Brandon Fuller

The Leadville Poll Results

41 responses! Loved all the interest.

Question 1: Your name. Everyone got that right.

Question 2: Your email. Everyone got that right except Brownie…he said Yellow.

Question 3: Will he puke? The correct answer unfortunately was YES. I did puke once on the 2nd Hope Pass climb. 21 people said no. 19 said yes. So points for 19 of you.

Question 4: What time will Brandon finish in? 28:25 was the highest guess. I was 28:53. A couple people had me in the 28s and I frankly chucked at those when I saw them come in. Who’s the fool now? Got a dose of humility there. But on the flip side, I was so encouraged to see the average predicted time be in the 24 hour range. I wish I could have delivered that.

Question 5: Who will win the Showdown rematch? Brownie took it but you all thought I would 27 to 13. Guess it shows that I shouldn’t pick a fight with a repeat 100 miler finisher my first time out.

Question 6: Who will drink more alcohol at the after-party? Frankly, we didn’t have one. We drank some days before but after the race, it was too long between the finishes for partying. I am going to give the win to Brownie there given he had ~4 hours to sit and wait for me to cross the line after he did.

Question 7: Will Anton Krupicka break the course record? He DNF’d. 24 thought he would break it, versus 17 not. His chances were good but I guess that CR lives on.

AND YOUR WINNER IS….BILL KELLER! He actually nailed every single question. He will get a wonderful gift in the mail shortly.

I like doing these because it gives me a sense of the wisdom of the crowd. Thanks for playing!

Leadville Trail 100 2010

Distance	100.0 miles
Elevation Gain	15,600 feet
Time	28:53:11.2 (PR)
Pace	17:20
Rank	252 of 363 finishers/647 starters/797 registered
GPS Analysis	Garmin Connect

Mission accomplished.

On January 1st of this year, I set my goals for the year. The cornerstones were Boston and Leadville. Both were going to be difficult tasks in their own right. Boston went perfectly, but Leadville didn’t turn out to be the performance I dreamed of. It isn’t always your day. And I definitely didn’t peak like I hoped to. But I never quit and finished what I started. I have a buckle and nobody can take that away.

Pre-Race

Had a great time meeting people and hanging out. That was the best part of the weekend. Through my stories of this race, I had a lot of people who virtually knew me. They took the time to come up to me and introduce themselves. It happened randomly at street corners, the briefing, in the line at the grocery store, during the race, after the race, and more. It was pretty cool. I felt kinda like I earned my Rock Star moniker that JV uses for me. I always tried to recall or acknowledge all the folks. Some I knew better than others. Some had commented so I knew just a name. Others were complete strangers. If we met, give me a comment below so I can get better acquainted with you.

Start

We set the alarms for 2:45. I popped up at 2:30 and sat on the toilet. I was awake and feeling good. Had gotten some better than usual sleep. It would be the last I would get for a long time. Natalee and I had most of the gear in the truck and ready to go already. Took a few pictures before heading out into the night.

Natalee had custom jackets made for Runner, Pacer and Crew Chief so Team Shart was known!

It was warmer than expected out at the start. Probably low 40s. Had expected 30s. So it felt comfortable in my shorts, singlet, and arm warmers. Looking around, many folks had jackets and other big heavy things on. I was light and ready to run. I felt like I hadn’t run in weeks so I was pretty amped to get the show on the road. We huddled inside of the Provin’ Grounds early and compared outfits, strategies, and wished each other luck.

Time was getting close. Brooks, JT and I made our way into the crowd. Brooks went straight up front so I followed. Wanted to get a look at everyone on the front line. No Tony. 2 minutes to the start. Actor Jake Gyllenhaal was standing in front of me on the start line with his Flip camera shooting some video. Another crew was over further with some big lights. I gave Jake the head nod…what’s up. He responded. We started counting down from 10 to 0 and Tony popped in next to us and said hi. Bang! We were off.

To May Queen Outbound (13.5 miles)

The run down 6th Street was epic. It drops a bit then rises up a hill. Being all fresh and excited I ran with the group to the top of the hill. Someone noted “turn around and look back” to us all and it was a sea of headlamps. Amazing sight. We followed the pace truck down to the end of 6th Street where Natalee and JP had the H2 sitting there so I ran wide and said hi to them. JP yells at me, “Slow down…you are in 7th place!”. It wasn’t that epic. We were all over the street that first mile just getting the party started.

As we turned onto the Boulevard, I slowed my pace and the lead group drifted down and into the darkness ahead. Time to get myself in the game. Minutes later, Tony come jogging up from behind me. Guess he had some business. Told me to watch the speed and save my quads. Sounds good. Wished him a great day. I wouldn’t see him again until he was on his way back.

As we ran past Sugarloaf’n, Brooks came up from behind. He had been off the woods too. See…not just me! Wished him a good day too. I was expecting great things from him today.

We got out around Turquoise Lake and small packs were forming out in the front. I wasn’t 30-50 people back but we couldn’t see the leaders and the mass of runners had not come down to the lake yet. I felt my own nature call so I ran up to a campground bathroom only to find it out of order. Dang it. So I crapped next to the building as punishment. While sitting there, I could see the stream of headlamps coming down to the lake and I was losing lots of spots. It would be a long day so no big worries but I didn’t want to get in the predicted clusterfuck on the singletrack around the lake and at May Queen. I made good progress around the lake. Felt fresh and happy to be there. I knew that the key to this race was going out slow to save it for the day but I felt like getting a small jump on things to start wasn’t going to kill anything.

Started getting into May Queen and I felt nature call again. Those taper weeks always build up a lot in me so let’s get it out early. I knew where the camping outhouses where so I popped over and used those before jogging up through the campground. Coming into May Queen in the twilight was amazing. Because this is the first stop and we aren’t staggered out yet, all the crews were pretty much there. It was an organized madhouse. I ran up the small hill to see JP standing there. He popped out of the crowd and ran in front of me and took me into the tent, got my supplies and out lead me right to where Natalee was. In the sea of people, it would have been a multi-minute ordeal to locate here. However, none of that here. We were on. They gave me my pickup bag, I dropped my light, grabbed new bottles and was gone. I probably stopped moving for less than 30 seconds. Really shouldn’t have been in such a hurry in retrospect but it felt good to show that we could do the pit stop fast.

Split time: 1:58:49 - 11 minutes under prescribed 25 hour split pace. And I stopped twice to poop! So it was way too hot but it wasn’t really a big exertion like a hill climb so I was happy. Plus, I had my next section planned out to recover.

