Catching up…

It’s about that time that I put pen to paper again. My last blog post came after QMT 50k last year in Quebec where I wrote about how crazy that race was and how I’d never do a race like that again. I’m amazed how perspectives can change! After QMT, I went on 8 weeks later to race Squamish 50 miler (80km) which was another grueling course with 3300m of elevation gain that ate me up. I reached the 52km aid station absolutely drained where Josh handed me a few advils which brought me (and my cursed hip flexors) back to life. I vividly remember looking at my watch around 60km thinking, “wow I am still somehow able to run after being out here for more than 8 hours, how amazing is the human body, how much potential is left untapped.”

Squamish took 10hrs and 47 minutes, which was the longest time I’ve ever spent on my feet by over 4 hours. In fact, up until that point QMT was the longest I’d ever run (6hr42). It was like I was forming these stepping stones going further and further into the depths of my potential.

In November I started dreaming up plans for 2023, where will my legs take me next. I had been following UTMB the past few years, a major ultra race in France where you must qualify to enter; I knew I wanted to work my way towards the epic course and celebration that is UTMB. After looking up the new criteria for qualifying to enter the lottery, I needed “x” number of points which most of my races and placings have given me but, they added “running stones” going forwards. Running stones are only granted at select races so I began to look at my options – 0 races in Canada, 3 races in the USA – The Canyons, Western States, and Speedgoat, and the rest in Europe. Well, that left few options as Western states is the best of the best which has it’s own qualifiers so that wasn’t in the cards right now; Speedgoat it is.

As I started to research Speedgoat I saw that it was 3500m of elevation gain, at a high altitude (8000-11000 ft) and dubbed “one of the hardest races in the USA” by it’s race director Karl Meltzer. If you don’t know who Karl is, go watch his documentary Made to be Broken and know that he has won more 100-miler ultramarathons than anyone else (more than 50 races). If he says something is hard, it must be impossible. It was time to place another stepping stone to see how far my body could take me. Josh and I decided that since Utah was so close to Arizona, we would use this as an opportunity to finally return to our beloved Flagstaff (sitting at 7000ft) as a way to acclimatize for the altitude I would face in Utah.

Preseason & Sulphur

I signed up for the race and there it was written in stone, running stones that is; I would be doing one of the hardest 50 kilometer races in all of the USA. After struggling through one of the darkest winters in over 100 years in Canada, I started my trail build in April with all my focus on Speedgoat. Every longrun I chose the gnarliest, rockiest, slowest sections of the bruce trail that I could think of waiting until my body felt at home amongst the rocks. Every trip and stubbing of my toe on the rocks would all be worth it if I could just adjust to the rocks. Last year at QMT, the downhills destroyed me and I lost so much time to competitiors. But, not this year, as I doubled down to work on this glaring weakness. I also felt that I severely undertrained for the hills/ elevation gain at Squamish. I meticulously planned out hilly repeats for longruns trying to progress the overall weekly elevation over the 16 week training plan; starting with 1500m of elevation gain per week, to 2000m, to 3000m and peaking out at 3500m 3 weeks prior to the race. I made sure to enjoy the training block by penciling in adventurous long runs in new locations, which made the training block fly by.

At the end of May I raced Sulphur Springs 50k (1250m of elevation) as a rust buster where I was lucky enough to take the (female) win and another 5 minutes off the course record which I set last year. Sulphur ended up being a great training run for psychological training as I was in no man’s land for pretty much the entirety of the 4 hour 10minute race. I recovered quite easily from Sulphur now being my 5th time running an ultra distance race. The build progressed with a weekend of 16x K2 loops (3hrs on a 1km loop… another great psychological training run), and a mini training camp weekend at Blue Mountain with a monster 3500m of vert for that week. Even in Blue mountain the highest climb is only 200m which meant getting very creative to reach 3500m.

Arizona

Fast forward to July, it was finally time to head out to the mountains. My favourite part about switching to trail running from roads is the beautiful places it takes me. When I choose a race, I can be inspired by the landscapes around me and the places I’ll visit. While in Arizona Josh and I summited Mt. Humphreys, 12633ft over 8km hike (16k total). The mountain had always loomed in the background of our runs around Flagstaff and finally we had the opportunity and skill to climb it. As I was in full taper leading into the race, I was saddened each run when I hit my turn around point… I could run amongst those ponderosa pines forever.

We enjoyed endless downtime with our hosts Matt and Brannon catching up on all things since our last visit in 2019. We had an unexpected gift of youthful exuberance meeting another one of their house guests – Brenden, a young go-getter getting his own altitude stint in and training in for upcoming xc and track season at Metropolitan State University in Denver. It was refreshing to be around someone so excited for the future of his running career not yet jaded by the trials of miles and miles of trials.

