A Most Amazing Man

Our family spent some time near Leadville, Colorado this last week. We played in the lake, hung out with friends, enjoyed some beautiful scenery, and ran. My boys and I ran down a jeep road that lead somewhere. They each wore a Garmin watch. I loved watching them respond to the instant feedback. Maybe more of that in school would help their performance? I also got to do some running. Not that many miles, but I did get to tackle the Leadville Trail 100 course as it takes off out of Twin Lakes. Making that mile long climb up to the single track on a rocky jeep road, made me reconsider the stats that we'd looked over the night before. The slowest women that completed the race this year averaged around 15 or 14 minute miles for the entire 100 miles. That means that my 18 minutes up that slope wouldn't have cut it, and I was hiking up in the daylight without having run 60 miles before and having crossed three mountain already. As I was carefully picking my way down the mountain, I thought of my husband's experiences on these trails. He had a disappointing day on Saturday with a rough patch over Sugar Loaf that cost him too much time to make up. Still he averaged 21 minute miles while running up a crazy mountain and feeling horrid all the while. He once told me that the year he made it to Twin before being cut it was crazy to be at the top of that descent and know that you had ten minutes to run that last downhill mile. I was coming down on fresh legs and still couldn't navigate that road in less than ten minutes. Every time that I get a chance to run the trails up at Leadville, I am even more amazed at all that my husband has accomplished as a part of his races there. I am so proud of the crazy man that I married. I wouldn't change the experiences that we've had at Leadville as they have only helped me to see how truly amazing he is.