It’s All Relative
Posted by David Hanenburg on 25 Jan 2010 at 9:48 am | Tagged as: trail running or ultrarunning
After Bandera 100 km a couple weeks ago, I asked a good trail running friend about the Jemez 50 in New Mexico.
“How do you compare Jemez to Bandera?”
His ego crushing response.
“Jemez is Bandera multiplied by 10.”
My good friend did revise his response a bit and said Jemez is at least 2-3 times harder, but still. Damn! Good thing I didn’t ask about Hard Rock.
Here is a video created by an athlete that took on the Jemez 50 km course in 2009. It provides a bit of a glimpse of the area and course. I imagine we are only seeing the easy sections of the course.
(If you can’t see the video, click here.)
Gotta love this sport. 
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Dave:
I have talked to people who did run Jemez and it is a slower course because of the long climbs and altitude. However, one of the things that makes Bandera tough is that it is runnable but on very technical terrain. Consequently your body gets beaten up pretty good because your running on surfaces not very friendly. Jemez is much less rocky. Some of the top runners this year were talking about how tough Bandera was mentally because of the constant focus and concentration the course took and it is hard to get into a consistent running rhythm. So Bandera was great mental training for you. The big thing for Jemez is working on power hiking climbs.
Chris
Hey Chris – Thanks for making me feel a bit better.
This is one of the cool aspects of trail running as each course has its own unique character and challenges.
The Jemez 50-miler is a very challenging course, and it is partly technical – the climb up the second mountain is over talus which moves out from under you! Most of the trail is runnable though.
I think Jemez is harder than Bandera, especially for Texans, because of the altitude and the steepness of the climbs. I’ve done other mountain trail races, and Jemez is tougher than Grand Teton 50 miler and much tougher than Tahoe Rim Trail. None of the climbs at Bandera are all that long, but they are all scattered with loose rock that makes watching your footing very important.
Hey Jeff – Altitude is one of those unique variables that seems to be very ‘body’ dependent. Everyone seems to respond a little differently to the thinner air.
I definitely agree about altitude, but Texas doesn’t have anything close to the altitude of the race to train on and figure out how your body responds. The closest we have would be the Guadalupe Mountains – which is a great place to train for Jemez.