Instagram sways Eagle County teacher to sign up for the Leadville 100 — he ended up finishing with one of his students

Sometimes, social media spying on us can produce positive fruit. Just ask Matt Clark.

The straw that broke the Berry Creek Middle School teacher’s back and pushed him towards becoming a Leadville Trail 100 finisher wasn’t a college rowing injury, per se. Instagram also played a role — more on that in a minute.

First, it’s worth noting that in our preview and recap, this writer missed mentioning Clark’s participation in the area’s signature century ultra. For that, I sincerely apologize. The 34-year-old completed his debut 100-miler on Aug. 23 in an astounding 23 hours, 28 minutes and 23 seconds to finish 26th out of 314 men. His running story is as inspirational as his remarkable result.

Clark grew up in the north suburbs of Chicago. A rower through high school, he was recruited by Brown University, where he competed for two years before a back injury halted his collegiate crew career. After graduating with an economics and environmental science degree, he moved back home and started coaching at his alma mater.

“I figured I liked working with kids, so I applied to grad school for teaching,” Clark said. He got into the University of Denver, eventually graduated with his Master’s and accepted a job at Berry Creek a couple hours after his initial interview. He’s been teaching science and AVID classes ever since. Clark’s mountain ultra story also began when he moved to Eagle County.

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“I needed to find a sport to do,” he said. Rowing wasn’t an option, so Clark started hiking. In four summers he checked off the state’s 58 14ers. His dog, now a 13-year-old black lab/border collie mix, did all but two of those with him. When they finished, Clark needed a new goal. Social media pointed him in the right direction.

“Instagram listens to all of us,” he said. “For three weeks, it just kept showing me ads for the Leadville Race Series — and I took that as a sign two years ago to put my name in.”

There were a couple potential hiccups. First, Clark’s longest run to that point was a 10K road race his Brown teammates coaxed him into doing in Providence, Rhode Island a decade ago. Second, Clark needed to actually get into the Leadville 100. Having applied for the lottery in 2023 and failing to secure a spot, he signed up for the Silver Rush 50 last summer. Clark ended up finishing the grueling course, which many proclaim to be tougher than the 100, in 9 hours, 18 minutes and 44 seconds — good for 45th overall.

“It went pretty well,” Clark said. “My body felt really good.”

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Throughout the next school year, Clark logged 60-90-minute runs on the treadmill before work. During the summer, he spent a lot of time camping in his Tacoma with the pup, scouting out the Leadville course on all-day trail excursions. He hit Hope Pass from both sides, climbed Powerline twice and ran Turquoise Lake a handful of times, too. Going into the race, he had two objectives. The first was to claim a coveted big belt buckle with a sub-25-hour time.

“The second goal was just to finish,” he added. “Running 100 miles — I’ve obviously never done that before, so I wasn’t sure how to pace myself. So a lot of the drama for the first 40 miles was just, am I going the right speed?”

He came through Mayqueen Outbound at 9:46 per mile pace and hit 29 miles in 5:05:10. It was there — the Half Pipe aid station — that someone yelled at Clark to eat more as they noticed his body leaning 20 degrees to the right. His rowing injury had struck at the most inopportune time.

“By the end of the race, my back was completely locked up,” he said. “What felt like standing up straight was almost a 45-degree lean to the right side.”

It was right around this point in the race, however, that Clark found someone to run with: John Novak. The experienced Eagle endurance veteran was chatting with another guy at the aid station.

“If you want to go really fast, you should stay with John,” the man told Clark.

“We started talking and John told me he was trying to set the 60-69 age-group record and told me how fast he was trying to go,” Clark said. “He got me from the Halfpipe aid station down to the first Twin Lakes aid station way faster than I would have gotten by myself.”

Novak climbed Hope Pass quicker, but Clark caught him right before the turnaround in Winfield. Clark’s halfway split was 10:12:07. Novak again pulled away going back up the south side of Hope Pass, but they came together once again at the infamous Powerline climb.

“It was pretty cool,” Clark said. “It was inspirational to go back and forth with him and move with him for the last 60-70 miles of the race.”

Clark’s back pain eventually forced the Avon runner to walk the final 12 miles or so. When he arrived on the Sixth Street finishing stretch, one of his students and middle school runners whom he coaches, Everett Almonte, met him for the final push.

“That was super cool and meaningful,” said Clark, who wound up one spot in front of Novak. The 60-year-old won his age group in a time of 23:31:16.

Clark said he’s already scheming up and training for the next adventure. He’s hoping to get into the Grand Traverse ski race with one of his Leadville 100 pacers in March. Two weeks after that, he’d like to race the 100K run at the Desert Rats Trail Running Festival in Fruita. Ultimately, the plan is to return to Leadville.

“If I can get in, I’d love to run it again,” he said, adding that he knows he can go faster if his back cooperates. Meanwhile, some of his friends keep trying — to no avail — to convince him to enter a shorter race.

“But I’m very competitive. So, I like doing the longer stuff because I know I can hang better in that,” Clark reasoned. “I’m not fast at all. I’m really good at enduring and pushing through for a long period of time. Almost with anything in my life.”

Clark said one of the biggest takeaways from his race has been an increase in self confidence.

“I suffer a lot from imposter syndrome — be it in my professional life or in my recreational life — where I don’t think I’m as good at things as I am,” Clark said. “Running my first 100 miles in 23 1/2 hours at Leadville really is helping me show that ‘hey, I don’t have to be ashamed or think I’m not an ultra runner.’ I really went out there, I pushed myself, I showed what was possible and I worked really hard for it.”