My American Trail Experience

By Ryan Sandes

I spent the last six weeks in the USA preparing and training for my main goal race of the year – the Leadville 100 miler. This was without a doubt the highlight of me year and an experience I will never forget. The thing I love about trail running is that I get to travel all around the world exploring new trails, meeting new people and learning more about myself and life in general.

I was based in the small town of Leadville and very quickly met a number of the locals including Micah True a.ka. Caballo Blanco from the book Born to Run, who was traveling through town. Looking back now… life was but a dream. My average day consisted of waking up and going for a run; hanging out at the local coffee shop; then heading out for another run or bike ride in the afternoon and; evenings were spent eating Mexican food and chilling with my girlfriend. Faaak I had it good!

I have run on all seven continents and Colorado has some of the best trails in the world. The trails varied from never ending forest single track to less technical wider jeep track. The surrounding scenery was breathtaking – I ran over mountain passes with views of the snow capped Rockies; crossed ice cold rivers; ran around turquoise lakes; and saw an abundance of wild life (luckily I did not bump into any bears).

On a few rest days that I had my girlfriend and I visited some of the nearby towns like Aspen, Vail, Breckenridge etc. We also took a trip on an old steam train, hung at the local Leadville Boom Day’s Festival and watched some Buro racing (runners run with a donkey!!)

Race day (Leadville 100) arrived very quickly and before I knew it I was standing on the start line with goose bumps. I am not going to give you a blow by blow account of the race as that would be boring, but for my first 100 miler I was pretty happy with how things went.

And that’s my story of my American Trail Dream!

Most importantly I would like to thank the following people for making this dream come true:

My dream givers: Velocity Sports Lab (Thanks Trevor!!), Salomon (Thanks Greg – your vision is transforming trail running), Red Bull, Oakley, Cross Country, Suunto, Imazine and Hammer Nutrition – this would all not have been possible without you.

My Salomon team mates who crewed and paced me – Frosty, Phil, Adam, Josh and Martin.

Pi, Dean and Apples who were there to capture my journey on camera (Leadville video be released soon..).

My girlfriend Vanessa – not sure where to start on this one… you were everything.. massage therapist, mental coach (sorry for being a grumpy $%!… leading up to the race), in charge of crewing me during the race (I have won every race you have been at – not a bad combo!) and most importantly great company during our six week stay in Leadville. Thanks babe – you rock!!

My support team back home – you guys know who you are Kels, Chris, Sally, Benita, Ian etc – Thanks!

Big Steve – you may not be built to run 100 milers but your advice was a massive mental boost – Thanks Bud!

And my family, friends and everyone who has supported me – I could not have done it without you!