Grit, Guts and Determination: The Leadville Race Series Podcast

Tune in here to this episode of Grits, Guts, and Determination, The Leadville Race Series Podcast, a leading authority for all things Leadville! Host Cole Chlouber, son of race founder Ken Chlouber, takes us on a story-telling journey of the 38-year rich history of this race. We learn all the tips, tricks, and stories from the Leadville community members! Joining us today is Former Texas Longhorn Snapper Nate Boyer. No stranger to hard work, Nate was a walk on for the Texas Longhorns in 2010. Prior to that, he went from chasing a Hollywood career to a military one, where he served tours both in Iraq and Afghanistan as a green beret. In Cole’s mind, all of these things have prepared him for one thing: Leadville.

Today’s guest has definitely been found by Leadville, but he doesn’t quite yet know what that means. Though football was his favorite sport, Nate bever actually played growing up. He attended firefighting school after high school, but moved to Los Angeles at 19. 9/11, he reveals, is the event which opened his eyes to the rest of the world and sent him traveling to different countries for the first time. The humanitarian side of the Army’s special forces spoke to Nate as he geared up to go overseas as a green beret at 24 years old. He shares about the grueling nature of the life of the deployed and that watching football is what ultimately got him through.

Next, Nate shares about his accomplishment of becoming a walk on for the Texas Longhorns. After leaving the military, he felt it was time to finally attend college and enrolled at the University of Texas. As he regretted not playing football in high school he made a pact with himself to try out for the team. He transitioned to long snapper during his sophomore year. Though the coaches initially never expected he would get playtime, Nate started 30 games during his 3 years of long snapper.

Then, Nate dives in to discussing his next feat of taking on the Leadville Trail 100 foot race. For him, trail running is a form of meditation that allows him to unplug and find his zen. Long distance trail runs and training for them give you the opportunity to take in the world in a whole new way . Nate adds that it also offers an escape from the chaos of the world. Spending time alone in nature, on the trail, is a rewarding experience. Though he found out he wasn't going to be able to make it to the race this year, he is still training consistently on trails around Los Angeles. Finally, he speaks of the importance of having supportive people around you who you can trust to cheer you on.

Thanks for tuning in! Don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe, and we hope to see you on the line in August!

Tune in here to this episode of Grits, Guts, and Determination, The Leadville Race Series Podcast, a leading authority for all things Leadville! Host Cole Chlouber, son of race founder Ken Chlouber, takes us on a story-telling journey of the 38-year rich history of this race. We learn all the tips, tricks, and stories from the Leadville community members! Joining us today is Angela Naeth.

In this episode, Angela shares her experience at the Leadville Trail 100 MTB and her plans for women cycling in the future. Now having experienced the race for herself, listen as Angela talks about Leadville’s mental and physical challenge. Pushed to limits she had never been, Angela enjoyed seeing just how far she could go. She begins walking the listener through race morning. Having stayed just outside Leadville with friends, she was excited and ready to begin the day. Riding up to start, the cheering crowds, energy, PA system, and overall experience was an awesome way to begin. As the racers took off, Angela shares her experience, riding downhill on pavement, pushing together with fellow mountain bikers. After her first climb, listen as Angela recounts her crash on Powerline teaching her to no go past her limits. She recovered well and went on to a single track and a flat section before she arrived at the crew station. The atmosphere of the station and the break it afforded prior to Columbine was enjoyable. After grabbing more fuel, Angela began her climb of Columbine. Halfway up, she was impressed as some of the pro male riders were already descending. The technicality offered by Columbine’s surprisingly steep ascent was challenging. Over the last three to four miles, occasional bailing was necessary due to the slippery terrain. Not considering herself a mountain biker, Angela realized that practice will be required for next year’s race. She coached herself to keep moving and get to the top as the final two miles of ascent proved harder than expected. Once there, four gels from the aid station were appreciated. Listen as she then describes her exhilarating descent back down Columbine, calling it the most fun she had all day. Angela finished the race in 9:07 and wants to come back.

