Turns out packing and preparing for a 100 race is actually a momentous task in itself.

-A racer needs to worry about what they are going to wear for the entire race, racing at Leadville makes this difficult because even on the best days you can expect 40 degree swings in the temperature, and on the worst days you can find yourself in a blizzard. My solution to this was to bring every piece of running gear I had with me. Hats, gloves, winter coat, wifebeater, you name it. Easy enough.

The only real issue I had here was my shoes. About 2 months ago I started breaking in the shoes I was planning on wearing for the majority of the race; a spiffy pair of New Balance MT100's. I guess you could say I broke them in a bit too well. On my last big training run a 3" tear appeared in the heel of my left shoe. I didn't think much of it at the time and figured I'd just get another pair before the race, but it turns out size 11 MT 100's are nowhere to be found any more ). Not even on the webernet. So I panicked for a few days until I stumbled upon some very stylish white on white NB 790's (the granddaddy of the MT 100's) from the internet. Not perfect, but at least I'd look good while running in non-ideal, not broken-in shoes.

-Then there's all the gear. Fannypacks, hydration packs, flashlights, headlamps, batteries, butt lube, first aid kit, watch, Ipod. The list goes on and on. Again, I brought the house. Well, except for the watch. I Totally forgot that.

-You also have to worry food and water. Rough calculations resulted in me needing to find a way to ingest 15,000 calories during the race. To put that in perspective, that’s about 15 chipotle burritos, in one day, while running. I decided to accomplish this mostly by ingesting a hammer gel every 30 minutes while I ran, in combination with drinking sports drink and eating some solid foods and more gel crap at aid stations. I also needed to address my caffeine habit. Normal people rely on caffeine late in these races to get them through the night. I, on the other hand, was going to need a constant, high supply of the stuff. To accomplish this I brought Red Bulls (no vodka) & 5-Hour Energies.