Erin Quinn

We always hear about the importance of shopping local, supporting independent businesses and even “staycations,” where instead of jetting off to far-flung places, you spend your time and money exploring your own backyard. As a local journalist and swim coach, who not only grew up in New Paltz, New York, but also raised three children in this small, funkified college-town that is ripe with outdoor recreation opportunities, I believe to the importance investing locally. That said, when I finally came of age in terms of the wide world of ultramarathons, I was drawn to courses that had alluring photographs of dramatic and faraway landscapes.

Just like choosing a book by it’s cover, I wound up choosing a race based on how beautiful I found the pictures to be on either the race’s website or Ultra Signup.

After finding cheap tickets and a hotel room during the winter of 2022, I was able to bring two of my three college-aged kids to our first national park visit. The fact that we were still in the tail-end of pandemic times coupled with the fact that it was January, meant that we had Arches and then Canyonlands National Park almost all to ourselves. I felt like I had landed on Mars. I was so enthralled by the landscape that I decided then and there that Moab would be the place where I would signup for my first ultra.

I researched and chose a 50K that would take place in March of 2022, called Behind the Rock. It was run by a small family-owned operation called Mad Moose. Perfect. It would be our family vacation for that year as well. It’s not like one can explore all of Arches or Canyonlands in one week. You could spend a lifetime in that region and still get caught up in the way shadows fall against canyon walls or how the slick rock absorbs the sun like water.

So, that following spring, we hiked and meandered and explored as many trails as we could around Moab and on the second to last day of our trip, I ran thirty-one miles in the 97F heat of the exposed Behind the Rocks 50K course. A heatwave had come rolling in and I debated dropping down to the 30K race but instead decided to stick to my original plan and just carry a lot of water in my backpack. I hadn’t yet learned about hydration packs or fueling or anti-chafing creams or really anything ultra-related. I had delayed ultra-onset symptoms and was still running like it was 1990. I showed up to the start line and just tried to hold on.

My kids helped volunteer at the finish line and rang the cowbells as I crossed the finish line sunburned, chapped, chafed, swollen and completely hooked on those crazy, beyond-marathon distances.

I signed up immediately for my second ultra in the fall of 2022- Dead Horse 50-miler, run by the same, grassroots organization; Mad Moose. Dead Horse was equally as beautiful, and it was certainly cooler and more palatable for my Irish skin. By the time Dead Horse rolled around, I had listened to enough podcasts and read enough articles and books to have purchased a hydration pack and invested in some gels and goos.

After falling in love with that region of the country and the other-worldly like feeling of walking on red rocks and seeing arches being formed by wind and rain and the erosive nature of time, I just wanted to explore it even more. That’s when I signed up for the Zion 100-mile race, having no idea that it didn’t actually take place in Zion National Park, but on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land, adjacent to the park. Still stunning. Still worth it. My two best childhood friends and my boyfriend came out to crew me and support me on that wild 100-mile ride and I made it to the finish line smiling and proud and nauseous and heat-stroked and bloated and ready to do it all over again.

I signed up for more races with bigger mountains and greater distances. This past year, went on a 200+mile bender, going from the Tahoe 200 to the Bigfoot 200 and back to Utah once again for the Moab 240. It was a big year with some big races and big views and big feelings from the highs to the lows and everything in between.

Yet, when I think about these past years, and the insanely long and challenging runs I’ve done out west, I think that what has helped given me the ability to complete these races is how anchored and nourished I feel at home. No matter what race I did, I brought a piece of home with me, whether that was through my training, my people, my spiritual reserves and almost always, a combination of all three.

Thankfully, I live in a small town that is surrounded by (hard-fought) protected lands including a State Park, and a public Preserve, that are part of the Shawangunk Mountains Range. Then there is the Catskill Forest to the north, the Adirondack Park even further north and the Hudson Highlands to the east and south. But the Shawangunk’s, or the “Gunks,” as they’re referred to, are my daily stomping grounds, positioned only a short run or walk or bike or car-ride away. There are a plethora of trails and old carriage roads that I run again and again and have gotten to know like the soft tissue of my soul.

The streams and waterfalls and large conglomerate boulders that dot the pitch-pine forests have become as familiar to me as my own breath. The scale and scope of the trails here are smaller than those out west. The climbs are not as colossal, the mountains not as grandiose. But there is a quiet magic here; an intimacy that is forged by a more human-sized landscape. I don’t feel, as I do out west, like I have superpowers, but I do feel, that I have resonance. Each step has a sound and all of those sounds become their own sort of symphony.

The Gunks are where I train, day in and day out, year after year, season to season. They are the trails that I run or hike on when I’m sad and anxious, when I’m lonely or confused, or estranged from myself. They are where I go when I’m trying to heal or find my way back to center.

They are also the place that I celebrate and run with friends and where I test out my fitness and do hill repeats and tempo runs. I get to spot black bear and porcupines and fox and bobcats and beavers all doing their own primal dances in their own unique ways. It’s where my spirit alights when I get to one of the four sky-lakes that are perched inside the ridge line. It’s where I never cease to smile even when I’m at my most tired and raw. I’ve passed lake Awosting on so many runs that I believe I’ve seen it in almost every mood and in almost every light. I never stop delighting in the way it appears at twilight or during a hailstorm or as the sun rises or when the moon hops across the water like a skipping stone.

Even amidst my 200+mile bender, I continued to run local races. wild and the remote and the exotic, I craved the familiar. I wanted to show up to start lines that didn’t require a plane flight to get there or drop-bags to survive. Maybe they’d have a dixie cup of water or a slice of watermelon at the finish line? If it was cold they could have a cauldron of homemade soup or bowl of chili. The cost of entry was usually less than $20 and I could always hop in a car with a friend, take a shuttle bus, or slide up to a start line after a lake swim on a summer night. us.

I think often of what the poet and naturalist Gary Snyder said when asked what people could do to help preserve the environment. He said, “the most radical thing you can do is to stay home.”

I’m not saying wanderlust won’t strike me or that I won’t set out on another adventure, but as we tip into a new year, I know that more than ever, I want to double-down on running local and discovering new races, right outside my backdoor.

— Erin Quinn