Race Report: Leadville 100

Last Saturday, August 14, 2021, I completed my first Leadville 100 Mountain Bike Race in Leadville, Colorado. It was a journey I began Thanksgiving of 2019 when I signed up for the 2020 edition of the Lutsen 99er, which is a Leadville qualifying race. I was inspired by videos I'd seen on YouTube like the EF Education 'Gone Racing' video about racing Leadville and the Race Across The Sky movies. The race quickly became a 'bucket list' race for me like it does for so many people. My plan back then was to train hard and race Lutsen well enough to earn myself a Leadville spot. Then 2020 and COVID happened, and almost all races were cancelled. My race specific training ended, but I still had my Lutsen registration and I decided to transfer it to the 2021 race. Flash forward to January of this year and things with COVID were starting to look positive. I was hopeful there would be racing again this year and I wanted to be prepared either way, so I started training again on January 4th for the Lutsen 99er.

Leadville is a difficult race to gain an entry to. It's one of the toughest parts of this race and many people who have wanted to race Leadville over the years simply haven't been lucky enough to get in. There are two main ways to gain an entry. First, you can race your way in via several qualifiers like the Lutsen 99er, or you can enter your name into a lottery and hope for your name to be drawn. In January or February of 2021 I noticed that the Leadville lottery was opening and decided to drop my name in the hat to see if I could qualify that way. Training was going well and I continued that with hopes to race my way in, but I really wanted to do this race so I gave myself every chance I could. The lottery drawing was set to happen in late February, so once I entered I set my focus back to my indoor trainer and nailing workouts.

In the winter months my training consisted of riding the indoor trainer using TrainerRoad workouts mixed with a little bit of fat biking our local trails in Fargo-Moorhead. Training for a race like this was not something I knew a lot about. Thankfully, the TrainerRoad app makes creating a race specific plan really easy. I told the app what kind of race I wanted to do and how much I wanted to train each week and it spit out a plan for me leading all the way up to late June for the Lutsen race. All I had to do from there was execute the plan. My training goal was to nail three workouts a week on my indoor trainer and add in additional workouts or outdoor rides when I had the time and energy. In the winter months I was doing about four rides a week, three on the trainer and one outside on my fatbike, which added up to about four or five hours per week.

Suddenly it was late February and the lottery day arrived. I was checking my phone for that email all morning hoping I'd see good news. Then shortly after lunch, I began seeing people I follow on Instagram posting about how they'd gotten their Leadville Lottery news. I rushed into my emails and searched "Leadville" and there was an email! I opened it up and smiled as I saw the news, "You're In!". Excitement abounded. I had an indoor trainer workout that evening and thanks to the news earlier in the day motivation levels were at an all-time high.

As spring came and the weather started to turn it was easier to add in additional miles to my training. I continued to hit my three prescribed TrainerRoad workouts but found it much easier to add in additional miles outside and on the trainer with the nicer weather. By summer I was getting close to 10 hours per week of riding with almost all of it being structured intervals. Everything was on track going into the Lutsen 99er in late June.

My Lutsen 99er race went very well. I showed up feeling pretty fit and ready for my first 100 mile mountain bike race. Everything went smoothly in that race. I had no mechanicals, I found great groups to share work with, and my pacing and fueling strategies went almost exactly to plan. I finished around 50th place with a time of six hours and twenty-one minutes. That result would set my starting spot for Leadville. The Leadville race uses a corral starting system. That system is in place in an attempt to get similarly skilled riders starting together so that the race day goes a little more smoothly for everyone involved. If you start with riders who are closer in skill level to you, you are more likely to have people to ride with throughout the day and share work with. The corrals at Leadville are labeled by color. The first two corrals are Gold and Silver and are usually reserved for professionals and extremely fast amateurs. My Lutsen time earned me the Red Corral, which is the third corral back, right behind Gold and Silver. This starting position would prove highly beneficial on race day. Had I not done the Lutsen race and improved my corral position, I would have started Leadville in the white corral, which is at the very back of the pack. Starting from the back at Leadville is difficult as logjams and bottlenecks can be a problem at certain parts of the course.

