This year’s race was much different than years past. Massive amounts of snow in the high country lead to a reroute and a course that had about half of the normal elevation gain on a mix of pavement and fire roads. Not my favorite type of running by any means. If I had known this going into the race I wouldn’t have been nearly as excited or confident. It was probably a blessing in disguise that my hopes were slowly crushed (along with my legs) as we made it to mile 10 without having seen a lick of singletrack. Although I was disappointed with the course for my own selfish reasons, I know the race directors did all they could to still hold a great race with the unseasonably snowy conditions. Everything else was flawlessly smooth and had the traditional Leadville atmosphere that keeps people coming back year after year.
The race started off quick….once the pack of about 1,600 runners spread out a little down the main stretch of road. Expecting to hit singletrack after the first mile or so, I moved up to a position where I wouldn’t have to fight to pass 100 people on narrow trails. As you know by now, this this singletrack never came and we spent the first 6 miles making our way up a gradual climb of just over 1000ft on fire roads. One detriment to training almost exclusively on trails is that you don’t experience many gradual, non-technical climbs on roads. I have always known that this was a weak area of mine but, seeing as I am almost always training for highly technical races that involve steep climbs and descents, I never cared much. This course really shined a spotlight on this weakness as it kept up roughly the same grade the whole way. By the time we reached the top of the first climb at mile 6, I could tell that I wouldn’t be able to make up much time on the climbs for the rest of the race if they were going to be like this. So, my plan was to attack the downhills in the later parts of the race.
Not wanting to push too hard early in the race, I simply held my place on the downhill and averaged around a 6:30 pace. This was fairly slow given the wide open, perfectly buffed out road with a perfect grade for descending fast. After levelling out for about half a mile, the road began another gradual climb for the next two miles. We descended the same way as the course consisted of three large out-and-backs. Around mile 13, I started to feel a slight cramp in my chest that I attributed to running a “fast” pace relative to what I’m used to training at. After trying to fight it for the next 3 miles of rolling roads, I accepted that it was only getting worse and reluctantly slowed my pace slightly. While I am slightly against popping salt tabs consistently throughout a race like its candy, there is research to show that AFTER the onset of a cramp, salt will induce a reaction that relaxes the tightened muscles. So, down the hatch and onward. With little relief, we topped out at the high point of the race around 11,700ft and began the long descent to the finish.
Throughout the race, it was impossible to ignore the insane amount of support for the Berkeley Park Running Company race team. There were at least 12 people racing either the marathon or the half marathon repping the Berkeley Park jersey. Since there was about 16 miles of two-way traffic due to the out-and-backs, there was constant encouragement (and the occasional empathetic profanity) shared between the team. Even after the race I had people come up to me and ask what Berkeley Park was and why they heard it being yelled so often throughout the race.
Almost the entire last 6 miles of the race were downhill and I had initially planned to take advantage of that. However, with my chest still seized up, it was hard to keep a strong pace up. I settled into a rhythm that was somewhat comfortable and just cruised. For about 4 of the last 6 miles I ran with Kara Goucher, which was a pretty cool experience to run with a former Olympic medalist. She was in a pretty dark place so I did what I could to talk her through the remaining miles. We ended up splitting on one of the last climbs but I was glad to see she pulled it together and didn’t finish too far behind me.
This race really highlighted the importance of race specificity in training. Your training should reflect your goal race as closely as possible in terms of elevation gain, technicality, pace, etc. Since I am typically training for bigger mountain races, such as the Audi Power of Four 50k that I have planned for July or the Bear 100 that I have in September, I don’t have the top-end speed needed to be competitive in faster, more runnable races. While training for more mountainous ultras doesn’t require nearly as much running at these higher paces when compared to a road marathon, it doesn’t mean that more specific speedwork would be harmful in my training program…especially now that I realize just how lacking I am in that area. Speedwork will translate into better running economy, which further translates into less energy expended to go a given pace over a given distance…such as 100 miles. For now, I’m going to put this race behind me and look forward to the Power of Four coming up in just a few weeks!
This race did have one small consolation prize……..I won a coin and an automatic entry into the 2020 Leadville 100! I couldn’t be more stoked for the opportunity.
