A little background: this year’s racing schedule was going to be Phunt 50k in January, HAT 50k in March, Coopers Rock 50k in April, and Worlds End 100k in May. With that agenda, lots of training miles and vertical gain would need to be sandwiched in there.
I first bagged Phunt and went to Mexico instead–no complaints there! I ran a 50k at Blue Marsh in February as my replacement run.
HAT 50k was canceled, so I ran a 50k that day anyway on the Horse-Shoe Trail.
Coopers Rock was postponed, so on April 25th, I put together a route which involved a 3 mountain tour (Mt. Penn, Neversink, and Guldin’s Hill aka Copperhear Hill). Having grown up in St Lawrence, I was up on Neversink and Guldin’s all the time, so these places are like home to me. There are several road connectors, so it’s about 85% trail, 15% road. This course boasts over 5000′ of vertical gain and more turns than can be explained. As I told my friend Kyle Benjamin, who ran the majority with me, the course map is up here in my 47-year-old brain, which is scary in itself.
So, with Worlds End 100k being postponed, you can guess what I’ll be doing that day anyway 🙂
–Andy Styer
Pagoda Pacers News 