I ran the first ever Wasatch Speedgoat 50K held at Snowbird Ski Area on Saturday. The race was put together by the orignal Wasatch Speedgoats, Karl Meltzer and Scott Mason. Karl is one of the best ultrarunners in the country, having won teh Wasatch 100 a number of times and holder of the course record. He has also won the Hardrock 100 3-4 times and is the only person to go under 24 hours for the HURT 100 mile race in Hawaii, so you know this course was going to be tough. And they didn't disappoint. Originally, the course was to go thru both Snowbird and Alta ski areas, but at the last minute some lawyer for Alta got cold feet and we ended up running only thru Snowbird. The course took us from the Tram deck to the tunnel, into Mineral basin, back up thru the tunnel, back down into the front side of the area, back up to the top of the tram, back into Mineral Basin, back up to the top of the tram again and then a screaming 4 mile dowhill finish from the top. The general consensus is that the course was about 26.4 miles rather than a true 50K. Who cares, it was still the toughest 50K I've ever run. Almost 12,000' of elevation gain and 12,000' of loss.
My race went very well. I had already run 60 miles for the week and only took Friday off to rest a little bit. My uphill climbign ability isn't that great, and true to form, I sucked going up hill. For some reason, my downhill game was spot on and I was able to fly downhill and not trash my quads. I stayed well hydrated and fueled. I had a goal of in and out of every aid station in under 2 minutes and I met that goal by going in and out in under a minute each time. I took two 24 oz handheld bottles with me and tried to make sure that both were empty by the time I got to any aid station. I also took several gels and Shot Blocks with me to provide fuel in between aid stations. Those worked very well and I will be going with that startegy in future races. My energy level seemed to remain fairly constant throughout the day and I never did bonk at any time. Teh best part of the race for me was the final dowhill push. I hit the top of the tram aid station right at 7 hrs and was told that it was 6 miles to the finish. I thought I had a chance of going under 8 hours and took off. I managed to run from the top of the tram to the finish line at the bottom of the Peruvian lift in 38 minutes. I found out later that the actual distance was around 4 miles. Still not too bad a time (for me anyway) for 4 miles of downhill rocky trail and service road.
The weather Saturday was perfect I thought. Others thought it was a little warm. it did get a little warm in areas where there was no breeze, but I generally enjoy running in warmer weather. The flowers in Mineral Basin were spectacular. There's no road race in the entire world that can beat running on a narrow single track trail thru waist high lupine and indian paintbrush.
All in all, I had a great time and Karl and Scott did a great job for a first time event. The aid stations were great, plenty to eat and drink. The course could have been marked better as I did go off course once for about 200 yards,but I heard that several others went off for some distance. Snowbird was glad to have us there and I plan on going back next year.
Pictures can be seen at www.powdershots.com The race was on the 21st. There are several hundred pictures of the race on that site.
If you'd like to see the actual course map and elevation profile, go to this link.
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/episode/view.mb?episodePk.pkValue=3436555
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