The Time I Ran 40 Miles For a Garbage Plate

Author: P. Allan Kresock
Date: 20 August, C.E. 2018
Topic: The time I ran 40 miles for a garbage plate
Category: Non-fiction
File under: Race reports

I've resided in Upstate New York my entire life — 35 years, 7 months and 28 days, to be exact — before finally experiencing  Rochester's signature dish affectionately known as a garbage plate. I like to run a lot and I like to eat a lot. This is my story.

I ran along the top of the canyon, taking in the view of the Gennessee River several hundred feet below and winding through the damp singletrack. I let the lead pack of four go on ahead and settled into my own rhythm, alone. I briefly considered trying to hang with the leaders' easy pace, but it felt just a little too fast for the opening miles. That pack included women's defending champion Ellie Pell, eventual men's winner Phil Nesbitt, and two guys I didn't recognize. Only 38 miles to the garbage plate remained.

Rim to Rim at the Inaugural Many On The Genny

I’m not sure when exactly it was that #TrailsRoc cofounder Eric Eagan said "Hey, why isn’t there a race that circumnavigates Letchworth, like a rim-to-rim race around the Grand Canyon of the East?" When I first caught wind of the race last fall, I was beyond psyched. After a rambling adventure run around the park two years ago, I had a vague notion to organize a fat-ass run that circles the gorge and covers all of the most scenic park trails. The fat-ass idea never made it any further than thinking "Yeah, it would be cool to see the whole park in one day."

Many On The Genny is a point-to-point trail race that starts at the Mt Morris Dam Visitor Center on the northwest side of Letchworth. The course follows several different trails and a little of the park road southwest down to Lower Falls, crossing the Genesee on the only footbridge within the park. The aid station just before the bridge marks the halfway point of the course. After crossing the bridge, runners take some side trails and a dirt road to reach the Finger Lakes Trail Letchworth Branch, then follow the FLT northeast to the Visitor Center opposite the gorge from where they started. The start and finish are about a quarter-mile apart as the crow flies, separated by the Genesee River and a 500-foot-deep canyon. The quickest way to travel from the start to the finish is to

Letchworth State Park: The Grand Canyon of the East

While Upstate New York is home to many beautiful parks, forests, and wilderness areas, there are none quite as popular as Letchworth State Park. Nicknamed "The Grand Canon of the East," and rightly so, it is the most visited of New York's 180 state parks.

On the western edge of New York's Finger Lakes region, the Genesee River cuts through many miles of bedrock to create a gorge that exceeds 600 feet in depth within the park boundaries. The river snakes and winds through the gorge, forming three major waterfalls along the way before reaching the Mount Morris Dam near the northeast end of the park. In a 2015 USA Today reader's poll, Letchworth was voted the best state park in the entire country. (Watkins glen State Park, also in the Finger Lakes, took the bronze in the same poll.)

Since this blog focuses primarily on off-road running, you may be asking yourself impatiently "Sure, but what about the trails?" Well, Letchworth boasts over 60 miles of trails inside the park proper