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Watch: How to Run the Leadville Trail 100
"One thing I've always been able to do is find pleasure in discomfort. Again, that sounds like I'm trying to be a tough guy, but I think fun trumps tough... every time, especially in a race like this. So if I say to myself, you're a tough guy, push through it, push through it, it's not gonna work for me. This race is the pinnacle of ultra marathon. I'm so lucky to be doing stuff like this. Look at the scenery, look at the people you're meeting, look at the texts and calls flooding your phone while you're doing this thing, as if you have time to read them. All the support... This is fun."
This post details our interview with Cory Terzis of Wyckoff, New Jersey, who, while working with us here at Treeline Endurance, recently finished the Leadville Trail 100 mile run in Leadville, Colorado. He's a busy person who has a job and a family outside of sport, and yet he's not afraid to reach in his athletic pursuits. He doesn't have limitless time for rest, recovery and to give all his time and attention to training.
The Leadville Trail 100 is a race of particular interest, partly because of its attention in popular media, but also because of its stunning location at 10,000 feet, a challenging but rewarding component of the race.
For folks who manage to find a way into the race either through their lottery, through signing up for one of their training camps, or through some other sponsorship.
One of the additional hurdles associated with Leadville is pretty aggressive cutoffs. There are sections that require roughly an 11-minute per mile pace, which is challenging if you're training as Cory was at sea level on the other side of the country. So for those who are potentially also looking at training for a race at high altitude but don't necessarily have access to that terrain. For folks who are busy but still want to do hard things in sport. Or for folks looking for a little bit more information on exactly what beta they should have in mind for the Leadville Trail 100 in particular.
Use the links to jump to a topic in the interview transcript below:
Introductions: Meet Cory Terzis
Juggling family, a demanding career, and ultramarathon training
Preparing for a 100-mile race in just 8 months
Preparing at sea level for Leadville's 10,000-foot elevation
Adapting to the Willow Fire course reroute days before the race
Choosing and educating ultramarathon crews
Race Day: Surviving "zombie mode," caffeine, and 28 hours of adventure
Crossing the line and Cory's top 3 lessons for future ultra runners
Greg Marshall
"You're two weeks post-Leadville, but we'll get into the details of how the race went, some of your experiences there, and what you're thinking about it in retrospect. But walk us back a little bit. When did you start doing endurance sports, and why did that ultimately culminate in Leadville of all 100s?"
Cory Terzis
"I never set out to do endurance sports. You mentioned I was an athlete in college, and I really love football. I love playing and coaching football. Once football ended for me after college, and I didn't have much of a professional career, I was looking to stay competitive. My roommate at the time in New York said, 'Hey, I'm signing up for this marathon; you should do it with me.' I never thought I was a marathon runner. It was out in Big Sur, California—beautiful! But I had never done this before, so I followed some random schedule. When I finished that, I hated it. I never thought I'd run a marathon again. I think my time was four hours and 20-something minutes, but I really did not enjoy my experience. But then the New York City Marathon had come up. I heard about it and got in the lottery. The very next year, I said, 'My God, I'm doing this again.' I really had a 180 experience and loved doing the New York City Marathon. From there, I saw it as a way to explore new cities and have fun while I was there. It became a thing. I got pretty good at those. I signed up for a couple of triathlons and won a few Clydesdale divisions—that's for the bigger guys, 230 pounds and over. So, I was standing on podiums and stuff; it was really cool. I thought I'd test my luck at the Ironman. It was coming to town—the first and only New York/New Jersey Ironman, where we swam in the Hudson, rode on the Palisades, crossed the George Washington Bridge back into New York, and finished there for the run. I had a great experience there and really enjoyed it. These things started becoming a part of my life. While I was training for that Ironman, I read a book called 'Born to Run' by Chris McDougall. In that book, he spends about five chapters talking about Leadville. I remember reading it and thinking, 'Who in their right mind would want to sign up for a hundred-mile foot race? That makes no sense. I would never want to do that.' Cut to fourteen years later, and I was signing up, running it, and crossing the finish line with you, Greg. That's my journey into endurance sports. Again, I never set out to do anything like this, but it was always challenging, always fun, and always something to do to stay active."
Greg Marshall
"Not an easy one, right? Training in New Jersey and racing at ten thousand feet! But it sounds like the race that inspired it all was the one that felt worth it for the distance."
Cory Terzis
"I think when it comes to Leadville... understanding the ultra community, it's filled with a bunch of passionate people that love running and getting out on trails, whether it's for nature or whether it's just breathing heavy. Leadville always holds a special place in that community. Whether it's on Reddit forums, podcasts, or Instagram, I read and heard about this. When I looked at Leadville, it wasn't just my first ultra; it was the challenge. It was the realization of, 'My God, even ultra-runners who do this regularly are saying this is the toughest one.' A little bit about my personality is that I don't want to do anything halfway. I bite off more than I can chew all the time. I like to really scare myself into finishing and reaching goals, and Leadville was absolutely no exception there."
