Way Too Cool 50K Course Guide

Way Too Cool is runnable but sneaky. It is about 31 miles of mostly singletrack in the Auburn State Recreation Area with greater than roughly 4,800 feet of climbing and about the same amount of descent, so it is way hillier than its reputation as a fast early-season race lets on. The first two thirds roll along smooth, fast trail that begs you to overrun it, and then the back half piles on the steepest climbing, including the infamous Goat Hill near mile 26, right when your legs are already cooked. Add early-March footing that can be wet and muddy with around twenty creek crossings, and the hard part is the pacing trap, not the cutoffs. The historical finish rate is very high, above 95 percent. But a smart race still asks you to be patient early.

You climb greater than about 4,800 feet over the 50K and lose roughly 4,200 feet, on terrain that runs from about 570 to 1,620 feet of elevation. It is not one big mountain. It is rolling Gold Country singletrack with the climbing stacked at the back. The signature climb is Goat Hill, a short, brutally steep pitch near mile 26, steep enough that people grab tree trunks to haul themselves up. Because so much of the vert comes late, how you ration your effort over the runnable front half decides how Goat Hill and the final miles are going to feel.

Fuel for a hard 4 to 7 hour effort on runnable terrain. Most 50K runners aim for roughly 60 to 90 grams of carbohydrate per hour, leaning toward the high end once your gut is trained, with sodium around 400 to 700 mg per liter of fluid. Early March in the foothills is usually cool to mild, so your fluid needs are normally lower than a summer ultra, but you still want to drink and salt to a plan, not to thirst. There are five aid stations roughly every five to eight miles, so you rarely carry long, but the fast front half makes it really easy to forget to eat. Lock in your hourly carb number on training runs first. Our free ultra fueling calculator turns your weight, goal time, and the expected conditions into a per-hour carb, sodium, and fluid plan.

The race uses aid station cutoffs that are the deadline for LEAVING each station, and they are strictly enforced. Miss one and you are pulled. The organizers call the cutoffs generous, especially early, and they tell slower runners to focus on the overall finish limit instead of the intermediate times. The exact times can change year to year, so build your plan against the official Way Too Cool mileage and pace chart for the current edition. On a course this runnable, the cutoffs are rarely the real problem. Blowing up the back half by overrunning the smooth early miles is.

Expect about 98 percent trail, mostly winding singletrack on the Olmstead Loop, Quarry, and American Canyon trails that make up part of the historic Western States Trail, with some fire road mixed in. And yes, your feet are getting wet. The course has around twenty creek crossings, most only a few feet wide, plus a bigger crossing of Knickerbocker Creek early on, near mile 7. In early March the trail can be muddy and the creeks can run high, so wear shoes with grip and drainage, and practice running comfortably with wet feet ahead of time so blisters and slipping do not wreck your day.

It is one of the most popular early-season trail 50Ks in California and it runs on sections of the historic Western States Trail through El Dorado and Placer Counties, so it makes a great late-winter tune-up and a way to preview that terrain. Entry is by lottery and registration usually opens in December. Treat it as a training and preview race on the Western States Trail, not an official Western States qualifier, and always confirm the current qualifier status and entry rules on the official race site before you build your season around it.