irishsailsman is running the Leadville Marathon, followed by the 50 miler to get ready for Leadville 100. Here's his report on the marathon:
I started fast for me. My goal was under 7 hours but deep inside I was
thinking 6:30 or less. I underestimated greatly how difficult the return to Leadville after the summit would be.
I started by running slowly the uphill for the first mile or so. Then I settled into a climb up to the first aid station at 4 mile mark. I was briskly hiking and passing some, while keeping a good pace. I reached the first aid in about an hour. I fueled up and set off up Ball Mt.
There was a lot of single track around the hill and it was a steep drop if you missed stepped! The climb to the top was challenging but not crazy.
The course does a loop around Mt Ball then back to the first aid. All was good I was feeling great. I knew from the map that the course goes downhill from there for a bit then up the treacherous Mosquito pass to the turn around.
As we were going downhill to the valley, someone behind me said "you see that tiny speck way up on the top of that mountain? That is the aid station at Mosquito summit". I honestly thought he was messing with a friend of his. It was the truth.
So we started the climb up to the 13,188 top of Mosquito Pass. It wouldn't end. Up and up. I passed a few people who were just sitting on the trail in a daze looking up! :-)
I just keep looking down and going up, and eventually I reached the top after a couple hours. The roller coaster of emotion was ridiculous. I was spent, I was energized, I was drained. I was having doubts about my 50 in two weeks here. I just told myself this mountain can't have my heart.
The view from the top was awesome. It occurred to me that it was somehow "right" to have to suffer to get to see that view. It was too spectacular to be easy.
I saw my time was 3:58. I was ahead of my ill informed pace goal. I completely underestimated the time it would take to get back (did I say that already?).
I am not sure how they did it, but they added hills on the return. I thought I was going to run all the way back in 2:15-2:30 WRONG! I didn't eat as much as I should have on the return, but I didn't bonk. I was discouraged at times when hill after hill seemed to appear from nowhere.
I made down to Leadville at last and I ran down 6th street to finish.
I jumped right into my truck and drove back to Denver :)
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