Nate Boyer seemed up as he started his ascent of Hope Pass about 40 miles into the Leadville Trail 100-mile race. The four-mile segment rose 3,200 toes in elevation, taking runners to twelve,600 toes above sea degree. He must overcome the steep grade, run seven miles down the opposite aspect to a turnaround and repeat the method. The solar beat down as he maneuvered the path, devoid of any colour.
“It’s ironic it’s called Hope Pass, because that’s the most hopeless feeling,” Boyer, 42, mentioned after the race. “Like you are pushing the hardest you can to take the next step — and you’re not gaining ground.”
At Mile 47, Boyer by chance jammed his left foot underneath a rock. His shin swelled, and his leg throbbed. Fifty-three miles to move, he advised himself. Keep shifting.
Life in soccer had concerned a completely other type of ache.
David Vobora, 37, began throwing up when he started the Hope Pass climb. He alternated between strolling and jogging as he vomited. A runner in her 50s stopped and rubbed his again as he hunched once more.
At one level, Boyer and Vobora met at the path. They hugged and presented phrases of encouragement. The two were buddies for years — and their enjoy with tough bodily demanding situations set them aside from maximum of the opposite runners.
Vobora was once the final pick out within the 2008 N.F.L. draft, incomes the yearly name “Mr. Irrelevant.” He labored his means as much as beginning linebacker for the Rams after which the Seahawks all over a four-year occupation.
Boyer, a former U.S. Army Green Beret who went directly to play soccer on the University of Texas, was once an undrafted loose agent who performed lengthy snapper in preseason video games for Seattle in 2015.
Now, each males have been seeking to grow to be the primary former N.F.L. crew contributors to complete the punishing 100-mile race ahead of the 30-hour cutoff.
“Just being up against that distance, that elevation, that length of time — the mountain will make cowards out of all of us,” Vobora mentioned. “It feels more spiritual than you versus an opponent. It’s you versus who will show up internally.”
After Vobora’s N.F.L. occupation, he based the Adaptive Training Foundation in Dallas, which gives loose coaching and group to wounded, in poor health and injured army veterans and civilians. He changed into considering working Leadville after pacing a pal for 18 miles in 2021.
Vobora had began working all over the pandemic. He ran 10 miles at some point and felt unusually high quality later on. In April 2021, he finished a marathon, working loops round a pond, after which attempted 100 miles in 24 hours, completing with 9 mins to spare.
“I was a total mess afterward,” Vobora mentioned. “Laying on the ground. I couldn’t eat. I was peeing blood.”
But he mentioned he had additionally concept, “How far could I take this?”
To get ready for Leadville, Vobora began an intense coaching time table. He stopped ingesting alcohol and ate simplest meat and fruit, shedding from 255 to 205 kilos to undertake a extra runner-like construct.
“Before Leadville, it was about taking on the task and having the buckle,” he mentioned, regarding the belt buckle runners obtain for completing. “Now it was, ‘You’re going to do this because you said you would.’ The stakes were so high, and it took 100 percent of me to train, maybe for the first time since football. That was something I had missed.”
Boyer is a filmmaker and a co-founder of Merging Vets and Players, a nonprofit group that is helping struggle veterans and previous skilled athletes make transitions to new lives. He additionally hosts the Discovery Channel display “Survive the Raft,” wherein contestants paintings in combination on a raft to finish demanding situations.
In 2022, Boyer ran the Austin Marathon and, 5 weeks later, a 50K. After the latter race, he mentioned, he didn’t really feel the bone and joint soreness he had skilled after the marathon.
“I thought, ‘That’s interesting,’” Boyer mentioned. “‘Maybe I’m more made for this distance?’”
So Leadville it was once.
“I don’t know if it’s about running at all,” Boyer mentioned. “It’s the challenge of seeing what your body is capable of. A lot comes from a very deep-seated insecurity, most likely — feeling like you need to do something incredible with your life.”
Gummy Worms and Pretzels
The Leadville 100, which starts and results in Leadville, Colo., began at 4 a.m. on Aug. 19. Runners traverse the Rockies in what organizers describe as a “true elevation roller coaster.” High-altitude sections, trails and paved roads, and technical sections of the Colorado Trail mix for over 15,000 toes of internet elevation acquire.
Seven hundred runners ranging in age from 18 to 72 began the race. Only 365 completed inside the cut-off date.
Six and a part hours after the beginning, Boyer entered Twin Lakes, the help station at Mile 37.9. His three-person group laid out gummy worms, bars and gels for power, pretzels and different snacks. Boyer sat in a folding chair and altered his socks and footwear. He drank coconut water and ate blueberries and a banana.
“My legs are killing me,” Boyer mentioned. “My back hurts. And I’m dehydrated.” He paused and smiled. “Otherwise, life is great.”