To Fish Hatchery Outbound (23.5 miles)

After leaving May Queen, there is a short stretch of paved road up to a campground and then we get on the Colorado Trail. Its a 2 mile-ish piece of singletrack in there that rises up to Hagerman Pass road. I love that trail so I ran it nice and steady. Popped out on the road in no time. Debating walking the road but had a flashback of walking the road up to Carson at the SJS50 and didn’t want to repeat. So I motored up to the turn off for Sugarloaf pass before employing my strategy. Walk time! I purposely walked every step to the top of the pass. Early on lots of people passed me but they eventually gassed and went to the walk. I ate, refueled, and recovered. We were in the 3-ish hour point in the race so it was a good place to reset.

As I ran over to the Powerlines, my final crap of the day came calling. My crew was supposed to give me little baggies of TP but we didn’t get that loaded at the last station so I was at a loss. There is literally nothing up top there. The trees are all pines with needles. There are no leaves. No large rocks. What to do. So I went and used handfuls of dead pine needles mixed with dirt. Primitive but it got the job done for now. Once I get to the aid station, I can check my work.

Time to descend. Excited to do get the first downhill of the day going. Ran this hard in training camp and learned my lesson so I was ready to take it nice and slow. Step. Ouch. Step. Ouch. What the fuck is that? My right hip flexor was on fire. This is different than my piriformous syndome because that is the back butt. I think this thing may have been related and tightened up and wasn’t happy. The further I descended the more it hurt. So I just kept backing off. Hordes of people were coming around me and I looked like a gimpy road runner trying my first downhill train run. Downhills are nice time pickups but I was losing a lot here. OK, just get down and reaccess.

Felt like forever but finally got down the Powerlines and was out on the road to the Fish Hatchery. This is 1 mile paved section that rolls. And the downhills in the rolls hurt now too. Crap. What does this mean for my day? JP flanking me into the aid station getting the low down on my needs.

I made a few gametime tweaks - no headphones yet, take arm warmers, etc. Then we went up and ran through the aid station and I was back out. Never stopped moving. Natalee was setup just down the road but I stopped at the port-o-pots to inspect my work from earlier. There were 2 of them and I was jumping up and down waiting to get in. The crowd started yelling “Runner!” like if a spectator was in there they should cut it off mid-stream and get out. Natalee brought the gear over and we did the pit stop while I was in line. As a crew, you have to be flexible. Finally, the door swings open — its JT! You have to be kidding me! I was waiting on him. Hadn’t seen him since the start and here we are. He still had to check in so I finished and ran out of Fish Hatchery knowing he was back behind me but not very far.

Split Time: 2:05:53 - Now 3 minutes over 25 hour pace. Damn. That downhill just ate nearly 15 minutes. This isn’t good and I started to worry about my day already.

To Halfmoon II Outbound (30 miles)

From there, I motored down the road out of Fish Hatchery. We were on our way to Halfmoon aid station but there was a crew access point at Pipeline where I expected to see Natalee and JP again. Crews can’t go to Halfmoon so I needed to get my supplies for that at Pipeline. I was on and off my run on the way to Pipeline. For some reason, that road just takes it out of me so I ate and refueled then ran. Repeat. Finally, JT showed up behind me and we walked together for a 1/2 mile before going onto Pipeline. We ran up through the mass of vehicles to find Natalee and JP.

JT and I coming up the line.

We stopped and offered JT anything he needed. He was good so he went on. I stayed back and got suntan lotioned up and took some swings of Mountain Dew. Wasn’t going to see the crew again for hours so this was a final checkpoint of sorts. Got my headphones on and moved on out to regain JT and make my way to Halfmoon.

Randomly, JT popped up from behind a few miles later. He said something about a wrong turn but guessing he was in the woods. Anyway, he was moving good. I was transitioning walks and runs but he was staying on the run nicely on the moderate inclines that I was happy to walk. He has discipline. Over the course of the next few miles, he inched forward and finally out of sight. I was cool with that. Allowed me to relax and focus on my own game.

Made it into Halfmoon and ate some random food they had out. Stuffed my pockets with chips and pretzels and made my way out. 1/3 of the race was now done and it was still early the morning. It was going to be a long day.

Split Time: 1:35:51 - This aid station was moved last year so a lot of the historical data is wrong because it was for a different location. However, my gut told me I was slow.

To Twin Lakes Outbound (39 miles)

Back on some rolling terrain and the any descents continued to suck. Even small ones. I was just slow. People were coming blasting by me. I did that same thing to people at training camp earlier in the summer. Not today. I was getting passed on easy non-technical downhill because of my hobbling nature. I continued to let runner after runner by knowing that this was bad and something is going to have to be changed in the strategy for today.

Coming into Twin Lakes, I could hear the crowds and was pumped up to see everyone again after the 3+ hours of no crew. Ran down the hill to find them conveniently setup. Kim had joined them at this point. Her and Kayla slept in given they might be up and out with us late tonight. I was excited to see her and be able to kiss somebody in the crew. She told me I was looking great. Knowing she has seen the best and worst of me at races, I thought that was a good sign. At this point, I opted to go with the hydration pack for the long up and over Hope Pass. Said my goodbyes and made me way through the small town of Twin Lakes were people lined every street cheering me on. No runners immediately around me so I had the crowd to myself.

I made Natalee try and pull out my leg to shake my hip out. I laid down and she yanked on me for a while. Then I tried to stretch a bit. Nothing was helping.

Split Time: 1:37:59

To Winfield (50 miles)

Winfield is an old ghost town that sits on the other side of a ridge of mountains from Twin Lakes. The races goes up and over that at a place called Hope Pass. Its at 12,600 feet. While not a 14er, it packs quite a punch. However, to get to the start of the climb we had to traverse the boggy backside of the Twin Lakes themselves. It was wet! I got familiar with wet shoes at SJS50 but this might be different. First big puddle had a way around. Cool. Next one. Nope. So I stood there for a fraction of a second then said “fuck it” and splashed in. It wasn’t knee deep but it was cold and my shoes were completely soaked. This sucks but it liberating because I continue through each of the next few ponds of water and mud quickly now. Finally, I hit the river. A rope was tied to a tree on each side. I grabbed the rope with both hands and steadied myself across. It was knee deep and it was cold. My feet were burning. After getting out, I had to walk because my feet were tingling. Also wanted to get the water squished out. Ended up walking to the start of the climb.

