The Cayuga Trails 50 by Red Newt Running took place on May 31st outside of Ithica, New York at Robert H. Treman State Park. Known for its picturesque waterfalls and rocky gorges, the race has often been named as one of the most scenic courses in the country, and for good reasons. I had circled this event on my calendar back in January; the last big race effort in the build-up to the Vermont 100 seven weeks later in mid-July. Previously the USATF 50 Mile National Championship for a number of years, the race still brings out fantastic regional competition, which the UltraSignup entrants list most certainly confirmed. I was excited to see how I would stack up, with a goal of racing myself onto the podium and aiming for a time of 8:10 – 8:30, which historically had been good enough to do so.
Charlotte and I set off for
Ithica, New York early Friday afternoon, our Great Pyrenees, Cooper, in the
back seat in tow as we made our way up to nearby Van Etten where we would be
stating. It was certainly a longer drive than I expected, but a little over
four hours later we arrived at our Airbnb, a three hundred square foot “tiny
house” we would be staying in for the next two nights. After heating up our
dinner and watching a short movie, it was off to bed, bright and early for the
6AM race start.
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| Tiny House in Van Etten! |
I woke up at 4:15 AM the next morning and quickly consolidated my race gear, which I had expertly laid out the night before. Charlotte had graciously agreed to drop me off at the race, before she set off to enjoy her morning in Ithica, as we loaded into the car, and I reached the park at about 5:15 AM. After a quick goodbye, I began making my way to the start line. A sign of what I knew was to come, the race required an approximately 200-foot climb from the parking area to reach the start line. The next forty-five minutes went by in a flash as I picked up my race bib, hit the bathroom, took some pre-race nutrition, and double checked my gear before we began lining up at the start a few minutes to six. I briefly caught up with a friend, Kris Mack, who I had meet six months at the NYC Trail Mix 50K, who was also running the fifty miler. A fantastic runner in his own right, he would also be lining up to take on the Vermont 100 later in the summer as well. We stood on the line, with a few quick words from the race director, and then we were off!
I thought for sure this race was
going to go out blazing fast, but instead the first two minutes of the race
were quite strange, as we languished in a pack of about nine people wide,
waiting to see who was willing to take off first. The answer was Luke Tighe, a
phenomenal college athlete out of Viriginia, who had won the Promise Land 50K++
the prior month and who was making his 50 Mile debut. I knew he had some
serious wheels, with a sub-15-minute 5K to his name, and that he would be tough
to beat if he had a great day. I quickly watched Luke disappear from the rest
of us as our pack splintered a quarter mile into the race as the trail got a
little bit tighter. It was going to be strange weather for what was effectively
a June race, with temperatures in the upper 40s, light rain and clouds, and a
wind chill that pushed down to 35 degrees at its peak. As a result, it was
surprisingly dark on the trail early, which resulted in an uncharacteristic
early fall from me about a mile in on a fairly non-technical trail, both my
water bottles on my Salomon ADV12 vest flying out onto the trail. At least I
got that out of the way early, I said to the runner who had helped me catch my
flying bottles. I was currently running in 5th place as we tackled
the first section of the two loop course, which was a ten mile counterclockwise
circuit around Treman State Park which would take us back to the start line,
the Y Camp Aid Station, before we would embark on a fifteen mile lollipop loop
through Buttermilk Falls State Park, arriving back at Y Camp Aid Station,
before repeating it all over again. It didn’t take long in to the race at all
for the course to bring out the first of its signature stairs, which helped to
make portions of the jagged gorges scalable. I was being very cautious early
not to blow up my quads redlining what effectively felt like working a stair
stepper machine. We continued to work our way out into Treman State Park
running by humongous flowing waterfalls that felt otherworldly. Having just
returned from a trip to Iceland the prior week, I felt like I was right back
there. As I continued to settle into the first part of the race, I began to
slowly work my way up to Cole Johnson and Greg Panowicz around the fourth mile,
gaining and losing ground depending on how we all navigated the precipitous
stair inclines and declines. At this point, the trail widened out a bit as we
made a short descent towards the Treman Meadows Aid Station as I locked on to
Cole and Greg.
