Anton Krupicka’s Build to the 2021 Leadville 100

by Chase Parnell — August 11, 2021

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Alright. Ten days to Leadville. Not this weekend but next weekend. All public-facing indications point to Anton toeing the line. This is BIG. He just turned 38 years old, he was 32 at his last race on ultrasignup, the 2015 TransGranCanaria 125k where he finished 6th against a very competitive international field. I’m content to say he hasn’t really raced in six years despite the fact that he did line up at the Skyrace Limone Extreme in Italy back in 2018 (results). Wasn’t his best day, nor was he really ready for that kind of three-hour mountain blitz. So we’ll say he hasn’t raced an *ultra* since 2015; that fact alone creates a lot of unknown.

Anton of course launched his ultrarunning career at Leadville, winning in 2006 and 2007. He raced but dropped in both 2009 and 2010 and then he got it done once again in 2012, finishing 4th. His three finishing times were 17:01 (2006), 16:14 (2007), and 17:21 (2012). So he clearly knows the course, it suits him well, and I honestly just can’t believe that after a six year absence from the racing scene, he’s finally back to give it another go. I mean, I’ve been saying for a long time that he’d for sure start another 100, I knew he would, but it’s still a shock to the system that it’ll soon be a reality after all this time.

Anton’s Training Leading into the Race

The tough part about writing these kind of fanboy articles is that sometimes I tend to make assumptions about the reader. One of those being that if you’re actually spending your time reading this then you likely have at least some familiarity with Anton’s story? Like, do I need to even talk about Anton’s lower running mileage and his injuries and explain how and why he’s become more of a multi-sport athlete because of those injuries? I’ll just say this: Anton used to run an absurd amount of miles when he was winning all those races, then he broke himself. After that, any time he ramped up the running volume, he’d get injured. He now does a ton of cycling/scrambling/climbing/skiing to stay fit and only runs a few times a week. He’s been riding the razor’s edge in 2021 and cracked the code enough to run Leadville. This has been a long time coming with many many false starts.

Elite level ultrarunning is predictable to a certain degree. With the advent of online training log platforms like Strava, we as fans can see exactly what an athlete has been up to and if we have a bit of an eye for recognizing fitness when we see it, then it’s not that hard to make general statements about how a runner might perform on race day. There are outliers and caveats of course. For example, based on training alone I think a lot of people thought Jared Hazen was going to take Western States: 140 mile weeks, very consistent, focused. And then he dropped at Foresthill (mile 62). So yeah, you can go over to Anton’s Strava profile and see all the work he’s done but I’ve already done that for you and extracted some of the highlights to build a case that he could potentially do very well despite his competitive drought. Here are the interesting bits in bullet point form to give you an idea of what Anton is bringing to the line:

• Last six weeks of running mileage (vert like this): 23.15 miles (11,545 feet), 30.6 miles (6,335 feet), 40.9 miles (16,493 feet), 60.6 miles (14,485 feet), 50 miles (10,732 feet), 72.4 miles (16,535 feet). Nice build but pretty low mileage for a 100 miler, right? Well yeah, but up next is his cycling miles.
• Last six weeks of cycling mileage (hours like this): 184.6 miles (14h 4m), 744.6 miles (57h 54m…yes, 57 hours in the saddle that week), 620.8 miles (45h 56m), 737 miles (53h 8m), 211.8 miles (16h 38m), 162.8 miles (12h 17m). Those three epic cycling weeks in the middle were built into what Anton dubbed Sage and Summits, a touring/peak-bagging solo-quest through the Rockies that he encapsulated nicely here, “Three weeks, six summits (Kings, Grand, Granite, Cloud, Gannett, Longs), ~2300mi with ~1300 of those being on dirt.” So he summited all those peaks, pretty big days on the feet in the mountains, while also averaging over 100 miles per day on the bike. Sheesh. All that to say, he did a lot of cardio and enough running to harden up the legs a bit, muscularly and structurally.
• After the trip, Anton recovered a smidge and then threw down 42 miles around Pikes Peak on August 3rd, 18 days before Leadville. Seems like he was either going to feel like absolute trash after his trip or he’d feel good and it sounds like the latter prevailed. Nice confidence boost. The numbers back it up too: 42.14 miles, 9,760 feet of climbing, 6h 59m moving time, 8m 22s per mile GAP (grade adjusted pace). SOLID.
• Just four days later, on August 7th, two weeks out from the race, Anton cranked a 20 miler with seven miles at tempo effort. Ran 61:30 for a flattish ten mile stretch in there. I like this run considering Leadville’s long stretches of runnable terrain. Good to get the legs turning over every once in awhile.
• Lastly, just yesterday, 11 days before the race, in what I hope was his last long effort before the race, Anton goes out and pops another 42 miler with 6,300 feet of climbing! In the description he said he was psyched to get this run in so he must’ve been feeling like he needed one last long one. And most importantly, no mention of any tweaks or pains in the legs. All systems go!

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Predictions, Competition, Wrap-Up

First of all, it’s a win that Anton is starting the race at all. And don’t get this twisted, I don’t think Anton, in his first ultra in six years, is going do anything superhuman. If I’m being realistic, I think he’ll make things exciting but I don’t see him being able to hang tough in the latter stages of the race. I just don’t think he quite has the running miles on the legs yet to withstand the pounding and cumulative fatigue. I searched for the race’s entrant list for a good 15 minutes and it baffles me that the race organization doesn’t put that front and center for fans/media/runners. If someone has a link to the list, send it my way and I’ll update this post (Update: here’s the list!)! I do know that Ian Sharman is in the field and looking at his training I see no reason why he won’t run 16-mid this year like he has on four prior occasions. (Update: since posting this article, I’ve discovered the men’s field is pretty stacked! To name a few: Cody Reed (2019 UTCT Champ), David Kilgore (3:01 50k PR), Tyler Andrews (ran 2:42 50k on treadmill), Bryan Kerl (7th Canyons 100k 2021), more?

In 2012 Anton ran 17h 14m. I think that would be a really great day for him this year after such a prolonged absence. I don’t think he’ll touch his best time on the course from 2007 (16h 14m). But hell, who knows, anything is possible if the stars align, but I’m trying to be sensible here.

I don’t want to count my chickens before they’re hatched here because in reality, until Anton is actually on that starting line, anything could happen. Maybe he tapers and things tighten up on him and that achilles goes taunt and it’s over before it begins. God, that would suck. But if we inject a little optimism here, I think we’re in for an exciting race, and hopefully this is just the first race of many in the AK come-back tour. If so, maybe Leadville 2021 is the rust-buster, he shuts it down for a bit in the fall like he traditionally has in recent years, and then we see him return to TransGranCanaria or Lavaredo in 2022 followed by UTMB. Wouldn’t that be something? He also flirted with a golden ticket run earlier this year so he clearly wants to run Western States again as well. Maybe Suunto could wrangle a sponsor spot and boom, Anton’s back in the Olympic Valley in June. All ridiculous speculation at this point but what else is Treeline Journal good for if not for some borderline-creepy hype. Let’s go! Pray to your Gods. Anton is running Leadville. This is happening.

Postscript: If this write-up wasn’t enough for you, go watch this 23 minute discussion between Anton, Clare Gallagher, and Ryan Smith talking about all things Leadville from a few days ago. Cheers. If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it with a friend or supporting us via Patreon for as little as $2 a month. We really appreciate your support!