I knew the timing on this climb from training camp so I put it into hiking gear and made my way up. Moved pretty well I thought. Definitely fatigued from running 40+ miles already but I never stopped moving. Step after step I plodded to the top. Got passed a few times and passed a few but definitely wasn’t losing to the crowd up the hill. This made me think I might have fallen off my early hot pace during the downhill trouble and back to a more comfortable place in the rank order of racers.

As I was just getting to treeline, I saw a blaze in front of me. It was Tony and Dakota moving swiftly. I was excited to say hi and relieved that he passed me nice and high versus down in Twin Lakes. Reached Hopeless Aid Station and was excited to see all the llamas. This aid station is near the summit and offers pretty much full service aid. They use the llamas to get all the gear up there. Then they take the llamas back down to the snow melt and get jugs of water, filter it, and serve it up. What a job! I was good on everything so I didn’t even stop. While my climb was decent, I thought I needed to pick up some time so I just blazed through.

The summit of Hope Pass is always a great thing. Completing such a climb. But this was just the start. I had to go back down and then come right back up hours later. Saw 2nd place runner Duncan here. I guessed Tony had 45 minutes or more on him at this point. Nice. The descent down Hope on the south side is steep. I did well with it in camp but today — not so much. The hip was back in action and worse. I wasn’t moving fast at all. I am pretty sure my uphill pace was faster than my downhill. Got passed a lot. Had to stand in the switchback corners and let visibly timid downhill runners go before me. Sucked ass. I mean, this is one of those things I like running and do OK with. And its an advantage. If you are from Mississippi, you don’t have this kind of stuff to run on. Now, I am losing my advantage and my motivation is wandering because of it.

I kept moving though. The race started to turn into a reunion at this point. I saw Bob Sweeney moments later. He gave me some shit about tripping me because JT said to. He looked solid but something was off. He would end up dropping at Twin Lakes due to pain. Saw Lucho coming strong up the hill. Noticed he was sweating hard. He was working. Tim Long looked fresh because he just started his pacing duties. They also gave me some crap about JT. Turns out JT was just minutes ahead and he was planting seeds of negativity on me and passing them through the virtual grapevine. It was hilarious. Saw Brooks lower down and he was working hard. Everyone else took a second to talk but he was focused. I was excited to see if he was going to deliver a stellar performance.

I finally was down and started the 2 mile shuffle up the Winfield road to the aid station. I mostly walked this because everyone around me was. Hoping to bring it back together on the way back down. Winfield looked like a tailgate party. Cars everywhere. JT was just leaving as I was coming in. We stopped and talked for a few seconds. Natalee helping JT in.

JP found me and brought me through as always. Went into the medical tent for my weight. 142 was my initial weigh in. I thought I would be good here. I strategically did not pee over the last hour to build water weight. Hey, it counts. 140! Nice. 135 would have been the cut off. They were happy so I was released and went over and sat down with my crew. They emptied the rocks out of my shoes and got me fresh socks. The others were still damp from the river crossing nearly 3 hours ago. I was there for a few minutes eating random food and talking. Felt like I was ready to go and JP was all geared and ready for his adventure.

JP’s innocence. He knew this race but he didn’t know what he was in for minutes from now!

Split Time: 3:39:26 - I was about 45 minutes behind my target. While this is a long race, it wasn’t making me feel good. I knew it would take work to make that up and I didn’t feel like I was getting stronger or faster.

To Twin Lakes Inbound (61 miles)

We shuffled down the road to Winfield for 2.3 miles until the turnoff for Hope. Just then Kim and Natalee came driving by and waved goodbye to us. We wouldn’t see them for about 4 hours.

Now it was time to back up and over Hope Pass again. However, something changed at Winfield. My energy levels were down a bit. My motivation had wandered a bit because of the slow 1/2 split for the race. From the start, the climb is a hike. Its the steeper side so its very slow steps. Like 1 every 5 seconds. But I kept moving. Went to hands on quads pushing through the steps. Wasn’t flying but stayed steady. JP was encouraging but it was so brutal to see his freshness versus my fatigue. The pacers became the people saying hi and the runners just focused. I wouldn’t respond to anything but he would do all the talking for me on passing or whatever. I was just getting up to treeline when I felt really off. So I said I needed 2 minutes. I sat on a log, looked at JP and said “Oh no”! Turned my head and blew a bucket of red Gatorade all over the ground. Then a small follow-up. That felt better! Probably a bonk but I wasn’t sure. Felt like a high concentration of sugar and I just needed to tone it down.

We started moving again, but I hadn’t come back around totally. My lungs were literally burning now. Felt like I couldn’t get any oxygen. Would find myself gasping at nearly any pace and had to stop and catch my breath. At first, it was every once in a while. Then every few switchbacks. Then every switchback. Then 1/2 through a switchback. We were making progress to the top but I wasn’t moving good at all. The stop didn’t get me recovered. They just got me to avoid passing out. It was a bonk. However, after throwing up I fought eating and just wanted to get to the top then sit and refuel. Probably dumb but that was my plan. JP edged me but didn’t push me. It was classy.

Finally topped out and started the slow descent to Hopeless Aid Station for a break. Again, the hip was tweaked so this was slow. But we made it there and I sat. Got some soup and we probably took 10 minutes there. My longest stop so far. I needed to recover. At that moment, if there was a way to quit I might have considered it. But you are up at 12,000 feet so what are you going to do? There were people all around me hurt less and worse. A bit of triage going on there. Finally, I felt somewhat better and knew we needed to move before my legs tightened up.

I hobbled out of the aid station and started moving downhill. Oddly, my hip felt a bit better at this point. Over the course of the next few minutes, I started getting jovial and talking with JP about non-racing stuff. We talked to passers by. Joked. All was good. JP commented that I had turned the corner and was coming back from the dead. I felt 100 times better. I knew it would work that way but its always painful to experience.

About 1/2 down, I was getting better and holding myself in a position that didn’t aggravated the hip too much. So we moved quicker. I was motivated by the fact that we lost so much time on the ascent. Felt like we had some making up to do. JP took my hydration pack at some point to free me up. Then I took my shirt back off. Felt free and light. Very refreshing. Finished the descent and ran out into the open meadow to the river crossing at some good speed. Felt like I just had gotten started for the day. We got through the water and made quick work getting back into Twin Lakes. We ran into town getting lots of hoots and hollers about looking good. We did look good — but you should have seen us, well me, just an hour ago.

JP and I in the back of the pack coming into Twin Lakes.

