The real challenge is to finally finish the Leadville 100
By Jason Willis Hickman

Bad weather, bad knees, and bad luck are just a few of the things that can make a runner stop short of the finish at the Leadville Trail 100. Merciless altitude, rugged terrain, and ever-impending cutoff times are a few more. And 11 times those pitfalls have halted Laurel Myers.

Every year since 1984, the 41-year-old Myers has returned to Leadville. This time, she has a little help. Ed Williams, who's finished Leadville 10 times, has taken Myers under his wing, and both are confident about her chances in 1996.

"I think she's got the conditioning to do it," Williams says. "She's had problems with her body, and those things can crop up at any time, but she's a very intelligent woman and she's done her workouts on schedule--that makes me very optimistic."

Williams has wanted to help other runners achieve success in the Leadville race for several years, much like he did in coaching his daughter, Kitty, to the grand slam of ultrarunning: four 100-milers in one summer. Natives of Cape Girardeau, Missouri, Kitty and Ed completed the Western States 100, the Vermont 100, Leadville, and finally the Wasatch Front 100. All told, Williams has finished 19 centuries, and he hopes his 20th will be alongside Myers on August 24th.

Williams emphasizes power walking in Myers' training routine, believing this uses different muscle groups than running and thus will divide the workload on her legs. Proper pacing is also a crucial element to the duo's race strategy. A clip of slightly more than 3.3 mph gets a runner back to Leadville at 10 a.m., just under the 30-hour deadline. Each checkpoint in the race has a cutoff time, though, and the first--at the May Queen campground 13.5 miles outside of Leadville--requires runners to be ahead of that pace.

"If you start too fast you'll burn glycogen, so we have to be careful not to start too fast, but also to give ourselves a little bit of a cushion," Williams says.

As well as offering technical advice and pacing tips, Williams sets up workouts intended to prepare Myers for specific circumstances in the race. Recently they crossed the 12,600-foot-high Hope Pass leg of the course twice during a 28-mile run, and at another practice covered the last 39.5 miles from Twin Lakes to Leadville in the dead of night.

"You've got to be mentally ready for those parts of the race if you're going to be successful," Williams says. "It's the toughest part."

It's those tough parts that often weed out more than half of those who start the Leadville 100. In 1995, rain, low temperatures, and swollen streams allowed only about 40 percent of participants to return to Leadville's rustic downtown under the deadline.

"Some awfully good runners didn't make it last year," Williams says.

Myers has been waiting since 1984 to be among those finishers, yet remains positive about her travails.

"I like the challenge. I want to be able to finish 100 miles," she says. "I keep thinking if I finish I might be able to let it go and move on to other things."

Myers, a systems engineer who develops computer software, got her pilot's license last year and would like to have more time to spend with her horse, Lady, and her husband, Richard Littlestone. Littlestone has been firm in his support for Myers' efforts.

"I wouldn't have kept trying all these years without him. He really wants to see me finish 100 miles," she says.

Myers is not without success in endurance running. She completed the East Texas 50K last year and ran 60 miles of the Leadville 100 in 1990 before knee pain and harsh weather halted her. Despite logging thousands of lonely miles and enduring the pain and frustration of 11 aborted attempts, Myers has nothing but praise for her sport, and especially for her fellow runners.

"Ultrarunnners are great people. They're really good athletes but they're not snobs," she says. "People like Ed care as much about your race as they care about their own."

That might not be true this year, however. Williams seems to care about Myers' race even more. So while the Leadville Trail 100's leaders worry about how fast they'll run this year and what place they'll finish, Myers and Williams will be a few hours back running a different, but equally inspiring race.

Jason Willis Hickman, a freelance writer from Bellingham, Washington, was support crew for a runner at last year's Leadville race