The Steep Stuff Podcast
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The Steep Stuff Podcast
Robyn Lesh | Speedgoat 50K Pre Race Interview
From defending 28K champion to 50K challenger, Robin Lesch brings her trademark consistency and strategic approach to this year's Speedgoat 50K. The mountain ultrarunner from Durango shares a refreshingly honest assessment of her racing philosophy: "I'll either blow up, and that'll be a learning, or I won't, and that'll be a learning."
Robin's consistency across diverse race distances and terrains stands out in a sport where many experience dramatic performance swings. She attributes this to her measured racing style—staying within herself during the first half before hunting down competitors in the latter stages. With coaching from Robbie Britton for four years, she's developed a dependable approach that regularly lands her near podium positions.
Training in Durango provides the perfect playground for mountain race preparation. With the La Plata Mountains essentially in her backyard and the San Juans just an hour away, Robin has easy access to punishing vertical gain—ideal for preparing for Speedgoat's brutal 11,000 feet of climbing. She's also simplified her nutrition strategy over time, moving away from complicated plans to focus primarily on gels and water, with her sister Celia providing crucial crew support during the race.
What truly sets Robin apart is her mindset toward goal-setting. Rather than fixating on placement or times, she focuses on process-oriented objectives: pushing hard on specific sections or maintaining a higher effort throughout. This approach allows her to concentrate on her own performance rather than getting caught up in what others are doing. As women's ultrarunning continues to evolve with increasingly competitive fields, Robin's thoughtful approach to racing and training offers valuable insights for runners at all levels looking to find consistency and joy in mountain ultras.
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What's up, fam? Welcome back to the Steep Stuff Podcast. I'm your host, james Lariello, here to bring you another Speedgoat 50k pre-race interview, this one with none other than Robin Lesch Super excited to have Robin back on the podcast. Since we've chatted, she's taken a fourth place finish at the Gorge Waterfalls 100k, placing just off of Team USA, and she's also taken a top 10 finish at the Broken Arrow Sky Race 46k. For those of you who don't know, at the Broken Arrow Sky Race 46K For those of you who don't know, robin is the defending 28K champion at Speedco. So she'll be moving up in distance this year to race the 50K, which I know she's super excited about. You'll hear her talk about that on the episode and, yeah, I'm just really excited for what Robin's going to be able to do A lot of really strong women going into this race and it was kind of fun to get her, uh, just her perspective on it and just her perspective on the course, um, and just kind of how training's been, and you know her plans for the rest of the summer. So, without further ado, I hope you guys enjoy this one, robin Lesh. It's time. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. We are live.
Speaker 1:Robin Lesh, welcome back to the Steep Stuff Podcast. How's it going Good? Yeah, beautiful morning. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm so excited to have this chat with you ahead of, uh, the speed goat 50k. It's taking place saturday, it's a couple days out. Um, what's the stoke level pre-race? How you feeling?
Speaker 2:yeah, pretty high um. This race I'm just gonna play around with and see uh sort of push at a different level, um, and see where that gets me. I'll either blow up, and that'll be a learning, or I won't, and that'll be a learning. Um, so it's going to be sort of a play day, yeah.
Speaker 1:Fair enough, fair enough. You know, I gotta give you your, your kudos. Man. Like you are one of the most like, you have been one of the most consistent athletes. Like it doesn't matter if it's a long like, if it's like an ultra, it's a long like. If it's like an ultra, like a super long distance, or if it's like something shorter, like broken arrow, 46 K, like very consistent results across the board. Like do you like attribute that to great coaching? Do you attribute that to just like you know being well prepared for these races and being able to prepare well? Like what do you think that is?