We left the other 2 kids back in Longmont with friends but Kayla got to enjoy the time on course!

Donald Beuke and I coming in. Donnie was one of the many folks who I have met over the course of the last year through my blog and Facebook. Many of these folks said hi while on course and it was great having friends in misery while sharing this experience.

The sun had gone down behind the mountains and the air was cooling. It was time for some night gear. We changed to dry shoes, long sleeve shirts, and put our lights on. It would be dark soon. To my surprise, Homie was there and helping my crew with a few things as he is a resident expert at this race. I mentioned our 25 hour time goal and he gave me some words of encouragement and told me what to do but I knew it was game over at this point. The 25 hour goal was going out the window. I just lost too much time on Hope and with the descents. Now it was just about finishing.

Depends on what you read, but they say you have big changes (like 85%+) of finishing if you leave Twin Lakes inbound. Back on Hope Pass, I questioned leaving Twin Lakes but upon arrival, it was very clear to me. I was hurt and I was slow but I could still move. I had absolutely nothing else in the world to do this evening but stay out and run and experience this. Quitting right there would have been the dumbest decision ever given my circumstances. So it was a no-brainer. We are moving on out into the night.

Split Time: 4:26:18 - 25 hour goal was over in my mind after missing the goal pace by 45 minutes.

To Halfmoon II Outbound (70 miles)

JP was on me all day about drinking and eating. So our climb up and out of Twin Lakes was about fueling. I was pretty steady and maybe only took one breather on the climb up while trying to get some more fuel down. While that was encouraging, I could feel my internal accelerator dialing down. The night was refreshing in a peaceful way. Not in a let’s crank it up way. So we kept moving on. At this point, I figured we could just walk it in and finish respectably. No big buckle but the big work was done. Just stay focused and move it in. This is actually a fairly standard strategy at Leadville. Work the first 40 moderately, then get your double Hope Pass crossing done, then just bring it home slow. After being on my feet for longer than I ever had and the impending all nighter, this sounded good to me.

Minutes later, we passed by a runner with no pacer who was hobbling. His walk wasn’t good. He wasn’t going to finish on that. I was actually walking really good. So I didn’t want to mess that up. When we tried to run, my fatigued legs would just blow up quickly. So I finally resigned myself to not running much more if at all through the night. I didn’t’ want to try and get a minute or so up just to fry some muscles and be messed up. So we walked, talked, ate, and just enjoyed the adventure.

My GPS watch (Garmin 310XT) beeped low battery at this point. Been a long time. So I got out my clip and Duracell charger and hooked it on. Charging! Felt kind of cool to be refueling my gear while moving. Also gave me some sort of progress bar to stare at for a while to take my mind off things. It would end up being fully charged by Halfmoon and ready to finish out the race.

Until it got cold. I mean real cold. I don’t know where it came from but some combination of the sun setting and my slower walking pace put me in a cold spell. I was shivering. JP was freezing too. Not good. People get hypothermia on this course every year. We just focused on moving and getting to Halfmoon. They had soup and that should help. Otherwise, we have to wait until we see Natalee again.

We got into the aid station. While sitting there, I turned around to see Chris Labbe. He was in the hurt box. I chatted with him but he is a veteran and I figured he would turn it around. We stayed at Halfmoon probably longer than we should have but given the 25 hour goal was off the books, it felt right to be fueled and comfortable moving forward.

Split Time: 2:36:53

To Fish Hatchery Outbound (76.5 miles)

It was a total hobble getting started again. My quads were stiffening up. Took me about 5 or 10 minutes to get loosened up and moving again. Plus, I was shivering. Trying to move and build body heat was difficult. It was only 3 miles until Pipeline and we might get lucky. I told Natalee she had the option of meeting us there. Was giving her an out in case she needed a break. But at this point, we were starting to telepathically demand her presence. We just kept grinding and eventually hit Pipeline and eventually got to the line of cars sitting there. A good number of folks were out. We walked down the line and I saw Natalee standing there wrapped in a blanket talking with some other folks. We were so glad to see her. We went over to the H2, opened the back and started going through the clothes bags. I jumped in the driver’s seat and got naked and layered back up with tights, shorts, shirt, long sleeve shirt. I got out and threw on my North Face 550 down jacket that I brought for Natalee to wear in case she was cold. I put on a hat and zipped up. JP layered up too. We weren’t warm yet but should be very shortly. I grabbed a large can of Red Bull and started down the road by myself. Looked and felt very non-runner at this point.

The road to Fish Hatchery should have been run but I had nothing to give it. I was cold, heavily dressed, and my legs were tight. If I could have run, I would have only shaved 3-4 minutes off my walking pace I suppose and over 3 miles that isn’t a huge amount of time. So we walked. Got passed in there but just a couple people but never stressed. They were running a bit but I saw a few of them at the next aid station so they didn’t make big gains with the extra exertion. For the most part, the line of headlamps behind us was holding pace if not slowing.

We saw Natalee just outside Fish Hatchery. We had no needs so we just said hi and moved on. Kind of a waste of a crew pit stop but we were good. Went up and checked in and they weighed me again. I was 142. 142 was my starting weight. Had a lot of clothes on so that added to it but I wasn’t sweating either.

Split Time: 2:39:07

To May Queen Outbound (86.5 miles)

There was some relief leaving Fish knowing that there was only 1 aid station to go. However, the final big remaining climb of the day was the next objective. We had to go up and over Powerline to Sugarloaf Pass with over 75 miles on us. However, something else was more interesting. On the road into Fish Hatchery and the road leading out of it, the ball of my right foot started to hurt. It was subtle. It has happened before during longer outings. Wasn’t quite sure what to make of it and there wasn’t anything I knew to do about it. So we just kept on. I found myself walking on the outside of my feet a bit more as time went on. I just pushed on knowing that we would get off the road shortly and a change of surface would hopefully do the trick.

As we turned onto the Powerline, you could look up and see a dozen or so headlamps making their way to the top. I was committed to get up this thing in better shape then that previous Hope Pass bonk crap. So I found a good pace that worked for me and just moved up that thing. I never stopped. Passed a few people. Got passed a few times. But it was solid movement and I was gritting it out. I started getting hot so I would drop my coat off my shoulders and then bring it back up. I had a water bottle in my pocket and I was still trying to consume as I could. I felt solid and knew this would be over soon…well, not really.

