Leadville

… leaving the last aid station it was 6am, that is 26hours after I started.  I had 13.5 miles left and 4hrs to do it.  Should be easy right?!  To backtrack a little bit, it took me 2hrs and 20minutes to run it the first time, so I should be able to walk it in 4hrs was my mindset.  I was rejuvenated to say the least.  I had made the final cutoff, with one leg to go, plenty of time left.. all positives, but physically I was falling a part.  I couldn’t run anymore, and walking was now starting to hurt.. 

I could tell Carlos was getting antsy again… we came this far and I know how bad he wanted me to finish and we had no guarantees that I would make the time limit, especially at the pace I was moving at.  Out of all the legs, this was probably the most zoned out I had been.. I had a hard time focusing, even though I was so close to my goal yet it seemed so far away… the last 13.5 miles seemed to take forever!  About the midway part of the leg I heard my name called…”Kris, Kris,..Kris!”  all with laughing, as I turn to my left to see where it was coming from and low and behold was BIG CHRIS (for those that missed the blog about him, he had finished the first 6 Leadville runs he had attempted, this would be number 7)!!  My first “single serving friend” that I attached to.  Big Chris had to stop the run around mile 36 or so because of  severe stomach pains, but because of the comradery that runs through the running community (just like crossfit) he went back to the trail to cheer on his fellow competitors.  SO for a quick second I stopped and gave him a big hug and all Big Chris said was “You are going to make it man.. don’t quit!”  That right there was huge for me!  And to be quite honest with you, it was through divine intervention that Big Chris would be standing there all by himself and for me to see him at mile 96, right when I needed him most!  So with 4 miles to go I had one last descent, and then the final 2.5 miles was a steady incline…  The crazy thing about running at night and then hitting the same trail in daylight is that nothing looks the same.. perception is all f*cked because you can’t relate certain spots with distance.  So the closer we got to the finish the farther it seemed we had to go.. with 2miles to go I finally, sort of cracked.. just a little..  We had 45minutes left to make the cutoff, with 2 miles to go but one HELL of a HILL to climb!  Carlos turned and looked at me and all he said was “Kris.. we have to move faster or we might not make it..”  and for the first time I snapped back.. ” I am moving as fast as I can f*cking go!”  Like a Pro that Los is, he took it all in stride and we actually upped the pace a little.  Just thinking about it, makes me laugh now.

FINALLY… we reach the top of the hill and down towards the bottom was the FINISH!  The streets lined with people cheering, other runners finishing.. all beaming about the experience… “I can’t believe I did it!” was what I heard most.. With about 100meters to go I turned to Carlos and thanked him for everything, gave him a hug.. and at this point the last 29 hours and 39 minutes was played back through my mind and I can feel my emotions start to build up.  As I crossed the finish line with might I add a slight jog I was greeted by the race director who gave me a big hug and placed my medal on me and the  main himself who started the Leadville race series Kenneth Chlouber gave me a huge hug.. he told me how proud he was of me and was rooting for me to finish.. ( we crossed paths a few times on the trail).  And just like that I was a Leadville 100 finisher on my first try!  To top it all off the rest of the 6Soles crew was there at the finish and I got to go and hug and celebrate with everyone.  A huge thank you to Zac, Nicole, Elliot, Lindsay, and my boy Rhys for braving the last 18 hours as my support team.  I couldn’t have done it without you and that is no lie!  So after celebrating for a minute I had to go and do my final weigh in… and then WHAM!!!

All the adrenaline, all the emotions that had carried me for the last 29+hours left me in an instance!  I all of sudden felt this overwhelming feeling of loneliness.  I laid down by a tree outside the medical tent and started crying uncontrollably…  The people I wanted there most were not there, and it felt like bitter sweet success.. I will admit it, Yes I do the crazy shit that I do for myself.. to prove to myself I can do it, but just a little is for the people around me that I want to prove something to…  After losing my shit for a minute, I go it together just about the time Rhys found me.  He helped me up, and we went to go meet the rest of the crew to eat.  After sitting in the diner for about 20 minutes just poking at my food I told the guys .. “someone help me to the car, I just want to go to sleep”.  And so my boy Elliot did just that.  E helped me to front of the diner, then went and grabbed the car because at this point walking wasn’t an option…  next, he scooped me up and loaded me up like some crippled individual I had become, and like that I was asleep.  My Leadville run that had started a little over 30 hours ago had come to an end…  I DID IT.

