MFAMTL: Will Run For Gummy Worms

This was only my second time running a fixed time race and the first that wasn't on snowy trails. I jumped into the MFAMTL 6-Hour last minute as sort of a birthday present to myself. Who wouldn't want to spend their birthday weekend pulverizing their quads and then gorging on a giant burrito? 

MFAMTL is an acronym—with no logical pneumonic device that I know of—for Maybe the First Annual and Maybe the Last. My friend Michael Valone created the low-key event a few years ago, unsure if it would become a recurring race or just a one-off—hence the moniker. Turns out it was the former, and after three years of missing out I finally was able to make it up to Rochester's Durand Eastman park for the race. 

The format is simple. Run a one-ish mile trail loop as many times as you can in 6 hours. The first 3 hours you run clockwise, then you're told to turn around and run the same loop counterclockwise for another 3 hours. Only loops completed before the 6-hour time limit are counted; partial loops are worth nothing but extra calories burned. And you apparently earn good karma or fun

points or something by yelling MFAMTL—pronounced "muh-fom-it-el"—to no one in particular at the end of each loop. 

I carpooled up to the race with my Ithaca fiends Vinny and Amelia. All three of us were coming off finishes at the Virgil Crest 100, so the goal was just to run around and have some fun in the woods. My real goal, though, was to knock out 39 loops for my 39th birthday 3 days later. We set up our chairs and drop bags near the staging area and set off at 9:00 into the cool, crisp, late October woods for the first of many circuits on the ol' hamster wheel. 

The loopy singletrack had a nice flow to it, with a few very gentle hills, some rooty spots, and a serene view of Eastman Lake. After 2 loops I realized I wasn't in shape enough to handle the hills and roots and still bang out 39 miles, so I decided to just plod along and see how far I got. I hit 18 loops before being turned around at the timing tent at 3 hours on the dot. My legs didn't hurt much until 4 hours elapsed, and after that I just sauntered along until time ran out and I finish with 32 loops. It wasn't too pretty, but it went okay and I got another ultramarathon finish to my name. Amelia, Vinny and I totaled 76 loops for the Ithaca crew.

I didn't know until I finished the last loop that I was in fact the men's winner. Ellie Pell breezed by in the last half-mile to finish her 32nd loop too, but she won the tie breaker because her final loop was faster than mine. In the moment I thought another guy was a lap ahead for the overall win, but it turns out he'd only done 31. In my exhausted state I was confused why Michael want to take my picture with Ellie next to the finish line until it sunk in that I'd won. The official prize was bragging rights, but to me the real prize was the monster-size handful of multi-hued Trolli Sour Brite Crawlers gummy worms that I duly shoved down my esophagus immediately following the photo shoot. Nothing ever tasted as good as those TSBCs, not even the post-race Chipotle burrito. 

Thanks to Michael Valone, Eric and Sheila Eagan, and the rest of the crew for organizing!