REGIONAL – The Shawangunk Ridge Trail traverses a ridge line from High Point, NJ, where its unique geology and biology begins, for seventy-four miles to Rosendale, NY, where the ridge ends. 2015 is the second year of the SRT Run, which race directors Ken Posner and Todd Jennings of Shawangunk Adventures created as a challenge for runners to emulate the self-reliance of our forebears, whether settlers or native, and celebrate the preservation of the Shawangunks.

This year's run, held over the third weekend in September, was composed of a 74, 50, 32, and 20 mile division. The 74-miler started in NJ on Friday night, the 50-miler began in Wurtsboro Saturday morning, the 32-miler started at Sam's Point, and the 20-mile race headed off from the Peters Kill, a part of Minnewaska, overlapping with the other races as everyone headed through the Mohonk Preserve towards a spectacular view of the Rondout Creek from the Wallkill Valley Land Trust's trestle bridge in Rosendale.

"This is an important trail in our back yard and can be an economic asset to our community. There are lots of places to put housing developments, but only one ridge line," Posner said before the race. "You have to be mindful and prepared... You might be on or off course."

Support vehicles, caches of food and water, and pacers are all against the rules of the SRT, which is self-supported and without supplemental trail marking. Runners must carry as much food as they will need to keep themselves moving for up to 32 hours, the time the longest 74-miler took to finish, and they must also carry water filters to ensure what they get from streams is safe.

And yes, several runners did get lost this year and last. But all found their way back on trail using maps.

Aaron Stedny, who was in first place until the check-in near Peters Kill about thirty miles into the race, at one point was told someone was ahead of him... only to find out later that runner, from western New York, had gone off trail for an hour.

"It was dark and I didn't count on that; I didn't do a head lamp," Stedny later recounted. "The first mile and half was on the road. It was about 6:25 by the time I got on the SRT and by then I could see the rocks on the trail."

Like many who raced, he had met Ken Posner on the trail a few weeks earlier for a training run, which gave him a sense of what he'd be dealing with. "I got off trail in one early section and I had to bushwhack for about ten feet. Some people had camped out and they were screaming and yelling when I came through," Stedny continued. "I got on top of that ridge and a sea of clouds lay on the valley. It was cool and breezy; I was running with a smile on my face and I just enjoyed myself and tried to save up for the later part of the race... Part of the fun of a long run like that is that you have no clue where anyone else is."

Paul Fost, of Westchester, did the whole 74 miles of the SRT this year after trying but failing the big achievement in 2014. He said he'd twice run Rock the Ridge, the 50 mile endurance challenge to raise money for the Mohonk Preserve, to get in shape for the SRT.

"I thought 'I did the 50 I can do 74. It's half again the effort.' But effort increases more after that kind of mileage," Fost said, noting how all but one dropped out from the bigger race in its first year, and he hired a trainer for the bigger event this time. "The guy I ran with, Raymond Russel, had done the 32 last year so he knew the last half and I knew the first half. I thought we wouldn't get lost but we veered off from the trail. We start to bushwhack and saw some lights getting closer and it turned out to be other runners who had gotten more lost than we did."

In all, the 2015 SRT had ten finishers in its 74 mile division, 11 in the 50, 13 in the 32, and 39 in the 20-mile division. And three of the long runners came in with exact same times.

Posner says he was pleased with the success of the day. But he added that he's working on making next year's Shawangunk Ridge Trail run even better... and more popular.

Shawangunk Adventures also puts on the mid-August Catskill Mountain 100K race, from the Phoenicia area down through Frost Valley into the southern Catskills. Also big now are the early August Ellenville Mountain Running Race (www.ellenvillemrf.com), the upcoming Hamletonian in Orange County on October 18, and the Rosendale Runs benefit (www.rosendaleruns.org), as well as RockThe Ridge.

Talk about a healthy trend!