Speaker 2:Uh, great question. Um, great coaching for sure. Like I love my coach, robbie Britton. We've been working together four years now and just like really clicking. It's wonderful. I think it seems to be my race style. Like that's why I'm going to sort of play around with it this weekend and see if I can do something else, but to just be not really conservative but like within myself for the first half um and just racing really my body in the course, and then in the second half, going and playing forwards and seeing how many ladies I can catch, um seems to be my like happy. Just some default method Um. So I'll see if I can play with that and either I either I'll just fall back into it or um. It does give a lot of consistency, which is cool. So far I haven't had any bomber races. It usually puts me somewhere in the bottom of the podium or just off, which is a good-ish place to be.
Speaker 1:It's not bad, I take that over. I would take that even over just winning one and then just completely imploding on every other one.
Speaker 2:That's true, I implode very rarely.
Speaker 1:That's fair, fair enough. Yeah, it's been amazing to watch, like I said, just so, much consistency and your training's been really fun to follow along to and you're pretty open about some of the stuff that you're doing training out there in Durango. You've got the San Juans right there. You've got the San Juans, uh, you know, kind of right there. Um, it must've not been very difficult to get ready for a big mountain race like this, given what you have, as far as like, at your disposal in your backyard.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, most of most races I have to stay off too much vert um, because there's just a lot of steep trails that are beautiful and it's like no yep Run. A lot of steep trails that are beautiful and it's like no yep run the smart stuff um, but this one you can kind of go and play on anything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, do you, you know? Do you do more like stuff, because durango is so close to both the san juans and the laplatas? Do you do more stuff in the laplatas or are you more going up to like silverton and the san juans?
Speaker 2:yeah, um, I haven't run very much in silverton actually because it's a whole hour away, really close so far. Yeah, um, the laplata is for us because we're just west of town. The laplata is for us are like right around the corner, uh, and super good training in there.
Speaker 1:So often laplata, but don't tell too many people yeah, I was gonna say I didn't want to throw it out on the podcast. That's actually a place we could talk about this offline. That's a place I've been wanting to get out to train for a while, like cool area, very neat, and yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And then there's heaps and heaps up in the same ones that are objectively probably more impressive, but yeah, logistically a bit further yeah, no, no, fair enough.
Speaker 1:I do want to talk a little bit on broken arrow. Another like phenomenal performance for you. Obviously just short of team USA, but damn, like you were. You ran a great race, like really really well. Same kind of concept Would you agree with. Like was it start off more conservative in the first lap and then pick ladies off at the second? Like how did the race play out for you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, broken arrow was tough. Um, I think I just wrote a post about this. I think I took all my like, fire and energy from racing gorge and being just off of the team there um into the training for the next block the two months before broken arrow. Um, and I have learned don't take fire and energy, put it into training, put it into racing. Uh, so I was. I think I was into a hole. We could say, um, yeah, it was pretty tough.
Speaker 2:Um, the whole week before I was like, okay, we're not going to do anything that's pushing at all and just try to recover as much as possible. Um, and it was hard on race day, especially at the beginning, like my warm up, I think I walked to the end of it because I didn't feel like running the end of it, which has never, ever happened. So the first hour or so was pretty tough, just like keeping moving and trying to settle into it and just run with what I had on the day. Luckily, after about like an hour, weirdly up high, after about an hour and a half or something, I started to feel better and then just sort of clawing back positions. So like, in time, it was a pretty good race. I did like even split the first and second lap, which is unusual, but it was not a perfect day, I would definitely say.
Speaker 1:but I'm really proud of like how I handled, how I was feeling, um, and just clicking into race mode and giving it what I had that day yeah, no, I mean, like I said, I gotta commend you like not just a consistent result, but just like man, so many people blew up and those races start out so fast, like people, yes, going out like like, like yeah, way too fast. And it's so funny to see, like you and I've said this so like on broke, like on the race preview episodes and stuff like that I was just like man, like, usually the person leading the first lap unless you're, eli hemming is not necessarily the person winning the race, right, or david sinclair, I should say, um, but yeah, it's just so interesting to see like the dynamics of that race and how it played out, so kudos to you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, send the last down. Is was what I did. Yeah, yeah, listen so much fun.
