Speedgoat 50K This is arguably the hardest 50K in the US (so I have heard). I now believe all the hype. It is SICK. I am pretty pooped right now so the report will have to wait. The short version is this. Crazy hard course with endless hills. ~12K feet of elevation GAIN with the same descent. The field was loaded this year. 15th place for me and a time that is close to what I guessed. Even with a 2 mile extra penalty lap they made a group of us run (what a joke that was). More details on that later. My time would have been good enough for 8th last year, even with the extra miles. Not so this year. 1st Kevin Schilling 2nd Nick Clark 3rd Luke Nelson 4th Karl Jarvis 5th Greg Norrander All of the race was above ~8000' with numerous ascents over 11K'. Just and insane course. I ran and hiked well so I am pleased with my result. Bottom Line: The hardest race I have ever done, by FAR! But glad I did it. So, the long version... The craziest thing about this race is course. The website has a profile map from 2008, no course directions and the course changes year to year. None of that matters to RD Karl M. as he has been quoted to say "Remember this race is all about not really knowing where the course takes you, other than up some nasty hill." That approach is cool, but though on the runners as you are at the mercy of the course markings. Lets hope they are clear.... I dropped the kids off at their Grandma's house friday night Bethany and I spent the night relaxing and enjoying the evening at The Lodge at Snowbird. Early the next morning, I ditched the wife and wandered over to the start line to prepare for the race. I looked around and saw plenty of big name runners there and knew a top 10 would be a great result. So, the goal was 6.5 hours to 7 hours and a top 10 finish. The race started right on time and we immediately began climbing. The first mile was all uphill to the top of a ski run then immediately began to descend and lose all the elevation we had gained. By the end of the second mile, we were back at the bottom of the resort and no closer to the top of the mountain. I knew that this was the start of a very long day. I settled into my routine of run/hike as the hills dictated. I really enjoyed the beauty of the course with its many wildflowers and sharp granite peaks nearby. Little Cottonwood is one of my all time favorite canyons. I grew up 10 mins from the mouth of the canyon and loved to visit it. This visit was much less pleasant. Finally 8 miles and 1:5x into the race, I summited hidden peak. There was a large crowd of volunteers and onlookers cheering us on as they got a ride up on the gondola. I filled the bottles, grabbed a banana and moved on. This was the first of many trips to above 10K' as this peak is nearly 11K'. The course wandered over a ridge to Mt. Baldy (11k+') and over the top. I was already getting tired, but was pacing myself well. I forgot to mention that before getting to Hidden Peak, no name guy from Logan Peak caught up to me and we decided to hook up and work together. It turns out that he had a name afterall (Chris). Coming off of Mt. Baldy we went down a steep hill where there were helpers and ropes to keep us from dying. I gladly used the ropes as they saved the quads from further abuse. Once that leveled out a bit, we were soon descending down more hills. Doesn't make much sense, but that is how I remember it. Hills, all the time. This descent didn't feel good at all as my back was really tight and wasn't loosening up. I figure all the steep climbing and descending really messed it up. I managed to stay with my group of about 5 runners and keep the body going. We soon took off up a steep climb on another goat path that probably doesn't get used except for this race and hit the saddle and the most critical junction of the race. Two options, right or left. We all knew that this was where the loop to American Fork Canyon met up. We knew we needed to do the loop, but which way. Up until now the junctions were reasonably well marked with Flour showing which way to go. Here, as we looked left we saw 6-10 course flags showing the way. As we looked right, we saw 1. Hmmm. Chris remembered from 2008 when he ran the course that he went left. Since the website didn't have a course description I didn't have a clue. Chris and I decided to go left. We got 50 meters up the hill when the rest of our group of 5 caught up. They hollered to us that we went the wrong way so we came back and discussed it. We all quickly agreed to go left. As we started up the hill some other runner came over the hill and went right with no hesitation. He hollered something about going right and was soon gone. Why should we believe him? Crap what to do. We kept going left and climbed to the next peak before descending almost 3K feet to the aid station at the far end of the loop. I doubted my decision to go left the whole time as it seemed like the markings were set up to be more clear for the runners going up hill than downhill. At least there was a group of us all in the same boat. As we neared the aid station, we saw the lead runners coming up the trail to us. That confirmed that we messed up and went the wrong way. We figured that we could run the other half of the loop and run the same distance as everyone else and everything would be