Leadville Baby!

I got in.

Not sure how many thousands entered this year, but my name was plucked from the proverbial hat and I won one of the coveted lottery spots for the Leadville 100-mile mountain bike race.

The race is August 9th in Leadville, CO. Starting elevation at 10,200 feet right in "downtown" Leadville and climbs 50 miles to a high-point at 12,600 feet above sea level. Can you spell altitude sickness? The race is a 100-mile out-and-back course with close to 14,000 feet of cumulative elevation gain. Unfortunately there isn't any singletrack but with that much climbing and 800 racers, that's probably a good thing.

Scratch that, no singletrack is never a good thing.

Anyway, this settles my racing schedule for this year and pretty much guarantees that Kristin and I will be spending our anniversary this year in the truck on the way to Leadville. I figure I'll need to get there a week early to acclimatize. No joke.

I'm psyched. I was starting to almost hope I didn't get in so we could make a week out of a trip down to Humboldt, California for a 12-hour race, but Leadville is a classic. It's one of the first big epic races and will certainly continue to be one of the most popular and most storied. How could I not be excited about getting in? Impossible.

So now do I want to set my sights on the 12-hour cut-off or do I dare dream of a 9-hour finish and a gold & silver belt buckle?

Oh, that's right, I practically live at sea-level. I think I'll just worry about finishing...