Leadman — The Leadville Triple

The Leadville Everything

Leadman is not a single race. It is a series of Leadville events completed within a single summer — the Leadville Trail Marathon (June), the Silver Rush 50-mile run (July), the Leadville 100 Mountain Bike Race (August), and the Leadville Trail 100 Run (August) — all within roughly 10 weeks of each other, all at 10,000+ feet above sea level.

Completing all four events earns the Leadman title. The sequence is designed to be exactly as hard as it sounds: run a marathon at altitude, run a 50-miler three weeks later, ride 100 miles on a mountain bike two weeks after that, then run 100 miles the following week.

Most athletes who attempt Leadman are already experienced at individual Leadville events. The challenge is not the difficulty of any single race — it’s the recovery and performance management across four races in ten weeks at altitude.

The Four Events

Leadville Trail Marathon (June): 26.2 miles through the same terrain as the 100-miler. Starting altitude 10,200 feet. Significant climbing. Serves as both a qualifier for the series and the opening event. Many Leadman athletes use it as a training run — a mistake that costs them later.

Silver Rush 50 (July): A 50-mile out-and-back through old mining territory above Leadville. 9,000+ feet of gain. The course is different from the 100 but shares the same altitude punishment. Three weeks after the marathon, legs are not fully recovered. Silver Rush tests whether the athlete has learned to manage effort at altitude.

Leadville 100 MTB (August): 100 miles on mountain bike through the same Hope Pass-adjacent terrain as the run. The bike race has its own elite field — cycling professionals compete here every year. For Leadman athletes, the challenge is surviving 100 miles on a bike with enough in reserve to run 100 miles the following weekend.

Leadville Trail 100 Run (August): The capstone. Everything that makes Leadville brutal is compounded by what came before it. A runner arriving at the Leadville Trail 100 start line as a Leadman competitor has already completed a marathon, a 50-miler, and a 100-mile bike race in the previous ten weeks — all at altitude.

Why Anyone Does This

The Leadman title carries genuine weight in the endurance community. It requires not just fitness but the specific capacity to perform across disciplines, manage altitude for an extended summer, and race intelligently when every race is also a training event for the next one.

Athletes who complete Leadman typically describe it as the most complete endurance challenge they have faced — harder than any single race because the cumulative fatigue changes the nature of the final event entirely.

The Leadville Trail 100 Run is hard. The Leadville Trail 100 Run at the end of a Leadman summer is categorically different.

Four events | June–August | Leadville, CO | 10,200 ft base altitude | Marathon + 50-mile run + 100-mile bike + 100-mile run