Treman Meadows – 1 – Mile 4.0,
4th Place, 38:09 Total Time, 9:32 Average Pace
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| Waterfalls on the Gorge Trail! |
After a quick stop to refuel my
Tailwind and water, we next entered an open grass field that would loop us back
onto the aptly named Gorge Trail, making our way back to the Y Camp Aid
Station. It was around this field that I went by Cole, who I later learned was
dealing with some early nausea, as I stayed on Greg’s heels. After leaving the
field we trekked back up the way we had just come, passing runners heading down
to the aid station and field loop. Greg and I worked the next two or three miles
together, exchanging a few brief chats, with Cole moving a few seconds back of
us, as we made our way on a trail offshoot that would loop us back around to Y
Camp. Around Mile 7, I lost Greg going up one of the major climbs on this
section of the course. After the climb, I entered a stretch of very runnable,
rolling trail, the first time so far during the race where I felt I was
beginning to enter a rhythm. The trail provided some nice coverage from the
light rain that was coming down. Thankfully, the wind had not yet picked up on
the day yet, and while it was a little wet, the weather was largely
comfortable. As I continued to make my way back to the Y Camp Aid Station, I
got the sense that I was being tracked down. We ultrarunners tend to have this
sixth sense, where we can just tell if someone is closing in or coming up on
us. I whipped my head back expecting it to be Cole or Greg, but instead it was
Justin Lewandowski hot on my heels about ten seconds back and charging quick. I
knew he was going to be a formidable competitor today and figured it was only
going to be a matter of time before our paths crossed, literally. Despite it
being fairly early in the race, I made a concerted effort on the winding
singletrack trails to avoid being passed and to go into the next aid station
with some momentum. Finally, we popped out of the woods and made a sharp left
turn, arriving back at the Y Camp Aid Station with Justin a few seconds behind
me.
Y-Camp – 1 – Mile 10.3, 2nd
Place, 1:37:05 Total Time, 9:26 Average Pace
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| Ascent Back to Y-Camp |
I tried to make my pit stop at Y-Camp quick, both to see if I could put a little bit of transition time on Justin, as well as to prevent Cole and Greg from reconnecting with us. As such, I refilled my Tailwind and water, quickly grabbed a handful of potato chips, and then I was off. As I was leaving, Cole and Greg were just coming in and I reckon that I ended up putting back forty-five seconds on Justin here as I began the Buttermilk Falls State Park Loop. Inquiring about Luke at the aid station, he was already well and away having built up about a six-minute gap through the first ten miles. The next mile of single track took me down a steady decline which then opened up into a road crossing and a grass field path as we made the traverse from Treman State Park to Buttermilk Falls. Cayuga Trails features four crossings of the same stream throughout the race, at Mile 12, 24, 37, and 49, and I was quickly coming up on the first crossing. Normally, I have been told, the stream crossing is a little over ankle level, but with the myriad of rain the Northeast has been having, along with the cooler than normal days, the stream crossing was moving fairly quickly and quite deep. I plunged into the stream, which went up nearly to the mid-point of my thighs as I fought against the current, being cautious as not to misstep and bring my whole body down. My shoes were obviously soaked but I had brought a spare pair of socks to switch out between loops to hopefully stay a bit drier. Leaving the stream crossing, I took a sharp right turn and began a nearly 650 foot, two-mile-long switchback climb. I could sense Justin had begun to close back in as I tracked him through the sides of my eyes as he stalked me down on the switchbacks. I finally crested at the top, around Mile 13, with Justin now right behind me. We exchanged a few brief words before he finally passed hard. I stayed connecting with him for a minute as we hit a brief stretch of road before making a left hand turn into more grass path fields. The rain was beginning to do some damage to this stretch of the course, where water was pooling in the low spots of the grass, and I tried to push out of my mind what this section would look like the second time around after several hundred runners, and a couple more hours of wet conditions had passed. Despite pulling ahead, I was able to keep Justin in my sight for the most part as we made a few steep punctuated climbs before descending into the next aid station, Buttermilk.
Buttermilk – 1 – Mile 15.4, 3rd
Place, 2:27:27 Total Time, 9:34 Average Pace
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| Stream Crossing! |
I rolled out of Buttermilk
quickly after refilling both my bottles and grabbing more chips. It seemed that
Justin was spending more time at the aid stations, so he was just leaving as I
was coming in, but by the time I had left he was out of sight. We would now be
tackling a five-mile loop that would take us back to the Buttermilk Aid Station
before another five-mile section to the start line. The last ten miles of each
loop were perhaps the most runnable of the day as I started off down a flat
road section that transitioned into a prolonged moderate descent along a dirt
fire road, allowing me to open up my stride and stretch down to a 7:34 Mile 17.
