Ultra Runners

1

Tussey Mountainback 50 (Read 374 times)

kopid905


    Hey guys, I am entertaining the idea of making Tussey my first 50/first ultra this fall.  Have any of you done this race before?  I'd appreciate any feedback regarding the race and course.

     

    It will be the 50 mile National Championships this year, so it should be pretty stacked, not that I'll be anywhere near the front.


    Feeling the growl again

      No, but I looked through the race info pretty thoroughly as I licked my wounds from my first 50 attempt last year.  The course looks....interesting.  Some of the results I saw were astounding.

      "If you want to be a bad a$s, then do what a bad a$s does.  There's your pep talk for today.  Go Run." -- Slo_Hand

       

      I am spaniel - Crusher of Treadmills

       

      xor


        Tussey is interesting because it is a road 50.  You don't find many of those... and that partly explains the times.  It is one of the courses than Wardian has absolutely smoked.

         

        Loop course. According to the site, it has 5000ish feet of gain.  That's pretty basic if this was a trail 50.  For roads, yeah, definitely some hill in there.

         

         

        I know a few people who have done it.  Those who dig road marathons liked it a lot.  The one trail friend I have who ran it was kind of 'eh'.

         


        Feeling the growl again

          Tussey is interesting because it is a road 50.  You don't find many of those... and that partly explains the times.  It is one of the courses than Wardian has absolutely smoked.

           

          Loop course. According to the site, it has 5000ish feet of gain.  That's pretty basic if this was a trail 50.  For roads, yeah, definitely some hill in there.

           

           

          I know a few people who have done it.  Those who dig road marathons liked it a lot.  The one trail friend I have who ran it was kind of 'eh'.

           

          Wardian's result was more or less the one that stuck out in my mind.  I consider road ultras and trail ultras (the technical or mountainous ones anyways) to be totally different beasts, especially at the 50 mile/100K distance level.

           

          One of the attractive things about the DPR race I'm going to retry is that it's basically a road course (flat and straight) but the surface is not paved...easier on the body  My pansy-ass flatlander quads quiver just thinking about coming down some of the Tussey hills on pavement.

           

          I had the opportunity once to follow Wardian down a long and steep paved hill.  His quads handled it more than a wee bit better than mine.

          "If you want to be a bad a$s, then do what a bad a$s does.  There's your pep talk for today.  Go Run." -- Slo_Hand

           

          I am spaniel - Crusher of Treadmills

           

          kopid905


            Good call on the downhills, those are gonna hurt.  The course is mostly dirt fire roads though (74% dirt, 26% paved according to the site), so hopefully most of those downhills are on the dirt so they're a little more forgiving.  I'll have to read through the entire course description and try to match it up with the elevation profile to find out.

              The course is mostly dirt fire roads though (74% dirt, 26% paved according to the site), so hopefully most of those downhills are on the dirt so they're a little more forgiving.

               Don't count on it.  Those are long downhills, especially the first one.  If your quads are trashed 10 miles into a 50, it will not be pretty.  You might want to some hill training, both up and downhill pounding.


              Feeling the growl again

                 Don't count on it.  Those are long downhills, especially the first one.  If your quads are trashed 10 miles into a 50, it will not be pretty.  You might want to some hill training, both up and downhill pounding.

                 

                I would need to compare elevation charts, but that first hill looks suspiciously like the Steamtown Marathon.  Granted it was paved, but in 7 miles my quads were as trashed as they had ever been after a full marathon...and I was holding back like crazy.  That was the hill I was referring to chasing Wardian down.  He still ran a 2:22ish....I blew up after those 7 miles and ran 2:33ish....19 miles is a long way to jog it in with trashed quads...

                "If you want to be a bad a$s, then do what a bad a$s does.  There's your pep talk for today.  Go Run." -- Slo_Hand

                 

                I am spaniel - Crusher of Treadmills

                 

                kopid905


                   Don't count on it.  Those are long downhills, especially the first one.  If your quads are trashed 10 miles into a 50, it will not be pretty.  You might want to some hill training, both up and downhill pounding.

                   

                  I'll definitely be doing that.  I don't have any hills that are that long around here, but I'll probably just go up and down some for an hour or more.  I might try to get out to the course once or twice too, although its about a 3 hour drive.


                  On On

                    Come practice at Running with the Devil.  The race is a timed race of 3, 6, 12 hours up and down a ski hill on a 5K loop.

                     

                    The winner of the 12 hour last year ran 50 miles in the 12 hour event.

                     

                    www.njtrailseries.com/devil

                    xor


                      For me, unpaved does not make a gnarly downhill easier.  It isn't so much of the pounding that does a person in as it is the natural tendency to brake.  And, again FOR ME, unpaved stuff makes it slightly more likely that I will dig in and brake more.

                       

                      But that's just me.

                       


                      Feeling the growl again

                        For me, unpaved does not make a gnarly downhill easier.  It isn't so much of the pounding that does a person in as it is the natural tendency to brake.  And, again FOR ME, unpaved stuff makes it slightly more likely that I will dig in and brake more.

                         

                        But that's just me.

                         

                        Well as I think about it it's probably not as bad in a 50 as my inclination was to think at first.  To use Steamtown as an example, it was hell on a lot of us going for 5:30ish average.  I mean, I talked to a 2:16 guy there who dropped out because his quads were also trashed in the first half...he was worse off than me.  IIRC I ran as fast as 5:06 on one of the miles deliberately trying not to brake, but when you are moving that fast it is unavoidable.

                         

                        At slower (ie ultra, 7-9min/mile for the front-ish people) speeds I don't think people are likely to get pounded as badly.  From what I hear Steamtown IS a fast course if you're gunning for like 3:30-4:00...but for the 2:30 crowd not so much.  IIRC I looked back once and couldn't really find examples of people running sub-2:30 on that course who were significantly faster than what they ran elsewhere (in response to people saying such massively downhill courses are unfair).

                        "If you want to be a bad a$s, then do what a bad a$s does.  There's your pep talk for today.  Go Run." -- Slo_Hand

                         

                        I am spaniel - Crusher of Treadmills

                         

                        kopid905


                          I am going to take those first 10 miles REALLY slow, hopefully feeling fresh at the 10 mile mark so I can start really running then. 

                           

                          That being said, I want to hit hills really hard to prepare.  I have a good amount of hills near me (Pittsburgh), but most of them go up maybe 100 feet in a half mile.  For anyone that has trained for hills like this, how many up-and-downs would you guys build up to?

                          Trent


                          Good Bad & The Monkey

                            Tussey

                             

                            Another race with a website that required me to search through some 10 different pages before I figured out where the hell it was. Cripes, put date and location somewhere easy to find!

                            kopid905


                              Another race with a website that required me to search through some 10 different pages before I figured out where the hell it was. Cripes, put date and location somewhere easy to find!

                               

                              Yeah, took me a while too.  Even putting the park name into Google Maps had me at least 100 miles off.

                               

                              I'm thinking of doing the Punxsy 50k as a good training run, doesn't have nearly the hills that Tussey does, but it should be a good indicator of fitness.  It is about 5-6 weeks before Tussy.