Greg Marshall
"As I mentioned a moment ago, you have a wife, three kids, a demanding job, and you also coach youth sports. It's difficult to find time to train, right? Especially since you brought up the fact that you're in New Jersey. You have to train for elevation, and finding those hills at sea level is difficult to do. This is something you have to figure out before you sign up for this race if you have..."
Cory Terzis
"...family or other commitments. You have to have those conversations. I don't even think you know this, but I had a spot through a charity for the 2025 Leadville race. I got in in February, and I looked at my wife and said, 'Hey, this is a big thing. I have to cram a bunch of races and runs into X amount of months, but I think I can do it.' She looked at me and said, 'I don't think you can. I don't have the time to support you.' Our kids were a year younger, which, if you're a parent, you know even a year makes a huge difference in terms of maturity. So I decided to pass."
Greg Marshall
"How old are they?"
Cory Terzis
"Right now, they're five, seven, and nine—about to be ten. Still young, right? But even a year made a huge difference. Anyway, my wife and I had the conversation. She said, 'I don't think you should. Listen, I'll support you, but I think it'd be too rough on the family.' A year goes by. I'm at the beginning of a new job, but the kids are a little bit older. My wife is in a good spot in her career. She's a doctor and has a crazy demanding job. But I said, 'It's now or never.' We both agreed she was going to take on a lot of responsibilities, especially as we got closer to the race, which she did, and she was an absolute trooper. I'm very fortunate to have that support system from her. Every time I would have to leave on a Saturday for eight hours and then on a Sunday for an additional four or five hours—not only to go run the segments but to drive an hour to the hills, the Catskills in upstate New York, or find someplace closer to me—it was a lot of time away from the kids. It was a lot of time away from my summer, but it was all worth it in the end. It was also the early mornings and figuring out what times I could actually get out of here. You do all the pre-packing of your vest, the fluids, and your nutrition. You make sure the route itself is planned out, the trail you're going to run, and that you have the elevation gain. Now with ChatGPT and AI, it's nice to get those actual trail suggestions, especially if it's your first time; I'd never run trails before in my life. Using those tools was really helpful for me. You do all the pre-planning stuff so you can wake up sometimes at 3:00 AM to get out to the mountains and start running at the first usable light. That way, I could get it done, get back, and resume my responsibilities as a husband and a father."
Greg Marshall
"And it was a pretty quick build-up from my perspective. I think you mentioned a moment ago that you looked at it in February of 2025 originally. You and I started working together in January of 2026, still giving you about eight months to get ready. As I recall it—and correct me if I'm forgetting some of the details here—you had done all of those Ironmans and marathons, but you were coming off a break, right? You weren't actively competing."
Cory Terzis
"Correct. The earliest race I had run prior to Leadville was, I think, in October of 2023. I ran a 50K down in D.C., which was my first time doing anything past a marathon. So, it had been some time since I had even competed in any race."
Greg Marshall
"That was something that really stood out to me when we first started. I think I said to you on our first call—you were asking, 'Is it enough time to be ready?' looking out to August from when we met in December originally. I said something along the lines of, 'It is enough time, but we certainly don't have much to waste.' We had to utilize that time effectively, even if you were committing huge chunks of hours per day. Eight months to prepare for a hundred-mile race is pretty fast for a lot of people."
Cory Terzis
"Is it? Because I still wonder about that. I feel like we had a perfect amount of time."
Greg Marshall
"I think we used the time really efficiently. A lot of folks build across those other distances, from the marathon up through the 50K and 100K. It can be easy to think that's the traditional path, and that you have to take three to five years to build through those gears. Looking at it and saying, 'Can I do this in eight to nine months?'—that's a hard thing to do, but we were still able to do it successfully. I think there are a lot of interesting and beneficial things that come from that accelerated timeline."
Cory Terzis
"Well, yeah. I took comfort in some of the research I did. When I first signed up, I was scared as hell, thinking, 'My God, how can I do this?' I went on Reddit. I started reading and researching everybody that had done Leadville before. I took comfort in finding people's stories where they said, 'Listen, I hit a midlife crisis, and I'd never run anything past a half marathon, but I was able to do this. Here's my training regimen.' Then you read the next story, and it's a totally different training regimen, but a similar story. It was similar to what I was going through, right? My first hundred, I picked Leadville for some crazy reason. I'd never run past 30 miles in my life—a midlife crisis. But whatever the situation was, it was similar enough to know, 'Okay, I know myself. I know what I've been through in terms of sports and being able to stay mentally focused.' If Joe Schmoe can do this and look absolutely dead at the end of the race, I know I'll be able to do this and look... half dead."