Dipping down to a low-point on the course, I was hit with another prolonged
single-track trail climb that gained approximately 350 feet over a mile and
then featured some tight switchbacks descending along the backside of the hill
and which connected me with a short, flat road stretch along the Buttermilk
Falls Camp Access Road as I made my way over to one of the marquee climbs of
the race alongside Buttermilk Falls itself. It was at this point that I
crisscrossed Kris, who looked to be moving incredibly well, who was beginning
the technical single-track climb approximately two miles back of me. After leaving the road, I crossed over a short
bridge, turned left, and was face to face with a daunting number of stairs and
a precipitous climb to the top of Buttermilk Falls. With over five hundred feet
of relentless climbing, the vast majority being stairs, I continued to tackle
this section conservatively, but with purpose, trying to save my quads for what
I knew would be a second ascent on the next loop, but this time at Mile 45. I
wish I could have stopped to marvel at the beauty of the cascading waterfall,
the carved stone steps I was tracing my feet over, and the otherwise
otherworldly feeling the environment of the race conveyed, but I was still a
man on a mission. Finally, I reached the top of Buttermilk Falls and hit a road
crossing where I was told that I was approximately three minutes back from
Justin, who was six minutes back from Luke. However, the climbing was not done,
as the next mile returned to more single-track trail as I continued to climb
and work my way back to the next aid station. Popping out into a grass field, I
looped back to the Buttermilk Aid Station for the second of four times.
Buttermilk – 2 – Mile 20.7, 3rd
Place, 3:18:18 Total Time, 9:35 Average Pace
Leaving Buttermilk Aid Station I was
feeling pretty strong. The rain that had punctuated the first several hours of
the race was now beginning to subside, but I could feel the wind picking up, as
we hit a long stretch of exposed road coming out of that aid station. I
continued to climb up this road, barely catching a glimpse of Justin about a
half mile ahead before he crested and was again out of sight. This road stretch
forked left and then quickly forked left again, transitioning into a nice gradual
downhill that was one of my fastest miles of the day so far at Mile 23 in 7:43.
It was nice to turn my brain off, if only for a couple minutes, and allowed me
to assess how I was feeling as I neared the halfway through the race. Overall,
I was feeling quite strong, and my nutrition thus far in the race had been
sound. I was trying out a slightly new nutrition strategy, with the goal to
work out the kinks in advance of the Vermont 100. I had run the Bear Mountain
50K earlier in the month, on an exceptionally hot day, and really struggled
with an overconcentrated drink mix, no standalone water, and Precision Fuel
chews that I got sick of quite fast. For this race, I wanted to combat palette fatigue,
so I was utilizing my Salomon Adv Skin 12 running vest, with 50g of Tailwind,
supplemented with 15g of Precision Fuel chews an hour, and then approximately
30g of Gu Gummies. This strategy had worked quite well for me thus far, and I
was well on pace with my target goal of approximately 75g of carbs per hour. Switching
my brain back on as the road took a sharp turn back onto the trail, I hit a
fairly aggressive section of switchback descents that I assumed was looping me
along the backside of the climb off of the stream crossing. Sure enough, these
switchbacks eventually transitioned into the open field as I made my way back
to the stream crossing for the second time. At this point, I was crossing paths
on the single track with the lead runners from the 50K, who had started one
hour later, as I made my way on the last mile of the first loop which had a
very sneaky two hundred plus foot climb. I hit Mile 25 on my watch, thinking I
was going to come into the start area right under four hours, but the start
line was still nowhere in sight, taking me another half mile or so before it
finally came into view.
