Part 9 of a 10 part strategy to finish Leadville The Fish Hatchery to May Queen Total miles 10, miles running 0, miles walking 10 Cutoff time 26:30, planned arrival 25:40 There are 23.5 miles remaining and enough time to walk to the finish. Leaving the aid station you will continue on the paved road for 1.25 miles. This will be uphill for the first mile, as you crest the top of the hill, the road bears to the right. There will be a ranch on the left with a log rail fence. Stay on the left side of the road, shortly after the fence ends, you will take a sharp left onto the trail. The turn is marked well but could easily be missed if you are half asleep and not looking for it. A suggestion for this run as well as any 100 miler is to study the map before hand and anticipate turns like these. You are now at the base of the climb back over Sugarloaf. Take a look at your watch, you'll be at the top in 90 minutes. This can be very helpful because there are false summits. It can be very discouraging to reach what you think is the top only to find another climb ahead of you. This is the last climb of any measure in the run, in 90 minutes you will be able to coast the rest of the way. As you are climbing, look for the flashlights of runners ahead and try to catch up to them. It will distract you and help pull you up the hill. If you catch up, congratulate them for a great run and look for the next flashlight. When at the top, check your watch, if it took longer than 90 minutes, that's ok. If it took longer than 2 hrs from the Fish Hatchery, you should consider running a little of the next stretch. It will loose 1,000 feet over the next 5 miles and is very runable. That assumes you have any use of your quads left which is unlikely. As you're traversing the pass, it will be flat and open, look forward and down to the right, NW. You can see the lights for the May Queen aid station. If you look back and to the right, NE, you can see Leadville, the finish! Shuffle your way down the jeep road until you come to a T at Hagerman Rd and go right. You'll be on Hagerman for 1 mile, stay to the left and look for a sharp left onto the trail. The trail will lead you the rest of the way to the May Queen aid station. If you walked the whole section, you should be able to arrive at May Queen at 25:40. The less time you spend here, the more you'll have on the last section to finish. You can walk the last section in 4 hrs, if you leave at 25:45, you'll have a 15 minute buffer. You will be leaving 45 minutes ahead of the cutoff. Hint for enjoyment: Your confidence should and will be building at this point. You should be able to finally stop worrying about the finish line and enjoy just being out there. Don't forget, in a few hours, the whole incredible experience will be over. Shift your focus to how wonderful the experience is that you are currently going through. The realization that it will be over soon will hit you when you see the lights of Leadville on top of Sugarloaf pass. Next Segment: May Queen to the Finish If you missed segments 1 through 8, e-mail me direct and I'll forward them to you. Or, Stan Jensen has put them on his homepage if you have web access, http://www.run100s.com/Pb Dana Roueche Boulder, CO danar@us.ibm.com