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Nanny Goat 12H/24H/100 Course Guide

Nanny Goat is a flat, friendly, endlessly repetitive looped ultra on a horse ranch near Riverside. One flat dirt-and-grass mile, run as many times as the clock or the distance asks for, in the warm late-May desert sun. No climbs, no technical trail, just patience, heat management, and the grind of the same loop. I will walk you through the course and give you pacing and fueling strategy built for exactly that, plus free tools to dial in your own numbers.

⏵ Quick facts

Nanny Goat at a glance

Date
Around Sat, May 22 to Sun, May 23, 2027 (confirm on the official site)
Location
Private horse ranch, Riverside, CA (Arlington Heights area)
Format
Timed-lap race on a flat 1 mile loop, run as many laps as you can
Distances
3 hr, 6 hr, 12 hr, 24 hr, and 100 mile, plus a 24 hr relay
Surface
Mostly dirt and grass, good footing, wide enough to pass easily
Elevation
Near flat, low point about 827 ft, high point about 850 ft per the course
Aid
A single stocked aid station you pass every lap, support never more than a half mile away
100 mile cutoff
30 hour cap, with a special buckle for a sub 24 hour finish
Qualifier
No published mountain-qualifier status, confirm on the official site

Note: the next edition is reported around May 22 to 23, 2027 on the ultra race calendars, and the race has signaled it may eventually move venues. Always confirm the date, exact start times, course, and cutoffs on the official Nanny Goat (Wild Horse Racing) site before you plan your race.

The course

Nanny Goat is a timed-lap ultra. You run a flat 1 mile loop around a private horse ranch in Riverside, through orange groves and ranch property, and you stack up as many laps as you can inside your event. The loop is mostly dirt and grass with good footing, wide enough to pass easily, with a low point near 827 feet and a high point near 850 feet. So there is almost no climbing the entire day.

The loop is fast, flat, and forgiving

The course is so flat and the footing is so good that your moving pace can be quick and really steady. No climbs to power-hike, no technical descents to pick through, which takes out most of the terrain risk that defines mountain 100s. If you are a strong road or flat-trail runner the lap can feel almost easy in the first few hours. And that is exactly the trap.

Flat and fast cuts both ways. The same muscles and the same stride repeat for every single mile, with no downhills to coast and no climbs to force a walk break, so the loading is monotonous and your form can quietly fall apart. The course will not break you with terrain. But it can wear you down through pure repetition if you do not vary the effort and take walk breaks early, on purpose.

The heat and the sun are the real terrain

The race runs in late May in Riverside, an inland Southern California city that is hot and dry. Daytime highs that time of year usually sit in the upper 70s to mid 80s Fahrenheit, sometimes hotter, with strong sun and little natural shade out on an open ranch. On a flat fast course, the heat becomes the main thing standing between you and your goal.

The saving grace is the layout. You pass a single stocked aid station every lap and your own crew or cooler is right there, so cooling yourself off is really easy to pull off. Ice in a bandana or hat, cold fluids, a little shade and a sit between laps if you need it. Treat the hottest afternoon hours as a heat game. Slow down, cool down, keep drinking, and plan to make your time back in the cooler evening and night.

Where the race is won or lost

Nanny Goat is won with patience and a clean fueling and cooling routine, not with leg speed. The runners who blow up are usually the ones who banked too much pace early in the cool morning, then came apart when the afternoon heat and the appetite drop showed up together. The ones who finish strong run the morning easy, protect their stomach and their core temperature through the heat, and use the night to close.

The other crux is mental. Running a 1 mile loop dozens of times is its own skill, and the low, dark hours of a 24 hour or 100 mile effort hit hard when the scenery never changes. Break the race into small chunks, lean on that every-lap crew contact, set lap or block goals, and keep eating. Staying engaged and fueled through the boredom is what separates finishers from early drops here.

Aid, format, and cutoffs

Support is never more than a half mile away thanks to the single stocked aid station on the loop, with pre-packaged snacks plus hot and cold food and drink the whole race. You can set up drop bags and a personal cooler at your own spot, which makes this one of the most crew-friendly ultras anywhere. The venue is family-friendly too, with camping and a relaxed feel.

