Lake Placid a Success, Now Comes Leadville 100

This summer has flew by. It seems that it was just the other day when I wrote up my prediction for Amber at Lake Placid and I looked and it was over a month ago. Sorry to keep everyone in suspense.
For those who didn't see the results: Amber finished 8th overall female, 90th overall and 2nd amateur finishing with the fourth fastest amateur time of all time at Placid. Her 10:11 was good enough to qualify her for KONA the World Championships for the Ironman on October 9th of this year.
The race itself was a disappointment. But only for me. See, I was coming from a Bachelor party in Rochester that morning and had to content myself with text updates from my friends on how she was doing. 3rd female out of the water. Biking over 23 mph for the first 30 miles, first two miles on the run were 6:30's. I finally got to the race when she was a mile 11, where she stopped and gave me a hug before scurrying on to pass a pro(the pro's also had a ten minute head-start).

So on to Kona for Amber. But up next on the docket is that pesky 100 miler I had signed up for to motivate myself to get in shape and really prepare for. Leadville had gotten me in probably the closest to fit that I have been in in a long time but unfortunately, getting the stress fracture really set me back. I am just now getting back into running with any sort of speed and I still can't go very long yet. No worries. I still have three weeks and as Amber loves to point out; my training regime of holding my breath and contracting my abs can only be improved with some actual running.

I've been hiking Falling Waters Trail at Mt Lafayette in the Whites to simulate the climb up Hope Pass and the last few times I have been within my race pace plan, the difference being most notably that this will be occurring at mile 45 not after sitting in the car for an hour and at 12,600 feet not 5,000 feet. But it's always easy to focus on the negative, in this case my ill-preparedness, rather than all the positives. Positives include: I get time off work, I am going to Colorado, and even with all that went wrong this year I still have put in significantly more mileage than last year where I was still able to make it 88.6 miles at Vermont.

At this point, I will try to get in a solid remaining week of running then just rest as much as I can and be as prepared as I can logistics-wise and hope for the best.

Will keep everyone posted on the outcome and hopefully Am will be getting a Placid Race report posted soon...