Brian Reynolds Becomes Leadville’s First Double Amputee Finisher on His Fourth Attempt

Brian Reynolds ran 28:55:43 at the Leadville Trail 100 on Aug. 22 and became the first double amputee to finish the race. It was his fourth attempt in four years.

Reynolds lost both legs below the knee at the age of four, after contracting meningococcemia, a bacterial blood infection. He finished 1:04:17 inside the 30-hour cutoff and placed third in the para men’s division. Jared Ewing won that division in 24:39:52, fast enough for the large belt buckle Leadville awards to runners who break 25 hours. Adam Popp, an above-knee amputee and an Air Force explosive ordnance disposal veteran, was second in 28:31:50, and Matt Miller finished seven seconds after Reynolds, in 28:55:50. Kyle Coon, who is blind and races with guides, reached the Winfield turnaround at 52.3 miles in 14:55:52 and stopped there.

Adrian Macdonald won the race outright in 15:47:23, his third Leadville title, and McKendree Hickory took the women’s race on debut in 19:39:12, according to iRunFar. Macdonald’s time was outside the course record David Roche set in 2025. Of 656 starters, 387 finished inside the cutoff, a rate of 59 percent, and 109 of them broke 25 hours.

How the Willow Fire Changed the Course

The fire closed Hagerman Pass Road, Sugarloaf Mountain and Powerline before race week. Organizers sent the field around Turquoise Lake instead, dropped the May Queen aid station and added Carter Summit and the Turquoise Lake dam. The reroute measured 99.7 miles with 13,357 feet of climbing, against the 15,492 ft the race lists for its 2027 course. The out and back over Hope Pass, crossed twice at a high point of 12,526 ft, was untouched. iRunFar gave this year’s climbing as 13,552 ft; the figure used here is the race organization’s own.

Four Years of Attempts

Reynolds first ran Leadville in 2023 and stopped at 50 miles. He entered again in each of the three years that followed, he told iRunFar, which interviewed him after this year’s finish. For 2026 he brought spare sets of running legs and treads he could change during the race, and he had been training for Leadville specifically since January, eight months of work built heavily on cross training. He was the fastest of the para men over the opening third of the course and second through the middle third. Around mile 70 his calves cramped and he walked most of the last 30 miles, iRunFar reported. Reynolds started running about 12 years ago and holds several world records on the road in his classification, from 5K to the marathon. He told iRunFar he intends to return to Leadville to crew, pace and volunteer.

UTMB Recorded a Similar First Eight Days Later

On Aug. 30, Julien Veysseyre became the first amputee to finish the UTMB, covering the Mont Blanc loop in 44:16:04. UTMB runs no para classification and listed him in the men’s 35-39 age group. Leadville does award Para Male and Para Female titles, but it publishes no classification structure beneath them, which is how a blind athlete, an above-knee amputee and a bilateral below-knee amputee came to race for the same title this year.

Amputees have been finishing 100-milers for more than 15 years. Amy Palmiero-Winters, who lost her left leg below the knee after a motorcycle crash and spoke to Marathon Handbook about racing on a blade, finished Western States in 2010. Reynolds set his own records on prosthetic legs on the road, and no bilateral below-knee amputee had finished Leadville before Aug. 22.

Leadville lists its 2027 course at 15,492 ft of climbing, about 2,100 ft more than this year’s route.