2021 Speedgoat 50k Preview!

by Chase Parnell — July 20, 2021

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After all this 100 mile action lately, it’s refreshing to drop down in distance to a very competitive 50k. High-octane, huge vert, high elevation, a great history, and a very stacked field. This race is going to be interesting! I know Western States, Hardrock, and UTMB get all the love, but the runners who excel on a course like Speedgoat have a unique set of skills that also need to be recognized. Before I get into the athletes on the starting list, let’s take a look at the course they’ll be testing their fitness on as well as a few past notable results. Start Time: Saturday July 24th, 2021 at 6:30am MST. I will be at the race providing live updates and commentary from the course so make sure to follow our Twitter and instagram accounts!

Speedgoat 50k Course

This course is an absolute beast. 31 miles, 11,000+ feet of vert, relentless climbing/descending, no mercy. Starting at Snowbird Ski Resort in Alta, Utah, the runners ascend to the top of an 11,000 foot mountain, drop off the backside, all the way down to the valley floor, run a little out and back, just far enough to see how close your competitors are, then you’re sent right back up to climb the mountain again and then scream down to the finish. The climb from mile 16-20 is where it’s all going to go down. Who has that good good fitness right now? We’ll find out then.

Speedgoat 50k All-Time List

When you look at a lot of the top times, the race definitely feels like a throw-back to another era. And of course I can’t go on without focusing your gaze on that Tony Krupicka time from 2013. The course has changed a bit over the years but I found Sage’s 2013 Strava data from the same year and that course is definitely on par with what we’ll see this weekend. So yeah, Anton threw down, ran that sucker faster than Kilian. Okay, that’s enough. On the women’s side, Anita Ortiz, wow, there’s an outlier performance. I don’t see that time ever getting beat! Of course it will someday but she must have ran out of her mind that day. The #2 all-time result from Steph Howe is also worth noting. I forget how versatile she is. She can win races like Western States and Lake Sonoma but then also throw down on a real vertfest like Speedgoat. I’m predicting someone will crack the top-ten on both the men’s and women’s side this weekend, but how deep into the top ten? Who knows. It’s going to be exciting!

2021 Speedgoat 50k Men’s Preview

The men’s field is loaded, both with a good amount of proven vets but also some up and comers that are surely looking to establish a name for themselves. And that’s what’s so great about this sport: anyone can show up at a race like this and they’ll see exactly how they stack up. Can you imagine how good it must’ve felt last year to be Noah Brautigam, who showed up and somehow won handily over Hayden Hawks, Anthony Costales, Jared Hazen and Matt Daniels? Like, what?! Nobody would’ve predicted that result. And that’s part of the fun with a 50k; it’s much harder for a dark horse or new talent to roll into a 100 miler and shock the field. But anything is possible in a 50k. Alright, with that, let’s get into the field. Whew!

The Top Contenders

**7/23/21 Update: We have a late entrant. Jared Hazen! It’s been four weeks since Jared pulled the plug at mile 62 of Western States. Jeff Browning dropped at the same spot and had a great Hardrock 100 last weekend so maybe Hazen will be ready to roll too? With Jared’s entry we have three of the original Coconino Cowboys toeing the line: Reed, Hazen, and Freriks. It’ll be interesting to see how they stack up!

David Sinclair – Don’t even know where to start with this guy. Definitely one of America’s most promising mountain runners. An XC skier by trade with a huge engine, David is just now starting to tear it up on the ultra scene. He’s been flying under the radar a bit but I’m on a mission here to change that. Check this out: 2:16 marathoner, 2018 Speedgoat 50k champ, 2019 The Rut 28k champ, and get this, at the first Golden Trails event of 2021, the Ola de Nuria 21k, David finished 8th, just 6m 40s off the winner, Stian Angermund, who is legitimately one of the best in the world. Remi Bonnet and Davide Magnini finished 2nd and 3rd respectively and were even closer to Sinclair. So he truly is on the cusp of running shoulder to shoulder with world-class runners. Insane! My money’s on Sinclair to win the race. There, I said it.

Preston Cates – **Update: Per Jeff Stern, Cates is not running and instead focusing on build to Lake Sonoma!** Ring a bell? This is that young guy from Canyons 100k that ran with Max King, Anthony Costales, Noah Brautigam, and Cole Watson deep into the race, held it together and ended up 6th in his first competitive ultra. He’s just 24 years old and a recent grad of the University of Arkansas where he ran track and XC. After relocating to Boulder, he’s had time to build some mountain legs. Excited to see if he backs up that Canyons 100k with a big performance at Speedgoat.

Cody Reed – Looks pretty fit on Strava. Nice June/July block. Like most of the Coconino Cowboys, I think of Cody as one that excels more on a runner’s course. With a win at Way Too Cool 50k, a pair of 2nds at Bandera 100k and Tarawera 100k, and a top ten finish at Western States, Speedgoat 50k feels a little out of character but he obviously has the engine and talent to transition to more mountainous races. Especially now that he’s living and training out of Mammoth Lakes, I would assume he’s really developed his climbing. He won Ultra Trail Cape Town 100k in 2019, which had about 14,000 feet of gain so that was no softball of a course, but Speedgoat has 11,000 in half the distance!

