Speedgoat 50k 2024 Race Report
On July 20th I ran the Speedgoat 50k with my partner Brian. If you’ve never heard of it, you might assume (as I did) “oh sounds like a fast course”. Au contraire, good buddy, with 11,000+ ft of elevation gain, and an elevation low point of 7600ft, it is considered by some to be “ThE TouGhEst 50K iN tHe WorLd”, now I’m not sure about that, but I will say it has a fairly high barrier to finish. I will also say that I am proud to have finished and I have respect for anyone who has finished this race regardless of their time. I’d like to write a little about how I trained, how the race went, what I learned, and what’s next.
Since this is my first real post other than my intro, let me give you a sense of where I stand as a runner. I’ve been running since about college, though it started very informally as a way to stay fit and maybe one day be skinny (it was a thing). I never ran competitively or anything, but I did run my first marathon during my senior year of college in 2009 (in a time 4h 9 min or something). After college I dabbled in triathlon and road/trail running, and certainly exercised frequently, but I’d say I never really started practicing informed running training until after I had my second child in 2018. In February of this year I PR’d in a downhill marathon with a time of 3:23. (I’m telling you the time just as a fact, just so you know how well you might relate to me; like all running times, its faster the some, slower than others). I was happy with my marathon time, but I felt excited to switch back to the trails and curious about how it would translate.
I started the training cycle with a month of trying to get some mountain legs. I’d make an effort to get some trail runs in each week, and specifically try to get little doses of elevation gain at El Cajon Mountain, Mission Trails, and Cuyamaca State Park (places in and around San Diego). 12 weeks out, I started the 50k training plan from SWAP. I followed it fairly closely, but in the last few weeks I disregarded the recommended low key speed work in the long runs for just making sure I was getting more serious about elevation gain. I just felt that getting the elevation gain was enough for me, that I wasn’t quite ready to combine both higher elevation gain and a slightly higher effort level. About a month out or so, Brian and I did the Cactus to Clouds from Palm Springs to Mt San Jacinto. It was a little more hike focused than I had wanted (because turns out my stomach wasn’t quite ready to rock at 1 am when we started), but looking back it was a great stimulus for the Speedgoat, and honestly pretty similar to Speedgoat in terms of how much I hiked.
About a week and a half before the Speedgoat, my family headed to Leadville, CO. I figured that acclimating to this town at just over 10,000 ft was going to be almost as important as all the other training I had put in so far. My husband’s parents and uncles came as well, because they had some family history there. One of the days we all drove to Redstone, CO to lay his grandparents ashes at a beloved fishing spot. Graciously his parents also agreed to watch the kids while we did our short taper runs as well as two run/hikes up some nearby 14ers, Mt Massive and Mt Elbert. Other than that, our days were filled with fishing, relaxing, and exploring Leadville. Side note, I really loved Leadville. It was fun to be in such an active town that didn’t have a Whole Foods, if you know what I mean.
We finally arrived at Snowbird Resort on the Thursday before the race. We went ahead and bought day passes for all the Snowbird activities including a rock wall, trampoline, roller coaster, giant slide, and lots of stuff. I had a blast that day, but crashed hard at the end of the day. I think I was starting to feel nervous with all the runners arriving, the whole UTMB vibe, and the realization of the challenge of the race. Luckily, my in-laws again graciously watched the kids starting midday on Friday so my partner and I could get a good night’s sleep and generally relax. We watched a lot of Shark Tank and ate food that didn’t need to cook since we didn’t have a microwave in our hotel.
After my alarm went off the morning of the race I laid in bed just trying to stay calm. I felt overwhelmed with the unknown of what this day would demand of me. I was quiet and in my head as I often am before races. When the race started with Karl Meltzer’s goat sound (which is highly contested among children’s authors is it a “maah” “bleat”? - what does the goat say??") I set off trying to find my people. The first ascent to Hidden Peak is a mix of single track and wider roads, and I found it a little stressful to balance not getting caught back too far in the field, not pushing the pace to much on the first climb, and not slowing down the people on the trail behind me in the single track. However, I also stepped into the mindset that this was going to be my race; my own intuition was going to be the only metric I would use to gauge my pacing AND maybe most importantly, I decided I was going to be proud of myself no matter what my results. So I was going to be positive.
By the time I got to the top of Hidden Peak, I was not around too many other racers and really starting to feel comfortable. There was a huge amount of people cheering at the top and I really enjoyed that welcome. I asked for some water soaking, grabbed some Gu packets, folded up my trekking poles, and headed out. I had filled my bladder with Tailwind before the race and planned on just carrying that until the 3rd or 4th aid station.
The big descent from Hidden Peak was nice and controlled. Toward the bottom the rocks get larger and it's easy to roll an ankle, but I did my best to keep moving at a decent pace. Starting the second big uphill back up was tough. The trail has some shade, but it was pretty hot, and I mostly hiked. Around this time was when I had a conversation that really helped set the tone for my race. A guy behind me started talking to me, and I was honestly not super in the mood for talking, but didn’t feel too strongly against it, and he said something like “you’re crushing it” which is always a nice thing to hear even you’re not, but I responded with “there’s no use believing anything different.” Which is true right? I mean if you’re opting into a hard thing, that you have no financial incentive to do, something most people you know can’t even begin to wrap their minds around, why believe anything else? The negativity that comes from comparison doesn't serve me, and as far as I’m concerned, I don’t need to burden myself with it. These were thoughts that had been bouncing around in my head, but this conversation gave me the opportunity to voice it. We went on to shoot the shit on other topics, before he went on ahead of me, but from that point on, my head was on straight.
The varying terrain of the Speedgoat lead itself to a lot of flip flopping, there were people at my general pace who were great hikers, strong uphill runners, better downhill, better with technical, and so on. I just tried to stay steady, though I’m probably best at the downhill relatively speaking. There was lots of steep hiking, and I mostly kept my head down and kept on pushing (then took in the views at the top). On the last ascent up the ridge to Hidden Peak the second time, I started passing people, and continued that on the downhill for the most part. I ended up finishing as 22nd female and 114th overall with a time of 8:18. I feel good about my effort, and overall enjoyed the race. I’m not sure I’d do the race again, only because it took a lot of time and resources to get acclimated and travel to Utah. There’s a big, wide and beautiful world out there and I only have so much PTO, so might as well experience something new.
Next on the race horizon I have the Lake Hodges 50k in October. It has only about a fourth of the elevation gain of Speedgoat, so hopefully I can work on some speed and race that event well. My legs are feeling a little burnt out with some lingering niggles, so we’ll see how much quality training I can get in. I signed up for that race with a friend, so my main motivation is to show up in support of him getting into the 50k distance. Otherwise, I’m hoping my 3:23 marathon time is good enough for an entry into Boston next April (my age group BQ is 3:35, but literally every running podcast I listen to is talking about how people are getting faster so we’ll see.). Generally moving forward my main goal with running is to experience new places, and I’d also like to do some shorter distance trail races for speed. Not too much set in stone at this point.
Thanks for reading this! You’re crushing it!