It was about 90 minutes to the top of Powerline and then we had to go about another 30 minutes to the top of Sugarloaf as I recall. Sugarloaf has lots of false summits. We would turn and think we were there only to see more headlamps way off in the distance. Damn. Kept going and finally got it.

The ascent wasn’t so bad on my feet it seemed. However, I think all the pressure made the problem worse. As we started to descend, my walking was impaired. Basically, I needed flat sandy ground and I couldn’t find much of it. The road is littered with rocks and stepping on them with the ball of my foot was agony. So I zig zagged the road all the way down finding the best line and trying to keep my feet on something flat. Some folks were jogging this down and I would have loved to have done that. Would have been a nice time boost but not tonight.

We got out on to Hagerman Pass road and I felt a sensation that I had not since a long time ago. I had to pee! Yeah. I had been way behind on it but just couldn’t get it going. Finally. Looked at the color with my headlamp and it was clear. I was expecting solid dark yellow. I was encouraged.

We made our way down on to the Colorado Trail. This wasn’t good. Rocks everywhere. Lots of bigger rocks all along the trail. I was trying to push it to May Queen before addressing the feet but I felt like I needed to take 5 and see what I had. So we found a rock and stopped. I sat and pulled off my right shoe and sock. The ball of my foot had a large blister across it. Not a thin “pop with a needle” blister. This was a deep painful pocket. I pulled out some moleskin and applied it to the sides of the blister to develop a supportive platform so the blister wouldn’t be the first thing smashing into the sole of my shoe. I put my shoe back on gently and we moved out.

It wasn’t much better but maybe a bit. But I knew what I was dealing with now. I found a random branch and fashioned it into a walking stick to take some weight off the foot. Not sure it helped either but it gave me some sort of boost. We made our way through this 2 mile section of forest and eventually popped out at the campground. We had about a 1/2 mile on the road until the aid station.

Looking up at the sky at this point was amazing. There were a billions stars out. It was so clear. You just don’t see sights like that from the city. JP and I called it out to each other.

As we neared May Queen, JP started saying his feet hurt too. He had signed up for 50 miles tonight but at this point, we had gone the time we expected to be on course together, just not the distance. We were 13.5 from the finish and if that 25 hour goal were still in place, we would be close to down about now. He has events coming up himself and started worrying about his own feet. He knew I was motivated to finish. I just had to make it to town. So we made a gametime decision. How about JP gets to drop here and we sub Natalee in as pacer? She had no clue this was going to happen so we will just see how it plays out.

By now, my left foot had developed the same blister issue. It hurt just as bad. I contemplated medical attention at May Queen but that was going to eat time and I didn’t think it would help. I was moving so I will take the condition I have versus the one I don’t know how I will operate in.

We found Natalee just outside of the May Queen tent sitting on a box zoned out. I went into the tent and got some soup and sat for 5 minutes while the volunteers filled my bottle and I got warmer. Then I came out and found Natalee and JP discussing tactics to the finish. They were swapping gear, getting Natalee dressed, etc. She went through my clothes bag and got some more layers on. I gave JP a hug and thanked him for his service. With that, JP took the gear to the truck to drive back to Leadville while Natalee and I left May Queen under a dark starry sky with one mission. Make it to Leadville before 10 AM!

Split Time: 4:09:34 - 39 minutes off 25 hour goal pace for this section. Still had those splits in my mind even though we weren’t on the overall pace. With the feet condition, this was probably about right but if I could have run a bit, it still would have been tight. Thinking that pace chart is bullshit now.

Finish (100 miles)

JP and I had gotten pretty silent just due to the amount of time out there. So getting Natalee out there was fun because we had a new set of things to talk about. She filled me in on how my friends looked at various point and other stories about busy aid stations and more. We motored through the May Queen campground and got on the Turquoise Lake singletrack that would be our home for the next 8ish miles. I let Natalee lead and I just followed in her footsteps. Its a lot of ups and downs. The pain in my foot was worse but had kind of dulled out. Or I was just getting used to it. It didn’t matter at this point. I had no plans for using my feet anytime soon after this race so I was going to grind them down and deal with it.

A few minutes later, Natalee’s phone rang. I hadn’t seen or heard a cell phone in 24 hours. It was like a magic device! It was Kim. She was at May Queen and had bumped into JP and got the low down. I was sort of sad that she did but also worried that she was up early. Wanted her to sleep in and see us at the finish. But with the change in line up, this might actually be a really good thing. We told her to meet us at the Tabor Boat Ramp instead. It was a couple miles ahead of us. However, Kim was having trouble locating it. A crazy phone conversation with directions occurred. I just kept moving while they tried to coordinate.

Finally, as we neared the boat ramp, the sun rose. My 2nd sunrise on this adventure. While it would have been cool to finish before it did, it was just as cool to see it happen for a 2nd time. Yeah, I have been out here that long. We came into the boat ramp and couldn’t find Kim. She had just took Kayla back up to the parking lot. Natalee scampered ahead looking for her while I was walking along. I heard Kim’s diesel engine up above so I squatted down and could see her car up through the trees. I walked up the hillside through the brush and found her in the car. She got out and gave me a kiss and said, “how are you?”. I hadn’t seen her since Twin Lakes the evening prior. I had been out all night long but things were just getting interesting.

I started tearing off my hat and coat and iPod. I just laid it all in a pile on the ground then told her what was going on: My feet are shot but I am going to push on. We are running against the clock. I am nervous about the 30 hour cutoff so I need to step it up. Take my clothes and see if you can follow us along to the finish. Natalee ran ahead but I will find her and send her back. I love you. See you soon.

She cheered me on and I got back on the trail. With less layers on I felt light so I tried to run. I got about 100 feet and I started wheezing. My breathing was impacted. That Hope Pass ascent fucked up my lungs. I felt it then and it was back when I tried to hard now. So resigned myself to walking but it was the hardest fastest powerwalk I had in me. I found Natalee and told her where Kim was. She ran back to her and I hoped to see Natalee again. She said she would catch me and I hoped she would. I motored around the lake constantly doing pace math in my head. Sometimes the calculation had me finishing an hour before cutoff while the next time it was a week from Thursday.

Natalee came charging back up on me before we got to the Matchless Boat Ramp. She was moving good and could roam around, take pictures, and then come back to me. It was nice to have that energy on board. She originally was going to pace the last mile in but this opportunity that developed was much more fitting. She probably didn’t intend on running (well, walking) a 1/2 marathon in Leadville this morning after staying up for 24 consecutive hours but that was what duty called for. There is your endurance right there, people! I may have been able to do it solo but this was much better. I enjoyed sharing those final hours with her. It worked out perfectly.

