52 WOMEN’S RUNNING SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2019
With a resume like that, Kara Goucher
easily could have coasted. Thrown in the
towel on competitive running and spent
the next few decades collecting speak-
ing engagements, sponsorships, and race
appearances based on the woman she was:
a highly decorated—and even more highly
respected—elite track, cross-country, and
road runner.
Instead, on March 11, 2019, Goucher an-
nounced an ambitious pivot: She would be
turning her sights to trail running, prepar-
ing first for the Leadville Trail Marathon
in June.
To the unacquainted, that may not sound
all that drastic. After all, she's a seasoned
elite marathoner. How different would 26.2
miles on a trail really be? But there were
a number of challenges that made this
far from a sure thing: Goucher had never
trained, much less raced, at altitude before
(this historic race course starts at 10,000
feet); she also hadn’t run on trails in more
than 20 years.
As an injury-prone track athlete, Goucher
says she swore off trails decades ago. It
simply wasn't worth the risk. “When I was
training for the Olympic Trials, I would
warm up 2 or 3 miles and meet [my coach-
es],” she said. “If there was even a tiny bit
of water melt that had frozen on the roads,
say maybe twice in a mile stretch, we would
shut it down. They’d go back to work for a
couple hours; I’d go home and eat a snack,
nap, and meet them 3 hours later. That’s
how afraid I was of falling or running on
uneven surfaces.”
So just the act of signing up for the race
was scary; Goucher felt vulnerable, and
admittedly terrified. Even friends were
surprised: “Jenny Simpson and I went for
this run two years ago; it started to go up
this trail, and all of a sudden she turned
around and couldn’t even see me—that’s
how slow I was moving," Goucher said.
"When I said I was running Leadville, she
was like, ‘My mind is blown!’”
And yet, there was also a palpable cu-
riosity she couldn’t ignore. “It reminds
me of the first marathon I ever saw,” she
said. “In 2007, I came off winning a medal
in the World Championships, and all of a
sudden I was in the spotlight, and the New
York Road Runners invited me to come out
and watch the marathon. I sat on the presstruck and was equal parts terrified and in-
spired watching Paula [Radcliffe]. She was
out there for 2 hours and the better side of
20 minutes, and she was running so hard
the entire time. I remember thinking, Oh
my God, that’s so scary I can’t even imagine
doing that—but then I was also like, But I
really wish I could. I really want to be that
tough. Could I?”
Preparing for Leadville, however, would
require a completely different mentality
than what she was used to. On the roads,
you train for a certain pace that you can
handle for those 2 hours and the better side
of 20 minutes. That mindset, Goucher very
quickly learned, wasn't going to translate
to her off-road training. With steep inclines
and uneven terrain, jumping over rocks
and letting your body go with the trail, this
type of running demands a whole different
level of physicality than that used on roads
and tracks. At 41 years old, Goucher found
herself a true beginner all over again.
But she was determined to succeed.
So the first thing she did was let go of any
pace-based runs. There was just no use
for them on the trails. She focused much
of her training on doing a lot of mile-long
repeats—12-mile stretches of one mile
hard uphill and an easy mile down, or vice
versa. She was humble and honest about
the process ("Took my first spill on the
trails today so I think I'm officially a trail
runner?!" she tweeted on April 20). And she
found experienced training partners like pro
ultrarunner Cat Bradley, who also lives in
Boulder, Colorado, where Goucher is based.
“As much as I respect her and like her as a
human, it wasn’t necessarily fun,” Goucher
said about her time on the trail with Bradley.
“It was just three hours of being so tense
and so scared, and trying to be brave but
really just being like, I don’t want to do this,
I’m going to fall, I’m so scared right now. My
shoulders would be so tense after.”
There was, however, something in her
road-running toolbox that would translate
well on the trails; something Goucher could
definitely use to her advantage.
“One of the things in my racing career
was, once I got to college, Mark Wetmore
really taught me about pacing,” she said.
“He taught me about how if you burn up all
the fuel in the beginning you go anaerobic
right away and it’s a sufferfest, but youcan go so much faster if you’re willing to
let other people go out harder.” Trusting
him, she gave it a shot, and suddenly she
was a breakout star, becoming the NCAA
Outdoor Champion in 3,000 meters and
5,000 meters, and the NCAA Cross Country
Champion in 2000.
“Every coach I’ve subsequently had has
said, 'This is something you’re good at:
not getting excited early on; knowing it’s a
full 10K, or knowing it’s a full 26.2 miles.'”