Original Summary

TrailGoat ( https://trailgoat.run ) is a planner for trail and ultra races. The planner is free and doesn't need an account. Quick context if you don't run these: a trail ultra is anything past a marathon, often 50 or 100 miles, over mountains, and it can take 10 to 30 hours. Along the way there are aid stations with food and water, cutoff times you have to beat or you're pulled from the race, and usually a crew driving between stations to meet you. Most runners plan all of this in a spreadsheet, a notes app and a group text. I built TrailGoat for my own races. Nothing I found was really made for ultras, and I wasn't going to plan a 100-miler in a spreadsheet. It turned into a passion project, and once other runners saw it and asked to use it, I kept going. What it does: Race courses. A bit over 500 real race courses with the map, elevation profile, each big climb, aid stations and cutoffs. You can also drop in your own GPX file. Pacing. Set a goal time and it spreads it over the course by grade, so the climbs get the slow miles, and it slows the back half the way real races do. You get an arrival time at every aid station and how much margin you have on each cutoff. Fuel. Carb, fluid and sodium targets for each stretch between aid stations, based on your time out there and the forecast. Then you build the pack from the food you'll actually carry and see if it covers each stretch. Weather. An hourly forecast along the course, for where you'll be at that hour, not just the start line. Gear and drop bags. A kit checklist, plus which bag waits at which aid station. Crew sheet. One link for your crew with arrival windows, drive times and notes. When they tap that you've left an aid station, every later arrival re-forecasts. Your crew never pays and doesn't need an app. To the watch and to paper. A printout, a pace band, and a watch file. On a Garmin it carries your splits, the aid stations and the top of each climb, and it can remind you to eat if you want. Capra, an AI coach that reads your actual plan and answers questions about it. What was hard: getting the courses. Race GPX files live on organizer sites, Google Drive, CalTopo, Strava and PDFs. Every import gets checked against the race's stated distance, because a lot of "official" files turn out to be one lap of a loop course, or last year's route. Business model, and this is where I'd most like opinions. The planner stays free for good, because I want people using it whether or not they ever pay. The paid part is the race-day kit: the crew sheet, printouts, the watch file, Capra and offline maps. That's $19 for one race (a Race Pass) or $59 a year (Pro). Everything is free while we launch. A few things I'm unsure about: Per-race or subscription? A lot of trail runners do 2 to 4 races a year. Is offering both sensible, or does it just make the choice harder? Is $19 right for one race? For context, a 100-mile entry fee is usually $200

  • 情报分类：商业与市场研究
  • 分类依据：内容涉及商业、投资或市场动态
  • 信息来源：Reddit · SideProject
  • 发布时间：2026/9/30 23:13:42