I was struggling with the altitude, sucking air on every run and struggling through a reduced longrun 1 week out from the race. I struggled with the thought of… “If I barely managed a 15km run at 7000 ft, how would I manage 50km at 8000 ft plus…”. I pushed that thought out of my head knowing that I still had another week of acclimatization left and knowing the magic that race day holds.

We had planned one trip down to Sedona which did not disappoint. Jawdropping vistas of red rock sandstone were all around as we climbed Cathedral Rock, one of Sedona’s most famous hikes. Known as one of Sedona’s seven vortexes, Cathedral Rock is said to be the center for healing, meditation and self discovery. Every trip we had ever taken to Sedona has always left the soul full and energized and this trip was no exception. Now it was only 3 days out from race day, time to head to Utah.

Salt Lake City, Utah

Multiple flight changes plus an hour time difference landed us in Salt Lake City bang on midnight on Wednesday. We stayed at the race hotel in Snowbird Ski Resort just outside of Salt Lake. As we shuttled to the resort, I could see nothing but shadows of the mountains, not yet knowing what I was in for. The next morning I was like a kid on christmas, running to look out the window to have my first glimpse of the mountains. The Wasatch mountains, standing at over 880m high, dwarfed my hardest training route in Blue Mountains at 220m tall. Even the mountains of Mont Sainte Anne at QMT were minuscule in comparision, sitting at 625m. Not to mention the massive difference in altitude as a starting point for this course. But, this year I was ready, I had done more than 32,000m of elevation in training for this.

I was still sucking air at altitude as I did a few 5km shakeouts around the resort in the days leading up to the race. I had enough foresight to know that it would be difficult to enjoy the mountain views fully during the race so I went up the tram to the summit at 11,000 ft to take in the views 2 days prior to the race. I was thankful that I did this and was able to enjoy the mountainscape.

In terms of goal setting, I spent a lot of time researching the finish times of the course knowing that going in I would likely run between 7 and 8 hours with the goal of A) placing top 10, B) top 20 and C) finishing.

Speedgoat 50km

The race set off at 6:30am and 65 degrees F climbing to 95 degrees by the finish. We rolled through some single track, everyone trying to find their rhythm. The course ran over a series of jeep trails and some single track that climbed our way up the mountain. Within 5km, we had already climbed over 250m and I settled into the power hike that would make up the majority of my race pace. I enjoyed the shady trails as much as possible knowing that within 1 hour of race start the sun would be up in it’s full glory, roasting us. And roast it did. The heat didn’t bother me that much as the past week in Flagstaff was hotter than usual and this helped me adjust well to the heat in the mountains.

The first 15km was relentless, one uphill after another. The only reprieve, if you can call it that, was the two sections of snow that we crossed. You would think being Canadian that the snow would be easy, at least I sure did. I was so very wrong. This mountain snow was different; more of an ice chunk that was impossible to get your shoe into. Luckily we had a rope to assist us up, unluckily every time someone slipped ahead of you (which was often), the roped snagged and pulled towards the ground also pulling you down. You can tell how hard that section was with a 15 minute kilometer in there.

At 15.5km we reached the summit of Hidden peak aid station, the peak elevation for the race at 11,000 ft. Josh was worried that my chip time hadn’t been working up to that point so I took a few extra minutes ensuring the timers had my bib number down. After refilling my bottles I was finally into the first net downhill section of the course. Remember when I told you that this is the hardest 50k race in the USA? Well, speedgoat quickly lived up to its name when within a few kilometers this section turned into the gnarlest rockiest downhill I’ve ever seen – and that’s including QMT. Of course it wouldn’t be a nice runnable downhill, Karl created it! I ran with confidence in my step actually passing several men. The downhill was relentless, over 6km of pure rocks at one point turning into a streambed. I had to stay uber focused to run smoothly over the rocks. I was able to pass one female through this section but also was passed by one female. After literally rocking out the downhills, I was having so much fun actually running for the first time in the course.

Atlas, that was short lived as we entered into more relentless uphills, how else would you reach 3500m within 50k. This section also fell in the largest point between aid stations, 15.5km. I had carried a total of 1.5L from the summit. It still was not enough, the heat burned off my hydration stores within 2-3km shy of the next aid station. I was absolutely crawling up the hills. A few were so steep that I could barely make forward progress; rather I stood there with both amazement and confusion on how to keep going. I hadn’t covered any kilometers in this 6km section faster than a 10 minute kilometer.

