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.

I think I can blame Win.

I've known about the Leadville 100 for a few years now and have always though, "Why?" Why would someone want to race a mountain bike for 100 miles starting at +9,000 feet of elevation? Crazy.

Leadville is an old mining town in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. It was once the second most populous town in CO, but today there are fewer than 3,000 residents and mining is a history rather than an industry. Now supported by tourism, one of their major events is this Leadville 100 race. They also host running events and shorter distance races, but the 100 has become the most popular. In 2008 a retired bike racer named Lance sign on and took second. He began racing again and returned in 2009 with a camera crew who made a film titled, "Race to the Sky."

Last fall my friend Win, of Win's Wheels, called with extra tickets to the movie and asked if I wanted to see the movie with him and the usual crowd. "Sure." It wasn't a great night for me because it was a week night and I lived over an hour away from the screening, but I'll be damned if something didn't click. Finish in under 12 hours and you get a belt buckle. Do it under 9 hours and you get a gold belt buckle. I didn't say anything to anyone, but I wanted to earn that belt buckle. I could buy one, but it just won't be the same as if I suffer my way through months of training and earn the damned thing. And the movie wasn't even that good!

More people register for the 100 than can be safely put on the trail so come selection time the organizers host a lottery to see which 1400 people get to race. A couple of months after the movie, the urge was still there so without a word to anyone I put my name it the hat. I think it's my one-third life crisis. At 35, I feel I'm beyond my prime and it's either now or never. Well? As the selection date neared I kept going back and forth between hoping I would get to race and hoping I wouldn't have to go through all the training and suffering. I'd already spilled my secret and Patsy saw me flip flop like John Kerry. The week came, the email arrived titled, "Congratulations from Leadville Trail 100‏." How special is this? Of the ten people I know signed up, two got in including myself.

"Crap. I'm in." So starting February 8th about six months of training began. Since then almost every aspect of my life has become focused on training. Right now I am riding 4 days a week including lunch rides during the week. I've rented a cabin in Colorado for the race and bought a GPS-heart rate tracking cycling computer (Garmin Edge 500) so I can record every mile and heartbeat. I have a nutrition plan. I have a relationship to my bathroom scale! All for a damned belt buckle.

-PW