ok. About a mile away from the aid station, there was a volunteer posted at the junction leading into the aid station. She told us to tell the aid station that we had come from the peak. We ran the mile or so into the aid station and saw all the runners in front of us. We were in roughly 10th place and still pretty close together. The aid finally appeared and I happily filled up on supplies as we chatted with the guy in charge. He said that to stay in the race, we needed to do a "penalty lap" out and back to the lady at the intersection. Ugg. Seriously! How is that supposed to even things out? We ran just as far as the other guys and it wasn't any easier. Make us run the other half and its all fair right? Wrong. As we slogged through the penalty lap, we watched many people pass us that were way behind us the whole time. I met up with some guys who I know from Logan Peak and chatted with them as I entered the aid station the second time. I asked them what their mileage was on their garmin. 15.5 is what they said. Mine read 17.5. 2 mile penalty for a lack of course marking and a wrong guess by at least 7 people (I know of at least that many who did the same thing). Penalty lap completed, I rudely gave them my race # again as I came into the aid station and quickly left trying to pass back the 10+ people who had passed us. That is the "penalty lap" story. Not as cool as some might hope. I didn't trip the lead women or anything. Sorry. The climb back up to the peak was a tough one and it was mostly a hike. The sun was thankfully behind clouds for this section and I pushed it pretty good. I caught up to a few people including at least 1 who decided to forgo the penalty lap altogether. As we hit the intersection where it all went wrong we saw that it was now well marked and staffed with a person to tell us the way to go. Little to late for that now. Ok, big whine over. Stuff like this happens and you can get upset and move on, or get upset and not move on. I guess some would say that a third option is to not get upset at all, but that was really not an option for me. I would not get the 10+ places I lost back but I could get some. After a brief descent back down the goat path, we began another huge climb up to the tunnel. The sun was out strong here and I was cooking. I was drinking lots and sweating even more. Brutal. I continued to pass a few more people on the climb, but was losing ground to Chris, my unofficial pacer. The tunnel was a very welcome sight as it marked the end of another hill and the start of another descent. I caught back up to Chris in the tunnel and proceeded to blast the downhill. This was probably one of the best descents for me as my back was ok enough to let me go at a reasonable pace. Eventually, the trail turned back skyward and I was headed back up the mountain once again. This time, it was on a rough trail along the ridge. It was a brutal hike and I only ran tiny sections of it. I passed one other runner here and that would be the last one I would catch. I had put a pretty good gap on Chris on the downhill and he would make up a bit of that on this climb, but wouldn't quite catch me. Once I hit the top of the mountain and passed under the tram, I could see where the aid station was at the top of the hill. Too bad the course would turn me in a different direction. Down. Just kill me now! It turns out that I didn't have to descent too far this time and was soon climbing again this time for real to the top. At the final aid station I was told 5 more miles till the finish. I looked at the time and knew it would be really close to make it by my 7 hour deadline. The hard thing was that my back was really tweaked now and the course was so slow and rocky in places that 12 min pace going down was all I could muster. The course got better as I descended and I was able to actually enjoy the last 2 miles as it was on actual single track with dirt. It wasn't just a trail of rocks. Or a hill full of bushes with no discernible trail (like the previous sections). Glorious! Too bad I was so exhausted I couldn't enjoy it properly. As I neared the finish I knew I would make it but then the trail bypassed the finish area and kept going down the canyon. NO! Have mercy! Finally, it joined turned back up canyon and I suffered through another half mile of gradual uphill to the finish. I was very very very happy to be done with this race as it was the hardest one of my life. My family was there to cheer me at the finish line and I loved it! They quickly left me to recover while they played at the kids playground. I soon found out that I won a free pair of La Sportiva shoes in the raffle for placings (15th place turned out to be a lucky winner). Sweet! I will add more elevation and splits for future reference when I get the data uploaded and will add some pictures too. Until then, I will nurse my bruised, broken body. My garmin read (via Sport Tracks) 11,250 Feet of Ascent/Descent 
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Official Results are here After an adjustment to many people's finish times to "undo" the "penalty lap" that we did, my placing was upgraded to 12th overall and with a finish time of 6:42:27 instead of 6:58:27! More Pics Here courtesy of Pure Light Images
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