Run Gee Run: Speed Goat 50K

No race report, this runner DNS (did not start). The Speed Goat 50K was on July 26, yes that would be one week after Vermont for me. I was entered, I booked a room at the Cliff Lodge for the weekend, my drop bags were packed.........then I couldn't sleep and I worried that my left leg was not ready for 10,000 ft of vertical climb and another 10,000 ft of vertical descent in 32 miles. I woke up to my alarm, confirmed my decision with Sophie, and went down to the race start to wish my fellow runners "good luck"......oh, and I picked up my race shirt and tram tickets. Colleen, Lee, and Debbie (who ran the Grand Slam years ago) all agreed that I was making the right decision...... primarily to save it for the Slam.

I met Lee and Debbie circa 1989. We were all nurses in the University of Utah Burn Unit. They married ~1990 or so. Debbie would talk about this running group she was quite involved in with trail running. I had done some 5K road runs, 10K maybe, but marathon (26.2 miles) was not even a remote possibility. She is quite humble and maybe I don't even remember if we talked about Ultramarathons. Anyway, Debbie has quite the career in running ultras, she still runs strong and I see her also crewing Lee now.

The Speed Goat demons haunted me, but I had a blast hanging with Peter and Sophie. We took the Tram up to the top of Hidden Peak, hiked over to Baldy and looked down the Baldy chute towards Alta. Sophie skied the Baldy chute for the first time this spring. Access is from Sugarloaf pass and requires ~30 minute hike up, carrying your skies. The Alta ski patrol monitors Baldy closely and the chute isn't open but less than 10 days a season, if that. The top is intimidating and there are big boulders on each side. When it is open, it gets skied fast and therefore gets bumped out. Anyway, one of the last days of the season Peter and I took Sophie and Makenzie (her AFD ski team friend) up to the top. The girls took off and did great. Peter took photos. I, on the other hand, was a complete reject and everyone stood at the bottom waiting forever for me. One I got down Peter told me that he was going to enroll me in Sophie and Makenzie's AFD ski team next year so I can learn to ski the Baldy chute.........I don't ski well in moguls.

Sophie practicing her launch into the Baldy chute, cool view of the base of Alta by the road.

Peter just got a new tripod and he has a remote control for his camera, so he set it up on Baldy and we took a family photo. Mt. Superior is behind us.

After our hike we had fun in the pool playing "guess what I am" and then tried the Sushi bar.... nothing to hype about.

Sunday morning I woke up with the biggest urge to run. I had a nice cruiser on the lower half of Snowbird resort. I think my body was telling me "No Speedgoat.... but you can still run". We then went to Sunday brunch at the Alta Lodge. At the end of year party for Sophie's AFD team, I won brunch for 4 at the Alta Lodge.......and this was the perfect weekend to redeem it. After brunch we went