We finally reached the water-only aid station at 30km and most of the men that I had been following were strewed about the ground in front of me. With the mindset of “always be moving forwards” I filled my bottles very quickly and moved on. Onwards to a massively steep uphill which again felt almost impossible to take even one step. I started to crawl my way up the rocks and sand clawing my hands into the ground. Every small section of flat was a much needed reprieve from the hunched over hands-over-knees position I had been living in. Before I knew it we were finally into another net downhill section in the final mile towards the next aid-station. This section was steep moderately rocky singletrack which I was blasting down feeling proud of my downhill skill that I’ve gained this year. I even had a few men behind me who were following me down compliment me on my downhill. Into the Mineral basin aid station (32km) I finally got my hands on some watermelon and a freezie. Volunteers graciously dumped water over my head and sent me on my way into the next uphill section.

Still I was crawling. I had always thought I was gifted at uphills and Karl had me questioning my very existance. I thought things couldn’t get any harder as I took 5 steps forwards then stopped and hunched over to catch my breath and rest my calves. This was until I turned the corner as saw at 40% incline sand dune-esk cliff we were about to climb. Everyone was struggling really hard above me as well. I stood there in shock every couple of steps dumbfounded about how to climb the never-ending hill. I stopped to sit down on the steep cliff at least 3 times and had to use my hands to crawl up the hill. Somehow this 500m section took 18minutes to reach the peak that was Mt.Baldy. I was never so thankful to reach the peak but, I was also destroyed so I took the flat ridgeline very easy. The views were unbelieveable as the ridgeline followed what a skyrace would with dropoffs on either side with 360 degree mountain views.

Finally, I was into the next aid station where Josh awaited my arrival. I had been looking forward to running through the tunnel aid station which is known as the Perivian Gulch Tunnel, filled with displays and photos of mining history which you can ski through in the winter. My eyes did not adjust to the dark well and I could barely see the items in the tunnel, oh well. Luckily Josh filmed the run through and I could take in the views afterwards. After a quick refill and dump of water over my head I was onto another downhill section.

Finally, a runnable downhill. It was a very wide road with actual dirt, not just rocks. I smashed down the hills as fast as I could, really enjoying getting into a run again after the previous relentless uphill crawl. All too quickly we were back into the final 1200m of vert gain. I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to powerhike much quicker up these hills. We eventally made our way to another ridgeline towards the summit. There were several men in front of me who looked like ants along the ridge which told me what I was in for. Stopped a few times to catch my breath at 11,000ft, yet I kept pushing forwards. I hit the Hidden Peak aid station for the second time now at 42km grabbing more watermelon and a few chips. The volunteers asked if I wanted a chair but I knew the answer was absolutely not, as I would not get back up after. I left the aidstation passing at least one female who was sitting to recover. At the same time, another female flew past me on that downhill leaving the aid.

I focused on my own pace hoping I would get the chance to catch her later. Now we were into the snowpatch again but, this time, we would slide down it. I never knew snow could be so sharp. I stayed onto my butt as long as possible but eventually as my legs went numb I decided to let my shoulders take the brunt of it and leaned back further.

Onwards through a few small sections of single track but mostly jeep wide trails I descended back towards the finish. At about 5km to go, I caught sight of a female and front of me and started tempoing to catch her and the one male between us. Close to 2-miles to go I jumped in front of her and we hammered together through the singletrack. I purposefully backed off the pace a bit since I was leading on single track making it hard to pass and to give myself a chance for a second wind. At somepoint I picked it back up and didn’t look back. I reached the second last hairpin turn about 400m from the finish which gave me the chance to look back… absolutely no one.

I crossed the finish line 12th female in 7 hours 47 minutes for 52km moving up from 88th overall to 58th overall through the race.

After thoughts…

That by far was the hardest race I had ever done. QMT had a few uphills that were very steep and difficulty but Speedgoat would have that same uphill and place it with similar uphills back to back for 4-5km sections. I think that going to Flagstaff ahead of time really helped acclimate for the race. I still struggled thorugh sections because of the altitude but that would have been 1000x worse. Even though I questioned my existance multiple times during the race, I never once contemplated dropping out; I was so focused and confident that I had prepared as hard as possible for this race. I can really see the growth that I have made in trail running since my transition in 2021. In a few short years I have enjoyed training, run further than ever, and gained confidence and trust that my body will have what I need from it. In 2020 I hit rock bottom completely burnt out and did not want to race/train anymore. I am so grateful that I have found my way back to this place where I truly love the process of training and grinding out these massive efforts. I feel, more than ever, that I am made for this. As a younger runner, I thought of being gifted as being faster than everyone and that some people would just be better than me. However, the more time I spend in this sport I realize that there are so many other types of gifts that people can have and I appreciate more and more my own gifts of determination, focus and ability to prepare. I also appreciate how much improvement can be made on other areas that I felt I am less gifted in such as downhill running. Moreso proving how important it is to pay attention to the story that we tell ourselves. Whether you think you can or not, you are probably right.

Next up is La Harricana 65km in Quebec on Sept.9th.

As always, GRIND ON.