First You Must Finish

There’s nothing like a little inspiration on a random rainy Thursday in November. Last night Dave and I went to see the nationwide showing of Race Across The Sky 2010 about the Leadville 100. And lucky for you, there is an encore showing of it at select theaters next Tuesday night, Nov. 9. If you like cycling, running, endurance sports, Colorado or testing the limits of the human spirit…..go. Buy your tickets before it’s sold out. I guarantee that you will be handed a plate of inspiration on a silver platter.

The Leadville 100 is a grueling, out-of-this-world mountain bike race based out of the highest altitude town in the United States. It’s open to the public through a lottery system. You don’t have to be a world class athlete to participate, but you do have to train your butt off if you expect to finish before the cut off times. The race is an interesting combination of road and mountain biking and it draws elite pro-cycling athletes to its helm. In 2009, Lance Armstrong raced Leadville and broke the course record, dethroning 6-time Leadville champion Dave Wiens. Last year, Levi Leipheimer took a challenge from Lance to take on the battering course. This time, Levi broke Lance’s course record and gave Jeremy Horgan-Kobelski (aka JHK), the Olympian and nine-time national champion, the ride of his life. 

But Leadville isn’t only about the world champions. The real story is about the 1,500 brave souls and average Joes who win the lottery and take on the ride of their lives each year. You must be 18 to register for the lottery and that’s about the only restriction. You get all ages and skill levels - but with one thing in common, fire in their hearts and the glint of a belt buckle in their eyes. (If you finish under 12 hours you get the famous Leadville belt buckle to show off). You have cancer survivors and 75-year olds, fathers and mothers, grandparents, pros and first-time riders. It’s quite an amazing story actually.

From the opening credits when the sun hit the mountain peaks, I could feel a fire burning. Everyone who knows me and Dave knows that Colorado is our favorite place on the planet. I just wanted to jump out of my seat and hike right into that screen and be there. I looked over at Dave and I saw the glimmer in his eyes as well. Dave has talked about taking on Leadville for years, and I think (hope) that the movie sealed the dream for him. All I could think about was how much I would love to be his support crew for that race one day. I want to see him ride across the red carpet. Next year, I will be cheering him on (hopefully) at the Durango Iron Horse in Colorado - but sometime in the next few years I expect to be lining up at the finish line at Leadville.

And for me? Mountain biking is not my sport. But watching that movie made me want to go out and dig deep and do something epic. Right now, I have my sights set on running my first marathon out in Boulder, CO next September. But it’s making me antsy that it’s almost a year away. In early June, (a week after Dave’s Iron Horse) we do plan to make a trek out to Leadville. There is an 80-mile road loop over several mountains at high altitude that I want to conquer. Hopefully that will give Dave a taste of Leadville and spur that fire for taking on the true dirt race some day.

What Race Across the Sky reinforced for me is that there is a reason why people take on these grand challenges and it’s certainly not to win them (unless you are Levi, Dave, Lance or JHK). The goal for most of these people is just to finish these races. In fact, the goal for many is to complete a year of training and simply to be ready to stand on that start line whether they finish or not. It’s all about digging deep and testing your limits. There is something cathartic about that. One of my favorite lines from the live discussion before the film was that everyone needs their own Leadville bag to reach into when they need an extra push in their lives. A place to reach back into the hurt locker to dredge up that extra fire to get you through the tough times. Whether your Leadville bag is actually Leadville or if it’s the half marathon, 10K or road race that you are training for – everyone needs something to reach for and suffer through before you know what your limits truly are.

As Dave Towle, the moderator, said last night, in order to finish first, first you must finish. And that means inspiration first, then training, then making it to the starting line, suffering at your very best and finally crossing that finish in whatever time it takes you. That’s how you figure out what you’re made out of.

Go see the encore of Race Across the Sky next week. And if my blog post didn’t inspire you, then visit the Web site and watch the awesome trailer. I may not be racing out to sign up for Leadville myself, but I did manage to drag myself out of bed this morning for a 6:30 a.m. run and I think the movie had a lot to do with that.

Official Race Across the Sky 2010 Leadville 100 Site