Wow what an experience!!!

Well, I made it to Leadville....My taper consisted of a 45 mile week, a 30 mile week, and a 15 mile week before the race on August 22nd. The taper weeks went by pretty fast. The weekend before the race I surprised Kristen with a trip out to Leadville. I figured I needed to get out there at least a week before the race and I wanted the company for the ride out. So, I arranged to work the 50 mile aid station of the Leadville 100 mile mountain bike race on the Saturday before. Kristen knew we were going out of town but didn't know where. She is a huge Lance Armstrong fan and since he was in the bike race (he won it easily) I thought it would be a good opportunity for me to win some major points by taking her out there for the race. It ended up being a great day and we got to see Armstrong whizz by us...we just barely got pictures. The day was exhausting but fun none the less. Sunday went by fairly quickly as I needed to get Kristen back to the Denver Airport to fly her back for work on Monday. I almost didn't get her to the airport on time due to traffic coming down out of the mountains.....stressssssssfullllllllllll!!!!
The week before the race went fairly quickly....I ended up camping at Halfmoon Campground on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday night. I camped with Fast Andy!!! The new superstar of ultra running. It was fun hanging out with Andy and getting to know him better. As Wednesday rolled around I decide I wanted a warm hotel room since we were within 72 hours of race time. So after having lunch in Leadville with friends Andy and I headed back out to the campground to get our stuff packed up. Turned out to be a good move. A blackhawk helicopter crashed on Mt. Massive Wednesday afternoon and if we wouldn't have packed up and moved out we would have been kicked out by the military as they shut down that area due to the crash. Worse case that we heard were people who couldn't get back in Wednesday evening to even get there stuff due to military activity.
Thursday came and it was time to go pick Kristen and Bailey up at the airport and prep for the big race on Saturday morning. We ended up staying in Frisco on the way back out to Leadville and got up Friday morning for medical check in and race meeting. My Aunt and Uncle came out to Leadville on Friday from Denver and I got a chance to visit with them. I enjoyed catching up with them on their recent trip to Europe. As Friday evening approached the nerves started to kick in. What in the hell am I doing for the next 30 hours!!!???? WHY am I doing this again??!!!!
Stay tuned as my race report will follow soon.