We popped out on Turquoise Lake Road. This was a busy spectator spot in the morning when we were outbound. Now it just had 4-5 cars and Kim was one of them. She snapped photos and cheered us on as we cut over and down the steep slope.

We kept moving well and finally arrived at the Sugarloaf’n intersection where Kim was hollering at us like a rabid fan. She was telling us we were good on time and we were going to get this. Everyone around us was walking too so it started to set in that we really were not in jeopardy and I could relax just a little and focus on the work and not the lack of result. Less stress.

We turned onto the dirt road that leads to the Boulevard and kept motoring. I was not looking forward to the Boulevard given the prior training run. It was going to be a long 3 mile uphill journey on a dark road. However, it wasn’t anything like that in the daylight. We found some lines with less rock and we were powerhiking hard. I was just a notch below wheezing level and holding it. We were passing clusters of people at this point. Some looking worse than I. I was strong and just pushing through it. It was completely psycho to look down at my GPS and see 97.XX then 98.XX on the watch. Holy crap. I might not ever see those kinds of totals again. Amazing.

We heard more cheers and I knew we were almost there. The road curves and Kim was there again standing on a big dirt mound taking our photos. I had my own roving cheering and photo squad. Pretty nice!

We hit the pavement and I said I wanted to run until 6th Street. It was only a few hundred feet but it hurt to pound on the blisters. We turned onto 6th Street. Another hill! This is the final ascent. Just a normal in-town road but it goes up and you can’t see the finish line until the top. We marched up it and the random spectators began to really start cheering me on. We topped out and could finally see the finish line. I looked at my watch and knew we were going to be sub-29 and that was a decent enough mark. I had several minutes to make it but I gave it one last push. We jogged down the hill and Natalee was trying to keep me fired up. I was there but it was an exciting moment. I kept pushing and all of a sudden my right foot popped and liquid gushed out of my shoe. Popped that pad. Oh my god that hurt. I didn’t miss a step but returned to the fast walk.

There were only a couple of intersections to go and I was passing people. My walk was faster than theirs. Felt good to still be gaining but brutal to pass someone with 100 feet to go. However, I don’t think anyone cares. The finish line was the prize and it was so close.

So without a single tear in my eye, I pushed one more time and ran up on to the red carpet and broke through the tape at 28:53. I was done. No emotion.

I got my medal from Merilee and limped over to Kim and Natalee. Drank some water and chatted about some finishing stories.

JT showed up minutes later and congratulated me on my first 100 mile finish. I inquired about his race and was proud of him for hitting his marks and cracking 24 hours. He won the duel fair and square. I was the dumb one that picked the fight with a multi-time 100 miler finisher. Surely, we will go at it again some day. He gave me some dirt on Brooks, Tony, and other finishers and friends. I felt like I had been out of touch for so long. No clue what was happening on course except in my little world.

Kim handed me my Crocs and I put them on. They actually hurt more but I couldn’t bear to put the other shoes back on. I was walking around a bit but I was on the outside of my feet. Felt like the worst looking of all the finishers. The feet condition definitely put a damper on my post race desires. As I sat, a few people came over and congratulated me on sticking it out.

Natalee went and got the truck and picked me up on the corner and we headed back to the hotel. I wasn’t sleepy tired or exhausted. My feet just hurt and I was just glad to be off of them after nearly 29 hours. Holy shit.

Split Time: 3:57:45 - Again the 25 hour split was 3:30 for this. Got after it with literally no running here. Any running and I could have hit that split. Probably could have made time just a bit too. But felt OK with it given the condition.

Continue reading "Leadville Trail 100 2010"

The Leadville Trail 100 Is Under Way!

The run has started and I am on my way to Winfield and back covering 100 miles in (hopefully) less than 25 hours.

The best place for updates is on my Twitter page at http://twitter.com/BrandonFuller. The official race feed is at http://twitter.com/LTrail100. You can also view other tweets from people about the race by searching for #lt100 or just follow this link.

For reference, here is the 25 hour plan I posted earlier. See if I stay ahead of it!

	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

Feel free to comment below. Will try and have the crew check it through the day and pass them on to me as I continue onward!

Race report to follow of course. But give me some time. Might be a long one.

Run, Brandon, Run!!!

Leadville Race Briefing and Medical Check-in

Decent nights sleep. Up at 7 AM to head over and check-in. Medical was online this year so it sped the process for those of us that did it. Got my bag, shirt, but most importantly my band. This wrist band is my proof of entry and the way that I would exit the race. When they cut your band, you are out. So you have to finish to keep it! Weight was 142. Up 4 pounds from my low of the summer. Likely taper and reduced running over the last few weeks. I get to lose 5% of my weight before I have to stop. That’s 7 pounds or 135 total I figure. So I better keep on my fluids.

Met up with all my homeboys. Saw Lucho first thing. Met Shad in person finally. JT pulled into town. Brooks was hanging too. We went over to the Golden Burro and had some breakfast. Most folks ate bacon with salt. JT had his usual morning breakfast shake.

Had a good time chatting with everyone before the briefing. Got a nice seat up high for a view of the action. Ken gave us a 90 minute info and pep talk. Various accomplishments were called out including past champs, so Anton got a nod. Chris McDougall of Born to Run book fame was in the house and got a round of applause too.

After leaving the assembly, we heard rumors of Hollywood stars in the mix. Turns out Jake Gyllenhaal of gay cowboy fame was up in the rafters in a big beard and hat. We haven’t figured out his role in this yet but the lowdown seems to be a Born to Run movie in the works. They aren’t filming the movie right now. I am thinking they are doing some scouting and maybe some “day in the life” stuff so they can then portray it in a film? Seems silly since its such an event in itself and doesn’t need to be acted in my opinion. Anyway, here is a back shot of him. He is in the hat with backpack. I wussed out on getting a picture. Wasn’t sure I cared enough.

My crew is in place! We spent some time strategizing this afternoon on some final details. I have no worries that these guys will execute like the machine I hope to be myself.

Pinned up my big. Not much more to do. Kim just arrived. Going to eat some and then try and be lazy for a few hours before getting some sleep. Kind of a big day tomorrow.

Race starts at 4 AM Mountain Time. Let’s do this.

Team Shart Has Arrived

Arrived to cold and wet weather. Its not great up here. I like me some heat. Saturday’s forecast looks much better so hopefully things dry up. I took Natalee on a driving tour of the entire course minus Winfield. Had to leave something to the imagination. We prepped and planned and worked out a few small tweaks based on the traffic flows allowed for crews. Everything is falling into place.