Speaker 1:What, and what a fun course too, like I absolutely love broken arrow.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, yeah, super fun to pivot back to speed go. You are. You are 28k champion, so you understand this course. You've been on the course before a good chunk of it, so you have an idea of what to expect. I didn't go to. I obviously know your results because we've had you on the podcast before. But have you ever run 11,000 feet in that condensed of less than 30 or 30 and less miles before? That's such a. It's a ton of vertical gain, like that is, it's a bc 60k.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, um, in my head it's. I should probably check the numbers, but in my head it's the same race as occ yeah, yeah, that makes sense, it makes sense so I know it's long, I know you just keep eating and you keep climbing and you keep running everything you can um nice, nice, and you know a little bit less technical, but higher up obviously.
Speaker 1:So it's going to be, you know, and it's just interesting to me, it's so crazy that, like it's a you know six, I mean, I think the course records for women's 602. So it's a six or seven hour race for the top 10 women, which is so wild to think of for 50 K.
Speaker 2:Yeah, keep eating.
Speaker 1:What is the nutrition strategy for this one? Is it going to be like more solids, just because it's a slower race and more like for digestion is going to be different? Is it going to be more liquids, gels, because the altitude like how do you like plan to approach something like this?
Speaker 2:Yeah, good question. I used to be very sort of complex in my nutrition schedule. I was like, all right, so it'll be easier for me to eat smaller gels here and bigger gels here, and you would eat these before this and then these here, and then at Broken at a Black Canyon this spring. I was like, wait a second, why am I making this complicated? I don't really get flavor fatigue. I don't get tired of certain gels. Have a gel that is has always worked. Why not just do that like sort of mix liquid nutrition? Just do gels and water. Um, so that's my sort of primary strategy. I'll put in a little bit of liquid nutrition. Just because it's when I have two bottles, I might as well. Um, it'll mainly just be two big gels an hour.
Speaker 1:Nice, nice, do you and I know there's two like crude checkpoints on like do you plan to take advantage of those of like? Yeah, yeah, of course.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, my sister Celia is coming out. Um, she's flying in today and she'll crew me. She was at gorge sort of crewing and spectating, um, and that was not too traumatic experience for her not to accept the offer to come out and crew me here, so it'll be super fun for her to be part of it.
Speaker 1:Super fun, yeah, especially, it's always fun having family. I like to get to see you, on course, yeah.
Speaker 2:And she was the original runner. I was a sailor and she was the runner, so it's done this sort of switcheroo, but it's really fun to have her here.
Speaker 1:So cool, so cool, so cool. Have you made, did you I know some people do, some people don't for a race this long Like, do you make splits for something like this? Like I know jazz one last year with like six I think she ran six hours, 15 minutes. Do you have something around six, 15, six, 20, somewhere in that area, or is it just going to be go off feel?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a good question. Uh, I was. I have made splits for it for the purpose of planning nutrition, because I need to tell my sister what to give me when. So when we go for the backside, for example, that's like I have to look at my spreadsheet but like over 20 kilometers of on your own, um, so I need to know approximately how long that's going to take. Um, also, the women's fields are getting so fast that you no longer can just go off winning time. Last year, like, for example, broken arrow, my time was pretty much winning time. Last year, um, same with JFK, same with um, a bunch of other races this year. So, uh, I I'm just taking a chunk of time off the winning time and being like that's very optimistic, um, david Roche style is like super optimistic. But you know your targets should be fast and if you don't make them, that's the way it is, um, so see, I like it.
Speaker 2:Six is what I'm planning from. I wouldn't say like I expect to run six, but that's fine oh, I know I like it I.
Speaker 1:The reason I bring it up is because, like, we did the course, or we of course preview. We did the uh preview episode for the race yesterday and we were just talking about like 602 is the course record, but it was set back in 2008, like it stood for so long and like somewhat, like especially this year, like we've got a pretty deep field of ladies, um, like there's a strong contingent with yourself, jennifer Lichter, returning champion Jazz, malia Noyes there's a lot of really strong women. So my hope would be that we get close this year at least, or break it. I think it's totally possible.