The 100 mile race runs under a 30 hour cap, with a special buckle for a sub 24 hour finish. The timed events (3, 6, 12, and 24 hour) just end when the clock does and credit the distance you covered, so there is no per-lap cutoff to chase. Confirm the exact start times and cutoff on the official site, then build your plan backward from your target and leave yourself a heat buffer.

Pacing strategy for Nanny Goat

A flat, hot, repetitive looped ultra rewards even effort and punishes the runner who treats the cool morning like the whole race. Pace by effort and by the clock, not by how easy the loop feels at mile 10. (It will feel easy. It is lying to you.)

Run the morning slower than feels right

On flat ground in the cool early hours, your goal pace will feel stupidly easy, and you have to hold yourself back anyway. The heat tax shows up later, so the time you 'save' by pushing the morning is borrowed against a much worse afternoon. Pick an effort you could hold all day, build in walk breaks from the start, and let the loop be boringly steady early.

Use our free race time calculator to set a realistic finish goal for your distance, then turn it into an honest per-lap and per-hour target so you are pacing to a plan instead of to your fresh-legs feel. On a 1 mile loop, a target lap time is the single most useful number you can carry.

Pace to even effort, not a fixed lap split

Because the course is flat, it is tempting to chase one fixed lap split the whole race. But heat and fatigue mean your effort at a given pace climbs through the day. Hold the effort steady and accept that your lap times will drift slower in the heat and come back in the cool of night. That is correct pacing, not failure.

Our grade-adjusted pace calculator matters less here than on a mountain course, but it still helps you understand your true flat-ground effort and set a sustainable baseline before heat and time on feet inflate it. Lock a baseline you can defend, then manage the drift.

Reality-check the goal and use the night

A flat course tempts big goals, so be honest with yours. Our race equivalent calculator helps you turn a recent race into a realistic expectation for a flat 100 mile or 24 hour effort, so your lap target is grounded in fitness, not optimism. A flat course rewards aerobic durability and fueling way more than top speed.

Then plan to close in the cool hours. As the sun drops, your pace can come back and the loop gets more bearable, but only if you stayed disciplined and kept eating through the hot middle. The smartest Nanny Goat runners treat the night as their fast window and get there with legs and stomach intact.

Fueling strategy for Nanny Goat

The every-lap aid and your own cooler make this one of the easiest ultras to fuel well, if you have a plan. The heat is what wrecks an unprepared stomach. So build the plan around it.

Carbs: take them on the clock, not by feel

For an all-day effort, aim for roughly 60 to 90 grams of carbohydrate per hour, leaning to the high end once your gut is trained, using a glucose-plus-fructose blend so you can absorb more than a single sugar lets you. You pass aid and your cooler every single mile, so you can restock constantly and carry almost nothing. That is a huge advantage. But only if you take fuel on a schedule instead of waiting until you feel like it.

The late-May heat kills your appetite, and a hot stomach handles less, so rehearse your hourly carb number on warm training runs until it feels routine. Keep eating through the ugly afternoon hours when you do not want to but your engine still needs the fuel, and lean on cold or liquid calories when solids stop going down.

Sodium and fluid: built for the heat

Inland-desert heat and strong sun drive real sweat losses, so bias your sodium up, often somewhere in the range of 500 to 1000 mg per hour in warm conditions depending on your sweat rate, and keep fluid coming steadily. Cramping, a sloshy stomach, and that wrung-out late-race fade are usually fluid and sodium problems, not fitness problems. And they are very preventable on a course with aid every mile.

Dial in a personalized plan with our free ultra fueling calculator. Enter your weight, your goal time, and the expected heat, and it gives you a carb, sodium, fluid, and caffeine number per hour built for the Nanny Goat duration and conditions. Then test it in warm-weather training so race day is a rehearsal, not an experiment.

⏵ Free calculators for this race

Run your Nanny Goat numbers with our free, no-signup tools, then let Summit Line tie them all together against your real fitness and this exact looped course.

See all free running tools →

Train for Nanny Goat

A flat looped 100 in late-May desert heat asks for aerobic durability, a bulletproof gut, and a real heat plan, not climbing legs. These guides go deeper on the pieces that actually decide this race.

⏵ Train for Nanny Goat

Get a race-day plan dialed to YOUR fitness, this exact looped course, and your projected lap and split targets. Summit Line reads your actual training, builds a fueling and pacing plan around the Nanny Goat heat and repetition, and tracks how your gut and legs handle the load, so race day is rehearsed, not guessed.