After Lutsen I had roughly a month of training to finish off before I would head out to Leadville. Everything was on track. Workouts continued to go well, my bike was still in good working order, my body continued to respond well to all of the training and I had no injuries that were nagging me in any way. Everything was going great and my excitement was increasing as we turned the calendar to August. Then, in the week before I had planned to leave for Leadville, I had my first hiccup. While on a mountain bike group ride at Gooseberry Park in Fargo, on a section of trail that goes downhill toward the Red River, I found a sharp piece of concrete with my carbon wheel. I heard a loud noise followed by the sound of air hissing out of my tire. Uh oh. I quickly stopped and investigated my rear wheel. What I found was a large crack in my carbon rim. I felt like I was deflating along with my tire. I was roughly 11 days away from the biggest race I'd ever done and a key component on my bike just broke. I work at Great Northern Bicycle Company in Fargo and am keenly aware of the inventory struggles facing the bike industry right now and I knew getting a new rear wheel wouldn't be easy. This was not a good time for something like this to happen. Luckily, I have some great friends. Aaron Romaine, who also works at GNBC has the same set of wheels and kindly lent me his rear wheel for the race. That was a close one. Thanks again Aaron, I owe you one!

The time finally came for me to leave for Leadville. My plan was to spend the week leading up to the race in Leadville so that I could be properly acclimatized to the elevation. For those who don't know, Leadville, Colorado sits at 10,200 feet above sea level. The race starts in town at that elevation and climbs to a max elevation of 12,500 feet above sea level. I knew that if my body wasn't acclimatized I wouldn't have a great race day. I left Fargo on Sunday evening around 8pm. I drove through the night and eventually arrived at Frisco, Colorado Monday afternoon. I booked a hotel there for the night and would finish the drive to Leadville the next day. That Monday night in Frisco was not great. Frisco sits at an elevation of roughly 9,000 feet above sea level. SInce I had just come from Fargo and 900 feet above sea level in about 15 hours, my body was thrown for a massive loop. I had a headache, felt drowsy and lacking energy, and eventually the nausea set in. It wasn't pretty. I slept right through supper and went to bed early. Thankfully I slept pretty well and woke up the next day bright and early and feeling much better. I finished the drive to Leadville that morning.

That day, Tuesday, I decided to do a little bit of course pre-riding. I had created a route for my Garmin bike computer that led me on the first 20 or 25 miles of the course, from the start all the way to the bottom of Powerline for those familiar with the course, then back into town. While on the ride I met up with a few people from Minnesota and they were kind enough to let me tag along with them. They gave me great pointers for the race and we had a nice, easy pre ride of the course. The next day I did another course pre-ride that was similar, but with a little bit more intensity to see how my body would respond to the altitude. Everything felt pretty good, but I could tell I was still acclimatizing. I wasn't recovering as quickly after an effort due to the lack of oxygen at that extreme elevation. The next two days, Thursday and Friday, I decided to not ride my bike at all. I had pre-ridden the parts of the course I really wanted to see, and wanted fresh legs going into race day. I made my final race preparations, which included a final bike check, filling camelbaks and sorting food, laying out my clothing and getting some rest. By Friday, three friends had all made it out to Colorado as well to help crew for me on race day. I owe a huge thank you to Derek Ludwig, Taylor Howe and Anthony Howe for being there with me and providing support. Taylor and Anthony would be out on course at the Twin Lakes Alternate feed giving me fresh camelbak's and bottles before and after the big Columbine Mine climb, and Derek would be out on the course taking photos and cheering. I originally intended for him to be at the Pipeline aid station, but a new and late rule limiting the amount of vehicles and crew members each rider had changed our plans a bit.

Finally, Saturday August 14th, 2021 - race day, was here. The night before I went to bed at about 9pm after all my prep work was done. I woke up at 3am to eat breakfast, make my final preparations, and drive to the start. We were staying about an hour from town in order to be at a little lower elevation to help with acclimatization. We arrived in Leadville around 5:15am and I made it into my corral at 5:30am. It was dark and cold. We saw a low temperature of 38 degrees on our drive into town. I was prepared though and had plenty of layers to keep me warm while waiting. The race started at 6:30am and that final hour leading up to the race went by super fast. It was surreal being on the start line, with beautiful mountains way out in the background and the sun slowly beginning to come up behind us. I thought to myself about how lucky I was to be on the line. Eventually it was time. With a shotgun blast the race was underway.