Y-Camp – 2 – Mile 25.5, 3rd
Place, 4:00:33 Total Time, 9:26 Average Pace
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| Second Time on Gorge Trail! |
Overall, I came into Y-Camp at the halfway feeling strong, stopping to inquire about the positioning of Justin and Luke, not knowing how fragile my own position really was. I left after about a minute; with the knowledge that Justin was a few minutes ahead and Luke was approximately fifteen minutes ahead. Not fatal gaps, but likely insurmountable without a blow up by one of the two. I set off on the ten-mile counterclockwise circuit around Treman State Park for the second time, knowing that this would be a critical section of the race. This first loop was, in my opinion, moderately more difficult than the Buttermilk Falls loop, with its relentless stair inclines and descents. I was moving well as I approached a sharp staircase descent two miles into the loop, when catastrophe struck. The combination of the light rain throughout the morning and my muddy shoes created a slick descent without much support. Attempting to two-step the stairs like I had done the first loop led to a sudden and hard fall landing right onto my glute without any ability to brace. The pain was sharp, as I let out an audible expletive, and gathered myself to my feet, now covered in mud. The good news was that I was able to continue on, the bad news was that I was visibly slower than before as I attempted to massage out the pain and get my cadence and rhythm back. This led to my slowest GAP (grade adjusted pace) mile of the day at Mile 28 as I tried to regain my composition. I was now beginning to work my way down the doubletrack trail which dropped down to the Treman Meadows Aid Station for the second time.
Treman Meadows – 2 – Mile 29.8,
3rd Place, 4:46:56 Total Time, 9:38 Average Pace
I left Treman Meadows quickly
after I arrived, stopping only briefly to refill my water and Tailwind before
setting off on the grass loop. I had this eerie feeling I was being tracked
down, and the cheer from the aid station about a minute and a half after I left
exasperated those fears. I tried to wait until the very end of the grass loop,
but I could not reside peeking back, knowing in my heart I would be seeing Cole
just behind me, which was one hundred percent the case. I figured I had a bit
over a minute lead on him, but I knew that the way I was moving after the fall
that it was inevitable he would catch up. And catch up he did. Much faster than
I had anticipated as he went screaming up one of the sharpest inclines on the
course as we came level with one another at Mile 31 for the first time since
way back at Mile 8. Based on the way, he had caught up to me, I expected a
full-throated hard pass near the top of the incline, which never materialized.
Instead, we started chatting. I told him about my fall, and he told me about
the early nausea that had been plaguing him for the first two hours of the
race. We worked together for the next two miles, trading off the leads, but
deep down I had this feeling he could drop me at any moment. I also started to
feel like I was running his race and not necessarily my own. I was leading, but
it was not my pace. At about Mile 33, after we had taken the trail offshoot that
would loop us back to Y-Camp, I took a strategic bathroom break, hoping that I
could give him some space and allow me to settle back into a rhythm. The ten
second break on my end very quickly widened to a twenty-second gap as it seemed
Cole took the opportunity to hammer the trail and put some (spoiler) permanent
distance on me. I definitely laughed about it at that moment, because I almost
certainly would have done the same thing, and while it was great to chatting
with Cole, I was happy to regroup and run my own race. Despite the fall, my
legs were feeling strong, and I was beginning to run with a little bit more
authority again, as I navigated the winding singletrack trails for the next
three miles before taking the sharp left turn back into Y-Camp for the third,
and penultimate, time.
Y-Camp – 3 – Mile 35.9, 4th
Place, 5:49:42 Total Time, 9:44 Average Pace
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| Cobble Path Among the Waterfalls! |
Cole was moving out Y-Camp fast as
I was coming in, giving him about a minute lead as I tried to keep my stop
snappy. I worked my way down the winding singletrack, dropping into the field
trail as I made my way back over to the stream crossing. Maybe it was my now
tired legs, but the stream certainly felt like it was a bit deeper as I battled
across the current. The tiny mound we had to climb on the other side of the
stream was now a straight mudslide as I grabbed onto a branch and hoisted
myself up. I had gotten used to my wet feet at this point, resigning myself to
this feeling for the rest of the race as I made my way back up the long switchback
climb for the second time. What awaited me at the top, and for the next two
miles, was an utter cacophony of mud. It seemed that through the hours of light
rain, and the continued pounding of several hundred runners the grass trails,
that they had been reduced to pure sludge. It was absolute, unavoidable carnage.
I did my best to prevent myself from losing a shoe in the ankle-deep mud as
each step felt painfully slow. I had hoped that this would be contained to the
grass trails, which stretched about a mile before entering more single track on
the way to Buttermilk Aid Station, but it was not to be. The mud in the singletrack
trails was even more slick as I struggled to gain my footing. At this point, I
was going out of my way to step in any little creek or water crossing I could
find to clear the thick mud off of my shoes. While not my slowest stretch of
miles, the five miles between Y-Camp and Buttermilk from Mile 35-40 felt
endless as I left the singletrack, hit one sharper incline, and then dropped
down into Buttermilk for the third time.