Greg Marshall
"And that's such a key component in this accelerated timeline that I don't think we should skip over. The ability to go out and do something huge is partly training, but you also have to believe when you're standing on that start line that you have done the work and that you are somebody capable of achieving that really high bar."
Cory Terzis
"And that's where you really came in during those early morning hours when we were standing at the starting line and I was nervous as hell. At least for me, it doesn't matter how much you train; I still didn't know whether or not I was going to cross that finish line. You have no idea, right? Even in training, you're running a 50K and then a marathon the next day, and you think, 'Maybe that's enough, I don't know.' You go back and think, 'Well, here I was running 16-minute miles. If I do that during the race, I'm not going to make a cutoff.' All these different anxieties come up, but the refrain you kept giving me leading into the week was, 'Hey, the work's been done. I've been watching the numbers, you're there—go out and run it.' So, when the gun went off and I started running, that's when the butterflies started to dissipate because I felt amazing. But leading up to that moment, I still didn't know whether I was going to finish. Am I going to fall? Am I going to break an ankle? Am I going to miss a cutoff? But the day went awesome."
Greg Marshall
"A couple of other challenges you faced in the training aspect that I think a lot of folks can relate to is Leadville itself. As we said, it's not the easiest first 100-miler you could choose. Leadville, Colorado, in the Rocky Mountains, the center of the United States, sits at 10,000 feet—about two miles above sea level. Up there, we're looking at roughly 15 percent less oxygen than what you get down at sea level. That's a huge component you can't train for in Wyckoff, New Jersey, or the Catskills. What were some of your options knowing that? Because you did your research, and that was clear throughout the training process. We had many conversations about what you needed to do for training. I saw your knowledge of the sport continue to grow parallel to that on things we hadn't even talked about. You did a lot of your own research, and one of those components I know you and I talked about was altitude and how to deal with it. What were some of the options you looked at or thought about in terms of preparing yourself for that unique stress since you don't have direct access to it?"
Cory Terzis
"That research we talked about is a double-edged sword. While it could prepare you in some ways, in other ways, it could lead to more questions. A lot of things people on these forums had to deal with didn't affect me as much. Altitude is one that is front and center—what everybody brings up. Some of the research says to do sauna training, drink antioxidants like beetroot juice, try hot tub training, or use hypoxic tents. I looked into all of that, right? It really came down to budget and what I could control. The hypoxic tent I looked into—I was going to get it and then ended up passing on it. I drank the beetroot juice. I have a great gym, the Infinity Club in Mahwah, New Jersey, right down the road from me, where they have great saunas and treadmills that go up to an 18% incline. During the week, I was able to do all that stuff leading up to the race. Two things really stand out that helped me prepare for the acclimation. One was getting out there and doing the training camp. The race directors offer a running camp where, over the course of three days, you run 50 miles of this out-and-back trail. You're essentially running the entire course over three days and seeing how your body deals with acclimation. When I was out there the first night, I landed, had two hours to get ready, and then I was running 13 or 14 miles. I had GI distress, and I had really bad sleeping problems. But I could breathe, right? I was very nervous about huffing and puffing and not getting oxygen to my blood, but that wasn't a problem. So I figured, okay, I can deal with the sleep and the GI issues, but I'm able to move my body. That run camp told me that the best thing for me is not a hypoxic tent; it's doing what I can to prepare and then getting out there early. The reason I wanted to get out there early before the race was to really get some good sleep. I didn't want to be there just three days early, turning restlessly in my sleep, and then jumping onto the starting line. I was out there ten days prior to the race. What that did for me is it helped me acclimate. I didn't have the GI distress. I was there to see the course again, and I was there to manage the terrible sleep I had for those first three days. Once that dissipated, I was able to get some good rest."
Greg Marshall
"That was something you and I talked about. Conventional wisdom says we should get to altitude before an event to help adapt to it. But if we're getting there within two or three days of the event, some of the physiology actually points to that being a detriment, right? You're depleting your body and haven't had enough time to build up those red blood cells, rehydrate, and properly adapt to the altitude. So, you're almost worse off if you're only there for three days. It sounds like that's what you experienced. The first three days or so, sleep is compromised. You're feeling it in your head a little bit more, with some shortness of breath. Then, that's mostly gone. You're saying it cleared up after about four days."
Cory Terzis
"Yeah, absolutely. You know me; I never really looked at the science or the data during my training. It was more about how my body felt. I'm not a big science guy. I know you are, which is why this is a great team. But I went by feel, and I knew from the camp, 'Okay, this is how I'm going to feel after three days.' After about three or four days, there was none of that. It was like I was sleeping back at sea level."