A pair of hours later, Vobora jogged into Twin Lakes. His eight-person group had arrange a tent close to the help station front.
His tone was once all industry. “The things that hurt the worst are my knees,” mentioned Vobora, who additionally mentioned he was once cramping.
His spouse, Sarah, unpacked and repacked his bag. “Pack the big gloves,” Vobora mentioned. “My hands went fully numb this morning.” Temperatures seesawed from the low 40s at first to the top 70s noon and again into the 40’s that night time.
“I feel like I should be further than 38 miles,” Vobora mentioned, chuckling, as he began jogging away. “My energy is good. My stomach has been all over the place. I’m trying to force-feed myself so I can have all the energy for the climb back up Hope Pass the second time. My main thing is the clock. The time stamp getting back over to Twin Lakes before 10 p.m. That’s the cutoff, right?”
What Went Wrong?
Vobora had arrived in Leadville two weeks ahead of the race to acclimate to the elevation. He had an in depth 28-hour race plan: move speedy at the downhills, aggressively hike the ascents. Remain secure at the apartments. While soccer is a crew recreation wherein everybody will have to paintings in combination, for Leadville, Vobora can be working along other folks with their very own person objectives and motivations. He preferred that particular problem.
“Of the hundreds of miles leading up to this race, I’ve probably felt good in about 10 percent,” Vobora mentioned ahead of the race. “Maybe 20 if I’m being liberal. The rest have just been work.”
After virtually 17 hours at the route, Vobora trudged again into Twin Lakes. On Hope Pass, he hadn’t stopped vomiting for 3 hours. He had skilled intense cramping. A clinical respectable had advisable that he drop out, and he relented.
As he rode the commute down the mountain, he leaned his head towards the window and bawled.
“Damn it, man,” he mentioned, his voice catching. He began speaking about his technique for subsequent time: He would put any individual at each and every help station. “They’ll have a bag and say, ‘Here,’ and I’ll keep running. I know I can run this thing.”
Vobora walked to the tent the place his group waited. He and his highest good friend, Mo Brossette, additionally a member of his make stronger crew, attempted to decide what had took place: too many salt capsules? Too a lot meals?
“I’m so mad right now, dude — and I’m so sorry, you guys,” Vobora mentioned to his group.
The subsequent day, Vobora mirrored in a textual content message: “More and more grateful each moment that I did not complete it. Because the questions I am asking and the places I am exploring … I couldn’t be here without it.”
Boyer had arrived in Colorado the day ahead of the race, staying in a resort 40 mins clear of the place to begin. As darkness fell and the temperatures dropped, he attempted to not overthink the miles he had left. “Focus on what you can do in these next few steps,” Boyer had mentioned ahead of the race. “The mountain won’t look like it’s getting any closer if you keep looking at it.”
Vobora mentioned the bodily problem of an ultramarathon was once totally other from the ache of enjoying soccer, which he mentioned concerned “short bursts that are very aggressive, warring, violent actions.”
He persisted: “Ultramarathoning is the complete opposite side of the coin. It involves patience. It involves the state of sort of equanimity to approach difficulty and pain.”
Chris Long, an 11-year N.F.L. veteran who now has a basis devoted to offering schooling and blank water around the globe, is a pal of each Vobora and Boyer; each have labored with him on basis tasks.
He mentioned their enjoy in soccer had ready them smartly for the problem of Leadville.
“Playing in the N.F.L. teaches you how to turn your brain off, put your head down and work,” Long wrote in an e mail. “You get good at going to your ‘happy place’ and distracting your mind from the challenge itself.”
‘Is There Any Beer?’
After greater than 24 hours at the route, Boyer crested the second-to-last hill. Stars have been scattered around the sky as he ran, headlamp on, towards the end line a block south of Leadville’s primary boulevard. Small wallet of spectators cheered as he jogged the overall ascent.
“Let’s go, Nate — what a finish!” Mitch Moyer, his group leader, yelled as he ran along Boyer.
Boyer completed in 24 hours 31 mins 7 seconds. The announcer known as his title out to the just about empty stands. Boyer was once the 57th male finisher and the 63rd finisher general. He embraced Merilee Maupin and Ken Chlouber, the race’s co-founders.
“Do you want anything?” Moyer requested.
“Is there any beer?” Boyer requested, smiling. Moyer passed him a nonalcoholic beer. “That’s actually better,” Boyer mentioned. His stroll grew to become to a hobble, and he started to shiver.
Racers who end in underneath 25 hours obtain a larger buckle than different finishers get. As Boyer walked to retrieve his, the ache began to set in.
“Is running fun for me?” he mentioned, guffawing. “No. It’s not. It’s therapeutic — but therapy is not always fun. There’s nothing better than finishing a run, no matter what the distance. The worst part is starting it, and the best part is finishing it. Everything in between is up and down.”