Brandon Fuller

The Buckle Plan

In my continuing look into my upcoming race, the Leadville Trail 100, today we focus on the prize!

For some reason, many of these 100 mile mountain races make belt buckles the finisher’s prize. I never see anyone (OK, 1 dude) wearing them but we all want them. So when I threw down the gauntlet for this challenge, I set my sights high: the Big Buckle!

There are two buckle prizes at Leadville: small and big.

The small buckle is given to any finisher who completes the race in under 30 hours. After 30 hours, the race ends and you are out of luck. People are still coming down the street at this time. Cheering fans are pushing them to the finish. Sometimes they make it and sometimes they do not. This is probably the most fun, exciting, or depressing moment of the race that a spectator can partake in. Seeing people crest that final hill. Counting down the time. Can they do it? After so long on their feet. Endurance? The winners are done in about 1/2 this time. The real test of endurance is on display here at hour 30.

While that prize is nothing to joke about and those that receive them every year are pretty happy with completing the race, there is another tier and its reserved for the big buckle finishers. To get this you must complete the race in under 25 hours. That’s 24:59:59 by the official race clock. That’s a 5 hour difference. Seems like a lot of time to shave off a finish. Hell, if you ran 8 minute miles for 5 hours around your neighborhood, you would cover 37.5 miles in that time period.

When I initially conceived of doing this race, just finishing was a huge goal. It still is. If I cross that finish line, I will be a Leadville finisher and that will be a pretty sweet addition to my running resume. But during my research, training, and preparation, I have come to believe that just finishing is not sufficient for me. I must race the clock. I must go for the big buckle.

There are lots of web sites out there that give you tips, strategies and splits for finishing Leadville in certain amounts of time. There is another site that slices and dices the finishing data in every which way so you can figure out what people do right and do wrong. I have combed through these sites. Its all fun but at some point you just have to run the race and maybe have some targets in mind so you know when you have a bit of breathing room and when you better hustle.

So here are some nice rounded numbers that would deliver a big buckle to the finisher. These times are based on leaving each checkpoint. In theory, if you arrive early, you can sit and relax before moving on. Strategically, that’s not the right answer of course, but you don’t want to work the other extreme and try and blow away the early splits to bank time. It doesn’t work that way. You will pay for it later.

	Mile	Race Clock	Time of Day	Avg Pace
Start	0	0:00	4:00 AM	-
May Queen	13.5	2:10	6:10 AM	9:37
Fish Hatchery	23.5	4:05	8:05 AM	12:30
Halfmoon II	30	5:15	9:15 AM	10:46
Twin Lakes	39	7:15	11:15 AM	13:20
Winfield	50	10:30	2:30 PM	17:44
Twin Lakes	61	13:45	5:45 PM	17:44
Halfmoon II	70	16:30	8:30 PM	18:20
Fish Hatchery	76.5	18:00	10:00 PM	13:51
May Queen	86.5	21:30	1:30 AM	21:00
Finish	100	24:59	4:59 AM	15:33

What do you think? Those paces are interesting, huh. Not a single mile (average) under 9 minutes. Is this a race or a walk-a-thon? 100 miles is about slow and steady. There will actually be miles run under 9 minutes, maybe 8 and even 7. Downhill sections. A few open roads. But the uphills always bias the averages towards that hiking pace.

So for me and my crew, these times will be the cut-offs. The minimum set. If I am not hitting these marks, the buckle plan isn’t going according to plan.

However, my actual race plan will be different than this. I think I can do it in less. But its new territory for me. I don’t know how my person will respond at mile 51 - 100. Never run that far before.

Reference sites: Dana, Weber, Chris.