Cole asks Angela helpful questions for all to hear. Take note as Angela highlights the parts of the course which she underestimated, her future nutrition plans, how she plans to prepare for next year, and how she, who lives at sea level, plans to better prepare for the high altitude of Leadville. Angela additionally discusses the benefits of racing with groups, such as her own Race Like a Girl and Gritty Like a Girl groups. For female athletes, Angela explains why this is a good crossover race, amazing challenge, and great opportunity for women.

Thanks for tuning in! Don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe, and we hope to see you in Leadville!

Welcome to Grit, Guts, and Determination, The Leadville Race Series Podcast, a leading authority for all things Leadville! The show is hosted by Cole Chlouber, son of race founder Ken Chlouber, and it takes us on a story-telling journey of the rich, nearly forty-year history of this race. In each episode, we hear eccentric stories from Leadville community members, and along the way learn the tips and tricks to get to the line this summer! Today, Cole interviews highly decorated Canadian triathlete Angela Naeth about her racing career, efforts to give back, and current preparations to compete in the Leadville Trail 100 MTB!

Angela first explains how both Leadville and athletics in general found her in a very natural way. She can’t remember a time when she wasn’t interested in athletics, and Leadville has been on her radar for the past decade, coming to the fore more recently as her passion for mountains and gravel biking has grown. Of course, biking has long been a component of her racing career; Angela has had an illustrious triathlon career culminating in three full Ironman wins. She shares how the Ironman competition caught her attention and drove her to explore triathlons, and how she has a particular love for endurance races. Being out on a race course, Angela says, is a way of refocusing and maintaining a sense of connection. Her most recent racing passion, cycling, won her heart by allowing her to adventure in nature and feel like a kid riding again.

Angela is driven by love of her sports, and her motivation has pushed her through countless injuries and even the trial of a Lyme disease diagnosis (and to others with this diagnosis, she urges, take your meds, trust your gut, and find a Lyme-literate doctor!). Angela’s love for her sports has also driven her to give back to the community of women in sports, and she shares about her coaching and podcast, as well as her efforts with triathlon-focused club I Race Like a Girl and gravel biking team Girls Get Gritty. In her own career right now, Angela is in the top half of the Life Time Grand Prix, and is building toward her first time on the LT100 MTB starting line! As the episode wraps up, she shares about her race day plan, from plans for a crew and her diet to her thoughts on drafting, pacing, and managing the stress of the race start.

Thanks for tuning in! Don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe, and we hope you’ll join us for Part 2 of this conversation, this time focusing on Angela’s thoughts post-race!

Links:

Learn more about Angela Naeth.

Check out Angela’s sponsors, especially the two she mentioned: Shimano and Oofos.

Check out Angela’s go-to resource for race day nutrition: The Feed.

Learn more about I Race Like a Girl and Girls Get Gritty.

Check out the Leadville Race Series and the Life Time Grand Prix.

Tune in here to this episode of Grits, Guts, and Determination, The Leadville Race Series Podcast, a leading authority for all things Leadville! Host Cole Chlouber, son of race founder Ken Chlouber, takes us on a story-telling journey of the 38-year rich history of this race. We learn all the tips, tricks, and stories from the Leadville community members! Joining us today is Elden “Fatty” Nelson.