Leadville

… 7 minutes to spare, Thank GOD!  I’m not sure how I would of reacted if I missed the cutoff by a few minutes!  So anyhow, I made it.. took a few minutes at this rest stop to refuel, change my shoes and sock because they were soaked!  This is when I got to see my toes for the first time, and WOW, they looked like shit!  8 0f the 10 toes were black… plus I could see where blisters were starting to form on both feet.  So at this point I had covered 61 miles in 17hrs 30minutes… crazy to think that the pro that won the event had finished almost an hour before I made this checkpoint, and I still had 39miles to go! 

Now it was time for Carlos to pace me the rest of the way.. at this point I was doing little running. mostly walking now… which wasn’t that big of a deal because it was time to climb again.  Carlos style of pacing was the complete opposite of the style Kristen used.. there was no talking, we actually didn’t even stay together.  Carlos always kept at least a good 10 feet ahead of me unless he was giving me food.  At first I was unsure if I liked it or not, but I kept it to myself… what I did notice though was that it made me move faster then I wanted to!  We were passing people left and right and I was starting to make up some time and by the time we made it to the next checkpoint I had recovered over an hour of my time I lost!  I was moving much better to the point I completely tried to bypass the checkpoint!  The Dymmels and Carlos, started yelling at me to come back and refuel… this is where Carlos was taking little white potatoes covered in salt, shoving them in my mouth!  Quite disgusting but so necessary!!   At this point my left leg was hurting at its worst though… the crew ran tape around my knee and shin to relieve some of the pain, but to be honest with you it didn’t do shit for it! 

In between the mini checkpoint at mile 69 to the next checkpoint which was 7miles away was the biggest mental challenge I experienced!!  The entire 7miles I battled my mind, quit…go on… quit go on…. make it this next aid station and call it a day…. go on!! …. a minute later, quit!   It was ridiculous, the battle I was dealing with, but the entire time I never verbally said any of it!  Carlos had no idea what the hell I was dealing with.. he kept his distance and I continued to chase him!  We finally make it to 76.5 mile checkpoint… and I got a new sense of purpose, I saw my support team who were still there for me at 2am, No WAY IN HELL I was quitting now!  I refueled and off we went, time to climb PowerLine….the soul crusher for  most!

this pic doesn’t serve it justice, this climb is straight up for what seems like forever, plus at the time, it was 2Am… PITCH BLACK!

… to be continued

Leadville

Stadiums are for spectators.  We runners have nature and that is much better.
–Juha Vaatainen

I had as many doubts as anyone else. Standing on the starting line, we’re all cowards.
— Alberto Salazar

…. so I reach the summit of Hope Pass and I start to build my confidence back up, because I wasn’t feeling all that great about having to go down the mountain and then back up it again.  As you go down the mountain you start to see the lead runners who have made the turn around and other then the top 3 who actually ran by me on the way up Hope’s Pass, yes ran by me! These cats were flying, very impressive!  Other then them, the runners I would see coming up the mountain had this look of misery on their face!  Not a very good sign for me but nonetheless they were moving and I knew I could do the same… just keep moving!  The descent down the mountain was steady but I could only manage to run about half of it… my left knee started to hurt me pretty bad as well as my shin on the same leg.  I wasn’t cramping anymore at this point but the pain in my leg started to become unbearable.  I just wanted to male it to the 50mile turnaround, just seeing my crew, getting something to eat, plus dope up on whatever medical would give me would go a long way… at least that’s what I was telling myself.  As you finish coming down the mountain it spits you back out on to a dirt road that is roughly 2.5 miles long to the 50mile turnaround.. at this point you are seeing a lot of the runners who have made the turn around and have picked up their pacers…. it was a huge relief for me to see this, because I knew I was close!  I saw a few runners who had made the turnaround who saw me and were excited for me because I know coming up Hope’s Pass I wasn’t looking all that great!  As I reached the end of the dirt road you can see the 50mile turnaround, this is when I ran into The Dymmel’s, Kristen and Tim.  The Dymmel’s had made the trip from Cali to pace Elliot and Zac on the back 50.  Well this is when I heard the guys didn’t make the 39mile cutoff.. well, my second bad news… because we all had the same crew, my pacer Carlos was not at the turnaround!  For about a minute I was like “What the F#CK am I going to do now!”  The Dymmel’s could see it on my face that I had become discouraged, because at this point I was started to fall a apart physically.

