Inaugural Cayuga Trails 50: Race and Giveaway
February 23, 2013 by Meghan Hicks · 163 Comments
The Cayuga Trails 50 is a spankin’-new 50-mile ultramarathon scheduled for June 8, 2013. The race takes place on the trails surrounding Ithaca, New York and offers up rocky climbs, digger descents, 6,500 feet of vertical gain, thick hardwood forests, waterfalls, views of the Finger Lakes region, a whopping 11 aid stations, and…
[Keep reading, there's a sweet contest below!]
Prize Money
…prize money totaling $12,000 plus gear from sponsors. Check it:
- The first male and female will claim $2,500.
- 2nd male and female: $1,500
- 3rd male and female: $500
- 4th male and female: $250
- male/female age-division winners: sponsor awards
- $500 to the first top 10 finishing male or female who can also return to finish in the top 5 at either the Finger Lakes Fifties 50 mile or the Virgil Crest 50/100 mile.
- Elite prem* prizes: $1000
- Non-elite prem* prizes: $1,000 worth of gear, food, cash, and more
*Race officials will be planted on the course in certain spots. Entrants approaching will be notified of a given performance incentive (like ‘$250 to the first racer to the top of this climb’ or ‘an apple pie to the first of your group to make it across the creek’). Prems are designed to encourage entrants to push their pace/effort and to just plain make the race fun.
Elite Field
Some top trail and ultrarunners have already entered the Cayuga Trails 50. Here’s the current high-level who’s who:
-
Sage Canaday - Yassine Diboun
-
Matt Flaherty -
Dave James - Nikki Kimball
- Dave Mackey
-
Jordan McDougal - Krissy Moehl
- Ben Nephew
-
Jacqueline Palmer -
Ragan Petrie - Leigh Schmidt
Any other speedsters out there jonesing for a June 50-miler in upstate New York? I mean, the RD is offering on-course apple pie!
Sponsors and More
All of this is coming together under the race directorship of Ian Golden, a long-time upstate New York trail runner and owner of the Finger Lakes Running and Triathlon Company, a brick-and-mortar Ithaca running store; a grant from the Tompkins County Tourism Program; and the following sponsors:
- Gu
- UltrAspire
- Scott
- Atayne
- Finger Lakes Running and Triathlon Company; and
- iRunFar.com.
Contest
We’re hosting a contest to celebrate this new, competitive, and well-prized race’s arrival onto the ultrarunning scene. We’re giving away three prize packs containing the following:
- Entry into the 2013 Cayuga Trails 50
- Your choice of an UltrAspire Spry, Surge, or Revolution pack
- A pair of Scott Kinabalus, and
- An iRunFar.com-branded shirt from Atayne.
To enter the contest, post your answer to the following question as a comment to this post by March 2, noon MST: Why do you want to run the inaugural Cayuga Trails 50? [Editor's Note, March 17: The contest is now closed; winners have been chosen and will be/have been contacted. See RD Ian Golden's comment below for details on who's taking away this contest's schwag. Thanks for your enthusiasm!]
Related articles:
- Cayuga Trails 50 Mile Preview A preview of the 2013 Cayuga Trails 50 mile....
- Training Update June 9 – July 17, 2008 It’s been a long time since I posted a personal training update. In part that’s due to some not so exciting training the last three weeks in June, but also...
- Iroquois Trails 100 Preview I had long intended to write a long post outlining the course for the inaugural Iroquois Trails Ultras, which feature both 50 mile and 100 mile events. Well, that ain’t...
Filed under Contests ·
Meghan Hicks is iRunFar.com's Senior Editor, a Contributing Editor at Trail Runner magazine, and a columnist at Marathon & Beyond. The converted road runner finished her first ultramarathon in 2006 and loves using running to visit the world's wildest places. For more information on Meghan and her adventures, please visit her personal website.
All posts by Meghan Hicks
Because June 8 is my birthday! and what better way to spend it then running 80 kms and praying that the “wheels don’t come off”
Because marathons are getting old and turning 50 that week my chance of 50 @ 50 just makes sense. May not be a (my usual run) stroll through the (Central) park or the Scottish mountains I grew up with – but some real air and a chance see some ‘real’ runners like Canaday and Mackey in action would be incredible.
I need a June race! Only month absent.
1) Ithaca and its’ gorges are incredibly beautiful. 2) It would be one of the few times I would be shoulder to shoulder with the current greats of trail racing. 3) I have a free place to stay nearby….
I want to run Cayuga because ultras are where my passion lies, and come race day, anything can happen…
After growing up in Ithaca, the longest race I could ever run was a 5K. Now I return six years later to run a distance I could have never possibly imagined. I run the Cayuga 50M to prove once and for all that the chubby kids in Ithaca High School don’t always stay so chubby.
Some of my favorite Virgil Crest finishers have been Clydesdales, so we’d want you even if you were still chubby. But we can for sure track down that high school sweetie that didn’t give you the time of day secondary to chubbiness and invite her to work an aid station and while filling your bottles shersherealize
Ct’d…realize who you are and how much tougher you are than her currently overweight jobless former star quarterback husband.
LOL whut. You got the wrong person here…internet research fail
No research. You gave me return to hometown and not chubby anymore. Took liberties from there.
I could list many reasons why I want to raun Cayuga 50, like how I loved Virgils Crest and want to revisit the area, how my job doesnt pay much and need to save what little I have, and the chance to meet some awesome women running the event..but my main and honest answer is this: I want to meet my twin sister’s boyfriend! I dont know if anyone know’s much about twins, but they can be awfully protective. And since she lives in Colorado and I live in Ohio, we dont get to see eachother a lot. While I am giving this guy the benefit of the doubt (okay, he does seem exceptionally kind and good-hearted) I still want to make sure!
:)
He’s harmless. You and S need to get yourselves out here regardless of said speedster.
I would like to run the Cayuga trails 50 because it sounds like it’s going to be a fun day out. Plus doing it in free gear and on someone else’s dollar would be the icing on the cake!
Because who wouldn’t want to run the same trails as Nikki Kimball??
Hi there! Any updates on the Cayuga Contest? Biting my nails over here!
Sorry for the delay all…Bryon was off to New Zealand to cover Tarawera, Meghan’s running some of the backend and getting things in order for MdS, and I wasn’t sure of a process here. So, l’ll just get out there the three winners who can all can send me an email (iangolden@gmail.com) re: the details. Thanks to all for chiming and to iRF, Atayne, Scott, and UltrAspire for the trappings. The winners are: Kristin Z, Rob Rowlett, and Michael Hughson.
Will there be a live web cast?
Yes. We’ll have some coverage on Twitter and Facebook with fuller coverage on a CoverItLive page on iRunFar. We’ll post the latter on Friday.
We’re also hoping to provide coverage as we go, updating aid station splits within an hour of real time (as we do with the Virgil Crest Ultras)…that is so long as we can figure out an internet connection. They’ll be on the racecenter on http://www.CayugaTrails50.com .