The first part of the race is a long, gradual descent that takes about 20 minutes before riders begin St. Kevin's climb. I was shivering cold as we all flew down to the base of this climb. This is typically one of the most nerve wracking points of the race as riders are bar-to-bar traveling at high speeds on a paved descent, all trying to move forward before the first climb and possible bottleneck begins. I had heard many stories of people crashing in this part of the race and I was extra careful to not be one of those people. Thankfully, we all made it down safely, and I was in a good position and good spirits heading into St. Kevin's climb. The climb went well for me, mostly because I had a lot of adrenaline going in my system. I wanted to pace the effort and not burn any matches in this very early part of the race. I did a good job of that, but was surprised a couple times to look down and see 500 watts on my bike computer. With all the adrenaline going 500 watts did not feel like 500 watts. I needed to back it down slightly.

My main goal was to finish the race, but I did the research to see what I would have to do pacing wise to finish in under 9 hours to get a Big Belt Buckle. There were several parts of the course I had marked and knew what time I needed to pass through those in order to get my goal time. The first one was after the St.Kevin's area where you pop out of the trees and onto the Mayqueen road descent, also known as Carter Aid Station. My target for that checkpoint was about 50 minutes from the start of the race. When I passed through that area my clock said 47 minutes had passed. I was ahead of schedule!

It was around this time that one of the really cool parts of the race started to unfold for me. I follow the gravel racing scene closely enough to know many of the professional riders who go to all of these races. As my race unfolded I began to recognize Pro Women riders I was racing with. First, I recognized Isabel King's bright black and orange kit from behind as we both went up a climb early in the race. Then, I happened upon Alison Tetrick somewhere in the woods of St. Kevin's and blurted out "Hey Alison!" as a reflex upon seeing her and instantly recognizing her. She said "Hey" back and we had a fun little exchange before getting separated. Next, Amity Rockwell, winner of the 2019 Unbound Gravel race was suddenly ahead of me as we went up Hagerman's road. I decided that moment wasn't the best time to be a fanboy and didn't say anything and continued riding. Later in the race I found myself on Laura King's wheel working in a group with her before the Twin Lakes Dam feed zone. She was wearing really cool and colorful origami kit. It was so cool to see all of these professionals and to be in the same race as them, having a similar experience. That was definitely one of my highlights of the race.

The course is an out-and-back format and I was only really concerned about two areas. One of those areas was Powerline. Outbound, Powerline is a very steep, fast, and rocky descent that if not given proper respect can end a rider's day very early and painfully. Since I had pre-ridden this part of the course I knew what to expect but was honestly a bit freaked out by it still. Those descents are steep and there are often erosion ruts cutting into the banks of the hill that can catch your wheel and do bad things fast. Thankfully I made it down fine and was even getting into a groove thanks to the energy of the race. After Powerline I made sure to get into a group of riders to share some of the work as we made our way on the "flat" part of the course through both Pipeline and Twin Lakes feed zones. Before I knew it I was through both of those points of the race and at the Twin Lakes Alternate feed ready to swap my camelbak and begin the Columbine Mine Climb. I found Taylor and Anthony thanks to the bright white and pink shirts they made (which matched my bright pink Specialized Epic bike) and I pulled in and we executed the fastest Formula One style pit stop possible. I tossed my old bottles and took off my old camelbak before I was even stopped. Anthony had a new camelbak on my back and Taylor had a fresh bottle in my cage and in only about 20 seconds I was pedaling away. Quick stops are critical for anyone attempting to go under 9 hours and this stop was executed exactly to plan. It is way too easy to lose minutes at the aid stations if you aren't careful. All of this happened about three hours into the race, another one of my checkpoints. That was great because three hours was the time that I had roughly budgeted for myself to get to that point in the race. The next obstacle was the second part of the race I was most concerned with: Columbine Mine Climb.