Well not too worry, Kristen was ready to go and was more then willing to pace me for as long as I needed her… THANK GOD!  SO we quickly refueled, filled my camel back, long sleeve shirt was back on, hoodie, got my lamp back on because the sun was started to set and like that we were off.. all in all I probably spent the longest at that aid station then any other… roughly 10-12minutes, possibly a little longer.  Oh yeah, I also had to weigh in when I first made it in to the turnaround:  7lbs, I was now down to 180#s.   Not a great sign but I wasn’t too concerned about the weight loss, I was more concerned about my left leg more then anything else.

So now it was time to start up the mountain again, which I was not looking forward to doing… But I do believe it was a blessing that Kristen was my pacer at this point.  She was like a mother to me, very nurturing and extremely positive.  The great thing about Kristen, is that she has done Ultras before (50milers), so she know what it takes to do it plus she knows how a person feels mentally, plain and simple she can relate to what you are going through… so necessary in my opinion.  If you ever plan on doing an ultra and can have a pacer, ask someone who has done one, and especially one who has finished.  Even with all the nurturing from Kristen, half way up the mountain I had mentally hit rock bottom.  I honestly didn’t think I was going to make it back up the mountain.  But just like on the other side of Hope’s Pass once you get through the tree lines you can see the top.  Well the tree line on the back side of the mountain are not as high, so when we finally popped through we still had 3miles or so before reaching the top.  Long story short, I just put my head down and kept moving as fast as I could and the closer I got to the top the better I felt… and finally an hour later we reached it.  This is when Kristen told me to “turn around and look at what you  just accomplished, because you don’t have to do that again!’   That was definitely a spirit booster… but that only lasted a second because going down hurt my leg a lot more then going up..  So Kristen ran ahead of me to the little aid station, and started getting soup, and whatever drugs they had for my leg.  By the time I reached her she had everything ready for me, so I sat by the fire for a second, drank my soup took the aleve they had plus I talked the doctor into giving me tylenol as well.. which was a no no, but I didn’t care at this point.  And we were off, back to Twin lakes which was 5 miles away (checkpoint mile 60).  About this time I started feeling juiced, the drugs kicked in and temporarily my leg stopped hurting.. Kristen asked if  I could run, that we should try and I knew if I was going to make the cutoff I would have to run some.  We were moving well down the mountain but once we got the bottom we had to make our way through the river.  At this point it is pitch black, starting to get colder and now I have to get wet all over again….

Kristen new the cutoff time for Twin Lakes and I could tell she was upping the pace…. we had 23 minutes to go 2 miles!  I had lost close to 2+hrs going up and over and back up over Hope’s Pass, and now all I had left to stay in the race or risk being cutoff was 23 minutes!  That wasn’t about to happen!  Hell just writing this part gets me emotional!  Kristen and I wind in and out of the river hit the trail and we start pushing it.. and this is when I see Carlos who had been waiting about 1000meters from the checkpoint.  Over the PA I heard 10minutes left, and this is when I take off and started sprinting, not sure where the energy came from but I hadn’t moved that well since early in the race!  And with 7MINUTES to spare I had made the cutoff and was alive to take on the next leg!

….to be continued

Leadville

Power line.. right about the time I left “Big Chris”

…the next “single serving friend” never happened… about the time I left “Big Chris” is when I started cramping pretty bad in my legs (roughly mike 32)!  So now all I could think of is pushing through the cramps and nothing else!  The slightest wrong step or stretch would damn near make my right leg lock up, which if that were to happen I’m done!  I was killing my time too, which was a good thing because later in the run I would need all the extra minutes I had accumulated.  So for the next 90 minutes I would cover 9 more miles and thank God most were down hill.. kind of!  Going down hill at the time allowed me to keep moving through the cramps even if I had to walk but running down hill overall actually was more painful then going up.. funny I know for most, but I would rather go up any day then run down!  As I was finishing up this leg of the run I had one last descent into Twin Lakes, which was mile marker 39.  

