The Cat’s Tail – Catskill Trail Marathon

Description:

The Cat’s Tail is a rugged mountain marathon. In the first three years of the race, out of 257 starters, we have had 253 finishers under the 10 hour time limit. Only 4 DNF’s!! We attribute these high success rates to our tough entry requirements which are:

You must have minimally completed within the last year:

1) A legitimate marathon distance or greater race (no fat-ass or other unorganized events) in under 4 hours (or under 6 hours for a trail marathon)

2) The Escarpment Trail race within the 6 hour cut-off.

3) An ultra distance trail race within twice the time as the winner.

4) Another race that you think qualifies you to run 26+ miles of rugged Catskill trails with 7000+ feet of elevation gain in a reasonable time that will not have us out looking for you when it gets dark.

The fourth edition is scheduled for September 29, 2018. Following the same route as past years, it will begin at the Fox Hollow trail head off rt 28 in Shandaken, NY. Runners will go south over Panther Mountain and Giant Ledge before reaching rt 47. They will run just off the road south for a short distance to the Slide Mountain trail where they will turn east and ascend Slide, Cornell, and Wittenberg Mountains. Slide is the highest peak in the Catskills at 4,180 ft. On the northward descent off Wittenberg, runners will turn east onto a newly (2014) created trail leading them over Cross Mt. before heading northward over Mt. Pleasant and Romer Mt. and depositing them a short distance from Phoenicia and the finish line. The distance is around 26.5 miles with 7000+/- ft of ascent. Register here.