Brandon Fuller

Run: Turquoise Lake (13.21 mi)

After only being back in Colorado for 48 hours, we were headed to Leadville. Might as well shake that sea-level stint out of me. We had planned a camping trip for the weekend with some friends of the family. They had not been to Leadville before nor had they camped as a family so we made a dual family adventure out of it. After being in that RV for 2 weeks, I definitely was not looking forward to sleeping on the ground. I had been spoiled.

Besides just being back in Leadville to kick start acclimatization, I planned on getting up early and getting some runs in. I knew I was not going to do some 4-6 hours big boy run but figured some solid 2 hour or more runs would be better than running back at home. We pulled into Silver Dollar campground at about dinner time on Friday and setup camp.

I slept pretty poorly that night. Just not comfortable and lots of movement with 5 of us and dog in the tent. The baby was up and down a lot which caused Kim to have to move which caused my beauty sleep to be interrupted. I kind of just opened my eyes around 6:30 AM and got up after no deep sleep all night. I was pretty groggy but decided to run around Turquoise Lake and maybe more.

I found the small connector trail out of our campground and was quickly on the single track that leads around the lake. This means I was “on course”…the Leadville Trail 100 course that is. I had not run this section before so in my attempt to see everything before race day, I can check this part off. Its just some singletrack all the way to May Queen. Supposedly its pretty congested outbound in the race which I can see. But there are lots of little places to shoot around people it seems so I don’t know if its too bad.

I felt pretty crappy on the run so I just kept the pace mellow. I was here and moving and that mattered the most. Its about 6 miles from the campground down to the May Queen campground at the other end of the lake. This is where we stayed in the RV a few weeks back. So I knew where I was going and I knew there was a bathroom there that I needed. And a water spout to refill my bottle. Made it down there and took a small break to refuel and enjoy the view.

At this point, I had a decision. I could continue on course and maybe do Sugarloaf. Nah, been there. I could go up Hagerman Pass. Nah, too far…like 7 miles out. So I decided just to cut it and finish the loop around the lake. The downside to that was this was all road but it went OK. There are good rollers back around the lake so I enjoyed just stretching out. Made my way back around and finally back onto the trail at the other end of the lake. Saw our camping buddies pulling up to park at the Matchless boat ramp to fish so I said hi before heading back to camp.

Spent the rest of the day mostly lounging by the lake. I fell asleep in my chair. Once again, chalked it up to training — spending time at 10,000 feet!

I went 13.21 miles with an elevation gain of 761 feet in 02:08:24, which is an average pace of 09:43. Heart rate average was 135. View my GPS data on Garmin Connect.