Twin Lakes aid station with Hope Pass in the background

As I came down the mountain I immediately started looking for Carlos, which I spotted him instantly, but I kept hearing “Kepler… Kepler.. Kepler!!!”  I look to my left and running right beside me was my boi Rhys!  If you have never met this guy you are missing out!  Rhys comes to everything we do and he doesn’t even workout anymore that I know of.  The epitome of a true friend, fan, supporter, you name it.  Seeing Rhys lifted my spirits up tremendously, and having Rhys there was such a blessing because he would play a vital part in me finishing Leadville!   So we all run into the aid station, refill my water, eat some food, and like that I am off on to the next leg,  Hopes Pass.  This leg is 11miles out with a elevation increase from 10,000-12,600 back down to 10,000 ft….  throughout the first 39 miles of the run this part of the course had been drifting in and out of my thoughts.  I had heard about, read about it, seen some video of it…  and none of it was positive!  So before Hope Pass you have to run in and out of a river the gets thigh high .. this goes on for about 2 miles.  During this time I had my first puking spell since before the start of the run… The problem was I kept trying to drink Ensures, well those bad boys are so thick that I just couldn’t stomach it.  This definitely had the other runners looking at me and asking if I was OK!  At the time I wasn’t but I said “Yes.. let’s go!”  as I was spitting and running at the same time!  Once you get through the river its time to start the Hope Pass climb and let me tell you what, it’s exactly that!  4 Miles STARIGHT UP A MOTHER F’N MOUNTAIN! 

I had to stop 6 or 7 times just to keep from passing out, and there isn’t a whole lot of trail just to chill out… one wrong step and I’m not sure when you would stop if you fell!  So for the next 90 minutes I kept looking for the tree line, once I saw the top I knew it was straight down and I could get my composure,…  well shit that didn’t happen soon enough.  Finally, I bust through the trees thinking I was about to summit the mountain, Hell No! 

the view right before the final climb to the top of Hope Pass

Once I made through the trees I still had another 2miles of climbing but the great thing was that they had a mini aid station set up, and as I walked up I mumbled under my breath “what the f*ck”, well the Doc on site heard me and quickly added “oh dear it’s only a half mile” (thinking I was discourage)  and I quickly responded, “don’t worry dear, I’m not done… but I call bull shit on the half mile shizz”  and off I went!  So for the next 30 minutes I would walk the last 2 miles before I would reach the top and let me tell you the view was one of the most beautiful sites I have ever seen!

this pic doesn’t serve the view justice..

….to be continued                 

Leadville

…1 hour til go time and I am ready to go.  I had packed all my stuff the night before as well as had all my gear laid out that I was going to wear in the beginning…  Consumed about 1000 calories in shakes and food, packed up our gear in the truck and headed towards the start line.  As I previously stated we were only 4 minutes away, so when we showed up we still had roughly 30 minutes of time to kill before we started…  plenty of time to go to the restroom for the 3rd time and oh yeah my pregame puke!  About this time is when my nerves were at their highest!  Up until now I had done a great job of keeping my emotions at bay, well I was now surrounded by 700 people, 700 people who were about to attempt to run 100 miles, knowing less then half of us were going to finish!  So the only thing I could do was take a deep breath and tell myself, was to run one mile at a time and lets see what happens!  My nerves calmed long enough to hear the words of encouragement from the race director… “Commit Not To Quit!” was what I heard that rang the loudest with me, and it was a mantra I would repeat to myself at least 100times before my Leadville journey would come to an end!  4Am, BAAAAAAAM, the shotgun sounded and my Leadville race was off…

this is the beginning of the 2010 race… pretty similar to my start

The first 13.5 miles was cake, not an extremely fast pace because the pack was so congested and the trail was small, as well as the fact it was 4am so it was still very dark even with our headlamps..  Initially the three of us (Zac, Elliot, and myself) decided we would just run our own race… basically, see you at the finish line!  Well once we started, Elliot and I got into a pretty good groove together so I mentioned to Elliot, if we kept this pace lets just see how far we can go together…(We thought Zac was ahead of us.. basically we stopped 3times to use the bathroom, twice to tie shoes) but at anytime either one of us felt the need to take off or slow down, we would separate.  Before the start Carlos mentioned to me that we should get through the first 13.5 in about 2hrs10minutes which is not blazing by any means but nice and steady and a good way to get warm… In my previous blog post I posted a pic of Turqouis Lake, well I spent the first 10miles running beside it but it was so dark I couldn’t see the beauty of it until the last 3 miles as the sun started to rise and there you had it, and let me tell this pic doesn’t serve it justice… not only is it beautiful it is HUGE!

stunning!