Greg Marshall
"I do look at the numbers, but at the end of the day, the data that's most important—and I think most coaches will tell you this—is how you are feeling. That subjective feedback is so critical for guiding training, even when we have all the heart rate variability, all the weekly volume, all of it. Knowing that you're feeling ready to go is the most important thing when the gun goes off. So, cool. And then, other things we saw that were unique to this particular running of Leadville is the Willow Fire that hit Leadville in... was it June, I think? So, a wildfire on the course. I believe it completely canceled the Silver Rush 50-miler that occurs in July. How did you handle that? What were some of the details that came along with that experience? It made 2026 kind of a unique year at Leadville."
Cory Terzis
"It was tough. Again, I mentioned that even at the start line, I was questioning whether or not I could do this. Now you add a course change into the mix, and it's like, 'God, what if they make it harder? What if they make it a trail I've never seen before? What if the trail's not blazed and I'm tripping over roots in the middle of the night?' Thankfully, it all worked out, obviously. There was some really good communication with the race directors. I admit that a very small part of me thought maybe they should just cancel the race because it would take away my accountability."
Greg Marshall
"I think a lot of people could probably relate to that."
Cory Terzis
"But I had put out my story on social media. Not as an influencer or anything like that, but more as an accountability test, right? So my friends and family following me could see my training weekly. It was also a promise to them that I was going to run this thing. But when the wildfires happened, I was thinking, 'Okay, this is a nice little backdoor where I could get a little bit more time to train—like another year.' But I'm happy the race went on because it forced me to face that fear head-on. So, there was good communication with the race director saying, 'Hey, listen, this is definitely on. We know the fire happened. The 50-miler is canceled, but the hundred-miler is definitely on. We'll let you know if there's going to be a course change in the coming months.' Cut to five days before the race. They're like, 'Okay, here's the new course.' It was a lot more road, which I like running, so it really wasn't that bad for me. I was out there prior to the race, as I mentioned, so I was able to go run or drive the course change. I think knowing the course is such a huge component to finishing any race, right? With all the research, if you can get out there early and see the course itself, I think that adds so much benefit to race day. Anyway, while the Willow Fire stunk and I feel bad for the folks who are still not in their homes, for the racers, it ended up just being a hiccup—another hiccup that you deal with on race day."
Greg Marshall
"Yeah. That was some of the commentary leading into the race: running a 100-miler never goes one hundred percent according to what you had on your plan, right? I think you quoted the old—was it Muhammad Ali? 'Everybody has a plan until they get...'"
Cory Terzis
"Tyson. Mike Tyson said everybody's got a plan until they get punched in the face."
Greg Marshall
"There you go. I think the 100-mile distance tends to do that to people more than most. Almost across the board, everybody gets hit at some point. But you got hit before the race even started, it sounds like, because there were a lot of questions around, 'What exactly is the race I'm running?' Yeah. Well, you handled that well, and I'm glad it worked in your favor in that regard. Getting a little bit closer to the race, you brought a crew of your buddies from New Jersey who've never been to an ultramarathon before. Tell us a little bit about that experience. How did you prepare folks for the fact you were going to do this and how they could support you? What were you looking for in them?"
Cory Terzis
"I have some dynamite friends. I had my wife, my kids, and my parents out there as well. I looked at what I was going to need on race day and the friends I had at my disposal. For my crew chief, I asked my buddy Adam Ackerman, who is the most prepared overthinker there is. He's wonderful and likes to camp and do all that stuff, so he's very good at packing, organizing, and directing. I'm kind of a go-with-the-flow guy, so again, totally opposite. He was very good at telling people what they needed to do, when they needed to do it, and having checklists and things like that. I knew that if I gave him this task, he would take it and absolutely run with it. I also had a sports medicine doctor, which was huge because he knew how to stretch me out, what I needed in the moment, what I needed after, and pre-race. Then I had two of my best friends from high school. One was in charge of the nutrition and making sure I had all the food I wanted. The other one was in charge of all the gear because there are a lot of gear changes throughout the race. So, with those four needs met, these guys did an outstanding job. Everybody else that was there that I mentioned—my parents, my kids, and my wife—were all hyping me up and having a good time. Coming into those aid stations, all you want to do is hug everybody and thank them for being there. You're filled with endorphins. You're happy to see somebody you know. I'm so happy I had them there to keep me going throughout the day and night. In terms of preparing them, it was really about researching online. Again, I needed to know what to expect because I had never done this before. Once I got a feel for what I needed while I was training and what I was reading online, I wrapped that up into a PowerPoint presentation and had maybe three or four meetings tops with my crew. I tried to communicate with them through a text chain, saying, 'Okay, here's the course reroute, here's what it looks like, here's everything everybody's responsible for, and here's everything you need to know.' It's a taxing day, not just on the runner, but also on the crew. They're carrying gear, getting on shuttles, and driving to locations in an area they don't know. So, the more you can prepare them and the more you can keep that flow of communication going, the better your race day is going to be because they're going to know what you need."
