threw up a few
times and did not look good. He laid down
in the gravel and I poured water on his head.
He asked me what time it was and I said 1:30pm. He said to get him up at 1:40pm. Joe and I reloaded his vest with cold drinks
and nutrition. At 1:40pm, I helped him
up, he grabbed his trekking poles and headed down the trail. He wanted me to walk with him a little bit to
drink some water and then off he went. There
were a lot of people in the shade where we were. Many began to ask us if he was really going
to keep going. They were shocked he got
up and started down the trail. Joe told
everyone he is incredible, could still possibly finish the whole race and began
telling stories about him to everyone.
He has a big heart and is a very tough guy. Now we were probably in for 6-8 hour wait. PoJo was meeting Rich at the top of the
mountain. No cell service up there so we
were blind to what was going on until someone came back. A storm was building on the mountain and we
had to move everything to the van.
Rich
later told us they had sleet on the mountain.
It got real cold and the wind started blowing at least 30mph in Twin
Lakes. We had a few drops of rain and
the storm moved along. The van was
strategically placed and was an excellent shelter from the storm. Joe and me holed up in the van for a while
and tried to take a nap. Both of us had
a headache so he went over to Pass Gas and got some Advil. We started to get conflicting information
about when Rich went over Hope pass. It
appeared he was about an hour behind when he should have been there. I sent a few messages out to friends but the
race doesn’t do a good job of updating their web site when you get into the
remote regions. We eventually heard Rich
made the cut off in Winfield and left 20 minutes before the cut off. He had given back the 2 hour cushion. As the sun set behind the mountain, it got
really cold again so we put our cold weather gear back on. We eventually heard Ladislov did not make the
cut off at Hope pass. It was 5 miles
away but straight up the mountain. There
are no roads to Hope pass so no matter how poorly you are doing, you have to
walk your way out to Twin Lakes. The cut
off back to Twin Lakes was 10:00pm. We
relocated our location to the aid station so if Rich came back, he could walk
through the aid station, check in for the cut off and then stop to get supplies
before the next leg. At 7:45pm, we
started to get worried about Ladislov. John’s
wife, Wendi, drove back to Twin Lakes and told us Rich was not doing well and
just made the cut off in Winfield. Since
we hadn’t seen or heard from Ladislov in 6 hours, Joe and me decided to walk
the trail and see if we could find him out there. We walked about 1.5 miles to a river crossing
and didn’t see him so we started walking back with our headlamps on. We decided to take a short cut to the road
when Joe received a text that the Matrix and PoJo were back at Twin Lakes. They hitched a ride after a failed attempt to
start back over Hope pass. Apparently,
they were only able to muster 36 minute mile and decided to call it. Ladislov had a friend helping to crew him and
he started down the trail after Joe and me.
Mandar found Ladislov. We must
have just missed him. We decided to do a
little running on the road. Flat or down
hill was ok but any hill was really hard to run. The altitude is no joke. We saw Rich on the way to the van with Holly. Me and Joe gave him a hug and told him we
were proud of him. He ended up getting
sick to his stomach again and that took him down. When we got back to the aid station, PoJo and
Wendi were there. Ladislov and Mandar
showed up next so the whole band was back together. We moved all of the gear down to the road and
loaded up the van to head back to town.
I texted our coach, Jeff Bennett, and let him know what happened. He was still trying to figure out how to get
him back up and going. I finally had to
tell him it was over.
Post Race:
We arrived back at the house and I decided to look for an
earlier flight on Sunday. I was on the
7:30pm back to Dallas. Joe and me took
showers and went to find something to eat.
At this point, it was about 11pm.
Everything was closed except a few bars.
We walked past an Irish Pub and checked with the bar tender to see if
they had a kitchen open. They did. We walked in to some thrash metal playing on
the juke box. We ordered a steak and
garlic fries. It was incredible. We were so hungry. On the walk back to the house, we saw a
finisher come in. His time was around 19
hours. At that time of night, his mom
and dad were the only people there. It
was cool to see someone finish.
Especially in 19 hours. That’s an
insane time. Joe thought we should take
our pacing bibs and run up power line but I didn’t really have an interest
anymore.
Thoughts:
Crewing is tough work.
By my Garmin, we covered at least 12 miles on the ground carrying gear
around. Plus, we did another 3 miles on
the search and rescue mission. There was
a good line from one of the runners we ran into. He asked what we were doing on the trail and
we told we were on a rescue mission. He
said it was better than a recovery mission.
There is really no way to adequately put this race into words. I have heard about it but until you are there
and see the terrain. There is really no way to comprehend what has to be done
to complete this. The Matrix ran his
tail off through the summer heat doing 100s of miles each month to get
ready. If anything made me cry a little,
it was how hard he worked and the only thing stopping him was a flakey
stomach. It was a really cool experience
and I was really happy to be there with my running compadres. I love these guys. We run together a lot and it was great to be
there with them. There will be better
days. Joe finished this race in 2014, so
he knew the lay of land and could give me some great insight on the actual
course. Good times but hoped for a
better outcome. I will continue to do what some people think are crazy things. In life, you can work to buy stuff or do stuff. I like doing stuff, sometimes really insane, crazy stuff. Money can't buy that and the experiences are priceless. At the airport in Denver on the way home, a fruit
fly flew in my beer before Joe and me headed back to Dallas. How did the fly know I was from Texas?
