GU Rocs Leadville

GU Energy poured athletes, support staff and fuel into the Leadville 100 Mountain Bike race last weekend, and came out of it with stellar results.

Three-time defending champion and GU-sponsored rider Rebecca Rusch defended her title for a record-setting fourth straight win, besting her own 2011 course record with a time of 7:28.

Not far behind, with nearly 1700 age-groupers battling the heat, the cold and the altitude that makes Leadville the most difficult one-day race in North America, GU CEO Brian Vaughan made some history of his own.

Vaughan not only claimed a gold belt buckle with a time of 8:56, he also bested a small field to win the CEO Challenge division of Leadville, while coming in 261st out of 1,335 total finishers.

GU Energy is an official sponsor of the Leadville Race Series, and all the athletes on-course were able to use a wide range of products at aid stations, including GU energy gels and Roctane gels and powdered drink, a secret weapon of which Rusch made liberal use, “I’ve done my own reading on amino acids, protein and other ingredients for extreme endurance. The info I found pointed directly to the ingredients found in Roctane, so I was sold on paper and just had to really put it to the test,” she said after the race.

Vaughan needed a finely-tuned nutrition and hydration strategy to drop more than an hour from his 2011 finishing time. “In the days leading up the event I worked with Jane Rynbrandt, my coach at Carmichael Training Systems, to break the race into manageable chunks,” he noted. “The nutritional components I attribute most to my success on Saturday were Roctane Drink and the addition of salt capsules that we’re currently testing in the field. This pending Roctane product kept my muscles free of cramps, particularly during the final 50 minute push toward the finish line into Leadville.”

Rusch and Vaughan weren’t the only GU athletes at Leadville. GU managers Reid Swanson, a multiple Ironman finisher, and Jeremy Casey also completed the race with respectable showings for both, but not enough for bragging rights in the Berkeley headquarters of GU.