Mid-afternoon, I got ping from Brooks Williams, who is kind of a big deal…so he says. Natalee and I met him over at the Scarlett Tavern and had 2 rounds of 2 for a buck PBRs. Brownie would have been proud. Many stories to share but we ended up sizing each other up and preparing for the battle to come!

Then over to Tennessee Pass Cafe for some slow dinner. Food is always good but takes its time. While eating, various other runner folks showed up and joined our party. Sean Kute who is going for a Leadman and Andy Henshaw of various ultrarunning fame. Good to meet them. Everyone got their carb fill and we headed out. Natalee and I back to the warm hotel. Those guys out to setup a tent in the rain. Ah.

Just outside, this curiously parked car had a bumper sticker that had people talking.

Time for bed shortly. Early wake up call to go to medical checkin then breakfast at the Golden Burro with my arch-rival.

Your Leadville Trail 100 Predictions

Figured it would be more fun to see how the trending is going before the race!

Final Preparation

All those little piles are bagged and tagged with ETA, splits and contents. Crew grabs the bag, gives me the small baggies inside, and administers the rest. Military.

The rest of the gear. Bag of clothes. Bag of supplies. Bag of food.

Run. One more time here at home.

Hair cut. It says…I pity the fool!

This is the test of flesh and soul…

The Race Plan

I have covered taper, aid stations, hydration, buckles, competition, communications, nutrition, crew, pacer, recovery, gear and training plans. Only one thing left. The actual race plan!

Remember when I warned you that this was going to take a while and you would be sick of me talking about this race? Yep. We are almost there. This is the last post on my plans for the race.

What a journey. Went from not a runner to me finishing me first ever race in 2005. Now, we leave for Leadville tomorrow.

The race plan? Yeah, more like the mental plan. Unfortunately, it wavers a lot day to day. Never done this type of distance before. I have to run twice as far as my longest run ever. So I guess the goals are the best way to look at this.

Just finish! That was always the baseline. Get through this and be a Leadville Finisher. I have full confidence in that. As long as I don’t break some load bearing bone or just get wicked sick or weather gets evil, I feel like completing this is in my reach. Its not going to be easy but I think I have a formula that will work for getting me to to the finish. Worst case, I have a good first half then walk it in.

Moving up the ladder, the 25 hour goal is so I can be in the big buckle club. I have gotten comfortable with the fact that I think this will happen. I know other folks that have the buckle who I feel like I am on par with. I have met other non-big buckle finishers who I can out race on other stuff. If the day goes anywhere according to plan, this should be a reality. There will be some tough spots but I feel like I can deal and this race is so long that I will have plenty of time to recover from a few mistakes, if any. I just have to execute the plan and stay on track. I have tended to slow down in the crux of ultras before but there is so much on the line here that I hope staying fired up will be easy.

That being said, my real focus tends to gravitate towards that “what if”. What if I ran smart but as hard as possible in the last half? What if I told myself I never had to run again if I left it all out there? (That mental game works for me) What if I am just on? This is the big deal. I have thought about it a lot. What is possible for me? Part of this conundrum stems from Boston where I was so fixated on 2:59 that I ran 2:59. I am 99% happy with that result but part me knew I held back. I don’t think I want to leave Leadville after finishing 24:59 and knowing I held back. But I don’t want to blow it early either. Everyone…everyone….says don’t go out too fast.

The 25 hour pace plan put me into Winfield (1/2 way) at 10 hours and 30 minutes into the race. Looking at finishers from last year, that seems about right for me. The top 40 finishers all came in under but close to that mark. You have to look at top 25 finishers before you start thinking about 10 hours or less. So that 1/2 way time seems solid. That means I should about stay on splits all morning and maybe pick up a few minutes here or there. Leaving Winfield on my return no later than 2:30 PM.

The race back to Leadville seems to be the true game. If I hit 10:30 outbound, that gives me 14:30 to get back to Leadville for sub-25. If I took it easy to run 10:30, how can it take 14:30 if I push hard? Well, having 50 miles under my belt already is the variable there. Plus, its going to be dark for 1/2 of the journey. I will have my trusty pacer and crew to see me through and and I am genuinely excited about this. Ready to be tested.

Here are some quick estimates just to put things together in my head for what is realistic. Projected times are kept at 15 minute increments for ease of calculation.

Segment	25 Hour Goal Split	Projected Split	Notes
Start - WF	10:30	10:30	Maybe cut 0:15 or so but more might be pushing the pace too hard.
WF - TL	3:15	3:00	Hope itself (no WF) was about 2:30 in camp during a double crossing. Was tired. Don’t expect a big cut here.
TL - HM	2:45	2:30	Guessing. Never ran this direction. 1:48 in camp the other way. More uphill this direction.
HM - FH	1:30	1:15	Guessing. Never ran this direction. 1:15 in camp the other way but walked some. More downhill this direction.
FH - MQ	3:30	2:30	Brownie and I covered this in 2:00ish at the night run with stop and go.
MQ - Finish	3:30	3:00	Brownie and I covered this in 2:30ish with a good run lakeside but then walked every step of the Boulevard.

So bust out the calculators. 10:30 + 3:00 + 2:30 + 1:15 + 2:30 + 3:00 = 22:45:00

With 32 responses so far in the poll, the average Brandon finishing time prediction is: 24:27:08

Not much to say. Looks like the predictions show I may have a good day. But I gotta go run it now and see.

Thanks for sticking with these posts. I felt like it would be a fun way to go over the various details that I learned about, planned and put together over the last few years in dreaming of this race. Got plenty of comments about being “too anal” and “stressing out” over this stuff. Probably some truth to that. But I planned and now I am done. Time to have fun and race. Will let the day play out. I have strategies and options that I have thought through for race day. Some racers write manuals for their crew. I didn’t want to keep it a secret so I blogged it all for them and others benefit. That’s what its always been about for me. Telling my story but later getting the dividends when I meet random folks who say “I read your blog on that and I am racing/raced it”. Pretty exciting for me when that happens.

I will leave you with one last thing then we are done with the planning and the party begins. One day last winter, I met up with Tony on Green Mountain, we were going back down and I asked for the wisdom on how to complete this race since its partly him who inspired me to undertake this thing in the first place. He is a 2 time winner of course. That fall in his LT100 race report he said, “On a good day, running 100 miles is fucking hard. Period. On a bad day, it’s borderline impossible.” I probed on this statement and asked how do you or I overcome that. He told me simply that you go into the race with your mind set on this statement:

Nothing is going to stop me from finishing this race.

