I signed up for Leadville on a whim, two days after my surprisingly good fourth-place finish at the San Juan Solstice 50 in late-June, which I had also signed up for on a whim. I no longer consider myself a “runner,” though for many years I certainly was: in high school I ran a 4:21 in the 1-mile and a 9:31 in the 2-mile; my running career at Duke was injury-plagued but I still managed to run a 15:01 in the 5K and a 31:46 in the 10K. Nowadays my activities, passion, and reputation are backpacking-centric, but I suspected that the runner in me had not disappeared entirely – and, with some empty slots in this summer’s hiking schedule, I finally had the chance to test that theory.
How’d it go?
2nd place overall, 18 hrs, 17 minutes
