When Payson McElveen shows up to Leadville for the Life Time Leadville Stage Race, he wins.
Sunday was no different. McElveen was victorious after three days and 100 miles of racing. The Durangoan and host of the “With Pace” podcast has won all four times he has competed in the Leadville Stage Race. Now his focus turns to the third round of the Life Time Grand Prix with the Leadville Trail 100 MTB on Aug. 9.
“It was a good confidence boost for sure,” McElveen said. “It felt like another step in the right direction. It's one of those things where, obviously it's not the big one, the 100, so you try not to put too much stock into it or get too excited. But it was three days in a row of basically setting PRs on every section of the course and seeing better power numbers than I’ve ever had that high.”
McElveen took the victory in five hours, 57 minutes and 59 seconds. Torbjorn Roed finished second in 6:00:04 and Daniel Van Der Walt finished third in 6:10:29.
The expectation for McElveen wasn’t to win. He knew Roed is having a great summer and McElveen felt like he was still elevating his form in the returning process. But, McElveen surprised himself with how he felt and performed.
It has been a challenging start to 2025 for McElveen. He broke his hip at Sea Otter in April and missed Unbound Gravel, arguably the biggest gravel race in the world. McElveen finished fourth at the Oregon Trail Gravel Grinder stage race and was happy with how his hip felt after months of rehab and recovery.
Now, McElveen’s hip feels 100% and he has zero complaints. A few weeks ago, he’d get some soreness after hard workouts. That type of soreness is gone after McElveen put in a lot of work to reprogram the muscles around his broken hip.
His balance is even better than it was before the injury and McElveen feels like he’s in a better situation than before the injury, which is better than he could’ve hoped for.
McElveen used his strength post-hip injury to pull away in Day 1, winning the 40-mile first stage in 2:06:50, almost three minutes ahead of Roed in second in 2:09:42.
“I felt ridiculously good,” McElveen said. “It was almost confusing at times, because I've done so many races on that Leadville course at this point … I know every rock and every tree out there at this point and how long each climb takes. Immediately, on the first climb, on that first day, it just felt like the first climb went by really fast. I wanted to kind of play it conservatively and was sort of waiting, but could tell immediately I felt good.”
McElveen decided to make a move to test the other riders on the first climb, but it was too late and the climb was over. He then went for it on Sugarloaf, the second long climb of the day. McElveen pulled a gap and then increased his advantage on the flatter section after and cruised to a Day 1 victory.
Roed got the best of McElveen on Day 2 on Saturday. Roed won the 20-mile stage in 1:30:15, ahead of McElveen in 1:31:04.
McElveen felt also felt very good on Day 2, but recognized that Roed was having a crazy good day. Roed put about 15 seconds on him at the top of Columbine climb. McElveen knows he overextended himself trying to catch Roed on the descent of Columbine, imploded and lost a lot of time in the last 10 minutes.
Day 2 took a little out of McElveen’s confidence but he responded well on the 40-mile final stage on Sunday. He took the stage win in 2:20:05, ahead of Roed in 2:20:07.
McElveen started the day on defense mode with his 2+ minute lead. But, after he and Roed were still together after the iconic Powerline climb, McElveen said he had a well-timed attack with about 500 meters to go, caught Roed by surprise and got away for the win.
After the Leadville Stage Race win, McElveen has more confidence going into Leadville Trail 100 MTB, but acknowledges there will still be a lot of work to do on Aug. 9.
“Those races are always unpredictable,” McElveen said. “The field is so much deeper than something like the stage race that really anything can happen; small mistakes are really magnified. If you're a little bit out of position going into the very first climb, just 20 or 30 minutes in, it can have a really big impact on the rest of your day. So I definitely try to have a little bit more of an open mind.”
Ellen Campbell and Sarah Sturm didn’t have the same success in the women’s standings. Campbell finished sixth and Sturm finished eighth.
“I have lots of positive memories from racing here so it’s easy to expect that positive trend to continue, when in reality rough days happen in racing,” Campbell wrote on Instagram. “So I’m walking away from that little stage race with some good reminders to keep my head up and to keep pushing no matter what, plus hoping to get all the weirdness out before the 100 in two weeks!”
Melissa Rollins won the women’s race in 6:28:09. Campbell finished in 7:11:16. She finished sixth on Day 1, ninth on Day 2 and eighth on Day 3.
Sturm finished eighth in 7:12:41. She finished eighth on Day 1, seventh on Day 2 and seventh on Day 3.
bkelly@durangoherald.com
