Just the "Fun Run" at FL50s

“And I feel so much depends on the weather.” - Stone Temple Pilots, “Plush”

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

Solo Trail Racing Through the Pandemic

After feeling worn out and miserable for most of the summer, I got back in the game with a non-race effort at the Hash House Hundred Fast-Ass 100k in late August. That left me wanting to get back into racing trail races and ultramarathons, but of course autumn in 2020 brought another slew of race cancellations courtesy of la 'rona. Throughout the summer I was expecting as much, and came up with a creative way to get in some quality mileage and satiate the trail racing bug.

The project involved attempting a PR on as many of the local trail race courses as I could. For some races, this meant running each of the different distances offered for the event, i.e. the 13k, 26k, and marathon on the Thom B course. Many of these races I'd run at less than 100% effort during the buildup to various ultras. Some, like the FL50s 25k and 50k distances, I'd never raced at all. With a few exceptions, I chose race courses 16 miles and shorter and within a half hour drive of Ithaca. I ran all of them on my own, unsupported or self-supported, following the courses from memory. 

Although the first three listed aren't race courses, I've included them because they're established and noteworthy routes. A few notable courses, like Forge the Gorge, the traditional Lucifer's Crossing course, the Monster Marathon at Treman, and my usual

Keeping the Cows In: A Finger Lakes 50s Race Report

I collapsed into my foldout camping chair with a huge sigh, immediately clawing at my mud soaked shoes. Trying to undo the laces would sap a sizable amount of my remaining energy, but I felt I had no choice. I forcefully sprayed some warm, stale water from my bottle onto the laces to clear away the mud. This allowed me to nimbly pick at the knots and eventually yank both mud ravaged shoes free, tear off my soaking socks, and finally dry my feet. Aaahhh, instant bliss.

After 33 muddy miles on foot, the race offered reprieve in the form of hot food, cold beer, and a respectable 6:10 50K finish. The trail gods gave me a choice: I could simply call it a day here and bask in the sweet summer shade for the remainder of the afternoon, or I could force myself afoot and run/walk/hobble through another 17 miles during the hottest part of the day. So why, then, did I choose the latter? After glancing across the campground to make eye contact with my pacer, it was clear I had unfinished business. Ignoring the Sirens' calls of cold drinks and hot eats, I shoved clean socks and the muddy Kinvaras back onto my feet and Adam and I hit the trail. It was time to get the Hell out of Dodge before common sense set it.

The Finger Lakes 50s consists of three different distances, each distance one to three laps around the Finger Lakes National Forest. Located in the southeast corner of  the Finger Lakes region, The FLNF is the only national forest in New York State. The 16,000 acre forest boasts 30 miles of hiking trails,

Recovery and Taper

The last couple of weeks I've been engaging in more of a variety of activities to help recover from the Cayuga Trails 50 and prepare for the Finger Lakes 50s 50 miler on July 5. The entire month is sort of a recovery/taper period, without any big training weeks or 20 mile runs. It's important to give the running-specific leg muscles a rest, and this can be done without losing much, if any, fitness. With that said, I did run a couple of local races at a comfortably hard pace in order to get a few "speed sessions" in.

Saturday, June 7, saw the Tortoise & Hare Trail Run at Buttermilk Falls State Park. The course winds up the park's Rim Trail and Bear Trail, ascending about 900 feet in the first few miles, then circles around Lake Treman and descends via the same route. Only a week removed from the Cayuga Trails 50, I felt pretty fresh at the starting line. I definitely felt the fatigue in my legs during the long ascent,