Run Junko Run: Leadville 100 day before the race !

August 19th 2011 Friday Morning!! The alarm went off at 6am! I did not feel like I slept well.. I was so anxious and nervous, worrying about what to take for the race. I wanted to make sure I had everything I needed for this very important race! Anyhow, I got up and cooked Breakfast for Kei- one of my crew/pacer, Yuki and myself, nothing fancy, eggs, kale, toast, and coffee! I decided to rent a big SUV for my crew to be comfortable during race. As soon as Yuki got the rental car, we started loading for the race!

On the road to Leadville!

I needed to get there between 7-10am to get medical check. I was getting nervous that I might be late, but Yuki and Kei were very confident that we will make it on time!! Yes, we did.
As we drove into Leadville, we found a VACANCY sign at the Silver King Inn. Somebody must have cancelled. We were planning to stay in Dillon (thanks to Jen, offering us to stay in her condo!!) where 45 min. away from Leadville since we could not find any rooms in Leadville. We grabbed the room right away, so we can sleep more in the morning and went to the medical check in, and race packet pick-up.

At the Check in, I ran into Jon who is an awesome athlete, who did so well on his first Leadville 100 mountain bike race. He is running this year! He looked great and well prepared!

There is a new Leadville store right next to the check-in. They sell Leadville race series goods in the shop. I saw Leadville Coffee - Race day blend!! Yeeeha!

We went to the the 6th ave Gym for the pre-race meeting. Other crew-Yukiko & Kenji met up with us there. There were lots of people in the gym to listen to the motivational speech by Ken, founder of this race! I believed that his speech made so many people to come back to this race series every year. I noticed Yuki and I were two of them!

After I got lots of positive energy from Ken, race officials, and other runners, my crews and I decided to have lunch/ early dinner/ carbo-loading at the Chinese restaurant. I chowed down rice, noodles, and dumplings etc....! as we finished eating, I suggested to go to Mountain Pizza cross the street to have pizza take-out. I wanted to have pizza for my fuel during the race( suggested from Dear Marc!). We ordered one large pizza! We took it to the hotel room, sure enough hungry Yuki started to pick one, then one more, two more.... ! I kept one for tomorrow!! Yes! Yukiko made me small rice balls for my fuel during the race!! Yukiko had been such a great training partner, and reliable crew member for me!! I could not thank enough...