Touché! See you in Leadville.

The Training Plan

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

I have been talking about all the other stuff that goes into this race but at the end of the day, you actually have to run the damn thing. So that means training for it. I am not going to go back over the details of everything. If you have followed my blog, you have seen all that run by run, week by week. Just thought I would try to summarize some of the preparation totals and how I got here.

Going into the year, I knew I would need to just run a lot more miles than ever before to prepare for this race. By putting Boston on the calendar, I got running earlier in the year than ever before. I was logging good consistent miles each week. Hitting the hills in the snow for the first time ever. By the time spring came and people were getting back outside, I felt like I was really into my season. That was pretty great. I never felt behind all year.

Post-Boston, I tried to kick up the raw mileage as much as possible. Because of the time requirements, I mostly stayed low and around home but put in my biggest weeks ever. I knew this was key for me because once summer rolled around, there would be a lot of interruptions to the cycle. I needed to take advantage of this final big block of time. It was far enough out that I knew I would be able to absorb all of the intensity of the training before the big day.

Summer came and vacations started. Racing again in the SJS50 was so debatable. I am glad I did it but I still am not sure if it was the best thing for Leadville. Might have been better off with more solid training miles instead of the taper/recovery cycle. But I left those months feeling like I had gotten past the point where I had to worry about finishing Leadville. I just need to focus on sharpening up for time now.

Over the last month, its been harder to run. Motivation has wandered at times. Let’s race already. Mileage has come down. It wasn’t a taper per-say but I just felt tired and a bit sluggish. It was hot out. Blah blah blah. I might have lost some small bit of fitness as my graphs show but I hope it gets me to feel more rested and relaxed on race day. The key is not going to be running fast, its going to be running long. I think rest has a lot to do with that. Plus, my hip started bugging me and I didn’t want an injury so I backed off with confidence in what I had put down so far.

So to date, I have covered 2,140.91 miles this year. In 2009, I covered 2,232 miles for the entire year. I will surpass that total somewhere during the LT100 and its only August! Garmin vertical (which is always off) says I have done 213,378 this year. All that in 342:42:55 hours, or 14 days and change. That’s a lot of time moving my feet.

Oh, and a graph. I haven’t posted one in quite a while. I know you miss them. But I have been keeping it up to date. I don’t study it though. Just a reference. The thing I tried to monitor was how my fitness was hanging in there. Ultra training is a weird thing for these graphs. They are based on HR intensity mostly — higher HR is better. You get more points for harder HR workouts. A 30 minute all out around the block is going to get you more daily points than a 3 hour workout where you stayed in your easy/recovery zone. So I don’t think this format accurately portrays fitness for a 100 mile run or the training involved, which is a lot of slow days. That was the lesson learned here.

My CTL and ATL have come down but that is to be expected but it was a bit more than I thought I would have because I started nursing that hip a bit before the taper started. My TSB is the highest of the year, as I wanted it to be. So the end result is that I am pretty fit and pretty rested. I probably just don’t feel fast…but I haven’t done speedwork in months. Not going to stress about it.

So that’s how I got here to the start line in Leadville. Let’s see if its enough to bring home a buckle!

The Gear Plan

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

Shoes

Its gonna be the La Sportiva Crosslites until I can’t take it anymore. They have performed well in training and in races this season. But I do get a bit of heel wear late in the day from a lot of climbing. Will have moleskin on hand. Thinking that I will change shoes at Twin Lakes inbound no matter what. That’s after 61 miles. I will likely transition into road shoes at that point for comfort. Nike LunarGlides. Nice and comfy ride. Should get me feeling fresh. Debating changing into the New Balance MT100s for the final stretch just so I feel light on my feet up that long Boulevard. Will make the call on race day. The summary I guess is that Crosslites are going out to start and I will have other shoes on hand for late race changes.

Probably have a few pairs of socks on hand as well in case I feel like changing those out. At SJS50, sock changes were really good with the water. But Leadville is a much drier course. Although, it seems like its just raw dirt build-up that nice to drop socks from time to time.

Clothes

Its looking to be a cool day up there so I am hoping to only go with my RaceReady shorts. This provides ample pocket space for me to stash lots of stuff close. I do good with these because I have easy access to my stuff. Hoping to be shirtless for most of the day light hours. Probably not first thing in the morning because its chilly. Will have to put one on when I wear my hydration pack because it rubs. I was cut up for months after a shirtless test with the pack on the Boulder traverse. Probably have a couple of changes of clothes on hand in case. Long sleeves for the night time hours. Super light jacket for Hope Pass…if they make us carry one.

Gloves

Might start with them. Might finish with them. Did OK up there a few weeks ago but fingers started getting cold in the late night when I was wet.

Hat

Only when I have my headphones on. I use it as the holder.

Watch

I had planned to swap between my Garmin 305 and 405 throughout the race. The battery life on both is dwindling so its a logistics issue. But I ran into some easy money last week and sprung for a new Garmin 310XT which lasts 20 hours. That means I get can through most of the race on it. Its not here yet but hope it shows up by race day. I have during race charging strategy for getting me those last few hours with it thanks to Duracell.

Lighting

Running at night? You need light! Got my new Petzel Tikka XP2 headlamp. Worked well at the night run. I also put an old one around my waist like a belt. Seemed to help a bit too but was adjusting it a lot by the end of the night. Think its going to wear on me with the tightness. Not sure if I will go with it.

Music

Won’t run with music the entire day. Want to soak some of the atmosphere and then use the music to get me out of any downward trends in energy levels. Will have 2 iPod Shuffles on hand. Crew will have them and I will pick them up as needed. Thinking of using 1 of them from Fish to Twin Lakes. Then the other sometime in the evening…especially if I can’t get JP to stop yapping at me.

Salt Pills

Probably should have had these in the nutrition list but forgot since they aren’t calorie counted. Will be carrying S-Caps and trying to get them down throughout the day. Will be monitoring my sweating and trying to balance. Its 1 per hour in moderate heat. 2 per hour if you are really sweating.

What’s missing?

Camera? Nope. Crew can help me there plus there are a lot of independent photographers out on course and I hope to borrow/buy a picture or two from them. Video? Nope. I may have JP carry the Flip for a segment later in the day to get some shots. Its the lightest device so its really no burden.

All set?