Get started free →See it on a real 100 miler

Nanny Goat FAQ

How hard is the Nanny Goat 12H/24H/100?

Nanny Goat is hard, but not the way a mountain ultra is hard. The 1 mile loop is flat, mostly dirt and grass, the footing is great and there is basically no climbing, so the ground never breaks you. What breaks people is the format and the heat. You run the same short loop over and over, usually through warm late-May afternoons in the low desert near Riverside, and grinding out a one mile lap a hundred times is the real test. No technical trail, no big vert to manage. That makes it one of the most approachable 100 mile and 24 hour courses in California, and a popular pick for a first 100. The hard part is staying patient, fueled, cool, and mentally in it for hours on end.

How much climbing is in the Nanny Goat course?

Almost none. The loop is a flat 1 mile with a low point near 827 feet and a high point near 850 feet, so each lap gives you a tiny bit of relief and that is it. Over 100 miles the total climbing is next to nothing compared to a mountain race. That flatness is the whole appeal. It makes the course fast and it cuts out the quad-destroying descents and lung-burning climbs of an alpine 100. But the flatness cuts both ways. There are no downhills to coast and no climbs that force a walk break, so your legs take the same monotonous loading every single step, and your pacing and fueling discipline matter way more than your climbing legs.

How should I fuel for Nanny Goat?

Fuel for a long, warm, steady day, and use that every-lap aid station. Most ultra runners aim for roughly 60 to 90 grams of carbohydrate per hour, leaning to the high end once the gut is trained, and they bias the sodium up for the heat, often somewhere in the range of 500 to 1000 mg per hour in warm conditions. You pass the aid station and usually your own crew or cooler every single mile, so you can carry almost nothing and restock constantly. That makes it easy to keep eating and drinking on a schedule. The trap is the late-May heat killing your appetite. So set your hourly carb and sodium numbers ahead of time and take them on the clock, not by feel. Our free ultra fueling calculator builds a personalized carb, sodium, and fluid plan per hour for the expected duration and heat.

What are the Nanny Goat cutoffs?

The 100 mile race runs under a 30 hour cap, and a sub 24 hour finish earns a special buckle. The timed events (3, 6, 12, and 24 hour) just end when the clock runs out and you get credited with the distance you covered, so there is no per-lap cutoff to chase, only the overall time limit. The course is flat and the aid is every mile, so the cutoffs are generous next to a mountain 100. But do not get cocky. The heat and the repetition can still slow you down badly in the back half. Always confirm the exact cutoff times and start times on the official race site before you build your plan.

How hot does Nanny Goat get, and does heat matter?

Heat is the single biggest variable here. The race goes off in late May in Riverside, an inland Southern California city that is hot and dry, and daytime highs that time of year usually sit in the upper 70s to mid 80s Fahrenheit, sometimes hotter on a bad year, with strong sun and almost no natural shade out on an open ranch. On a flat, fast course that is plenty to wreck a runner who did not hydrate. Get your heat acclimation in during the weeks before the race, dial your sodium up for sweat losses, and cool yourself off on the loop (ice, cold fluids, a wet bandana, shade between laps). Those are the difference makers. And here is the good news. The every-mile aid and your own cooler make heat management really easy to pull off, if you plan for it.

Is Nanny Goat a good first 100 miler?

For a lot of runners, yes. The flat 1 mile loop, the great footing, the every-lap aid and crew access, the camping-and-family vibe, and no technical trail or big climbs make it one of the friendliest 100 mile and 24 hour courses for your first hundred or your first 24 hour race. The honest catch is that the looped format is mentally tough on its own, and the heat is real. So if you are new to this, train your fueling, rehearse a heat plan, and get your head ready for the grind of the same loop again and again. If you want the climbing and the remoteness of a mountain 100, this is not that race. And that is exactly why so many people love it.

This guide is for planning and training purposes and reflects publicly available information about the Nanny Goat 12H/24H/100. Race details, including the date, venue, distances, aid, and cutoffs, can change year to year, and the race has signaled it may move venues in the future. Always confirm the current specifics on the official Nanny Goat (Wild Horse Racing) website before you train or travel.