2009 Leadville 100 in Brief
August 25, 2009 by Bryon Powell · 19 Comments
I’ll have a full report up on my run at Leadville in the next few days. For now, I’ll simply share the good news – I finished 10th and, more importantly, broke 20-hours with a 19:54:26. I’ve longed considered the 20-hour mark at Leadville to be a hallmark (it’ll nap one top-5 most years) and am proud as hell to have broken it. The skinny on the race is that it went marvelously for 80 miles, then I started puking and bonked big time before I reached down and gave what I no longer had in order to break 20 hours.
I couldn’t have broken 20 hours without my wonder crewguy – Steve Burton – or my phalanx of pacers – Jaime Falcon, Ashley Arnold, and Joe Wolf. The dozens of folks who cheered me on gave me countless lifts. (Special spectator props got to the Jones-Wilkins family, the Vasque crew, and my TransRockies friends – Adam Chase, Martin Gaffuri, Devon Crosby-Helms, Gordon Wright, Caitlin Smith). On top of that, the entire day was made all the more special in that I shared the trail and so many miles with good friends and idols. I seriously tear up thinking about being out there with the likes of Andy Jones-Wilkins, Garett Graubins, Luis Guerrero, Aaron Schwartzbard et al. Look at the finishers list and the only guy between 7th and 12th that I didn’t know well before the day was Jason Koop. I couldn’t have scripted a better day!
Me getting a pat on the back from Larry Hall,who I paced up this section at last year’s Leadville 100
Thanks again to all those at the race and those who shared their support before, during, and after the race!
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Bryon Powell is the Editor-in-Chief of iRunFar.com, which he founded five years ago. Also the author of Relentless Forward Progress: A Guide to Running Ultramarathons and a contributing editor at Trail Runner magazine, he's quickly approaching 10 years as an ultrarunner and 20 years as a trail runner. These days he calls Park City, Utah and its trails home.
All posts by Bryon Powell
Congratulations and way to dig deep!
You rock Bryon! Many congrats on a stellar performance. See you in the Tetons.
Congratulations, Bryon! We were thrilled to see you had such a great race.
Are you sure Larry was patting you on the back? It looks like he was pushing you up the hill.
Attaboy on a great race, Bryon. I'm very proud of you.
Well done Bryon!
Outstanding, Bryon. I let out a cheer for you when I first saw the results list. Congrats on such a huge effort.
Amazing performance Bryon! For a guy that was sitting on the fence leading up to the race, you easily answered those internal questions. Congrats!
Congrats Bryon – Very well done!
Great race effort ! Not only do you bring great continual coverage of this inane sport,you are a great participant too. Peace.
Huge Congrats Bryon on getting under 20 hours in that thin air!!
Way to dig deep to get to the finish line under the big "two zero" :-)
Recover well!!
Congratulations! What a great accomplishment.
Bryon, you are just amazing! Congratulations! Can't wait to read the race report.
Congrats Bryon, sounds like you had a blast!
Well done! That's a stellar time for such a tough course. I look forward to the write up. Enjoy the recovery!
SD
Thanks for the kind words everyone. I'll aim to get the full report up early next week as I'm up in Maine for a wedding at the moment.
Enjoy Steve's wedding. It was, indeed, a great day out there. Recover well and come see us in Sun Valley sometime.
AJW
AJW, Maybe I'llbe able to swing by before of after the Grand Teton races… I'll be sure to check first, as I know the timing would not be idea. Still would love to see Ketchum.
Killer run Bryon ! Even with that guy in the photo trying to push you down in to the rocks.Maybe you should run more 100's…maybe not.
Grae, there will be some more 100s! I just needed to know the fire was still there for them. It sure is. Time to get in shape and show myself what I can do!