Leadville Race Report From Jan

A lovely report from Jan:

Rick and I decided to check out Leadville this summer, and ran their "Heavy Half Marathon", a 15.4 mile trail race from town (10,000') up to Mosquito Pass (13,200') and back to town, on July 3rd. The route follows old mining roads, and rises quickly just to lose 300 feet in the middle and then goes back up to the pass.

We have run a lot of races feeling "just OK," but for whatever reason, we were both "on" at this event. Was it the beer the night before? We suffered going up to the pass, but almost everyone else appeared to be suffering more.

I was the third female at the pass, not even my age group, but OVERALL, which has never happened before, and I will never forget that feeling and everyone yelling at me. I had all pistons on overdrive on the downhill, but got overtaken and ended up 7th female overall. But I got a nice gold panning pan for my AG win. Rick got 4th in his AG-- which is his preferred place-- always one away from medaling.

The sky was Colorado blue, flowers were everywhere, the mine tailings interesting, and the mountains had remnants of snow. How sweet it was.

Jan