It’s been a great weekend for US runner Rob Krar who won the Leadville Trail 100 Run presented by La Sportiva on Saturday night after a tough couple of years for him when he has been dogged by injury.
He came in at 15:51:57, over two minutes ahead of Ryan Kaiser. He has won Leadville once before in 2014 with 16:09:32 so was delighted to beat his personal best for the race. After the race, he posted on his Facebook page, “I don’t even know what to say. What a crazy beautiful thing. Thank you everyone #LT100 #persevere”
Katie Arnold won the women’s race with 19:53:40 which gave her 11th place overall. Addie Bracy came in second with a time of 21:17:12. It was her first 100 miler, so kudos to her.
The Leadville 100 is one of the big name USA races and was started in 1983 by Ken and Merille Chlouber who wanted to help the Leadville community get back on its feet and give them something to be proud of and aspire to.
The community had just suffered the closure of the Climax Mine which led to Lake County having the worst unemployment rate in the whole of America.
The course is run through the Colorado Rockies on forest trails and mountain roads. The highest point is Hope Pass (12,600 feet).
The 500 runners set off at 4am on Saturday 18th August and the aim is to finish within 25 hours and receive the much-coveted gold buckle. If you finish between 25 and 30 hours, you get a silver buckle.
Photo credit: Leadville Race Series.