Speedgoat 50K My training for the year as not been what I wanted. In January, when I signed up for this race, my honest intention was to run at least 50 miles a week, every week, until the race and at least 2,000 vert each run. That didn't happen. There are a lot of reasons it didn't happen, but on race day the only thing that matters is that it didn't happen. I managed to get out of my training funk about 2 months prior to the race and I had run 50-60 miles a week for the three weeks preceding the race. On top of that, I had the opportunity to stay at the lodge at snowbird for the week leading up to the race and ran the first 4 and last 2 miles of the course multiple times. Although those test runs on the course were hard, I was able to run almost all of it, and so I was confident going into the race that I wouldn't have to DNF. My goal for the race was to get through it and not die. Few people know that I ran El Vaquero Loco, the 25K version, in 2011. Even fewer people know that I was the last person off the mountain, at either distance, and that they almost had to send a horse in to get me out due to my dehydration and lack of preparedness for that race. With this as my only mountain racing experience, I thought my goal for Speedgoat was a good one. Especially considering it was twice the distance and more than triple the elevation gain. Prior to the race, I got checked in with my brother and mulled around the starting line worrying about how the days events would unfold. Shortly after the runners were let out of the gate, my worries abated, almost completely. Within 200 yards everyone had broken into a stead hike up the mountain. Very few people were running this section, which I knew wasn't even a steep section of the race. With this established as the baseline expectation, I was able to relax and enjoy the rest of the run, all except the Baldy hike of course. The original plan was to stick with my brother, so we hiked and jogged by each other for the first 5ish miles. His training has been consistent since thanksgiving so at lower elevations, he is faster than I am. A little ways past mid gad though, it was apparent that even all of his consistency wasn't going to alleviate the effects of being at high altitude. We caught up with Matt W and the three of us hiked together until just before the boulder field when I got ahead of the other two on an uphill hike. On the single track trail, and keeping in mind this was a race, I didn't feel like I could just stop and wait for my brother to catch up so I kept going. Besides, he had Matt for company now. With that in mind, I sped up my hike and pushed up to Hidden Peak. When I got there I thought I might wait there for them to catch up with me, but it was cold (not to mention still a race), so I decided to head out after getting a few bananas to eat. I made it down to larrys hole pretty quickly and felt fresh so I didn't bother to stop there. I caught a group of people in front of me and we all hiked up to sinners pass and started down Mary Ellen Gultch. Very soon I realized that this was going to be slow. I had not expected the riverbed style rocks covering the road and it was tricky to traverse this section. Several people in Hoka's passed me while saying something about having shoes that fill like butter on their feet, but I tried to ignore them and muddle my way down the road. I made it to Pacific Mine in under 4 hours and I was contemplating the possibility of finishing in an 8 hour time. I quickly handed over my water bottles to someone to fill (a perk of this race that I thought was very nice) and proceeded to down several shots of Redbull and a popsicle. Before I finished the popsicle I was out of the aid station and heading back up the trail. In the next 4.5 miles I passed almost every person that had overtaken me on the rocky trail down, as well as a few I had not seen before. The steep climb back up to sinner pass in mile 19 or 20 took some of the steam out of my sails though, and by the time I made it back to Larry's Hole I was in need of water and a rest. I stopped and ate another couple of bananas and drank a coke then headed back out. At this point, I had been on a trail longer than at any other time in my life and the effects of this fact were beginning to show. About 1/3 of a mile out of the aid station the trail turns and heads up the mountain, pretty steeply. Within the next 2 or three miles, everyone I had repassed on the way to Larry's Hole had leapfrogged me again. I was slow getting up to the pass, and when I did finally make it there I had serious thoughts about not being able to get up to the top of Baldy, and that was before I had really seen the "trail". The two people sitting at the pass gave me some encouragement and I decided to just keep moving. I was slow getting down to the Baldy turn-off and when I got there I was stopped dead in my tracks. The sheer steepness of that climb momentarily zapped all of my energy and enthusiasm for the race. I didn't think I was going to make it. While I was standing there pondering whether I should just hike back to the tram and drop from the race or not, a father-son duo came up beside me. I heard the father tell the son "we'll just have to take it slowly, one step at a time." Hearing that, I thought to myself "if they can make it so can I" and off I went, slowly, up the mountain. I was beat by the top but glad that the hike was over. Just before I hit the summit a hiker beside me said I should prepare myself for another hike of that caliber up the ridge from Peruvian Basin. With that in mind, and given the soreness in my legs, I hiked down the trail off baldy. Most people were running down, but I hiked back to the road. At the road I decided I should buck up and get moving, so I ran to the tunnel. At the tunnel I checked my phone for signal and sent a message to my brother to see if he was still out there or if he had DNF'ed and if he wanted me to wait for him there, since it was the last cutoff. His response was that he was trying to get up Baldy so decided to push on. I had heard prior to the race starting, that the drop out of the tunnel down into Peruvian Basin was pretty deep. I knew we were going almost all the way back to where we were at mile 3, so the continual downhill didn't really faze me. Moreover, the turn to the uphill heading to the ridge was not very steep. I was able to run part of it and I was able to easily hike the rest. Toward the top it got a bit more steep and my pace slowed a bit, but I didn't think the ridge to Hidden Peak was anything near as hard as the Baldy hike. As a result, I reached the peak in good spirits. Just as I started up the last section of the trial to the peak, the tram arrived carrying my parents and my brothers family. I stopped on the top to change shoes before the final decent. I was wearing my Lone Peaks, which had been great except I think I got them a size to small. My old lone peaks were 11.5 and the new ones were 11. A couple of time throughout the day, my toes had been pushing against the front of the shoe and I worried that the downhill would cause my toenails to turn black or fall off or something. The 11.5's gave my toes space and I knew they would feel good going down. After changing shoes I bumped into a guy from dallas who was hiking beside me for a while. We commiserated about how tired our legs were I told him I didn't think I had much run left in me. To that, he decided he would take off and see how long he could run before his legs were truly spent. Meanwhile, I decided to walk through the boulder field so I could avoid twisting my ankle on tired legs. As soon as I got back to the dirt single track I decided to run. I guess I had a lot more run in my legs because I ran the rest of the way. About a mile into my running I passed the guy from Dallas, walking. Shortly after that, I passed a lady running. I was familiar with part of this section of the race and felt better getting back to familiar ground. I thought about my wife and kid waiting for me at the finish line and continued to crank out the miles until I rounded that last bend to the cheers of those at the finish line. After crossing the finish, Karl Meltzer gave me a water bottle filled with ultragen and high five. I couldn't have been happier. I had completed my first ever ultramarathon and I didn't even need to be carried off the mountain. In fact, aside from that moment at baldy, I had enjoyed my day. I think next year I will stick to the training plan and just see what I can accomplish. | 