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Mike Aish To Run Leadville 100

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Running 100 miles non-stop  is crazy. Running 100 miles non-stop in some of the most rugged terrain in America is something else altogether.

Tracing a hot, dusty and oxygen-depleted line across the Colorado Rockies, the Leadville 100 is a race that even two-time Olympian Mike Aish finds daunting.

“I’m gonna have to bleed” to compete, he says in “Crushing Hope,” a short film documenting his preparation for the late August race (trailer above). “But I’m willing to go there.”

Aish, 34, ran for his native New Zealand in the 10,000m at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and the 5,000m at the 2004 Games in Athens. To take on the Leadville 100, a race far longer (100 miles = 160,934 meters) and higher (the course bottoms out at 9,200 feet) than anything he’s finished before, he’s enlisted a little bit of expert help.

To learn the ropes of ultra endurance, he’s befriended Frank Bozanich, a 44 time ultra-marathon winner. To improve on his hiking skills, Aish has given his ear to Ben Clark, who has spent the past 10 years pioneering routes up the tallest mountains in the Himalayas.

It’s unclear which of Aish’ new mentors taught him to perform snow angels in high-altitude creeks when the weather gets hot. What’s clear is that the ultra-education is paying off. In July, he finished first overall in the Leadville Silver Rush 50, a grinding warm-up to the main event, coming up on August 18.

Sounds like he’ll be ready to crush the Rockies.

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