Well...

That about says it all. So you're doing the Leadville Trail 100 in 2011? My one piece of advice is don't stop riding until someone makes you stop. PERIOD! I have a lot more advice than just that, but that is the most important. I've said up and down that 2010 is my one shot no matter what... but now I'm having some big regrets and I hate living with regrets because there is only one way to make them go away: Do it again without regret.

Frisco, CO is a great little town located at a good proximity to Leadville. We had a beautifully appointed condo and the price was great. We arrived Monday night and Tuesday I rode up to a "town" called Montezuma. You can look it up, but it's a dirt road though a few houses at elevation. Tough ride, but good. Wednesday off, Thursday was a very easy recovery ride. Friday off, Saturday race. Wednesday and Thursday we all felt like tired and listless, but by Friday we all felt much better.

Friday: Packet and race info pickup followed by the Mandatory crew and racer briefing... in a gym big enough for 1200 people. When we got to the door the crew were not allowed in due to lack of space - shocking. I sat in for about 45 minutes and it was nothing more than a pep rally. A big waste really.

The bike: My setup was perfect! 29er hardtail. Most critically with small knobbed tires: Kenda Small Block Eights. Everyone had small knobbed tires. Everyone! And for good reason. Hardpack with gravel is about the worst you'll see there... except for the upper part of Columbine. More pavement than I expected. While I ran flawlessly I heard many people dump their chain into their spokes on the climbs - get your bike professionally serviced!!! Those people are risking all that time invested over a $80 service fee. Ridiculous!

Clothing. Skip the jacket, knee warmers and toe warmers - all those people went numb too, but they had to stop, sit on the ground and peel that crap off. Look at what the pros wear: shorts, arm warmers, vest. I copied them and added a ear warming headband. Perfect... Went numb, warmed up, shed while riding. You have to keep moving as much as possible in this race.

The race. Don't stop racing until they make you. I had fun. A lot of fun. At times I was giddy because I was doing it!! Racing down Powerline was awesome: I passed about 10 other riders coming down that - it is badly rutted, but if you're a mountain biker you skill will show here. As for the first two climbs, I can't say how hard they are because you're packed in like sardines going only as fast and the slowest person in the pack. It's so tight that once one person spins a tire and stops the six or seven riders behind do the same then they're all suddenly walking. Practice remounting you bike on slopes from a walk. You should be able to jump on from a walk into pedaling then clip in without missing a beat. This skill saved me twice.
As for the sardines, I like the mass start idea and appreciate that this is how it's been done for 16 years, but they need to start staggering the start badly. We all had timing chips so it would not be hard to implement, but you'd lose the shotgun firing at 6:30pm with any meaning. I can see keeping it, but it's be a better race if they ditched the mass start format.
Pipeline was a disheartening bitch. What I knew of it made it seem flat from the bottom of Powerline to Twin Lakes - well, it ain't flat. Some is, but there are two pitches that sapped my energy and spirit. There was also a nice piece of singletrack - more of that please! Twin Lakes is a huge party - make sure your crew is looking for you and maybe have them marked with a distinct flag or something else you can look for while pedaling through the thousands of people. Note: The cutoff point is after the Twin Lakes stop, so don't doddle if you're nearing the 4 hour cutoff.
Columbine is a death march. I figured the four hours allotted to get up and down it were plenty - they're enough, but you don't have much time to stop and rest. The lower section switches back and forth through the trees and is tough but can be ridden. Some were walking the bottom - Ride it while you can!!! We were all in our granny gear going about 3.5 mph, but once we stopped and walked we were going 2.5 mph. You need that 1 mph while you can get it. Ride. Once you reach the end of the tree line the road pitches up to 25% and everyone (save the best) is walking. Just keep marching. The altitude here will be killing you - my heart rate would go above 145 bpm because my lungs were the limiting factor. I didn't feel like I was at the limit, but I could not go any faster. And don't quit!! This is 2 to 3 hours of misery, but just keep pushing.

My problem was I thought myself out of the race. My low heart rate was freaking me out, which combined with a touch of cramping made me think I was out of potassium and possibly doing some heart damage. My right knee hurt the moment I started the hike-a-bike. I was on the edge of cramping and while watching the clock I starting doing the math in my head. I could see the top, but my math was telling me I couldn't make the time cut. Doing math at +12,000 is a bad idea. I quit. I stopped on some alpine grass fueled up and then headed back down. I quit. I quit. Now I have to live with that. Looking back at my times last night... I was doing just fine. I would have made the Twin Lakes inbound cut and maybe the Powerline cut. I could have finished, but I quit. If I hadn't quit and they made me stop, I'd be good right now. But I quit and I regret it so much today. Yes I was suffering, but we all were. That's the point! I trained for seven months and quit about a mile from the summit. That slog of a pace puts me 17 minutes from the summit and I just quit. Looking at it from the trail, I estimated and hour more to get up there. Wrong. So, so wrong. Now I have to start all over again.

Remember your task is to pedal, not calculate and analyze. Don't stop until someone else makes you stop. Period.

The Count Goes On

Life at +9,000 feet is challenging. Tuesday I rode from the condo here in Frisco up to Montezuma at 10,200 feet. It wasn't easy but I pushed up some 9% grades. The gains of riding at 150 beats per minute (bpm) versus 170 bpm are minimal, which is good and bad. There just isn't much benefit when spending those extra 20 heart beats per minute, however now I know that pushing myself to my lactate threshold really won't help me much, so I can sit back in my comfort zone between 155 and 160 bpm and go just about as fast.

The tough part of the elevation is the everyday living: I'm not sleeping well because each time I drift into sleep my respiration slows too much and I wake up with a big gasp for air. I repeat this for hours. Tonight I think I'll try a breathe right strip to help open the passages and maybe I can sleep better.

For added stress when I got up here my brakes were mushy and the levers pulled back closer to the handlebar: there's in the lines. Those tiny, inconsequential bubbles at sea level grew into problems at elevation. So I ran into a local shop here to have them bled and one of the handlebar clamps broke... this has happened before and Shimano warrantied the lever, but I'm sitting here with less than 3 days and no front brake. Luckily the guys at Podium Sports are on their game: before they called me to say it was broken, they phoned Shimano got the part warrantied with next day shipping. THEN they phoned me with the bad news and told me a free replacement was on it's way. By 11am this morning by bike was race-ready again. Well done! Had that not gone so smoothly, the boys at Win's Wheels we ready to next-day me the parts I needed. Having a solid working relationship with a top-notch bike shop has been imperative to any successes along the way. Hopefully I can reward the boys with a shiny new belt buckle. And the song goes:


4, 3, 2, 1
Earth below us
drifting, falling.
Floating weightless
calling, calling home...