Michelino (“Mike”) Sunseri – The 2019 Speedgoat 50k champ returns! He has the 7th fastest time ever on the course. He finished 2nd at the 2019 Broken Arrow Skyrace, one minute ahead of David Sinclair above. Other than that, I don’t know a lot about Sunseri. Fellow Anton fan so he must be chill.

Cole Watson – Could definitely win this thing. His training looks really strong! Three 100 mile weeks with 18k-22k of vert. Don’t get me wrong, Cole has a great ultra resume, but he’s one of those guys that seems to have some untapped potential; he hasn’t quite knocked it out of the park on the big stage yet. A win at Speedgoat against this level of competition would be big! Living at low elevation in Folsom, CA is the only red flag I see leading into a race that tops out over 11,000 feet. We’ll see!

Tim Freriks – Tim has been a little quiet in recent years but he was forever immortalized when he won Transvulcania in 2017. He showed he clearly has a high ceiling, it’s just a matter of how fit he’ll be on the start line on Saturday. He hasn’t been running a ton of miles, but that can be deceiving. A guy like Tim could be in incredible shape off 60-70 miles a week, and for 50k, that might be enough.

Brian Whitfield – Definitely some hometown bias going on here but it seems to me Brian is on the verge of something big. He already nailed it once in February of 2020 when he won the Moab Red Hot 55k, running the 5th fastest time in the race’s 15-year history. Brian also caused a stir at the 2021 Black Canyon 100k when he led the race two-thirds of the way through before unfortunately dropping out. As a resident of Bend, Oregon I can’t say it’s the best town in the world to train for something like Speedgoat; it’s not Salt Lake or Boulder with 4-5,000 foot climbs from town, you have to drive a ways to get to anything steep so you don’t naturally accumulate as much vert. But hey, Brian has been training well, he’s had some nice tune-up races, and he’s got the talent to run with anyone. Rooting for him to have a big day!

Also in the Mix

Garrett Corcoran – Recent Cal Berkeley grad. 4-year XC/Track athlete. 13:54 5k runner. Ultra debut?

Jacob Grant – 2nd Squaw Peak 50 miler (2021).

Nick Hilton – The Flagstaffer that all the Flagstaffers thought would win Black Canyon earlier this year. 2:17 marathoner.

Nick Handel – 6th Speedgoat 50k (2019).

Adam Loomis – 1st Scout Mountain 50 miler (2021).

Seth Ruhling – 1st JFK 50 (2019); 9th Kendall Mountain 12 miler (2021).

Caleb Olson – 1st Timp Trail Marathon (2021); 1st Antelope Island 50k (2019).

Adam Peterman – Steepler for CU Buffs (2013-2017); 2019 USATF Trail Marathon Champ. 50k debut?

Benjamin Cook – 9th Bandera 100k (2021); 4th Black Canyon 100k (2020).

That’s the men’s lineup. As always, it’s certainly possible I missed some other contenders! Feel free to include anyone you think has a shot in the comments below! Also, if you know that someone I mentioned isn’t running, let me know and I’ll update the field. Thank you!

2021 Speedgoat 50k Women’s Preview

The women’s side isn’t quite as deep as the men’s but we still have a lot of fun runners to follow. To me it seems like there are three premier mountain 50k races in the USA these days: Speedgoat, The Rut, and Broken Arrow. Most of the other really competitive 50ks are flatter and faster: Way Too Cool, Chuckanut, Moab Red Hot, etc. It’s always fun to pit the runners built for speed versus the pure mountain athletes and I think we have good representation of both these veins of the sports. Here we go…

Top Contenders

Ashley Brasovan – HOKA/SWAP athlete hopping up in distance to 50k after mostly marathons and shorter trail races. 2:40 marathoner, 2007 Footlocker Nationals HS Champ, 2017 USATF National Trail Half Marathon Champ, Coloradan, ex-Floridian. Apparently Ashley is a pretty low mileage runner and has struggled with lots of injuries over the years (six femoral stress fractures?!) but is still grinding it out and now upping the race distance. Way to hang in there. Coming off the shorter, more explosive road and trail scene, it’ll be interesting to see how she handles the vert as it stacks up throughout the 50k. Who knows, maybe this longer stuff will be her new jam! She unquestionably has the potential to shake up the podium.

