MPF RNR Athlete Jay Lemos kicked his 2017 season off with the rugged Mount Tammany 10! This is how his race went down. 

Congratulations to everyone who raced & volunteered at this weekends events! A quick update from some of the races this past weekend and photos from Julian Vicente taken during the Mount Tammany 10.

I woke up, and my watch said 3:10am. The Tammany 10 started at 6:30 in the Delaware Water Gap, over 4 hours north of where I was scrambling...

The New Jersey Ultra Festival 50K is part of the NJ Trail Series. The race took place on Saturday March 21st, 2015. The Course is a trail behind the County Fairgrounds in Sussex County, New Jersey. During the week leading up to the race day of the NJ Ultra Festival a lot of the snowfall in the area had melted. By Thursday conditions were looking like a fast run.

As September neared its end, I was preparing for my 3rd Mountain Madness 50k. I had mixed feelings about the race this year. Last year I had trained on the course often and had more miles in my legs but felt under trained this year. A busy schedule had kept me from but just 1 training run on the course. The course was also different this year due to pipeline construction. Never the less, I signed up and prepared to do my best.

I wasn’t sure what to expect racing the 7 mile Mountain Madness trail run, but my hunch was that the relatively short race would be fast from the gun. While I was operating under a number of assumptions, things started off as I had envisioned. I had a quality 15 minute warm up, and I was at the front on the starting line.

This race win was all about knowing the course and sticking to the plan.  From the start I knew that the Bike Dr. rider who won the last two weeks would be out for blood. He's been looking to take the series and needed more points to take the win. Out of the first 4 races in the series I've raced 2, and took 2nd and 1st. So he needed more points to guarantee his lead.

It’s 6 am on Sunday morning and I am waiting at the race start.  Despite what you might think, I’m not nervous at all. Mainly because I started and finished the 50 mile race I had entered over 12 hours ago.  I now had the privilege of helping to crew a runner attempting to finish his first 100-mile race.

The Mt. Tammany 10 is 10 climbs up Mt. Tammany, each climb having 1,200 feet of gain and you have 10 hours to do so. Here is how Harry's day went.

A hearty group of runners gathered at the base of a looming giant that would later challenge our heart, will and desire in epic proportions.  I’m not saying its Mt. Denali or Everest but the terrain would challenge our ability to move forward as we chased the 10 hour cut off in Everest proportions.

For those who are unfamiliar with ultra trail races, a 50k covers the distance of just over 31 miles. Now add in a forest full of roots, rocks, boulders, stumps, downed trees, streams and terrain which will bring you up and down a total of 13,650'.  Mountain Madness 2012 is held in Ringwood, New Jersey.

It is 4:30am, Saturday, September 29th.  I wake up and realize I am pretty nervous about the activity I am going to partake in today.  It is my first trail race for the year and to make it even more nerve racking is it one of the toughest 50K’s in the Northeast.

It’s that time of year again, Mountain Madness 50k (aka MoMa)!  For the last 3 years, this race has been a staple of my race calendar, and no matter what other events I had planned or injuries I sustained throughout the year, I have always managed to make it to the starting line of this race.

In the midst of a record breaking heat wave, 100 plus participants decided to embark on a journey that made them wonder if indeed the devil had taken over their minds and bodies. I mean really their aren’t many people who participate in a race where the day time high was projected to be in the high 90’s to 100º with the northeast humidity added in of course.