Greg Marshall
"Awesome. You and I talked before this about potentially having one of your crew members join us, but they're all busy folks with families and responsibilities as well. So, I'll ask you if you could speak to their experience a little bit. How did they feel about the whole thing in retrospect?"
Cory Terzis
"Everybody says the same thing when you finish Leadville: 'I can't imagine running a hundred miles,' and I think that was their reaction. They were very proud to be there to help and very proud of the accomplishment. I also think they had fun. We had a cooler full of beers, and when I got back to Twin Lakes Inbound, they were gone. They didn't really know each other prior to coming to Leadville, other than my two buddies who I went to high school with. By the time we left, you included, the crew were hanging out like we were best buds for years. So, I think they found a way to have fun once they knew—especially when they knew I was safe and was going to meet my goals. Then it was like, 'Hey, now let's get to that finish line and have some fun.' At least I hope that's the case."
Greg Marshall
"I would agree with all of it from my perspective. Within the crew to some degree, and seeing this in some other crews as well, you bring people together from all parts of a person's life to support them in this thing. Maybe they know each other and maybe they don't, but by the end, you're one unit because you're all working for the same thing and sharing in that wild, chaotic adventure. You are out there running for the full twenty-eight hours, but we're worried about what Cory is going to need when he comes in. So, some of us are talking about the Cory they knew 20 years ago, 10 years ago, and five minutes ago, and trying to put that all together to figure out exactly what we need to meet you with. I think it's a really cool way to bring a group together. Getting into your experience of the race a little bit more: Saturday morning, I think the gun is set to go off at about 4:00 AM. You and I drive to the start line at about 3:15 AM. We've got about forty-five minutes to figure out what we're going to do, warm up, and take some photos. Eventually, they start to corral you all together into the start line so that it's just runners and no more crews or friends or family, so they can do their final announcements. Take us to that moment if you don't mind. You're standing on the start line, it's 3:50 AM. What are you feeling and thinking in that moment?"
Cory Terzis
"You're thinking a million different things all at once. Typically before a race—and this was true at Leadville, too—I look around and I see, 'Okay, I've gotta beat this person.' I don't know why I do it, but I size people up. But I started repeating mantras to myself, saying, 'It's an ultramarathon; you cannot go fast,' because going fast is another typical thing I do. Thankfully, I calmed myself down. I didn't want to do that. So, I did run pretty fast, but not the crazy speeds I typically do for marathons. Once I tried to calm down a little bit, I scouted out the competition. You try to suppress those inner thoughts of, 'What if I twist an ankle?' or 'What if I don't make a cutoff?' You try to stretch and keep your mind off the next 30 hours. Actually, the next hundred miles. You think about getting to the first aid station, doing your checks in your head, saying a little prayer, and then the gun goes off, and boom—you're going. It's butterflies, it's excitement, it's nerves; it's everything all at once. I think that's the start of the race, the finish of the race, and hell, everything in the middle. It's why you do it. Why you sign up is for that race day. So, you try to embrace it as much as possible."
Greg Marshall
"So, assessing a little bit of how you stack up at the start line—how much is that a factor throughout race day as you watch competitors around you? Are they a factor in your mind, or does the focus move more inward?"
Cory Terzis
"It definitely moves more inward. It's communal out there. I say I'm competitive, but on the inside, right? I am very competitive with myself. On the outside, I try to talk to as many people as I can while I'm running. People are very friendly. You get to learn about their stories, and it's a really fun time. When you and I were coming to the finish line, we were beating a big group right behind us. I looked back and saw it was a guy I was descending Hope Pass with. It was easy to spot him because his name is Ryan, and he's a double amputee—the first double-leg amputee to finish Leadville. That was his third attempt. I got his whole story; the other two were DNFs. I saw him and his giant group of supporters right behind me. So, to answer your question, it goes internal, right? It's about, 'How can I embrace this moment to the best of my ability?' It stops being about beating other people at that point."
Greg Marshall
"Physiological adaptations are different at sea level than at altitude. How did your body actually respond to that? You talked a little bit about the prep already, but once you were in the race, were you noticing any of those effects of the altitude at all?"