Kristina Trygstad-Saari – Kristina comes to us from the cross country ski world where she’s had a long successful career in a variety of disciplines. Living in Bozeman, she has the elevation and vert from the doorstep to do well. She finished 2nd at Speedgoat to Michelle Hummel (also in the race) in 2020. And get this, Kristina set the course record at the Bridger Ridge Run in 2019 with a time of 3h 40m, beating world mountain running champ Grayson Murphy en route. Soooo, Kristina can run. She finished 3rd at the 2019 Broken Arrow 52k and 2nd at the Rut 50k in 2018. If she’s fit, Kristina is going to be tough to beat!

Taylor Nowlin – Adidas Terrex athlete, ICU nurse, resident of the town with perhaps the worst rep in the pacific northwest, Spokane, Washington! Taylor has had a lot of really great results and proven success on tough mountain ultras. She finished 2nd at Speedgoat in 2018 AND 2019, and more recently, she’s coming off a top ten finish at the super-stacked Canyons 100k early this year. I like that she has that 100k training in her legs, with some sharpening, that might translate well at Speedgoat.

Michelle Hummel – of Albuquerque, New Mexico was 3rd at Speedgoat in 2019 and won it in 2020! Hummel was also the 2020 snowshoe U.S. national champion. She is perhaps the most difficult person to find anything about on the internet. Well done. Most recently, Michelle finished third at the Kendall Mountain Run and set an unsupported FKT on Baldy Santa Fe mountain in June. Will be fun to watch her try to defend her title!

Amanda Basham – Basham. Is. Back. After having her first child earlier this year, she’s wasted no time ramping back up the training. In May, Amanda raced the 15 miler at the Smith Rock Ascent, finishing 2nd, just a few minutes back from multiple time world mountain running team member Kimber Mattox. So if Amanda was pretty darn fit in May, then she’s probably really damn fit now! Her training peaked with a 90 mile week and 15,000 feet of climbing (rounding up). Good stuff. Prior to the arrival of the baby, Amanda has been a mainstay in the domestic/international racing scene. A couple highlights: 4th Western States (2016 AND 2018), 17th UTMB (2017), and 2nd Tarawera 100k (2018). Basham was 4th at Speedgoat in 2015 so she knows what she’s getting into! Let’s go!

Cat Bradley – Cat secured ultrarunning legend status of course when she won the 2017 Western States 100. And she wasn’t a one-hit wonder! She backed that performance up with an 8th place finish at the 2018 UTMB and a 2nd place finish at the 2019 Leadville 100. What a resume! It’s hard to gauge exactly where her fitness is now. She has been open about her injuries over the years and her results this year are a little cryptic. She was 3rd at the Mesquite Canyon 30k back in March and then won the Go Big 50k in April in her home state of Hawaii. She recently had a 90 mile 13,000 feet vert week and great looking training before and after that so she must be pretty healthy now? She made a name for herself in the 100 mile distance but that doesn’t mean she can’t also nail a tough 50k. Rooting for her!

Also in the Mix

Mary Kate McGuire – 1st (and course record) River of No Return 55k (2021); 1st (and course record) Woodside Ramble 35k (2019).

Paige Pattillo – 3rd Black Canyon 100k (2018); 3rd Gorge Waterfalls (2017).

Annie Hughes – This’ll be a sprint for Annie as she gears up for Moab 240. “Outdoorable_Annie” on the gram. Recent guest on URP. 1st Collegiate Peaks 50 (2021). New Hoka athlete. Lives in Leadville. Good positive vibes.

Anita Ortiz – The course record holder returns at age 57, thirteen years after she set the course record at age 44 in the inaugural Speedgoat 50k. Still not sure if her record of (6h 2m) needs an asterisk next to it or not. Maybe the ultra historians out there could educate us in the comments below? The men’s time that year didn’t seem too fast so the course likely had similar difficulty. I only question it because it’s a full 15 minutes faster than the 2nd all-time performance. Either way, it’ll be great to see Anita out on the course!

Emily Caldwell – 1st Golden Gate Dirty 30 (2021); 6th Speedgoat 50k (2018).

Becca Bramley – 2nd Dead Horse Ultra 50 (2020); 4-time top ten finisher at Kendall Mountain Run.

Jessi Morton-Langehaug – 1st Moab 240 (2020); 1st Timp Trail Marathon (2020).

Briana Jaskot – 1st Bishop High Sierra 55k (2021); 1st Pioneer Spirit Marathon (2020).

Sarah McClosky – Ran every Speedgoat 50k from 2008-present besides 2016 (what happened that year?!). Highest finish was 2nd in 2009.

Rebecca Rick – 2nd Bear 100 (2020); 2nd Wasatch 100 (2018).

Carrie Stafford – 4th Leadville 100 (2019); 3rd Tahoe 200 (2018).

Alright, there you have it! That’s our 2021 Speedgoat 50k preview. The race starts on Saturday July 24th at 6:30am. Again, make sure to follow the Treeline Journal Twitter and instagram accounts to get our commentary and updates while out on the course. We should be able to provide live updates at the start, two different points on the course, and then at the finish. Apparently the cell coverage is pretty good on the mountain. Can’t wait to see this thing go down!

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