Speaker 2:Do you know if the courses let's say because the 28K, well actually all the courses changed a bit three years ago with a different start spot.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that's the million dollar question. I did a bunch of research, so as far as I went, on the 28K is longer, it's a 31K.
Speaker 1:Yes, 28k is longer. So, and here's the question we get so much variance year over year, not just from short distance changes, but also temperature wise, like, for instance, like McElheno's ran under six, I'm sorry, mcaleenan has ran under 520 twice and then we've had. But Christian won a few years before, in 2023, ran I think it was 523. So a temperature plays a vast role, as you know, after running the 28K, if it's a hot day, it's going to be much different. I don't know. Ultra signup counts the 2008 record as the official record, and they count, obviously. Last year David Sinclair went under five hours. That's the men's record.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean if it's longer and the times are faster, that's more of a record.
Speaker 1:Well, that's the million-dollar question. It's like okay, so if there's no one to account for the fact, like 2008,. In my opinion, while Ultra Sign Up does recognize the 2008 number, it had to have been a shortened course just because it stood for that long. And we've had Anna Frost, We've had so many strong women come through there and not even get close. They're within 10, 15, 20 minutes and you would think just by how much better people have gotten over the years and where it's gone. I would guess that was a shorter course, but yeah.
Speaker 2:It's okay, it gives us a high bar to shoot for. I agree, I agree.
Speaker 1:I think it's possible to do it this year in my opinion, so it'll be definitely fun so cool.
Speaker 2:Where are we at?
Speaker 1:About 15 minutes in. What is your expectation? Is your expectation compete for the podium or?
Speaker 2:Yes, compete for the podium or um, yes, uh, I don't generally make like place goals because it's I. I have control over how I race, but I don't have control over how anyone else's day is or who's there. Um, the time thing is a bit funny. Like I need to have some sort of time idea to tell my sister when to when to expect me, or and or to plan nutrition. Um, it's less of like a goal, it's more of a logistics. Um, so I'll make goals like really, really push that sneaky little bump on the last descent and um, like practice playing in this, like race most of the race at a higher effort level than I usually do, and stuff like that. So goal two is to be filled in my coach's meeting just after this. Those are the types of goals that I make for myself for race day. We'll see where how that shakes out in terms of place and time.
Speaker 1:I think it's a much healthier way to approach it too Control what you can control. Like you said, you can't do what anybody else is doing, you know, and it's going to be fun to see it play out. But, like I said, you're one of the most consistent ones out there. I think you're going to have a great day. It's going to be really fun to follow along and, yeah, I wish you the absolute best of luck on race day and thank you for taking the time out of your morning to chat with me. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Always. No worries, it just got me going. It's perfect, sweet sweet.
Speaker 1:Well listen. Good luck, have a great shakeout, run and enjoy the rest of your time in the Salt Lake area and have a blast on race day.
Speaker 2:Thanks so much, James. Have a good one you too.
Speaker 1:Take care, robin Cheers, listen up, guys. The Steep Stuff Podcast is brought to you by Ultimate Direction USA. Guys, I am so excited UD just dropped their new Race vest six liter, and ultra vest, 12 liter into beautiful aesthetic colors. You guys got to check these new vests out. They're dynamic in ways like that you just have never seen from an ultimate direction vest Very stretchy, lots of storage, beautiful aesthetic colorways coming into, coming to you in a new, like a white and blue and an onyx and green just absolutely beautiful vests. I think these ones are just like some of the best products we've ever dropped and I'm so excited for you guys to try them out. Hop on ultimate directioncom and use code steep stuff pod Again, that's steep stuff pod for 25% off your new vest. I mean, they're already affordably priced, but 25% off is just going to make it so much more affordable for folks in an already increasingly expensive trail running environment. So hop on ultimate directioncom, get yourself a new vest, a pack or any hydration solution and let me know what you guys think.
