Manitou's Revenge: Windham to Phoenicia

A sample race report — here to show how these read and lay out. Swap it for a real one whenever you’re ready.

The sun wasn’t up yet when we climbed out of Windham, and I remember thinking the first summit felt too easy. It always does. Fifty miles of the Catskills has a way of collecting that debt with interest.

I’d planned to run with a group through the Blackheads and then settle in alone on the Long Path. That mostly held. What I hadn’t planned for was how long the gaps between aid would feel once the humidity set in.

The Devil’s Path doesn’t care what your watch says.

By the time I hit the base of the Devil’s Path the storms had come and gone and left everything slick. This is the part everyone warns you about, and they’re right to. It’s less running than negotiating — hands on rock, feet sideways, headlamp catching rain in the beam.

What got me moving again was small and stupid: a volunteer at a road crossing who told me I looked better than the last three people through. I didn’t, but I believed her for exactly long enough.

The finish in Phoenicia came the way these things do — suddenly, on pavement, under streetlights, with no more mountain left to give. If you’re signing up next year: respect the middle, eat before you think you need to, and save something real for the last climb. It’s waiting for you.