The climb up to Columbine mine is a key point in the race. It signifies the halfway point of the race and is the highest elevation racers will reach in this race at about 12,500 feet above sea level. Many different things can happen on this part of the course. I am not a naturally gifted climber. I am a little bit too heavy to be a pure climber, but I can hold a decent tempo which was exactly my plan for this climb. Find a groove and hold a steady pace for the 8 mile, 3,000 foot climb that was ahead of me. The first 3/4 of the climb went well. I was getting passed by more people than I was passing, but I was okay with that. My breathing was going well, and my legs felt great.

One other cool part of this point of the race is that the leaders of the race will come by going the opposite direction at some point, due to the out-and-back nature of the course. It was on this part of the course where they began to pass me descending down Columbine while I was climbing up. First it was eventual winner Keegan Sweson who went flying by me. There was a slight gap before Howard Grotts, previous winner of the race, and Lachlan Morton went by working together trying to catch Keegan. They were followed by the rest of the who's who of the race. I cheered on these riders and they cheered back, as is customary in this race. But quickly my focus returned to the climb.

Eventually, the climb takes riders above tree line and that is where it gets really tough. The road becomes really rocky and steep and the air continues to get thinner and thinner. At a certain point mere mortals like me are forced to get off their bikes and push them to the top. I would guess around one quarter of the climb was the amount that I had to get off and push before making it to the top and the turnaround point. It was difficult, but I really felt like my body handled it well. I didn't feel too bad at the top but I definitely did not wait around up there to see if I could stay that way. Once I made it up I immediately began my way down, skipping the neutral aid station that is located up there.

This was another part of the race where I knew I had to be careful. The descent coming down Columbine is really treacherous. The road is nothing more than a simple double track jeep trail that riders going up and down have to share. Riders going up get the "nice" side of the road, while riders going down get the rocky and rough part. I had heard many stories of people crashing here or suffering a major mechanical due to a crash or flat tire. I didn't want that to be me. So I took extra care and caution at the top where it is the roughest, then began to open it up a bit more once back below tree line where it widened up and the rocks went away. I was still careful because on the other side of the road was a long, steady line of riders still making their way up this brutal climb and I didn't want to have an accident. I eventually made my way down safely and was ready to pull in for another pit stop with Taylor and Anthony.

I pulled into the Twin Lakes Alternate Feed zone for the last time just under 2 hours from when I had left to begin the Columbine Climb. That was another of my checkpoints and I was once again slightly ahead of schedule. Things were looking really good! I received yet another flawless pit stop, though I did take my time this time and had a few extra sips of plain water before taking off again. In total I was stopped for aid for only about 1 minute for the entire race. I stopped one other time for a nature break and my final total time stopped and not moving for the race was about 3 minutes.

My nutrition plan for the race was to eat two gels every hour, 750ml bottle of water mixed with Hammer Perpetuem per hour, half a pack of clif shot bloks per hour, two Hammer Endurolite pills per hour, and a couple bottles of water with Nuun electrolyte tablets throughout the race. All of that equaled around 100g of carbs per hour which was my target, and just under 500 calories per hour. Certain parts of the course are difficult to eat on so I missed a couple of gels and didn't drink exactly 750ml of perpetuem per hour, but I was really close. Thanks to that feeding strategy I felt like I had great energy all day and I didn't suffer from cramps at any point of the race. It couldn't have gone any better.

Once I took my final feed from Taylor and Anthony I set out for the homestretch of the course. The portion between the end of Columbine Mine and the Beginning of Powerline Climb was a difficult section of the course, even though it looks easy on paper. It is mostly flat but there was a headwind and a few small but steep climbs that really were tough mentally to get up and over. I didn't have very many people to work with on this part of the course and that made things difficult. This was one of the hardest parts of the course mentally for me. It felt like I wasn't getting anywhere and that progress was minimal. I kept pedaling though and soon enough found some people to work with. One of those people was a legend of this race, Elden 'Fatty' Nelson. He has completed the race around 24 times and is the co-host of a Leadville Mountain Bike Race podcast that is very popular among people doing the race. He came riding by me and I knew it was him thanks to his kit. I began working with him and one or two other riders and we slowly snowballed our group up to about 8 people as we made our way to Powerline.