Elden’s story of his health journey and all of his accomplishments since have shown his own grits, guts and determination. Elden put on thirty to forty pounds in his early thirties after moving to a high stress job, his wife having a mastectomy, two young twin girls and then having Bell's palsy himself. He then started a blog called the Fat Cyclist just for his friends and to have some accountability in losing weight. Microsoft put it on their homepage and then his readers went from a handful to more than a couple hundred thousand. He loved telling stories, sharing the difficult path he was in and making jokes. He wrote more than a dozen years on the blog, and then wrote two books called “Comedian Mastermind” and “The Great Fatsby.” He has stopped writing since because he enjoys hearing other people’s stories now more than telling his own. He is now co-hosting a podcast called “Leadville- the 100 Mile Mountain Bike Race Podcast.” With more than 20 years of doing the Leadville Mountain Bike Race, Elden shares his tips on the race and hears from other experts on the podcast. Elden’s slowest time in the race was eleven hours and thirty minutes, while his fastest speed time was eight hours and twelve minutes. He said the biggest piece of advice that helped him the most in Leadville was hearing, “It is an eating contest disguised as a race.” After he started fueling his body with a hundred calorie snacks and drinks every half hour, that’s when his time dropped. Elden says that Leadville hasn’t changed his riding, but instead made his riding. He says the race is challenging, but not impossible, and if you work at it and reach into yourself, anyone can do it.

In this episode, Elden shares the meaning behind his nickname, his start to the Leadville race, the Fat Cyclist blog and why he quit it, his books, his goals and stats in riding, why he switched to a single speed bike, the LT100 mountain bike podcast, his passion about Leadville, his wife’s riding, bike hardware and stories about riding.

The main theme in Elden’s story is that he continues to ride and not quit. Even when he put on weight, lost his first wife to cancer and had a bike crash, he continues to persevere. Elden’s biggest advice is to laugh at your demons. Everyone has them and in racing, they especially talk when you are tired. He says to be prepared for them, don’t listen to them and to keep going. It is now Elden’s twenty-third year competing in Leadville and he says he will keep continuing to race as long as he can!

Thanks for tuning in! Don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe, and we hope to see you on the line next summer!

Drew Petersen is a professional skier with a running habit. And now that summer running habit has brought Drew to the start line of the Leadville Trail 100. He grew up just north of Leadville in Silverthorne, so running Leadville has been a lifelong dream. This spring, he also spent some time skiing in the Sawatch Range to start to build a relationship with these peaks and the course.

As a skier, he has graced magazine covers, including one of the last covers of the now defunct Powder Magazine, and starred in dozens of award-winning ski films. His writing has appeared in Outside Magazine, Powder Magazine, SKI Magazine, and more publications. Most recently, Drew produced, co-directed, and starred in “Ups and Downs,” a mold-breaking film that mirrors the mountains and valleys of ski touring with his own mental health journey. Within the film he gets raw and vulnerable, talking openly about his struggles with PTSD, biploar disorder, and suicidal ideation. Building on how the film has helped others, Drew is using his platform and opportunities as a professional athlete to change our culture surrounding mental health.

While most folks know him for his skiing, trail running is a core part of his mental health journey and really, who he is as a person. So, in advance of the upcoming Leadville 100, we linked up to talk about what this race means for him.

You can find out more about Drew on his website at: www.drew-petersen.com

If you know someone battling depression and suicide, help them get help. One way is the National Suicide Prevention Hotline 800.273.8255 or online at: www.suicidepreventionlifeline .org

Meet your Leadville Sheriff, Leadman, family man, and all around great guy, Heath Speckman! When we say "you don't find Leadville, Leadville finds you" we couldn't mean that more than in Heath's case.

Tune in as Heath takes us through his journey from the north east to the colorful Rocky Mountains that he now calls home. Heath is up for election, to learn more about Heath, his run for sheriff, or to support Heath, visit: https://www.speckman4sheriff.com

Don't forget to give us a like and subscribe wherever you are getting your podcasts, and we can't wait to see you at home, we can't wait to see you in Leadville!

Tune in here to this episode of Grits, Guts, and Determination, The Leadville Race Series Podcast, a leading authority for all things Leadville! Host Cole Chlouber, son of race founder Ken Chlouber, takes us on a story-telling journey of the 38-year rich history of this race. We learn all the tips, tricks, and stories from the Leadville community members! Joining us today is Sandy Monahan.

