During inspection I was not feeling great. With only doing one ski competition before, and it going not so well, I had mixed emotions. On top of that, being in another country and unfamiliar with the terrain made me even more nervous. In the end I decided instead of scaring the shit out of my self or worse getting hurt again, I would choose a line I was positive I could stomp and ski it as fast as possible. Day 1 went great, I was 4th and did exactly what I planed. I had a blast cheering on all my friends. Everyone threw down and skied so well. I met tons of people and was so happy to see everyone so stoked. I ended up placing 9th going into day 2. I figured I now have nothing to loose so I better step it up on day 2. All in all, It was a beautiful fun day but I was happy when it was over. We all called it a night and tried to get some sleep.

We woke up early on day 2 for our inspection run. Once again it was a perfect blue bird day and everyone was amped for their run! I was unusually calm. My confidence had gone up leaps from the day before. I decided I didn’t travel this far to stress so I’m going to enjoy my self no matter what happens. So while we waited at the start gate I rocked out to my music until they sent the first girl. I was second so I told everyone “good luck, can’t wait to hug you all at the bottom!” There was just one air in the middle of my line I had been trying to visualize all morning. I was a little sketched out because the snow receded from the rocks so you had to go fast and ollie before the cliff. I felt great dropping in. My music was blasting and I was skiing fast and strong. I didn’t hesitate at all and stomped my air! It felt great! I danced the rest of the way down.

After cheering on the rest of the girls I made my way over to the open bar where I proceeded to down smirnoff ginger’s and take photos with everyone at the event. I ended up placing 6th, I’ll take it!  Of course,  we partied and danced our faces off that night. The next morning Drew Stocklein, who won the mens, bought a $75 dollar bottle of champaign to help our hang overs.

August 12th I got off the plane in Santiago at 6 am. After 30 hours of traveling I was stiff and tired and worried about what was going to happen next. Knowing how things can operate in South America I half expected my bags to be gone. On top of that, I was traveling on the word that I would get “hooked up” if I made it. So with zero plans or expectations I dragged my bags along until I noticed a short man with a white paper that had my name spelled wrong. I smiled, everything was going to work out! Pablo drove me to cozy spot right off the slopes of La Parva. Eight of us made up the sweetest  house ever, casa de no name! It was Kent, Norte, Jess, Chuck, Drew, Ben, Alex and myself. Pretty much a bunch of super nice, very rowdy people, who happen to like skiing and partying A LOT. Money and room was a bit tight for everyone so things like eating at home every night and using dish soap in the shower were part of a daily routine. The first day we hiked around a bit and ended up hitching a ride up with some patrollers who showed us a fun little chute to ski. It felt so good to be hiking in the cool air and skiing again. I was so stoked to be with my friends skiing in the middle of summer!

The next couple days were full of blue skys, pisco and fondue. We weren’t skiing pow, but we were having an amazing time shredding around hitting random features and pretty much skiing as fast as we could. We did a couple random photo shoots so we could continue to get free passes from La Parva and El Colorado. We also did some filming while we explored these chutes and caves at La Parva. Those will be pretty entertaining. After partying and messing around for 4 days it was time to start concentrating on the competition we all few around the world to do.

I would like to take this time to thank Rodrigo Medina and Jota Hernandez. Thanks to them I actually did get “hooked up” and had the most amazing time in Chile.

Not only are these 50k mountain races made for crazy super humman 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 doing 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 5am. I fell asleep at around 1am. 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 stee

p 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 fucking 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 “yea”. 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 fucking 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.

“It is no mistake that our location is a venue, art gallery, and retail space all wrapped into one” -evo.

A year ago when I was paying a visit to Seattle, I took my friend from Japan, Yutaro, to an Evo party. They were premiering a snowboard flick where the pro’s traveled around snowboarding, surfing, and skating. Yutaro had a blast drinkng as much Seattle mircobrew beer as he pleased, hanging out meeting tons of people, and getting photos with the “pro’s.” Later Yutaro wrote me a letter and said, “I don’t like American party, I LOVE American party!” -Thanks evo for showing us how it’s done.

Here is my interview with Evo crew member Molly Hawkins…

SOOO, this year Faty-pus is coming out with the……V-Rock! It will have the same flex but will come in a 176, way more appropriate for my size and be nice and rockered out for all my pow/jib experiments. It’s going to be a bit more narrow underfoot making it lighter for touring but still floaty with the rocker. Can’t wait to rock the V-Rocks this winter!!!!

If there were a “category”, this one would be “beyond category”. It is said to be the toughest 50K in the country. Concidering I’ve never even ran a marathon before this is going to be interesting to say the least. I’m increadibly nervous concindering my training has not been going that great. I figure I’ll do it anyway, my goal: finish. (mainly becuase there is beer at the finish line)

Here is a map of the course

If you would like, you can volunteer at the event, contact Karl Meltzer @ speedgoatkarl@gmail.com.

Prize

$500 will be given to the overall winners.

Sponsors

First Endurance, Red Bull, Nathan Sports, La Sportiva, Ryders Eyewear,
Wasatch Running Center, Backcountry.com

For More info on the event go to http://karlmeltzer.com

His name Baker is after Mt. Baker Washington, a mountain from my home state where I used to ski with my bothers. Baker is a mini Australian Shepard, so he only weighs about 25 pounds! He is so sweet, he loves to cuddle, as do I! He follows me around from room to room, goes on all my hikes and runs. He even goes mountain biking and keeps up no problem. I took him to the top of Olympus several times and even Lone Peak. He is like a mountain goat, he jumps from rock to rock like it’s nothing. He loves to jump, if I hold up food or a stick he jumps straight up like 4 ft! It’s awesome. He also loves to swim. I like to take him to East Canyon as often as possible. Last time he fetched sticks in the water for like 3 hours straight. He gets along great with other dogs, I never put him on a leash because he is very obedient, and loyal.  Yes, I let him on my bed. I can’t help it, I love to cuddle with him! Sometimes I wake up and he is on the floor (probably cause he’s too hot) and I get kind of bummed. When I’m driving I let him sit on my lap and put his head out the window. It’s soooo hard to leave him when I go to work, especially if I’m working a double. I stand at the door talking to him for a couple minutes telling him, “I wish I could bring you!” Luckily I have awesome active roommates who take him walking, hiking or biking all the time. Everyone loves Baker! It’s really funny because when he hears ambulance sirens he starts to howl. I like to think he does it because he is worried and sad someone is in trouble. He must think the sirens are other dogs (or wolfs I guess) howling. Baker never stops licking me either; he licks my toes, my cuts, my face all the time. It’s kinda funny actually, I’ll wake up to him randomly licking my knee or something and I don’t know why. Baker is the best dog ever, I’m so lucky to have him and so grateful to my mom for giving him to me!