Cory Terzis
"No, shockingly. When I was at the run camp, I was climbing the backside of Hope Pass, and I got dizzy. I had to sit down because of the altitude and climbing up that steep mountain. But during the race, that wasn't the case. It didn't hit me nearly as hard. I don't know if that was the training or the acclimation. Physically, I got three blisters. That was my entire injury report. I couldn't believe how well my feet held up, and how well my legs held up. But there was a nutrition mix-up that killed my possibility of making it under 25 hours, which I didn't think we were even going to have a shot at, but we did have a shot at the end. Coming down, I hit Hope Pass inbound, and I accidentally took 150 milligrams of caffeine in my gel packs. Prior to this race, I had given up caffeine altogether. I don't know why; I thought it might help me with the race, maybe smooth me out a little bit. And that 150 milligrams of caffeine hit me like a ton of bricks. I was on cloud nine; I was flying down Hope Pass. I got to Twin Lakes Inbound, and I was like, 'We're going for 25 hours! We're going for 25 hours!' I sat down, got up, got going with you, and then boom, the caffeine wore off. I was a zombie. My legs stopped working. I didn't talk to you. I was miserable. I wasn't taking any more caffeine at that point, but I also got heartburn, so I wasn't taking in calories. It became this downward spiral. I knew I was going to finish, but I knew it was going to take a long time because I could not run at that point. My knees weren't letting me, and I didn't have the motivation to. I knew I could walk it and finish. So I said, 'We'll try and shuffle along as much as we can, but it's going to be mostly walking from here.' It was disappointing. In hindsight, I think if I didn't have that happen and I was able to continue to take in calories, it would have been a totally different story. I think I texted you the next day like, 'Man, I wish I could have done it faster.' And you were like, 'You're an idiot. You finished this race.' That helped too, motivation-wise."
Greg Marshall
"Exactly—how many people finish a 100-mile race, right? What an achievement. It's hard to quibble about. That's all I'm trying to convey, right? You set out on this tremendous goal, and you delivered 98 percent of your best-case scenario—maybe 99 percent of your best-case scenario."
Cory Terzis
"Yeah, you're right."
Greg Marshall
"And then there's that last one percent of, 'What if we could squeeze it in under 25 hours?' I think you spoke to that a little bit. You and I had a bunch of conversations leading up about this 25-hour mark—maybe on the right day, it could come together. The numbers were there to make it possible, but it was your first 100-miler. In order to finish under 25 hours, we needed to at least finish. Right. So, that was what led us, I think, for a lot of that race: 'Let's keep moving forward, make sure we're taking care of ourselves, and let the paces and mile splits fall where they may.' You did an amazing job of that all the way through a 100K easily. When we saw you the second time at Twin Lakes, 65 miles in, I remember the energy was high. We were sitting there wondering, 'What's Cory going to be like when he gets back? He's been up on Hope Pass for six hours.' That's a tough section of the course, and it comes after you already have 45 miles in your legs. We thought you were probably going to be pretty tired. Then you came in with guns blazing. We got you in and out of there pretty quickly to keep things moving. So, we were on a good 24- to 25-hour pace for a lot of the time, but the nutrition things you mentioned are not uncommon. We see those fairly frequently in 100-mile races. You've been running for sixteen hours; you just start to get foggy. That's the sort of stuff where mistakes happen, and it's all about our ability to take that and move forward in spite of it, which I think you did an amazing job of."
Cory Terzis
"I mean, you keep that image of the finish line in your head even through the hard times. Even when your legs decide to stop running, that's what keeps you motivated. Knowing I was going to finish, right? Now it became, 'Am I going to complain about it, or am I going to do it?'"
Greg Marshall
"And you mentioned this experience in the late hours where you go into what I think you called 'zombie mode,' right? Can you take us into that experience a little bit more for folks who maybe haven't experienced it before? What is it like?"
Cory Terzis
"I mean, if you've ever had a newborn, you know that zombie mode where the kid won't go to sleep, they're always crying, and you are exhausted, but you have a job to do, so you keep going. That's what I relate this to. It's really just being tired. Wanting to fall asleep but knowing you have to keep going turns you into this machine that just keeps turning those gears because your job is not done. I remember not wanting to talk. I had all these jokes in my head to tell Greg when he was pacing me—at least pre-race, that's what I thought. I had all these stories, all these things we could talk about. He's got music, I've got music. But when you're in the moment, you're just like, 'Nobody talk to me. I want to keep moving.' Do you remember when we heard a rustling in the bushes and you were like, 'Is that a bear?' I was like, 'I don't care if it is. It can come and eat me right now.' I didn't even want to shine my headlight 20 yards behind me to see if it was a bear or not. But yeah, it's this mode where you're not feeling anything other than tiredness. You're not feeling sorry for yourself. It's more of an 'I've got so much more to go, whatever, let's keep this going' attitude. One thing I expected but never had during this race was the 'pain cave' everybody talks about. It never happened for me. I was fine, other than not being able to run. The second thing was this feeling of, 'My God, I can't go on. I can't take one more mile.' There was zero thought in my mind that I was going to quit or that I couldn't do this anymore. It never happened for me, and I'm happy about that, but I think it's a testament to how prepared you made me through training."
Greg Marshall
"What do you think about instead? You're dealing with all the same struggles everyone around you is, and surely some folks are feeling that pain and it's enough to make them question why they chose to do this. How are you rationalizing it differently?"
