Should I attempt Leadville?

I'm a trail runner and have completed multiple trail marathons and 50Ks. I've always finished in the top five of women. I've been having the Leadville bug lately. I was planning on doing a 50 miler in late spring of 2013 but I'm wondering if I should just bite the bullet and train for Leadville with a goal of simply finishing. Right now, I average around 50 to 60 miles a week, but may be able to get in more miles because my daughter is in kindergarten and I teach only two days a week. My main concern with Leadville and any race above a 50K is getting adequate nutrition and hydration and being able to run through the night. Any thoughts or ideas? My husband only ran one marathon and did a couple Ironmans before he did Leadville.

Some people do just jump right in to a 100 miler, and it is possible. The common saying, though, is that a 100 miler isn't twice as hard as a 50, it is 3 times as hard. So it makes sense to me to try a 50 first since it is considerably "easier". Anyway, you are rightly concerned with nutrition, hydration and night running. Those are indeed the main factors -- basically how to keep the body GOING for that long. The only way to know of course is to do a lot of long training runs. And really, that's one main reason to try a 50 miler first: most people don't actually run that far in training so a 50 mile RACE is a good test for how your body will react over much longer distances than you've gone before.

All that's just sort of a generic, common sense reply. But for you? If you're finishing in the top 5 among women in your other marathons or ultras, heck, you're blessed with some amazing talent and all you'll have to do is slow the pace down until it feels very easy and I personally don't see why you wouldn't at least -finish- Leadville. My guess is you'd get the same time of more average runners that HAVE trained extensively. At least, assuming your training is on hilly/mountainous trails vs more flat stuff. If your pace is easy, I think you have good reason to believe your digestive system can handle a similar food intake to your training runs and 50k experiences. It's when you push it or try to "race" that you end up in uncertain territory. With night running, again, just make sure you try some training runs at night to ensure there isn't any major problem and from there it's just a mind-game (my first overnight run felt more like a fight against sleep than anything).