Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Leadville 100 Trail Run - When running is a team sport


Some time back in the 90s as a teenager, having not met my future wife or even visited the USA, I read a brief paragraph about the Leadville 100 trail run in a UK backpacking magazine.  The author, Chris Townsend, was someone I had followed because of his legendary long walks and he happened to be passing through Leadville around race time.  He commented that he could hardly get up the stairs in his B&B at the 10,200 ft altitude and couldn’t imagine how runners could move all day and cover 100 miles in the aptly named ‘Race Across the Sky’.  That snippet captured my imagination ever since and was something I thought about over the years, as met my wife 16 years ago, moved to America, then to Colorado; and ultimately found myself at the start of the race in Leadville itself.