Leadville Training Camp (Day 1 6/23/12)

Day 1May Queen to Twin Lakes, mile 14-40 of Leadville 100 course

 I’m super excited to report that I had a great training day and really got to see what my body can do at altitude.

 The night before I thought about where I would like to see myself pace wise through 26 miles of the course, I thought 15min/mile would be nice to see.

 Woke up at 5:30 snoozed a bunch of times. Wondered out to the kitchen for some coffee and got myself ready. Met Daniel, another runner staying at the same B&B, at 6:30am. We walked to the gym,  I grabbed a yummy berry scone and some more coffee and sat down and met a few other runners. I haven’t been all that great with remembering names though. At 7:30 we all piled in a couple of buses and took off for May Queen, we were running by 8, temp was warm and the sun was out, so no layers needed.

Getting ready to run from May Queen

Ready to Run

I seated myself toward the middle back of the pack. Overall great run, learned a few things, pushed myself to meet my goal but not too hard.

View from Hagerman Pass

Turquoise Lake

Hagerman Pass

What I learned:

The paved section after fish hatchery is long, boring, and slower then you think it should be.

I need to tape my feet. Started feeling hotspots on my feet around mile 14, which ended up being old blisters from the SD100 that hadn’t completely healed over. I took a good 10 minutes to tape my feet up well to prevent any more damage and it seemed to do the trick.

Oops I forgot to tape my feet!

Thanks to the wonder aid station volunteers

12 miles is too long of a stretch if it is 80 degrees and sunny with just my nathen, I ran out of water 3 miles early, which made me do 2 things: runner faster to finish sooner and stop taking nutrition because I didn’t have anything to wash it down with.

Much of this section is runnable.

Summary:

26miles
6:30hrs
15min/miles
Elevation gain: i forgot, somewhere around 4500ft
Caloric intake: 1325 (6 coconut waters, 4 packs of gu chomps, 2 luna bars, 100 cal of almonds, ¼ orange, ½ can of coke)
208cal/hr avg

Afterwards took an ice bath, then an Epsom salt bath, and got ready for dinner. Dinner was awesome, salad and pizza, catered by mountain high pizza. Met some more ultrarunner’s at dinner: Jay, whose Dad accompanies him to crew every 100 he’s done, John the race MD, he gave me some advice on my feet. And just a bunch of other crazy runners like me. And Tony, (aka Anton) got an opportunity to chat with him about his training and get my picture with him.

Look who came to dinner!

After dinner we had a panel discussion to ask some veterens some questions. Good information learned there as well, like how to strengthen my adducters and abductors, which in turn will stop my right hip/IT band from hurting. How to prevent cramping which ultimately means how to prevent build up of lactic acid. And a great pep talk by Ken.

I already knew this but I WILL NOT QUIT. I may feel like crap and hurt a lot, I may be tired and not want to go on. But I am prepared for this, I understand things will go poorly at times, I understand the weather may not be what I want it to do. But I am trained and prepared to finish the race, I have my nutrition plan. Most of all I have the mental toughness to push through any dark place my mind has taken me. I’ve been there many times before(same place, different situations) and persevered through all of them and I will continue to do so time and time again.

Leadville Panel: Marilee, Ken, Jon(race MD), Lynette ('11 1st place woman), Dave, Jay, Jeff, Gene, Anton

I need to checkout. Meeting again at 6:30am.