Cory Terzis
"It's a couple of things. I made this commitment to run a hundred miles. I never questioned why. It was just, 'This is what you're doing.' I don't know; I think it goes back to sports, right? In college athletics, the coaches aren't nice guys. If you're not doing the job, you can go sit on the bench, you can quit, you can do whatever you want. You're just not their guy. So, I don't know if it's discipline, but it was just a fact that I was doing a hundred miles. You're not really overthinking much. I mean, you can look at your pace, and you can think about, 'I have to eat these gels,' to keep your mind active throughout the thing. But in terms of running a hundred miles, it's just a fact for the entire day and a half. This is what you're doing."
Greg Marshall
"I hear perspective, basically, right? It's miserable in the moment—is what I heard you say. But if you really contextualize that we're talking about a day or a day and a half of your experience, and some of that was really pleasant while some of it was unpleasant, is that really something you're going to regret pushing through? Especially when you look at the months or years you spend as an athlete, and the things that we face in life."
Cory Terzis
"One thing I've always been able to do is find pleasure in discomfort. Again, that sounds like I'm trying to be a tough guy, but I think 'fun' trumps 'tough' every time, especially in a race like this. So if I say to myself, 'You're a tough guy, push through it, push through it,' it's not going to work for me. Instead, my mental focus is, 'Holy God, look what I'm doing.' This race is the pinnacle of ultramarathons. I'm so lucky to be doing stuff like this. Look at the scenery, look at the people you're meeting, look at the texts and calls flooding your phone while you're doing this thing—as if you have time to read them! Look at all the support. It might hurt a little bit, but this is fun. You stay present, and that will motivate you to push and keep going. That was true throughout sports, throughout my entire life, and in this endurance sports post-college career."
Greg Marshall
"Your kids are pretty important to you. I remember, during our eleven hours together out there, at one point, I asked why you were doing this and how you liked being a parent. Or maybe the two topics came up independently, but the answers came together, it seemed. Can you speak to how they were an influence over your choice to do this race?"
Cory Terzis
"Yeah, absolutely. It really was a big influence on why I signed up. I put a lot on my kids to be good humans. I tell them when I'm coaching them, when I'm parenting them, 'Do the hard things. Do the hard things.' Then I looked at my own life and I thought, 'Yeah, I do a demanding job. I parent. I try to do fun things with them, but what am I doing that's really hard?' Right? I define something that's hard as a goal that's way above your pay grade, something that's actually scaring you. I talked about the fear on the starting line of not being able to finish. That's a hard thing—putting yourself in that uncomfortable position with people who are relying on you, watching you, wanting you to hit your goal. I wanted to show my kids what a 'hard thing' is. They will one day grow up to realize Dad was gone all those weekends because he was working towards this goal. This is how you set a goal, this is how you work towards it, and this is how you finish it. Take my son, who's asking why he has to play center on the football team when he can catch a ball and wants to play wide receiver. 'Well, you're big, and this is where the team needs you. Your team is trying to reach a goal, just like I did during the race. Everybody needs to play a certain position in order to achieve that goal.' So, it's not just a major milestone in my life. It's a teaching aid; it's a testament to how far we can push ourselves."
Greg Marshall
"Take us through those last few minutes as we led into the finish line. So, you and I hit the Boulevard, is it called, right?"
Cory Terzis
"Yeah, the Boulevard."
Greg Marshall
"'Boulevard' sounds really nice and approachable, doesn't it? And then you get back there and you're trying to find the finish line, and it's this steady uphill."
Cory Terzis
"Nonstop! Like... why?"
Greg Marshall
"Yeah. We hit the Boulevard, and it goes on longer than either of us would like, but eventually we crest over the hill and you see the finish line. Take us through that experience a little bit, if you don't mind."
Cory Terzis
"So if you're hitting the finish line around whatever time we were—seven or eight o'clock—the sun is beating on you. You've gone two and a half miles uphill up this Boulevard for some reason. And yeah, you can see the finish line right there. It's breathtaking because you're looking down on the crowd, you're seeing people finish, and you're hearing the loudspeaker. I knew my family was down there waiting for me. It's a culmination of everything you wanted. I mean, at that point, I was also extremely tired, and all I wanted to do was fall asleep. But at the same time, throughout the race, what was motivating me was the image of the finish line, and to actually get there... it was awesome in the truest sense of the word. What I loved was when I got up to the gates. My kids were the first ones to run up to me, and they were the first ones of my team I saw. They ran up to me, gave me a big hug, and it reinforced why I did the race. I could feel this sense of pride in myself. I could sense my kids felt proud of me and were happy for me to be the center of attention. I spaced myself out; as I mentioned, I let Ryan go first. I knew I had some distance between me and the next guy crossing the finish line. So I was able to grab my team, hug everybody, and really embrace that moment of the finish line. It was all euphoria and endorphins. It was wonderful."