Powerline inbound is at the 80 mile mark of the race and thanks to the group effort we had just put in I was feeling great going into this part of the course. However....I knew that this was the last major hurdle of this race. Powerline is a 4 mile, 1,300 foot climb that will put even the best climbers in the hurt zone. The climb begins with a brutal half mile section that averages over 12% grade. Some people can climb this thing, I am not one of those people. I knew my fate would be hike-a-biking up a few sections of this climb that I had had a lot of fun descending earlier in the race. So I hopped off the bike and began hiking. By this point in the day temperatures were easily in the high 70s, but in the direct sun and thin air it felt like temps in the 90s. But there is no way around it so I just focused on putting one foot in front of the other. I even tried to keep things light by cracking jokes to fellow riders. One time when I was beside someone hiking, I turned and looked at him and said "and they're neck and neck!" like I was an announcer detailing an exciting moment of the race. In reality, we were going one or two miles per hour folded in half at the waist draped over our bikes hiking and suffering up this awful beast of a climb. I think I heard him laugh and I have no problem laughing at my own jokes so it was definitely worth using the extra yet limited oxygen.

Further up the climb I was not so light hearted. In fact, the heat and unrelenting nature of this climb began to put me in my darkest moment of the day. It began to hurt. My lower back was feeling the effort, it was hot outside, and I just wanted to be done. I wanted to be in my bed at home and done with this race. What was I thinking about signing up for this in the first place? Bad thoughts began to roll through my head. But I just told myself that the climb would be over soon and then the rest of the race would be more manageable. Get through this and the hardest parts will be behind. Eventually that exact very thing happened. I crested the top of the Powerline climb and was descending down Sugarloaf toward Hageman Road. I regathered myself at this point, had some more food, and began to descend with urgency.

At the bottom of Hagerman's road my computer told me I'd been racing for seven hours and thirty minutes. Calculations began happening in my head to see if I was on track for a sub-nine finish. I knew what was ahead of me. First, a three mile climb up the Mayqueen Road which ended right at Carter Aid Station, the final aid station before the finish. Then a small amount of climbing before descending down St. Kevin's and heading back toward town. After that, the boulevard climb back to the finish. No, they never make it easy for you in this race. I knew that if I could get up the Mayqueen road climb in 30 minutes, that would leave me an hour to get from Carter aid station back to the finish, something that I felt confident in doing. So I got down to business going up the nicely paved (thankfully) Mayqueen road climb.

Thanks to all of the training I had done the previous seven months with power data, I knew what kind of effort I could realistically maintain on this climb. I was shooting for somewhere north of 200 watts steady, but probably couldn't afford to go higher than 250 watts sustained this late in a race. So I tried my best to hold my power steady in that range. Sure enough, I was able to do that and found myself at Carter Aid at eight hours and two minutes into the race. Perfect. It was now crystal clear what I had to do and I knew that I could manage that time if I had no mechanicals or cramps. As I made my way down St. Kevin's and toward the boulevard everything was going really well. One rider who was riding with me even told me I was a freight train. I responded with "we gotta go and finish this thing, it's not over yet!" and he got back to work. Even with 2 miles remaining, there was still enough climbing left that I wasn't totally sure if I would make it. I kept my head down and kept pushing. I eventually made my final turn onto pavement and began the last climb into Leadville. At that point, I felt like I had it and my clock told me I had about 15 minutes left to cross the line. I eventually made it across the line with a time of 8:47:35. Sub 9! My goal of finishing this race had been met and my bonus goal of sub-9 had been met as well. It was a terrific day on the bike. Looking back it felt like it went by really fast and didn't feel like a near 9 hour effort. Thankfully I had no mechanicals and no body issues to speak of. I couldn't have asked for a better race.

My time in Leadville was a blast. I am very thankful that I got to share that time with a few friends too. Leadville is a great town with a rich history. The race of course has a rich history itself. During the race I had thoughts of "I'll never do this again" which is common to have on a big ride like that. But as I type this a few days later, the memory of the pain is fading and the good memories are all shining through. Thanks to that, I can say that I think I will try to do this race again sometime in the future. I can only hope that it goes as well as this one did.