Leadville 100 Race Report by Mark Odendahl

Posted with Permission from Mark Odendahl

Friends and Family,

As you know, I completed the Leadville Trail 100 mountain bike race this past weekend. I have been asked by several people to report on how it went, so here goes. I apologize in advance for the length!

The LT100 is a 100+ mile long (more on that in a minute) bike race that starts at an altitude of 10,200 ft above sea level in downtown Leadville, Colorado and travels out into the Rockies and up to 12,544 ft. There are more than 14,000 feet of total elevation gain on a course that is about 80% rough fire road/double track, 18% pavement and 2% singletrack. It has 3 huge climbs and about a dozen smaller ones. Entry is by lottery – 1500 get in and reportedly over 10,000 entered the lottery to try after last year’s movie. What makes it special is that the entire field starts at once on the out and back course – Tour de France pros and amateurs alike all race together.

The project started last October when a movie about the 2009 race opened in theaters (link to the movie trailer is at the bottom). I went to see the premier with another cyclist freak from REI, Anna, and said “I’m going to do that next year!”, thinking there’s no way I would get in . In January, I filled out my lottery form and sent it in to the LT100 office. On the evening of February 9th, Shelli and I were sitting on the couch and I was checking my e-mail and started screaming: I had just recieved the note saying that I got in! My next thought was: “oh crap! what do I do now?”. I had been looking for some kind of long term goal and now had one. In the LT100, you have to finish in under 13 hours to be considered a finisher, under 12 to get the coveted silver belt buckle, finish in under 9 and you get the special “big buckle”. Not knowing if it was possible or not, I set the goal of sub-9 hours, though didn’t tell anybody that but Shelli and my coaches. There is always a 25%-35% attrition rate of people that go over 13 hours, get pulled, crash or give up.

Long story short, the last 6 months has been about being focused on training for this race. I was always fairly fit, but in no way ready for this. I hired coaches to give me structure (Sarah Matchett and Bo Butler at Cool Breeze Cyclery Training), rode 6-7 days every week and was finally serious about my weight. I lost 40 lbs (now more like 35). I took countless trips up to the NC mountains to train and did pretty much nothing other than ride, work, sleep – and occasionally eat. I had a few pretty good results in races leading up to Leadville and felt ready. I left for Colorado about 9 days early to ride the course and get used to the altitude. It is a tremendous place and I almost didn’t come home. It rained off and on all week, but Friday and Saturday were uncharacteristically warm and dry (like 5% humidity!)

It was finally time for the race and Shelli came out to Colorado to work as my crew. Friday is medical check-in and a big pre-race briefing in a cramped gym with all racers and crews. Seeing everything happen and recognizing faces that I’ve only seen in the movie was an incredible thing. Saturday morning, we got up at 3:30AM to get over to Leadville and get my bike on the start line for the 6:30AM shotgun blast. I was in the corral with all of the riders for over 30 minutes before the start and got into just the 3rd row behind the pros. Nervousness was evident for everybody for such a big race – the guy next to me was shaking. I asked him if he was cold (it was upper 30’s), he told me that it was nerves. Here’s how it went:

The gun went off and the start was absolutely berserk. I wanted to hit the dirt after 6 miles toward the front and it was almost a downhill sprint out of town. Average easily 30+ mph on the pavement (with mountain bikers!). I got to the dirt and onto the first climb at around 150th place. It would be the furthest forward that I would see for the rest of the day. The first climb at 8 miles is on a fairly steep and rocky dirt road – all it takes is 2 people off the bike and walking and everybody walks behind them. I got up the first climb of St. Kevin’s Gulch in OK position, but could tell that the altitude of over 11k feet was already a problem. There was absolutely nothing I could do to get my heart rate to drop and was constantly short of breath. For the rest of the day, I passed maybe 10 people, and got passed by about 150. The pace was insane, though I pretty soon I tried to settle into a rhythm of climbing just a hair over what I was comfortable with. The next climb came and went & I stayed steady – starting up the big climb to Columbine Mine at 50 miles and 12.5k ft, I was still riding hard and doing OK. About 1/3 of the way up Columbine, the 2 leaders came screaming past me downhill at 45+ mph. I kept going and managed to ride most of the steep uphill and only push the bike for about 500 yards of the steepest/loosest. At the turn-around on top, my 9 hour goal wasn’t dead, but was gasping for life. The ride down for 10 miles was actually fun, bombing past the hundreds of people trudging up.

The best part of the race was going through the Twin Lakes aid station at 40 miles and then again at 60. I’ve never been in a bike race this big and you had to travel through a tunnel of thousands of people to get to the aid station. It was almost impossible to find Shelli in the craziness, but I somehow did. People were screaming, blowing horns and banging cowbells. It was easy to ride strongly through that. They said I looked good, but I was pretty much resigned to not making 9 hours by that point. I had that feeling that I was going downhill by then (literally and figuratively).

After that, it got unbelievably hard. The flat road across the valley was torture with 30+ mph winds. I tried to get the riders around me working in an echelon, but trying to explain to mountain bikers where to ride in the wind was like teaching a doberman to juggle. I just put my head down for 15 miles and got across by myself for the final climbs. At mile 80 to 104, startting at the famous Powerline climb, I wouldn’t say I fell apart, but it was damn close. The final 24 miles were horrible. In total, I pushed the bike uphill for around 1.5 miles and even the flats were hard. All of the little uphills felt like mountains, and the 2 actual mountains were awful. I had to stop multiple times to get my HR to drop and get back into a reasonable rythm for climbing the hills.

I was calculating in my head that I would finish around 9:38. As we got closer to town (or so I thought), that time looked good even though I was fading fast. Some of the guys from the flats were coming by and told me to get on – but there was no way I could. Just riding as steady as I could to the finish. I could see the town, but they turned us up a long, steady dirt wash-out and my time started slipping away. Pretty soon it was 9:39, 9:43, 9:47, 9:51 – I realized I might slip over ten hours – and that was not going to happen! With whatever was left, I dropped the hammer to get to the end at 104 miles (that wasn’t cool!) and sprinted standing up Harrison Street to the line – which really seemed to wake up the crowd of thousands. I slowed after the line – the guy that came over with me collapsed and got carried away by the medical crew. The race director, Merillee Maupin, came up and put the finishers medal over my helmet!

In the end, my time was 9:57:50 for 315th out of 908 belt buckle finishers under 12 hours. (1022 under 13 hours for an official time – around 400 did not finishes). I have to say, it was the single hardest event that I’ve ever done. While I did not finish sub 9 hours, I can’t be unhappy since I could not have gone 1 minute faster. It was a great experience – but almost killed me. I was laying on a bench in downtown L’ville after the finish and had 2 hamstring cramps that were crippling.

I finally recovered after an hour or so and was able to walk to the car. The past 6 months has been about training and sacrifice – I haven’t even had 1 beer in that time. Though, that was rectified later Saturday night. Went to the awards ceremony Sunday morning with Shelli and picked up my belt buckle, medal, keychain and personalized sweatshirt. Happy to say, that is the final chapter in my long-distance endurance career. Been there, done that. Special thanks for Shelli and everybody else that has been incredibly supportive for the last 6 months. I could not have done this alone.

One note – even more impressive was the ride of my brother John. He rode the race with team Lifetime Fitness and was hoping to go under 12 hours. Even though he has a demanding job, 3 little kids and no time to train, he came in at 10:43 and looked strong doing it. It was a huge result for him and he says he may go back next year. Not me – I’m done!

Thanks for reading this far! Now back to normal life!