Leadville 100 2011 – Pre race thoughts

As most of you know, I DNFd at my 1^st attempt of the Leadville 100 last year.  My 2^nd attempt is 3 days away.  I haven’t started getting nervous yet; that won’t happen until Friday.  Last year I never really got to the mental place that I needed to be prior to the race.  My mind was constantly occupied with various thoughts: “am I ready?”, “can I really do this?”, “what will the weather be like?”, “what will the pain be like?”, etc… Some of those questions still remain unanswered going into the race this year but I’ve accepted the fact that they can only be answered once the starting gun goes off.  My life is in a totally different place than it was at the same time last year.  I quit my corporate job and am getting my own business off the ground.  I’ve finished grad. school and will be teaching classes this semester.  Last year certain aspects of my life felt as if they we’re in chaos which made focusing on running 100 miles extremely difficult.  One year later I’m happy with the direction that every part of my life is headed which makes getting focused much much easier.  Last year we rented a house for three days (at an exorbitant rate) and I spent my time there watching movies and never really letting my mind get quiet.  This year, rather than getting a rental, I’ve been camping in the woods outside of Leadville by myself for the past couple of days.  It’s given me a chance to completely relax and quiet my mind.  This year, for me, it’s more mentally about getting to a sort of Zen place.  Forgetting about everything else in my life for a few days and focusing on absolutely nothing but finishing the race.  I’m there.

I’ve also had very successful training outings on Hope Pass which has boosted my confidence (last year Hope completely defeated me during training).  My pacer from last year (which never got to see the trail due to me dropping at Winfield), Nick Dale, will be running the race on his own this year so I’m excited for that.  I have two of the closest, and most athletic, people in my life lined up to pace me most of the way to the finish line which takes a lot of worry out of the picture.  And, the experience of running the race last year (albeit not finishing) helped me to understand the level of mental commitment that’s required to complete such an undertaking.  This year, I feel like I’m mentally ready.

I’m mentally ready.  Am I physically ready?  That’s yet to be determined.  I feel under-prepared but I think everyone probably feels that way prior to the start.  There’s always more that you could have done.  More miles that could have been run.  More mountains that could have been climbed.  I will say that I feel less under-prepared this year than I did last year—that’s a positive.  I’ve totally changed my running form to more of a mid-foot strike which has made me more efficient and increased my speed (not that I’m blazingly fast my any means).  My hiking is incredibly better than it was last year.  Last year my stomach was really what did me in and this year I’ve trained with more of a focus on fuel.  I think I’ve found a combination of foods that my stomach will agree with but anything can happen during an ultra.  More important than training with certain foods is that I’ve had training runs where my stomach completely turned and I’ve gone through the physical and mental process of taking all the necessary actions to correct the issue. So, even if my stomach does fight me on Saturday (and Sunday), I am confident that I can make it to the other side and get everything back on track.  This year, much more than last year, I feel as though I’m physically prepared and we’ll find out for sure on Saturday.

Last year I paced myself far too slowly in the beginning, saving my legs for the 2nd half of the race (that never happened for me).  I ended up battling the cut-off in Winfield; that, combined with a bad stomach was a DNF combination.  This year there will be no saving my legs.  I'm going to go 100% from the beginning to make sure I have enough time to tackle any issues that should arise.  My legs might blow up and put an end to my day but I'd much rather go out knowing I gave everything I could than getting stopped by the clock.

During the pre-race meeting last year Ken said that when people ask you if you finished the Leadville 100 you can either say “yes” or you can spend the next hour telling them why you didn’t finish.  Believe me, that’s completely true and this year I want to be able to say “yes”.  Hopefully the next time I post, I’ll be a Leadville 100 finisher.  If not, at least I’ll have that much more experience heading into next year.

A ‘thank you’ in advance to all of my crew, pacers, and everyone coming up to show their support.

My crew will be posting live updates during the race to my Twitter account (and Facebook page for those of you that are friends with me on there):

http://twitter.com/NicholasBLee

HERE is a link to a good course map with all of the checkpoints

6th & Harrison. The site of the start and (hopefully) finish