Buttermilk – 3 – Mile 41.0, 4th
Place, 6:45:03 Total Time, 9:53 Average Pace
Overall, I was feeling very solid
at Buttermilk, much more so than ten miles ago, and continuing to move well and
stay on top of my nutrition. I was very much looking forward to the next two-mile
descent on the fire road, though there was to be no strong 7:34 Mile like the
first time around. Looking back, this was certainly a point where I should have
made up more time and likely lost some ground to Cole. After dipping back down to
the low-point on the course, I again began what was the second to last big climb.
I am not sure how I developed amnesia over the second half of the race, but I
did not recall this climb being nearly as long or as steep as it was the first
time around. Perhaps, all I had been thinking about was the painful ascent to
come back up Buttermilk at Mile 45, and I had subconsciously pushed this climb
out of my mind. After ascending, I hit
the sharp switchbacks again that brought me down to Buttermilk Falls Camp
Access Road as I made my way to Buttermilk Falls for the last time. My legs
were feeling surprisingly solid as I tackled the climb up Buttermilk, perhaps
finally allowing myself to tap into some energy I had been reserving, knowing it
was literally, pretty much all downhill from here. After an endless number of
stairs, and navigating a number of runners from the 50K, I hit the top of
Buttermilk Falls and hopped back on another mile of gradual ascent on the single
track before hitting the grass field and arriving back at Buttermilk Aid
Station for the last time.
Buttermilk – 4 – Mile 46.3, 4th
Place, 7:42:26 Total Time, 9:58 Average Pace
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| Finish! |
I made my final aid station stop brief as I still had illusions of catching Cole, but these illusions were shattered when I turned on the straight stretch of road, which gave you a little bit more than a quarter mile of visibility, but I did not see him. Still, I was feeling strong and was going to make a concerted push to the line, hitting an 8:22 at Mile 48. I forked left on the last stretch of road and was hit with a large gust of wind. A reminder of just how strange the weather was for what was effectively a June race. This was perhaps the coldest I felt all race as I momentarily considered fishing my gloves out of my bag before deciding against it. Coming off the road, I again hit another set of steep switchbacks which would take me down to the flat grassland and the stream crossing. I was running into a number of 50K runners at this point, sometimes around two-foot-wide sections of trail, and was doing my best to navigate. I approached the stream crossing for the final time as I watched a 50K runner ahead slip on the mudslide of a descent and nearly go headfirst into the stream. Seeing this, I grabbed onto a branch and just saved myself from the same fate. Absolutely soaking wet would have been a choice for finishing this race. As I left the stream, I checked my watch as I approached fifty miles, knowing that I was going to be about a mile over, and that only one moderate climb stood between me and the finish. As I began the last mile, I marveled a bit at how good I had felt, which was a great confidence booster for Vermont 100 in a month and half. While I had certainly emptied the tank, I very much felt like I had a decent amount of run left in me before I would hit any type of death march. Finally, I ascended the last hill, hit a short stretch of flat singletrack, and then made the final sharp right turn, the finish line straight ahead. I crossed the finish line in 8:25:54, good enough for fourth place overall.
Finish – Y-Camp – 4 – Mile 51.1,
4th Place, 8:25:54 Total Time, 9:54 Average Pace
After the race, I caught up with Luke, Justin, and Cole, who had finished first, second, and third, respectively. I had ended up only finishing about three and half minutes back of Cole, and I think he was quite shocked to see me come in so soon and thought I was a goner, which is not an unfair characterization based on how I was moving back at Mile 32. Overall, I was a bit disappointed not to podium here, but I lost to some absolutely fantastic regional class runners who all ran tremendously. At the end of day, I was quite happy with my time, which was the fastest non-podium time in seven years, so while I really did run a great race in my mind, I just got beat by three great runners, who, when I reviewed the UltraSignup list pre-race, knew where the ones who were going to beat me if I wasn’t on the podium. Waiting at the finish line for me as well were Charlotte and Cooper! After catching up with Luke, Justin, and Cole for a bit longer, the unusual May chill was starting to get to me, so I changed out my clothes and Charlotte, Cooper, and I made our way back to the car and back to “Tiny House”. Overall, I couldn’t recommend this race enough. From the runners, to the course, to the organization of the race, everything was absolutely top notch. While I think I will be a bit scared of stairs for a while, I certainly have this one on my list again, and it was the perfect final big race before Vermont 100 in seven weeks!
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