Well it didn’t take the 2hrs10minutes I was hoping, it actually took 2hrs20minutes, but not bad.. my legs felt good, Carlos refilled my camel back..told me I needed to drink more water because it hardly was gone!  Found out that Zac was behind us which was crazy but knowing how dark it was it wasn’t too much of a surprise that we passed him without seeing him.. Grabbed some food and now I was ready to start my first climb!  Another bit of advice from Carlos was to talk to as many runners as I could and try and pick out those that looked or acted as if they had done Leadville before…  still run my own race if they were too fast for me though..  This is where I met “Big Chris”, 7 time Leadville participant, finisher everytime!   “Big Chris” was a big dude!  6’5″ 260#s late 40′s!  I started talking to Chris and just getting as much advice as he was to give which was a lot!  The running community is just like the Crossfit community, very supportive of each other during the heat of the battle!  Everyone wants to see EVERYONE Do well and more importantly FINISH!  This next leg we were currently on was the SugarLoaf climb with the PowerLine descent…  Chris had mentioned that if we could make it to the 50mile turn around in a certain time, “We can basically walk the rest..”  Well those words would stay with me for the rest of the time.  Around this time is when Elliot and I started getting separation from each other and after about 15 minutes of turning around to see if I could see him I finally lost track.. and this was when I now knew that I was now on my own (mile 18 or so )until the turn around (mile 50), other then the “single serving friends” (Fight Club reference from the plane) I would meet on the trail…  “Big Chris” and I would run the next 10 miles together before I noticed him slowing down a bit…  My first dilemma, do I slow down with “Big Chris” or do I stay at the pace I was running, hell I felt great but this cat had finished every Leadville run, the dude even had notes with him on where he should be and at what pace he should run to hit it….  Screw it, I feel good, so off I went.. now I was looking for my next “single serving friend” to run with…..

…to be continued

Leadville

Turquoise Lake in Leadville… I saw this a few times!

You can fight without ever winning,
but never ever, win without a fight.
–Rush (the Band)

 

…first stop Denver, Colorado.  I had flown into Denver once before, but we never left the airport.  So my first exposure to “the altitude” would be on this trip,  and to be honest I could feel it the minute we walked out of the airport.  My head started getting a little fuzzy but nothing crazy, hell we were only 5680ft above sea level…. and if you don’t or didn’t know Austin Texas is only 560ft above sea level.  Anyhow, “the altitude” feeling was kept to myself… because if I made a big deal about it now, what the hell was I going to do when I got to 12,600ft?!  From the airport we went and picked up our rental and headed to Lakewood where we would stay the night and load up on groceries before heading into Leadville the following morning for check-in… and what a short but beautiful drive it was because all you can see in the horizon was the Rocky Mountains.. the same Rocky Mountains I would become REAL acquainted with come Saturday/ Sunday! 

Friday morning rolled around pretty quick but I did manage to sleep fairly well considering I don’t travel well…  The temp outside in Lakewood was 72 degrees that morning but knowing where we were going to Leadville the temp would be a lot cooler there..  so as I drove the 90 or so minutes it took I watched the temp drop from 72 to 52 within that time period… projected race temp at the start was suppose to be 36 degrees with rain!  Coming from Austin where it hadn’t dropped below 78 and averaged 104 for the last 2 months… the 52 degrees felt really nice, but 36 degrees with rain was going to be something else…  The only reason I bring that up is when I ran the Townlake 52miler it never got lower then 42 and averaged 46-47 degrees the whole time and that was cold to me!  But just like “the altitude” I kept it to myself…  The drive to Leadville was amazing, the Colorado “countryside” is beautiful and having the Rockies as my guide was such a treat!  Also as you drive from Lakewood, every little town you drive through will post the elevation on the city limit sign…. 6,000 ft…. 7500ft…. 9000ft…. 10,000 ft…. welcome to Leadville Colorado 10,200ft above sea level!  My first impression of Leadville was “welcome to the working persons/ coalminer town”. Hardcore, but beautiful at the same time.. the people were real nice but say something wrong and they would probably punch you in the face in an instant!  Anyhow, to start things off we needed to go through medical check-in… which is just fancy talk for getting my weight, 187#.  Next, get my goodie/grab bag… 10 minutes later I am checked in and now the countdown begins, T-minus 18hrs til go time!  We got real lucky, Zac was able to snag a hotel room right down the street from the start line… honestly a 3 minute drive to it!  Which was a blessing, because I had reserved a camp site for us to crash in that night that was on the course…  So after check in we went ate a big breakfast and hung out until our athletes briefing.  This was when I got my first real taste of elevation.  We parked our rental right across the street from the gym where the briefing was being held,… well the street is on a incline, nothing crazy but still an incline…  I needed to get something out of the car so I ran up the street, I hadn’t made it 30yrds and I was like “Oh shit.. this sucks!”, but keeping a positive mind set I just started laughing, because that was the first time in my life I have ever gotten winded from a 30 yrd JOG!  Another thing I kept to myself, no need to talk about it right?!  

