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| PC: Steve Gallow |
I could hear the siren song of the Treman gorges calling me back. On a 50-mile course that’s thrice chewed me up and spit me out, it was inevitable I’d return to and face the known peril of Cayuga Trails. Lucifer’s Steps were calling, and the tune was nearly palpable. And hence my quest once again for a 10-hour finish.
This was my fourth straight year running the Cayuga Trails 50, and the fourth time it's served as the USATF 50-Mile Trail Championship. In 2015 I narrowly missed going under 10 hours after a rough second loop. Last year, my training was there but some early nutritional mistakes put me in a hole and I finished way off my potential. Based on my training over the first half of this year, it was all but given. I fully expected to run somewhere around 9:15. That is, until I learned of some late course changes a few days before the race.
Ian mixed things up a bit compared to previous years, leading to two significant changes in the route. A flat, half-mile of grass and park road adjacent to the start/turnaround was replaced with some hilly singletrack through an old growth forest a few miles in. Double that over two loops, and it meant two miles of rolling hills