Sandy has 33 years of experience of crewing and being “Cutoff Queen.” In 1989, she set up her crew for the first time. She shares that her husband, Mike, was the runner and she had already had experience crewing him several times in the past. Mike’s first crew at Leadville consisted of Sandy, their children and their dogs. She shares how her support pack has changed since she first started compared to now. In addition to Mike as a runner, Sandy has crewed for Nick the biker, too. She finds the run is far more difficult to crew for because it is a longer amount of time. For biking, the crew is there mostly for emergency purposes. After a certain point, the crew has to be the voice of reason for the runner and know what needs to look for.

The biggest piece of advice Sandy can offer for crews is to always be prepared for potential weather changes for both running and biking. From her experience, people who transition between biking and running always report that the run is the more difficult feat of the two. In the early dyas of her crewing, there weren’t as many meal supplements available as there are today. During the first 50 miles, Mike would eat solid foods before transitioning to only consuming liquids. Runners are advised to eat as much as they can and more during those first 50 miles, because those are the calories they will be relying on later once they can no longer stomach food. It’s important to train with whatever you’re going to be eating during the race. Crewers have to be very mentally tough in order to carry their runner on to the finish line. Sandy shares some challenging stories she and Mike have faced on the trails. This race is not one from point to point, but rather from the beginning to the end. Cutoffs are there for the crucial safety of the runners. Even in just a 2 hour ride up the mountain, Sandy warns to be prepared for snow, rain, wind and more. At the very least, make sure you have a rainproof windbreaker in your pack. In closing, she offers final advice: always expect the unexpected, make sure your runner always has drop bags at every location and pay close attention to the cutoff times.

Thanks for tuning in! Don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe, and we hope to see you on the line in August!

Tune in here to this episode of Grits, Guts, and Determination, The Leadville Race Series Podcast, a leading authority for all things Leadville! Host Cole Chlouber, son of race founder Ken Chlouber, takes us on a story-telling journey of the 38-year rich history of this race. We learn all the tips, tricks, and stories from the Leadville community members! Joining us today is Jason Romero, the legally blind Leadville participant who also ran across the country.

To kick off the conversation, Cole asks Jason to share how Leadville found him. In 2010, Jason found himself at a crossroads in life, including moving back to Colorado after 6 years and going through a traumatic divorce. He needed something to challenge him, and found Leadville. Jason suffers from tunnel vision, a degenerative disease of the retina which causes him to lose eyesight. He was diagnosed at age 14, and at 52 years old now, is still able to see colors, shapes and movements. Though he had always been athletic, Jason’s interest in running began when he saw his Uncle Ted running an indoor 6 day race.

Jason’s very first marathon was the first Denver International Marathon during his time in college. As of now, he has been at Leadville’s start line 6 times and the finish line 5 times. In 2016, Jason took on the transcontinental Run Across America, and finished as the sixth fastest time. This particular race began while Jason was in a deep depression and saw it as a calling. When he returned home, organizations began inviting him to speak about his inspiring life and run. Now, Jason is a keynote speaker and author of Running Into the Darkness, a book detailing his experience.

Jason set his personal record at Leadville with a time of 26:02 in 2019. At the age of 49 and with more physical challenges than ever, he shares all about making it in record time on that day. Leadville, Jason believes, has overly prepared him for how to run with a visual disability. In 2019, he released another book, The Success Cycle. It reveals Jason’s number one secret to accomplishing all of the things he has: just don’t quit. He believes that success is not linear, and failure is an inevitable part of succeeding. Another big lesson Leadville has taught Jason is that if we are not helping others, we are not running our best race. Kids today are more isolated than ever before and need to hear these inspiring stories of struggle and triumph. Finally, Jason shares what word first comes to mind when he hears the word Leadville.

Thanks for tuning in! Don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe, and we hope to see you on the line in August!

Welcome to Grits, Guts, and Determination, The Leadville Race Series Podcast, a leading authority for all things Leadville! The show is hosted by Cole Chlouber, son of race founder Ken Chlouber, and it takes us on a story-telling journey of the rich, nearly forty-year history of this race. In each episode, we hear eccentric stories from Leadville community members, and along the way learn the tips and tricks to get to the line this summer! Today, Cole interviews a para-cyclist and Paralympian with a heart of gold: Meg Fisher! Listen to hear how she's taken life by the horns and how she's going to inspire you along the way!

