SA Man of the Week: Ryan Sandes

This triumphant trail runner came out tops on one of the toughest trails, the Leadville trail, stretching over the Rocky Mountains, the name “the race across the sky,” may have a lot to do with the high altitudes which reaches 3.81 kilometres above sea level...

at its highest point. It’s a test to stamina running through this thin air.

The race started at 4am on a Saturday morning with about 600 runners of which only 294 men and 53 women completed. From get go a few men push hard ahead of the pack, but Sandes soon took lead breaking away from the pack by the half way pass, he grew from strength to strength building a 32-minute margin of victory during the race’s second half.

Sandes time of 16:46:56 is the third fastest in race history for the men’s division missing the course record by 64 minutes. Sandes said he has never trained as hard, having spent a full six weeks living and training in Leadville prior to the race.

"I had been dreaming about winning Leadville 100 for the past 6 months and to cross the finish line in first place was definitely one of the highlights if not the highlight of my athletic career," said Sandes.

He said he felt very emotional when he finally crossed the finish line. "It was an insane feeling of euphoria. I was handed the South African flag and immediately there were tears in my eyes. I had done it - my dream of winning the Leadville 100 had come true," said Sandes.

The gifted trail runner is testament to the unlimited, untapped potential of SA Men, he ran his first race because he wanted to join the post-race party, too his surprise he found out not only was he good at it, but he really enjoyed pushing himself.

“I think you need to be mentally tough or maybe just stupid during longer runs or multi day races as your body tells you to stop and your mind needs to tell yourself just keep going. I enjoy this aspect of a race as it is interesting to see how far you can push yourself.” says Sandes.

Hopefully he keeps surprising himself and making SA proud!

Written by Janice Matthews for SA Men Online