Now it’s time for the briefing, this part I will keep short… the race director announced some of the previous winners, he also announce that Lifetime Fitness had become the main sponsor, and then he announced a man by the name of Bill Misner (age 60′s), this man has ran and finished the last 29 Leadville 100′s only missing the very first one because he didn’t know about it!   Amazing!!  What a great guy too, he acutally stayed at the same hotel as us and I was able to chat with him for a minute!  So after a second trip to the grocery store it was time to chill out and just relax, T-10 hrs til go time…. The view from our hotel was amazing, all except the massive rain cloud that had rolled in and was sitting above the mountain as well as our hotel!   The forecast said 40% chance of rain, and all 40% was sitting right over us… time to try and sleep, ON THE FLOOR!  I lost a goofy bet with Elliot and well the floor was my reward…  Lights out and asleep by 9ish, all was good until that 40% chance of rain exploded around us at about 1am.. the rain was coming down so hard it was shaking the room/ and especially the floor I was laying on.  After about 30minutes it stopped and it was back to being asleep, and just like that it was 3am… T-minus 1hr til go time!!!  

…..to be continued

Leadville

Rocky Hill Ranch: the training grounds

“We can’t all be heroes because someone has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by.” – Will Rogers

“It’s very hard in the beginning to understand that the whole idea is not to beat the other runners. Eventually you learn that the competition is against the little voice inside you that wants you to quit.” – George Sheehan

 

is about to get REAL REAL!  During the Triple Murph the almighty sent me an Angel by the name of Carlos Ibarra, gym owner of Crossfit Houston.  Carlos had been following my blog for sometime and I had no idea… Carlos came up to me wide eyed and willing to be apart of the 6Soles quest to take on Leadville!  Anything from training us, to even making the trip to Colorado to pace us!  Are  you kidding me, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing!  So for the next 2 months Carlos would drive up from Houston and meet us in Smithville to run the RockyHillRanch 10mile loop…  The first time we ran that trail, Carlos ran me into the ground… it was the hardest trail I had ever run, but according to Carlos it had a lot of similarities to Leadville, plus we ran like a 9minute pace which was roughly 6 minutes faster then my projected goal I would run Leadville with.  The following weekend I planned on running better then the week before…. and I did, I knocked off 20+ minutes on the same course:  very pleased!!  Plus I think it made Carlos a believer in me.  By the way, Carlos had paced 2 other runners for Leadville and was a finisher himself 3 years ago… so whatever he told me to do, I DID!  We would run Smithville a total of 5 or 6 times, can’t remember, but every time we ran I was getting stronger, plus I had started to shed some weight that I had put on for Regionals, roughly 10lbs… so now I was running at 180#s… I had always believed I could do Leadville, but just having Carlos be a part of it made that belief even stronger..

Then it was off to Cali for the Crossfit Games, 7 days of fun in the sun and NO training and low and behold I put the 10#s of weight I had dropped right back on!  When we got back from Cali, I had 3 weeks until Leadville, which in my mind was plenty of time to cleanup the “diet” and pickup where I left off in training…  I hit up Smithville with Carlos 2x and then the week before Leadville I racked up the most mileage I would run for a week… 3- 7mile runs around town lake.  That’s right, 21 miles was the most I ran in a week, with usually the average never exceeding 10miles for the week.    Those last 3 trail runs on flat surface were very beneficial because it allowed me to really just open up and run plus I ran by myself, which when you do Leadville you do a lot of running by  yourself…  So now you have an idea of what I did for training leading up to Leadville:  in the big scheme of things very little.

