Preface to a 10 part strategy to finish Leadville

I have speant some time thinking about the drop out rate at Leadville and
decided that maybe I can help increase the finisher percentage.  Even if
it is only by one person, it will be worth my effort.  I have completed
Leadville 3 times so far and have run the course an additional 2 times in
training.  Since it is an out and back, I have seen every inch of the
trail 10 times and know the course well.

I sincerely believe the low finisher rate does not need to be as low as
it is.  There are many reasons that contribute to the low rate but can
be grouped into a broader generalization.  That is, Leadville offers a
tremendous opportunity to make many mistakes in strategy and approach.
Because of the altitude and level of course difficulty, it is not very
forgiving.  It does not take too many misjudgements to put you in a
position of not being able to recover in time to be able to complete the
course.

I would like to offer a strategy to all of those who are running, or plan
to run Leadville in the future for the first time and want to finish.
This is also for those who have tried before and failed to finish.  Over
half the starters have not completed Leadville before, so this applies to
a lot of people in general and a lot of people on the lists.  Let's see
if the members on the lists can have a higher finisher rate than 50%.

I plan on posting this strategy in ten segments over the next several
weeks/months.  Each segment will be from aid station to aid station.
If you miss a segment, I will save these on file and will be happy to
e-mail them on request.  Steve Siguaw, if you'd like to put these on
the Leadville Homepage, feel free to do so.

In theory, if you are a strong enough walker, you can walk the entire
course and finish within 30 hrs or an average of 18 minutes/mile.  In
practice, that would be very difficult to do because you need down time
at the aid stations to rest, refuel and change equipment.  By running
some of the course, you can put time in the bank to spend at aid stations
and for some of the slower going on the passes.  Based on the layout of
the course, a reasonable mix of 40 miles of running and 60 miles of
walking will allow you to finish comfortably and in fine form.  A higher
proportion of running will simply get you to the finish line faster only
if you are capable of handling it.  If not, you may risk not finishing.
There is plenty of opportunity to decide if you can run more than 40
miles without risking a DNF and I'll tell you where that is in the
strategy.

To limit the size of each post, I'll send the first strategy seperate
from this introduction.

Dana Roueche
Boulder, CO
danar@us.ibm.com