Meg has always been athletic, and prior to 2002 she was playing NCAA Division 1 tennis. In 2002, the unthinkable happened, and Meg was in a car accident that cost her her left foot. Meg eventually made her way into triathlons, and she explains how the process was shaped by both her own self-consciousness and her opportunity to complete her early training with a service dog. Meg's progress caught the attention of the US National Cycling Team, and she was able to compete and medal on the Paralympic level. Meg's experience with the Paralympic gave her, among other things, a deepened appreciation for the empowering sport of cycling. Today, Meg competes mainly in gravel mountain biking, and she uses her influence to see the cycling community draw more and more people in and recognize them for their efforts. Recently, she has consulted for Leadville race leaders, helping with their language and ultimately leading to a new development: all of the Leadville races now have a para category!

Moving forward, Meg explains why she enjoys gravel racing over road racing, and shares about her experience with Unbound Gravel. This 200-mile race, like many of Meg's other ventures, have given her opportunities to enjoy the journey of a race, show herself what she can do, lean into her own grit and toughness, and experience the empowerment of saying no when necessary. Meg's Leadville experience has afforded particular opportunity in saying no, as Meg's first two efforts to compete were met with obstacles that kept her from the starting line. In 2021, when she was finally able to race in Leadville, Meg treasured the difficulty of the race and the deep sense of camaraderie. As the conversation wraps up, she advises listeners hoping to race at Leadville in 2022 to realize they're more capable than they know, explains the value she finds in her Leadville race buckle, and shares why Leadville makes her think of both flowers and positive community change!

Thanks for tuning in! Don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe, and we hope to see you on the line in August!

Tune in here to this episode of Grits, Guts, and Determination, The Leadville Race Series Podcast, a leading authority for all things Leadville! Host Cole Chlouber, son of race founder Ken Chlouber, takes us on a story-telling journey of the 38-year rich history of this race. We learn all the tips, tricks, and stories from the Leadville community members! Joining us today is retired colonel Tony Hoffman. Not only has he towed that line in the Leadville 100, he has also taken his mission further by starting a team of veterans to go against veteran suicide.

To kick off the conversation, Cole asks Tony to share how Leadville found him. He first learned about Leadville in 1995 when he was stationed in the military and visited the town of Leadville. However, the race didn’t really find him until 2013 when he chose to take the plunge and participate in the Leadville 100 run. Through this and other subsequent races, he gained a newfound appreciation for all of Leadville’s history. His view regarding his personal marathon completion is quality over quantity.

Shifting gears, Tony discusses his career in the service. He initially enlisted for only two years with the plan to later attend college, but was accepted to the U.S. Military Academy and received deployment from his home state of Minnesota. He summarizes the privilege it was to serve and the discipline aspect of the job, which circles back into running. Marathoning, which Tony began in 1990, has always been a constant stress reliever and dedication for him. The idea for the veteran running team came about over a few beers with his military colleagues to challenge each other to partake in marathons. The first team consisted of 7 people and was completed as a team who raised $7500 to fight against the veteran suicide epidemic. In 2016, they linked up with the Kansas City nonprofit Warriors Ascent who helps veterans and first responders overcome PTSD through a 5 day program. The team will enter its 8th year of raising money for the non-profit at the Leadville race. To date, they have raised $282,000.

Tony has written two books around his Leadville race experiences: Embracing Grit and Embracing Teamwork and Grit. They contain tips for listeners for conquering the Leadville 100 and chronicle the formation of Team Leadville and their mission of stopping veteran suicide. He shares advice for being successful as an athlete, what his nutrition plan looks like during the race, which equals 2,500 calories per hour, and the key pieces of gear. Finally, he shares what comes to mind when he hears the word Leadville.

Thanks for tuning in! Don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe, and we hope to see you on the line in August!