Dang, that was hard!

I'm not a huge writer of race reports, but Leadville piques a lot of curiousity, so I'll give it a shot.

The start is interesting. A bunch of mountain bikers packed in together who probably rarely ride in a pack. You are supposed to seed yourself appropriately at the start according to estimated finish time. Ya right! It was quite the jumble. I think the first crash occured within 50 feet. Anyhow, the start is pretty quick for a long race, facilitated by (A) a downhill start and (B) everybody wants good placing on the first climb.

The first climb is a bit of a blur. It's doubletrack, but really only one good line exists as the other option is a big rut full of sand and loose rocks. It's not impossible to pass, but you better choose your timing wisely.

The first descent is pretty fun, but a little crowded. The second climb isn't too hard, just long. Descending off the backside, though, is fairly fast and steep (this is Powerline.) I really wanted to go faster, but there was a line of folks in front. Turns out that probably wasn't such a bad thing as there were guys off to the side fixing flats about every 50 feet. I may very well have gotten too aggressive if I had a clear line (a la Terlingua where I flatted.)

The next 20ish miles aren't too bad. Then you hit about a 10 minute climb followed by a 10ish minute descent/flat. Then comes the big mama. The first 45 minutes or so aren't too bad, just a gradual climb on a reasonably smooth dirt road. It serves to soften you up though for what comes next. Once you get above treeline, it gets hard. Low oxygen + been climbing for close to an hour + a little kick up in the pitch + some loose rocks = hike-a-bike time. On and off, on and off, on and off the bike. Another bonus of being above treeline is that you can see how far from the turnaround you are NOT. It hurts a little to look up to your right and see people wrapped around the side of the mountain and think "oh I bet the top is just around the corner" only to look left and see some little ants much, much further in the distance.

Once you get to the top, it is cold and I was dizzy. I knew I needed to get down soon. The initial portion involves a lot of dodging of the riders still coming up. Not a great line coming down through there, you really have to brake a bunch. Once you get to the road though, you go down FAST. 2 hrs 2 minutes to get up, 43 minutes to get down.

I still felt reasonably good at this point. The sun had come out, so I gave my rain jacket to my wife - that proved to be a little dumb later. The next stretch is the same easy-ish stretch in the middle as before. I did start to notice the power was dropping off and my knee was bugging me a bit.

Then comes the "Cobra" Ouch. Whoever scraped that thing off, making ankle deep loose dirt, deserves a swift kick in the crotch.

Through to the pipeline aid station, I know I am starting to hurt. Been going over 7 hours now. The road stretch has a headwind. Gee thanks.

Then powerline. I am supressing the memory of that pain so as to save myself from emotional scarring. LOTS of walking. Honestly, it would be a really tough climb fresh. Freaking rutted out, steep, and goes on and on.

Descent off the back. I puked. Did you know that heaving while riding will almost make you crash? I had to pull over and let 'er rip. Also got rained on, which made things pretty cold with the temps in the 50's and flying down a mountain.

St Kevins. I wanted to weep when I got over the top. At that point I had been suffering pretty bad for over 3.5 hours. I looked at the watch and knew I was on the bubble for sub 11. I tried many, many times to ratchet it up and just couldn't. I only had to make the last 2 miles in 10 minutes and couldn't do it. The legs would go around, but there was no pushing hard.

Rolled across at 11:01:47, completely shattered. 3 days later I am still convinced that was as hard or harder than Ironman. It takes about the same amount of time, but you do one thing the whole time, at altitude, with 14,000+ feet of climbing.

Try it, you won't be disappointed in the amount of suffering for your money!