Rachel Drake Makes the Leap to World-Class
by Chase Parnell — November 4, 2020 — 📸: Jessica Brazeau
I’ll be the first to admit that in recent times I’d lumped Rachel Drake (Nike Running) into the very good runner camp but not quite that A-list elite caliber. I did not foresee her as the next American woman to bridge the gap to world-class status in the mountain/ultra/trail community. I can’t tell you exactly why I didn’t see it sooner; maybe it was because her husband, Tyler Green, recently made a huge splash when he took the Wonderland Trail FKT from Dylan Bowman, and come on, they can’t BOTH be that fast! Turns out Rachel is just as strong if not stronger! It’s insane actually; something is in the water up there in the Drake/Green household. They are certainly on to something and I’m excited to see where it all goes from here.
So what happened? What went down to get me to throw around a term like world-class? Well, she did something that I’m worried isn’t going to be entirely recognized, both because of the looming election and the fact that the other names on the leaderboard were mostly international. Over the weekend, Rachel Drake finished in 2nd place at the Golden Trail Series Championship in the Azores. If you didn’t read my preview for the event, this was a four day stage race where the runner with the least cumulative time over the four days would be crowned the champion.
I don’t know that anyone would’ve picked Rachel to finish 2nd overall! Maybe Tyler, maybe he knew, but I really can’t overstate the magnitude of a 2nd place finish with this level of international competition. Blown away over here.
Rachel Drake’s Results at the Golden Trail Championship
I won’t recount all the racing action here, but if you want an awesome play-by-play, check out the Golden Trail YouTube channel to watch their 2-minute daily recap videos.
Here’s how Rachel fared after each day of competition:
- Stage 1: 4th place
- Stage 2: 4th place
- Stage 3: 2nd place
- Stage 4: 1st place
- Overall: 2nd place (9m 11s behind winner)
As you can see, Rachel was getting stronger as the days wore on. I don’t know what her recovery routine was, or what she did in training to build legs with that kind of resilience, but she somehow cracked the code, winning the final stage and gaining time on the eventual overall winner, Maude Mathys. By the way, the men’s race turned out surprisingly similar with Jim Walmsley winning the final stage as well but not by enough to take the overall win from Bart Przedwojewski of Poland. Makes me wonder what Rachel and Jim could have done with a couple more stages!
I think what strengthens Rachel’s performance even more is the fact that this stage race format shows her result wasn’t a fluke. She was right there in the hunt on ALL FOUR DAYS. It wasn’t just one magical day where all the cylinders were firing and everything went perfect for her. This style of race doesn’t reward a singular good day out and that’s really what makes it so interesting. You must be smart, know your body and its limits, recover well, stay mentally strong, and know how to dig deep and find that drive day after day after day.
Now, let’s talk for a second about the woman who only beat Rachel by a mere nine minutes and eleven seconds. That’s an average of 2m 18s per stage. Each stage was between 26 and 36 kilometers (with a lot of climbing) so in reality the margin of victory was very small. Maude Mathys has been arguably one of the most dominant female mountain runner over the last two years, winning both the 2019 and 2020 uber-competitive Sierre-Zinal races in Switzerland as well as winning and setting the course record on the Pike’s Peak Marathon in 2019. So we’re talking top of the top level athlete and Rachel Drake was nipping at her heels, making her really work for this win. I’m going to wager Rachel will be heading to her next start line with a little new found swagger after this one!
Was This Really Out of the Blue?
Okay, so this isn’t the first time Rachel has competed at the international level against a very competitive field. She did finish 7th at CCC, which was extremely impressive, but as the 3rd American female behind Amanda Basham and Stephanie Howe, it didn’t exactly feel like we were ushering in the next great American. I think you have to look at that result as a stepping stone; in just one year, she has developed a lot! Her line on the graph is still rising and we don’t yet know where it’ll level out.
Rachel also competed at the marathon Olympic Trials in Atlanta and set four new FKTs in 2020 alone. While she’s definitely a great all-around runner, she seems to have a special aptitude for mountain running. She ran college XC and track for the University of Minnesota, but wasn’t a star standout at that level. From her Gopher roster profile, it looks like she spent most of her college career fighting to maintain a spot on the varsity squad. But it isn’t uncommon to wrap up a traditional running trajectory and then explore other running niches and find out you really excel at another style. Another parallel with Señor Walmsley, Jim was a good, not great, college runner. You couldn’t have predicted that he would go on to become arguably the best American male ultra runner of all time.
Where Does Rachel Go from Here?
Rachel is one of those people who when you hear about all she does in life, you just want to slap your forehead. Like, how can a human being do all of these things and be sane? Even for a highly functioning type-A personality, it would appear she’s next level. She is an MD/PhD student at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland where she studies neonatal metabolism. What?! She’s also a running coach for Trails & Tarmac, spending hours each week coaching clients. She trains, goes on big adventures, travels the world over for races, and even maintains personal relationships with both man and dog.
We have a highly capable human here. So it makes sense that Rachel continues to improve and climb the ranks of this sport of ours. That’s what efficient and intelligent people do; they handle pressure well, learn through trial and error, and don’t give up.
As far as where Rachel’s headed, the world is now even more her oyster. I don’t think there is a running brand or race organization on the planet who didn’t take notice of the Golden Trail Championship. Talk about a resume builder. I guess it’s really up to Rachel. Tyler and her have a website called Ultra Side Hustle; if they keep running at the level they are now, they might have to go full hustle. Just saying.
On the racing front, I foresee Rachel continuing to challenge herself against the best in the world. I love that she was bit by the UTMB bug; in her CCC race recap she called her run, “the second best day of my life behind my wedding day.” I’ll note that she ends this same report with a list of seven areas of improvement, which aligns perfectly with this type-A personality I’ve projected on her.
I hope she goes back to UTMB to race the big dance now that she’s done CCC. I feel like her and Katie Schide could pair up over there and do some real damage. Two quasi dark-horses that I predict are going to really shock the world someday in Chamonix. Well, I guess Rachel can’t really be considered a dark horse anymore! Not after this 2nd place finish. The cat is officially out of the bag.
If there was an abbreviated 2020 ultra runner of the year vote this year, in my book, Rachel just earned a spot at or very near the top of the list. Huge congrats to her! Way to throw down and make us all proud.
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Solid recap and observations. She crushes.
I was lucky enough to view Rachel’s performance at GTC first hand and agree with almost all you wrote! I, too, began by not considering her A-Elite (in fact I put that too her, foolishly), but quickly changed my opinion. Seeing her take out Maude Mathys in the final stage confirmed to me that Rachel can achieve whatever she sets her mind to. And she’s an A-list-Elite Human Being to boot! Only I would not rate her as ultra-runner of the year based on GTC. Altho the combined distance was 113km, they were racing sub-marathon distances on four successive stages, which does not an ultra make! But I would certainly rate her in the top three of trail running 2020 overall, based on that performance!
Wow, cool you were there! Looks like the weather made for some interesting conditions. Hopefully you got a little sun at least during your stay! And yes, can’t wait to see what Rachel does next! Will be fun to follow. Good point on the stage-race not being an ultra! It’s sort of its own unique beast. It requires ultra qualities but not all at one go. 🙂