Maddie Lindley/Photo provided
Two Vail Health colleagues took first and second place at the Lifetime Silver Rush 50 MTB in Leadville last Saturday. Haley Damke, a member of the Surgical Services Management team, won the gold medal, completing the Mining District out-and-back course in 4 hours, 38 minutes, 21 seconds. Colleague Ingrid Stensvaag, a nurse in the surgery center, took second place in 4 hours, 52 minutes, 28 seconds.
“It must be something to do with Minturn and surgical services,” Damke said. Though the two neighbors don’t always gather around the same water cooler at Vail Health, word spread quickly about their feat.
“All of my colleagues thought it was pretty amazing that we went 1-2,” Stensvaag said.
Damkke’s dream finish capped an intense race that featured every cyclist’s worst nightmare: Within the first mile, the 31-year-old took a fall going through a corner, destroying his Garmin GPS. With blood pouring from his right arm and leg, Damkke got back on his bike, refocusing not on hard statistics but on an inner awareness of his strength and limitations.
“It was definitely a tough experience for me. I couldn’t believe it when I fell,” she says. “But then I thought, ‘I know more about myself than the data can tell me, so I’m going to go with my gut feeling.'”
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Damke caught up with the leaders as the single-file parade raced up the dusty double-track of Iowa Gulch. Under the shadow of Mount Sherman, the course widened, allowing Damke to leapfrog the rest of the pack. With every pedal stroke, Damke increased his lead over Stensvaag in second place.
At the 14.5-mile checkpoint, the lead was 2 minutes 18 seconds, and at the halfway point it was nearly seven minutes, but Damke still wasn’t sure of victory, even after completing most of the course’s 7,500 feet of climbing.
“You can’t really predict what the halfway point is going to be like,” she said, “so I feel like I have to take advantage of every bit of the course. I’m definitely faster downhill than I am on other days.”
The decision to use a full suspension bike this year rather than the hardtail he used to finish fourth in 2023 paid off in the downhill.
“I think I can be a little bit stronger downhill this year,” she said.
As Stensvaer approached the halfway point, he cheered on Dumke, who was sprinting ahead of the pack.
“I was surprised I wasn’t that far behind her,” Stensvaag said. “It was hard to tell who the other women were, so I just ran the rest of the race as if someone was catching up to me.”
With less than 10 miles to go, disaster struck Damke again: A repeat flat on her front tire sent her to the side of the trail. Unsure of exactly how far her lead was, Damke frantically repaired the flat, selling tools, patches, and CO2 canisters in the process.
“I was still thinking in my mind, ‘Oh man, I don’t want to lose this now because I got a flat tire,'” she said. “I’m not a very mechanical person, so I was honestly just excited to get it fixed and keep running.”
But in the final nine miles, Damke felt the air going out of his tires.
“That was the new focus of the race, trying to stop the leak and see if I could come back,” she said.
Mentally, Damke worked on positive self-talk as anxiety about the equipment won out over the normal mental battle against cramps and fatigue.
“I was just like, ‘You can do this,'” she said. “‘This is going to happen to you today.'”
And so it happened.
Despite the four-minute delay, Damke crossed the line 16 minutes faster than he had the previous year. After that fourth place, and another fourth place on Bighorn Gravel last month, the Minturn cyclist was not only relieved of podium burden, but also his first significant win.
“When I crossed the line…I don’t know the right words to describe it. It wasn’t in disbelief because I knew I could run like that. I was just so happy,” she said. “It was so nice to see all the hard work I’ve been putting in for the last year come to fruition and see it pay off in a way that represents self-improvement.”
Stensvaag achieved his goal of completing the Silver Rush in under five hours for his first time.
“The race was tough, but at the end it was so fun and beautiful,” she said. “There were a lot of steep and gradual uphill and downhill climbs, and I’m better at steep, bad uphill climbs.”
The performance also boosted the 35-year-old’s confidence ahead of next month’s Leadville 100.
“I think this result proves that my training has been effective,” she continued. “If all goes well in a month, I’ll definitely be able to run under nine hours.”
Just three days after the Silver Rush 50, this dynamic duo, who met through work about a year ago, were back on the singletrack.
The two riders traded places at Boneyard Brawl on Wednesday, with Stensvaag winning the Vail Recreation District Town Series. Damke got another flat tire, this time with a broken valve, and had to push his bike home.
Regardless of ranking, the two athletes, who live within a mile of each other, have a mutual respect for each other.
“I know she’s a lot faster than me,” Stensvaerg said, “so I love cheering for her and I’m inspired by how fast she’s gotten and how much work she’s put in over the past year.”
“I’ve enjoyed getting to know her this past year,” Dumke said of Stensvaag. “She’s also committed to her riding and that was very evident in her races this year.”
At work, Stensvaag told her fellow nurses about her work, but most of them were unaware of Damke’s accomplishments. Stensvaag’s friends also responded to Damke’s work.
“I think every time one of us got congratulated, we would talk about each other,” Damke continued. “We were like, ‘But can you believe it? Number one and number two are here!'”
