For Jack Quinn’s runners, getting “shirted” following the completion of 10 runs is something akin to earning a Quinnian badge of honor. The shirts of varying colors signifying the number of Quinn’s runs completed are a fun little status symbol of sorts amongst Quinn’s runners, new and old, and something to encourage all runners to keep on coming back for more every week.

While he’s already logged over 100 runs since Jack Quinn’s got started, Springs ultra-runner Marc Pevoteaux would have earned his 10-run shirt in one go at last week’s Jack Quinn’s run as he ran the 5k circuit in downtown Colorado Springs 10 times. In one afternoon. Beginning his endeavor at 2:30 pm and finishing up a little over four hours later, he followed up his 30 miler with a much-deserved beer at the pub. After all, the replenishment of lost carbohydrates is an important part of any endurance sport.

However, there was another reason behind what appeared to be Pevoteaux’s madness. In training for his first Leadville100 Miler, coming up up next August, such a distance fit right into his training schedule.

Not really a stranger to the Ultra-Running scene, he has already completed the Cheyenne Mountain 50k last year and followed that up with the Collegiate Peaks 50 Miler. Inspired by his friend, training partner, and Springs local Brooks Williams, who is affected by cystic fibrosis yet has completed multiple Leadville 100’s, Pevoteax needed no more convincing.

The Leadville 100, or “Race Across the Sky” as it is aptly nicknamed, is a brutal 100 mile ultra that begins in Leadville at 9,200 feet of elevation, and climbs another 3,400 feet in altitude over Hope Pass. Well, twice actually. It’s 50 miles out and back. There’s not a lot of air up there, and Williams, with his cystic fibrosis, which makes breathing exceptionally difficult, doesn’t get much air anyway. It’s a daunting task, to be sure.

“Brooks has this disease and he’s kicking butt up there,” Peavateaux said. “He’s a prime example of when things suck and you’re in pain, there is always someone worse off than you. If he can do it then I can do it.”

Peavoteaux is a fan of all things trail-running. Additionally, he tends to stray away from the shorter, faster races in favor of longer distances on the trails that better suit him.

“The faster stuff hurts too much,” he explained. “I feel like the longer distances are challenging in their own right, but they also take a lot of guts and resolve to push through when the going gets rough.”

In terms of actually training for ultra-marathons, Peavoteax claims, “I really have no idea what I’m doing. I get a lot of advice from friends as far as how I should train, but I‘m really just doing what I am able to do right now.”

Nonetheless, he doesn’t do anything half-way, so coming up fast on his race docket is the Rocky Raccoon 100 Miler in Huntsville, TX this February, followed up by the Salida Marathon in March. Rocky Raccoon will be his first 100 Miler and “rust-buster” of sorts for Leadville.

In the hopes of breaking 24 hours in Leadville next August, Pevoteaux will need all of the distance he can get. So keep your eyes open next time you’re at Quinn’s, you might see him circling the course another 10 times. For him, it’ll be just another training run.