Running the 100 Mile Leadville Ultramarathon
Sabrina Stanley has held the title of first place female finisher of the Hardrock 100 for 4 years. She won in 2018 and 2021, and the race was cancelled in 2019 & 2020.
She ran while in school to stay in shape for team sports. Then a friend convinced her to do a half marathon and that led to her running road marathons.
A friend suggested she read Lore of Running, and when she read it she learned about trail running. The author talked a lot about the Leadville 100. She was 22 when she read this book, and said that by the time she was 40 she was going to run the Leadville 100. She put her name in the lottery for Leadville and thought it was going to take years to get into the race. But her name was drawn that first year.
From road marathons to 100 miles on trails
She didn’t think she should go from running road marathons straight to a 100 mile trail race. A friend told her she should do a 50 mile race as training. At least she would know what it’s like to run half that distance. So she ran the Antelope Canyon 50 in Arizona.
Sabrina didn’t know anything about trail running when she moved to Colorado. She loved road running, but the Colorado roads felt unsafe to run or were monotonous. He had heard of people running on trails, but didn’t know the vast community around trail running. She didn’t know it was a huge sport. But the more she delved into it the more she was amazed. It was a whole different universe that matched her passions that she didn’t know existed. Once she realized this universe existed she just wanted to be involved in it.
When she started she thought she was going to have a spectacular performance and that people would wonder who was this rookie who came out of nowhere.
She based this belief by looking at the splits from past Leadville winners and comparing them to her typical pace in road marathons. But she missed the cutoff at mile 87.
It was a rude awakening because she had such big aspirations, she had visions of what the race would be like and her friends and family flew in from Washington State and she felt like she had lost time and she had made them all lose time too and that was heartbreaking for her.
Working her way to be a professional ultramarathon runner
She was living in Breckenridge at the time, and she thought the elevation wasn’t going to affect her. But Leadville is higher, and she struggled. She also learned that trail running it’s not just about the speed but the strategy of the pace and managing your energy. It’s working within yourself, not just running a race.
When Sabrina was a little girl she wanted to be a veterinarian. She thought that was her path, that she would go to college and be a veterinarian. But her parents divorced her senior year of high school and her plan went out the window.
She went to community college because she wanted to avoid having student loans. She tried to join the military, but some previous health issues prevented her from that option.
She decided to go to Alaska for the summer and worked at a fishing lodge and did that two summers in a row and then went to Minnesota for the winter. She had different seasonal jobs and then moved to Colorado and started working in the ski industry and then also in the food and beverage industry.
She worked for Bubba Gump Shrimp Company, and took a promotion that required living in New York to work in their flagship store. She was there for 8 months and put her in the lottery for Leadville. She said that if she got in it was a sign to move back to Colorado, and that’s what happened.
Planning and strategy to compete in ultramarathons
Sabrina came back to Colorado and started working at a running store in Breckenridge. She didn’t know anyone who had run 100 miles so she sought out a few different people who she knew who had done it. She met them for a beer and to talk about long distance running, and they ended up running together.
In 2016 she came in fourth place female in the Leadville 100. It was a big improvement from the first year to get a DNF and fourth place the second year. It is one of her favorite memories of that race. She went in with the same confidence but with twice the volume of training. She knew how to eat better and learned from her mistakes the year before.
She told herself she would run the first 25 miles easy and run as comfortable as possible. Then for the 50 miles she would run at 80% effort for 30 minutes and then walk for 5 minutes and eat. And then the last 25 was to use everything left in the tank and go for it.
Sabrina’s first step to being a professional ultramarathon runner was thinking “How can I get free shoes?” She ran the Sean O’brien 100 K, which at that time was a golden ticket race for Western States. She took second place there and so she made it into Western States and placed third.
She reached out to numerous companies asking about sponsorships. Then, while pacing a friend at the Hardrock 100, she met the director of the Altra team and started running for Altra.
When Altra was bought out by another company, she found her present sponsor, Adidas.
She was signed up for UTMB this year, but she decided not to run. For her it was a strategic decision. As a competitor, she was considering what she thought her body was capable of after coming off a hard race 5 weeks earlier. She didn’t see herself performing at the level she expected so she pulled out of the race.
Mindset training to plan for the unexpected
Sabrina says that control over your mind and body is very important because otherwise you end up lying to yourself. You can have a few incredible miles, but then you will crash and burn. And it is preferable to pace yourself until you let go of the reins at the right time when you know it feels right.
For this year she has planned a 115km race on November 20, and after that she is going to take a break, because Hard Rock was very hard, and her goal is to start the summer healthy and to arrive at UTMB as fresh as possible, both mentally and physically.
For her next race, Sabrina is looking for a fresh race because if you have a heavy schedule in early to mid summer it will be more complicated, and she is focused on being number one. Sabrina knows exactly where to push it and where she can allow her body to rest a little. It doesn’t just come down to how fit you are but it’s all about who is more prepared in all aspects of the event.
For many people who are real planners, the fact that so many things can go wrong in a race can be a real mental hurdle, but she is very strong mentally. And if things go wrong she takes it as a blessing and tells herself that it is happening for a reason. She will back off and rest and knows that if at some point she can’t give it her all, those lows will allow her to have that incredible high later in the race.
When Sabrina has negative thoughts in a race she brings in three positive thoughts for every negative one. She makes it a practice to monitor her self-talk and keep the negative thoughts at bay. Utrarunning comes down to undeniable faith in yourself and to keep yourself going through the hard times.
As a competitive woman in a male-dominated sport, Sabrina has had to deal with negative comments and attitudes from men and women. The double-standard that exists and the body-image stereotypes are still issues women in ultramarathon running have to deal with. She hopes that her example as a competitor will inspire the next generation of women to excel and keep pushing forward.
In a 5 to 10 year future plan Sabrina wants to win all the big races. Her dream race is the Tor des Géants, a 200 mile race in Italy.
If Sabrina had to give one piece of advice to a young woman it would be to do what you want. Try to live as many aspects of life as you want and then when you find your thing and you know what your thing is, put all your chips in that basket and do everything you can to succeed at it. And if you don’t know what it is, that’s totally fine. Whatever it takes to get it, like experience in two different jobs, meeting different people, moving to different places and then one day I think you’ll stumble upon something that just speaks to your soul. And when you find that thing then you have to go all in. And if you really go all in and sacrifice everything you can to succeed at it.
Contact Sabrina:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sabrinaleannstanley/
website: https://sabrinastanley.com/
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