July 4th weekend can only mean one thing for Upstate New York trail runners—the Finger Lakes 50s and its notoriously nasty weather. The Finger Lakes Runners Club resurrected this race after a hiatus in the Year of the ‘Rona with Forest Frolic race directors Peter Dady and Mike Stone now at the helm.
The race’s 16.5-mile loop is quite fast when the trails are dry. Problem is, they’re never dry. Some combination of gooey mud, slick mud, wet leaves, and flooded trails always seems to hinder the whole lot of us at this race, year after year.
This time I opted in for the 25k "fun run" to avoid burnout after beating up my body at the Cayuga Trails 50-mile at the end of May and running the FLRC Ultra Challenge two weeks before the FL50s. That made it my first time running this race in a distance shorter than 50 miles. It turns out the single loop went by so fast I could hear the din of the finish line crowd before I knew it.
I arrived at the Finger Lakes National Forest at 7:00 a.m., an hour before the 25k start. This was so much easier than coming out pre-dawn well before the 50-mile start or at some ungodly o'clock for volunteer duties.
At the start line I noticed my friend Rich Heffron, who was registered, wasn't there, and I thought I'd have a shot at winning. That notion was nixed in the first 400 meters. Right from the gun Dan Timmerman took off like lightning and after he turned off the road at the first trailhead I never saw him again. I'd never met Dan before or ran any races he was in, but I knew he was speedster and was running on his home turf. (Dan finished with a new men's masters course record!) With my short-lived visions of grandeur shot to dust, I raced hard through the first 2.5 miles and used the downhill forest road mile to cruise along and let my legs recover. I thought I could hang on to second place but eventual women’s winner Donna Langerfield caught and passed me while I struggled up the rocky Gorge Trail.
The rest of the loop comprised a hard effort through free-flowing mini streams on the singletrack. I was in a groove and not really feeling the extra effort needed to run through the shoe-sucking mud and standing water. I felt light and nimble carrying nothing but a Nathan Exoshot handheld with a single gel and was thankful there was no reprise of the 5498% humidity from 2019. Halfway through the loop I spotted Donna up ahead on a half-mile section of flat forest road and tried to reel her in once I reached the trailhead. I couldn't close the gap and she finished 6 minutes before me.
Aside from taking a hard spill down the muddy Ravine Trail at mile 10 the rest of the loop was pretty easy. A straight, smooth and flat 2 miles up the Backbone Trail late in the race is a good spot to gain some time, and I really pushed that section hard while fantasizing that I was Zach Miller racing the last miles of a 50 like it's a college track meet. When I finished it felt strange to be done several hours before lunchtime, with all but 3 of us runners still out on the course.
Good thing I pushed the pace near the end. Unbeknownst to me, my friend Daniel Longaker was only 4 minutes back. I managed to stave him off and win a crowler of Drink the Juice IPA from Gerrett's Brewing Company for the effort.
By mid morning the rain had stopped, and I enjoyed sitting around the the finish area eating and cheering on friends who were passing through en route to finishing the 50-miler or 50k while the emcee from Albany Running Exchange announced the finishers interspersed with increasingly cornier jokes. My finish time was 6 minutes slower than when I ran the loop at race effort on my own in the fall of 2020, but the trails were perfectly dry at the time and I was better rested for it.
Sarah Briggs and Riley Brady raced hard for course records in the 50k and 50-mile, respectively. RDs Pete and Mike did a great job with this race and stepped up big time to keep it going after a year off from the pandemic. (The swag shirts are pretty sweet too!) Thank you to them, the Finger Lakes Runners Club, and the volunteers who made it happen! And shout out to my friend Ved Gund for tackling his first ultra in the 50k and running quite well.
Ian Golden shot some nice footage for his Trail Collective channel:
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