505 Live

The Leadville 100 mountain bike race was last Saturday 8/12. I left Thursday morning about 9am after a quick stop at Starbucks, I had mostly loaded up PS1 on Wednesday so it was a liesurely get up and hit the road morning.

I arrived in Leadville about 3pm to the afternoon monsoon and 47deg F. Got checked in to the hotel, made a run to the grocery store, and called it a day.

Friday morning was medical check in and pre-race briefing. Snapped a few pics of town while walking about.

Friday afternoon went for a short spin out to St Kevin’s w/ Matt and Jeni, then spent the rest of the time getting my drop bags ready, sticking the numbers on the bike, etc.

Dinner was the usual, rotisserre (sp?) chicken and MacNcheese, followed by chillin’ out.

Worth noting that the Timberline Motel Spared no expense on the rooms:

I did make a brief excursion Friday night for a decaf Americano.

Saturday morning the alarm went off at 04:00, I slept fine. Breakfast was also the usual, cereal, ham N’ cream cheese, bottle of Spiz. Got dressed up and headed to the start about 5:45 or so.

The race went of promptly at 06:30, the first ~3mi of the race are on pavement behind a cop car. The race officially gets underway once you hit the dirt. The first 3mi are bloody squirrely as 802 mountain bikers are pretty much completely untrustworthy in a peloton.

I pretty much went quite conservative on the climbs as I hadn’t trained explicity for this race and I had not had the opportunity to hit big climbs. As a result I was generally slower than last year on the climbs and roughly the same on the flatt-er portions. In retrospect, I could have pushed a bit harder on the climbs, as I finished the race feeling pretty decent. Nutrition worked well, I did use gel’s in the first 3hrs but that resulted in some gastro-intestinal distress requiring an extended stop at Twin Lakes 1. I didn’t have a bottle of Spiz available for Pipeline 1, as I hadn’t intended on stopping. That was about the only real nutritional strategy mistake. Twin Lakes 1 I picked up a bottle of spiz, ate 1/2 a creamcheese N ham tortilla (CCHT), about 4 oz of fruit punch gatorade mixed w/ a flat Redbull, added 32 oz of Gatorade Endurance to C-back (started the race w/ 64 oz). That carried me to the top of Columbine and back, where I picked up another spiz, ate another 1/2CCHT and added another 32 oz of Gatorade. Got to Pipeline 2, and basically repeated Twin Lakes 1. On the climb back up Pipeline the weather went pretty sour, raining, and cold. The remaining 24mi were wet and muddy. Though I felt better in the later portions of this year’s race than last (I was cramping up Columbine in 2005), my time was still slower due largely to the conditions I think (that, and the extra 15lbs I’m hauling up the hills this year). Attrition was high, only 509 out of 802 starters finished, and they extended the official finish time to 13hrs from 12 due to the weather it appears. I made up 3 spots in the last 1/4 mi or so, call me an a$$hole, but I always kick at the end of a long race. =)

I got to the finish and Matt was already cleaned up and back, so he and Jeni took my bike and I went and got a cup of hot soup. Compared to quite a few people in the aid tent wrapped in blankets and all the concerned comment from the volunteers about being cold I felt pretty much fine. I was wet, but I had a rain shell on since Pipeline so I was never “cold”. I policed up the remains of my drop bags and headed back to the hotel to get cleaned up. After that met up w/ Matt and Jeni again for Beers and food.

The bike was a muddy mess:

Drove back Sunday, I skipped the awards ceremony so I need to find a number to call so I can arrange to have my loot shipped.

Overall, I know the race went decent given the focus and prep I put into it this year, as well as the conditions. Still, nobody likes to go slower than last year. It’s definately a great, well run event. A fun challanging course, great enthusiastic volunteers, and excellent vistas (assuming you are looking).

That pretty much wraps up the season I had officially planned this year, any other events will be targets of opportunity. Now I need to start thinking and planning for 2007.

Check back, I’ll be adding a couple videos once Google approves.

Also, us engineers love overlay plots.