Our friend, Vanessa Aadland, just accomplished a tremedous jump. She ran 50k in one of the hardest high-altitude races in the country—in Utah. Congrats to her, an amazing feat. Below is her blog about the adventure. See more of Vanessa at www.vanessaaadland.com.

Not only are these 50k mountain races made for crazy super human people, but the Speed Goat just happens to be the hardest one in the country. Since I’ve never even ran a marathon I had no idea what to expect. The only thing I was certain of was that this is going to be the hardest thing I’ve ever done, ever. The night before the race, I was working and I saw the tram guy, John. I overheard him talking about setting up for the event. I asked him what that involved. After talking about it for a while I chirped that I was going to do it. He looked at me like I was crazy. Geez don’t have too much faith in me, I thought. ”You know, there is a cut off time. You’re going to feel things you’ve never felt before” and off he strolled. Pshh, he has no idea what I’ve felt before. But in reality, I really didn’t know if I was going to be able to do this, let alone make the cut off time. All I could think about was that the race is in less than 10 hours and all I want to do is have some brewski’s with my friends and forget I ever signed up for this.  

I set my alarm for 5 a.m. I fell asleep at around 1 a.m. Lydia, Deane, and I drove up the canyon talking about everything except for the Speed Goat (request by me) I had so many doubts. I wasn’t sure if I had efficiently hydrated myself, trained hard enough, ate the right things before, wore the right clothes, or if I had appropriate shoes, which I got only 4 days before the race. At 6:30 all 200 of us gathered at the start and off we went. The course switched backed all over the front of Snowbird from Mid-Gad to Peruvian to Gad 2, then to Little Cloud. On this steep section in Little Cloud, I chatted with an older man while I passed him. I asked Richard if he had ever done the Speed Goat before and he said no, and then he asked me the same. I told him, “man, I’ve never done anything close to this, not even a marathon.” He looked shocked and concerned. “You realize this race is like doing 3 marathons right?!” Well OK, maybe this is going to be way over my head I thought, but I’m going to at least try it damnit. The first aid station was at Hidden Peak at 7 miles, and when I got there I felt surprisingly good. One Lady I met told me that I need to eat and drink as much water as possible early in the race because I’ll be way too sick if I wait. So although I had no appetite, I shoved some banana and peanut butter sandwich in my mouth and dashed off for the accent of Mt. Baldy. By the way, I had realized 25 minutes before the race that I had forgot my head phones! I was crushed. Deane offered to try and speed back to my house to grab them before the race started, but we both knew he wouldn’t make it. Luckily he went anyway and gave them to Lydia who met me at Hidden Peak to take photos, cheer me on, and give me my headphones! After summiting Baldy, the course took a steep decent over to Mary Ellen. Lots of people fell here, it was loose gravel and incredibly steep with huge boulders. Then we dropped into Mineral Basin, climbed over a ridge then kept running down a rock bed all the freakin’ way to American Fork. It just kept going, and going, and going. At this point, I felt great! I felt light on my feet and was slowly passing people. I finally made it to the aid station and was overly relieved. I sipped some Red Bull, ate some more banana, some energy blocks, a salt capsule (to help retain water) and a popsicle. Coming out of mineral was long and brutal. It took ages to climb the road back up to Mineral Basin bowl and when you get there you have to climb back up to the tunnel.

When I finally got to the aid station in the bottom of Mineral, I was hurting. I stumbled in, surprised to see my roommate Lydia! She had ran all the way from Hidden Peak to meet me, and arrived only minutes before I did. I wanted to cry when I saw her. Actually, I did cry. My left shoulder was cramping so bad it felt like someone was biting me, my knees and ankles felt like they were going to explode, and my quads were on fire! After a quick hug off I went to climb out of Mineral. I finally reached the tunnel at 21 miles. “Good job guys, your 2/3rds finished!” one of the volunteers yelled. THAT’S IT?! O man, this is a f--ing LONG WAY. After the tunnel, we dropped all the way down to the amphitheater on Baldy, then came the most brutal part…the Cirque. We had to climb to the traverse making our way back to Hidden Peak in the dead of the hottest part of the day. By now I was tired but mostly worried about the last 5 miles, down. The down was killing me! My knees just couldn’t take it anymore and my right one was about to burst. On top of that, my right hip flexor kept getting tighter and tighter and I realized I must have pulled it at some point because I couldn’t lift my right knee without intense pain! So the last 5 miles I dragged my right leg behind me, while what seemed like 40 people passed me. I probably cried 5 different times during that part. It felt as though my knee was getting worse every minute. Everyone that passed asked me if I was ok, and I would huff a pitiful “yeah.” Even though deep down I wanted to grab them and yell “NO! I’m in serious pain! I’m NOT OK!” But I just kept hobbling along, grunting and limping all the way to the finish line. Everyone cheered loudly and they put a Speed Goat medallion over my head. I was overwhelmed with emotion. I did it! I did it!!! I just ran 32 miles over logs, rock beds, dust, mountains, valleys, roads and trails. I finished in 9 hours and 20 minutes. I stumbled around giving random people hugs and handshakes. This one guy (who in my head I referred to as my little buddy because we were with each other 80% of the race) came over and tapped me on the shoulder. He said, “Dude, you did so good! You flew down that rock bed and were cruising the whole way. I struggled to stay with you! I overheard you have never done a marathon but you absolutely killed it! You beat people that do 100 mile races, you understand that?” I was beaming. Then this other lady put both her hands on my shoulders and looked at me with wide eyes, “You, my dear, have a natural talent. This can NOT be your last race! You have to get into this because you are made for it.” Looks like I better start training for next year’s Speed Goat.