Greg Marshall
"Yeah, it was awesome. It was an incredible effort of coming together over the twenty-eight-plus hours you were out there, culminating in the group coming back together at the finish line. It was a pretty special thing to watch, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to have come out and been a small part of that. Huge congratulations, Cory. Now what? Leadville is over. What does your life look like?"
Cory Terzis
"I went back to coaching peewee football, which is awesome, and I've got flag football and my daughter's soccer coming up to coach as well. I'm back to work. I have run since then. We had a rain delay in one of our practices, so I started running a half-mile loop. I got 13 and a half miles in, and everybody thought I was crazy."
Greg Marshall
"Then your coach said, 'Stop running so much at practice.'"
Cory Terzis
"That's right. That's right. But immediately after the race, I thought about what I said earlier. I thought, 'Man, I could have done that in under 25 hours. What if I sign up next year? What if maybe two years down the road I do it again? What if I do a different hundred-miler? How far can I go?' And I never thought I would do that. I thought it was going to be one-and-done, but you really get sucked in by the challenge. I enjoyed my time and wearing that belt buckle. Earning it, I should say; I haven't worn it yet. But I still wonder what's next for me, because that's not it."
Greg Marshall
"I think you give us a really good picture of the entire experience because you're acknowledging how much time and energy had to go into the preparation, and it sounds like it's probably nice to have those hours back with your family on the weekend and things like that. You committed fully to it, and it wasn't easy to make the time, make the sacrifices, and gather all the support. It doesn't necessarily mean that you won't do it again, but it sounds like it's a big lift when you do, and you recognized that full commitment on the front end. I think that was a really crucial part of your success here. I really do. Setting it up from the get-go, you said, 'I'm willing to put the time in because I know this might be the only time I do something like this.'"
Cory Terzis
"Yeah. Yeah."
Greg Marshall
"I think in ultra-running, there's a tendency in general for folks to become repeat offenders, or feel like you need to be in order for it to count. Do you feel that pressure at all?"
Cory Terzis
"That's absolutely right. That's absolutely right. I want to prove it's not a one-time freak thing I happened to succeed at. And with the course change, it's like, 'Well, yeah, now I want to do Powerline. I want to do the actual course here.' Which is silly if you take yourself out of it and think about it. Somebody asked me right after the race—in front of my wife—'What's next?' And she goes, 'Nothing.' So I kind of had to respect that. But there will be other things I've got going on, guaranteed."
Greg Marshall
"Yeah, yeah. Awesome. It's a different style of racing, right? You mentioned a moment ago the fatigue—just governing staying awake and putting one foot in front of the other for those last ten hours or so. How do you feel about that compared to other race distances you've done? How would you describe that sort of racing, and what appeals to you about it that makes you say, 'Maybe I would go back and try it again'?"
Cory Terzis
"I think when you think of things like the Ironman, it's very active. You have a lot of switching to bikes and switching of different activities and muscle groups. When you compare it to a Leadville-type race, Leadville is a lot harder for many different reasons, with fatigue being the major contributor for me. But again, it's that challenge, it's that fear, and it's that motivation that keeps you coming back. I don't think I can find it anywhere else but a hundred-miler."
Greg Marshall
"Well, Cory, thank you so much for your time and for sharing your incredible experience and your incredible achievement at the Leadville 100 this year. It really was a pleasure to be part of that experience in every part I was involved in—from the start of your training, through the big late-stage miles, the logistics, and finally spending thirty-five miles with you out there on the trail. It's a hard thing, and it was awesome to watch you bring it all together."
Cory Terzis
"Yeah. Listen, I thank you for teaching me all this stuff. Everything from gait analysis—what that is—to nutrition planning, to not pushing yourself too hard when you're training. Just because you're injured doesn't mean you're going to lose the race. It means slow down, you've been doing it too much. That was so much for me to learn, and you were a great sherpa through the whole thing."
Greg Marshall
"Awesome. For folks who are listening and considering running an ultramarathon, a hundred-miler, or Leadville for the first time, what thought would you leave them with based on your experience? If you could go back and talk to yourself at the start of this block, what's the one piece of advice you would give to yourself?"
Cory Terzis
"Yeah, I'll share three things I learned. One is that a little bit of humility can strengthen you. Showing my vulnerabilities and weaknesses to you helped us say, 'Okay, well, we need to strengthen this,' whether it was something mental, actual muscle, or tackling climbs. The second thing I learned—I talked about it earlier—is that fun will trump toughness. Find a way to have fun while you do this stuff. Even in training: I'm a parent 24 hours a day, but I had a little block there where I was alone. I loved that alone time as much as I hated missing out on time with the kids. The third thing is that it can always get better, right? I finished that race and thought, 'Man, I could have gotten under 25 hours.' You can always do something more to better yourself. Embrace that fear, because that means you're headed towards a goal that is going to make you better. Just enjoy it."
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