 

Finally the week of Leadville is here, and I couldn’t not think about it….  I had done a really good job of keeping it in the back of my mind and not really stressing about it.  But now anytime I saw someone they would ask about it… “are you ready?” ” how do you feel?”  “are you excited?”  and so on…  So I started prepping my mind for it a “little”.  The only videos I would watch were of people actually crossing through the finish line, that was it!  So I had a good idea what it looked like, which would come in handy later…  I read a few blogs, but only of people who had done it and finished, some useful info and then some that I disregarded…. by Thursday, I had read and seen enough, now it was time to pack it up and board the plane… the Leadville Journey was about to get REAL REAL!

….to be continued.

 

Leadville

“What kind of crazy nut would spend two or three hours a day just running?”
(This is how Steve Prefontaine reacted in Junior High when he saw the High School Cross country team running)

….Because of my silliness, the Town Lake 52miler set me back a month!  I couldn’t even attempt a box jump for 2 months… my deadlift PR went from 425#, back down to 385#… neurologically my system  was so f#cked that nothing was firing!  I really couldn’t jump higher then 12″!!   Very frustrating to say the least but you know what I still had the desire to do a 100mile run, but this time I would train accordingly for it!!  This is where the 6Soles idea was birthed!  What better way to train for something then having a purpose and some homeboys to train with!  Accountability!  So on a cool wet day in December of last year…  you remember when it was cool and wet right?!  The 6Soles had our first meeting.  Zach Hughes aka 2Socs, Elliot Schrock aka Thunderbeast, and me WindInHisHair, and my boy Stone laid it out there and committed to each other our plan to take on the Leadville100 the following August.  Below is our first workout as the 6Soles, it occurred on 1/20/11…. this was the first time I was really able to start running again since my Ultra in November….

 

6Soles

3 Rounds @ 75#
- Power Snatch x10
- OHS x10
- Front Squat x10
- Back Squat x10
- Toe to Bar x10
- Burpees x10

ONE Thunderbird Loop Run (1.5miles)

3 Rounds @ 75#
- Burpees x 5
- Toe to Bar x 5
- Back Squat x 5
- Front Squat x 5
- OHS x 5
- Power Snatch x 5

ROW 10 minutes

hahaha 1.5 miles was all I ran, I did row for 10 minutes…. which has to count for something right?!  Up next the Austin Marathon… to do or not to do?!  To be continued……

The only tactics I admire are do-or-die
-Herb Elliott

Leadville

-Pre 

“To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.”

So, it’ been a few days since I completed the LT100 and to be honest with you I’m not exactly sure where I should start so bare with me…..  The idea to run Leadville actually was birthed a few years ago.  My buddy Don Ward basically threw it out one day when he heard I wanted to do an ultra.  And being the crazy guy that I am, i said hellsyeah let’s do it!  Well that turned out to be all talk… nothing happened that year, until I came across the book Born to Run by Christopher McDougall (Crossfit Central had a book signing for him).  And in that book they talk about the Leadville run and how unbelievably hard it is… well crazy Kris was like, damn I have to do it now!  At the time I was reading Born to Run, I wasn’t running at all, other then what was in the workouts we were doing… but nothing extra.  Before I started doing crossfit, I use to run 15-20miles a week, but my knees and hips would start hurting and I would take a few weeks off, let them heal, and then go right back to running!  Quite the vicious cycle I was putting myself through.  But then I started crossfitting and stopped all the running at town lake I was doing…. my knees never felt better, my hips felt great… then I read BTR, and I was like you know what I love to run, lets see if I can do this ultra…   So last year I decided to do a 50 miler first, in prep for LT100, in what I called the The Town Lake 52miler….       

to be continued

love this dudes style…

LeadvilleBound

today I leave for Leadville Colorado with my 6Sole brotha’s!  This coming Saturday we will take on one of, if not the toughest 100mile run in the world!  Just writing that gets me emotionally fired up!!  Words can’t express the emotions I’m feeling right now…  I want to thank you  all for the support we have received throughout our training as well as the last 48hours, all the well wishers has been overwhelming!  So Thank You from the bottom through the top of my heart… I will think about each and everyone of you as I run!  BAM goes the RAM!

this is how I envision the finish line!

So guys if you want to know how we are doing during the run follow @The6Soles as wells as @kriskepler on twitter for live updates on our status

enough sappy shizzzzz! here you go!