Tushars 75km takes place in the Tushars Mountains outside of Beaver, Utah on the last weekend in July. Directed by Aravaipa out of Phoenix, Arizona, the race is well-organized and takes place alongside several other distances including a half marathon, marathon, and 100km.
The Tushars mountains are the third highest range in Utah, and the races all begin at the Eagle Point Ski Resort at 10,300ft altitude. Every distance gets the opportunity to climb up the high point of the Tushars, Delano Peak at 12,133ft. The majority of the event stays within 10-11k feet altitude, one of the key challenges to these races.
As the 75km course leaves the resort heading north, it circles around the east shoulder of Mount Holly on its way to ascending Delano from east to west. Expansive views above tree line reveal a handful of bald 11-12,000ft peaks shaded tan, red, and lavender and skirted with bright green hillsides covered with wildflowers. At the base of Delano, runners head northwest around Mud Lake and Blue Lake, coming back east to Bullion trailhead. Then, descending for seven miles and 3000ft to the low point of the course at 8600ft in the heat of the day, with temperatures in the low 90s, runners get a taste of some high-alpine desert in historical mining country. The crux of the day comes here around 30 miles into the journey, when the course climbs on abandoned, overgrown mining roads back up to Mount Edna at 11,600ft altitude. From there, runners head back around the east side of Delano and Holly, back to the finish at Eagle Point.
Although non-technical, much of the course follows single track that sees minimal traffic. The majority of recreation traffic in the Tushars is isolated to two-track roads normally accessible by ATVs along the west side of Delano. The races combine truly challenging running, steep and sustained climbs, with high altitude to make for a beautiful, brutal and surreal day.
Coming into Tushars 75km, I’d been hoping to run the 100km for several years. The timing hasn’t worked out and this year, with my main race UTMB-TDS only 4 weeks later, I opted for the shorter distance to avoid any extended recovery. Additionally, I intentionally didn’t allow for a taper going into the race, using it more like a peak week of training than a race week. For that reason, I’d already run about 30 miles and 8000ft of gain in the days before the race. The timing of Tushars was also perfect to allow for a quick stop in Snowbird the weekend before for the Speedgoat 28km. This year, experimenting with shorter courses, I was hoping to get some intense efforts without as much downtime from training as I build up to the 90-mile course with 33k gain at the end of August.
Otherwise, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend going into a race this difficult without a good solid taper. Especially coming from 3000ft, Tushars is not a race to take lightly. But I did get a week to camp around 10k feet with the pups which should have helped somewhat with the acclimatization. Likely, there is a bigger benefit to living at altitude long term and having more training at altitude. But we don’t have the luxury in Missoula of spending extended time or training above above 5-8 thousand feet without some hours of driving. So I was lucky to get about six nights up high.
Additionally, I decided to try the race with a lightweight kit and went without poles to see if it would be possible to go without at TDS. For this race, or any race with sustained climbs of greater than 5 miles or 3+ thousand feet—particularly races longer than 20-30 miles—I’m convinced poles are worthwhile. The snow travel at Tushars, although more than some years, was minimal and wouldn’t have necessarily been a driving force to bring poles like it was at Broken Arrow 40km. But the brutal 5-mile climb up Mount Edna from the Miners Aid would have. Also, as the race was relatively non-technical and didn’t require use of the hands like Meet the Minotaur 33km, poles would be more useful.
Despite all of this, I finished well—5th female and first in my age group. As far as pacing strategy I did try to go out harder than I usually do and I think it was a mistake. Although I didn’t have any major setbacks and could still run and eat at the end, I expect I would have felt better at the end if I’d gone out slightly easier and pushed harder later. I noticed that my normal strategies to gauge my effort—mostly breath versus step rate—were not necessarily applicable at altitude, so in this scenario it also would be better to keep a closer eye on heart rate.
After so many years of looking forward to running in the Tushars, it was worthwhile to take a trip down to Utah. I’m not sure I would necessarily return just to run the longer distance which is very similar to the 70km with one extended out and back section about 12 miles long. It would be interesting to see the race from the point of view of being tapered and acclimatized. However, I’d likely only recommend this race to someone who is really looking for a true mountain race with a high-altitude challenge. For training for TDS by UTMB, it was a great long-distance training run and an opportunity to try some things before the real race in August.