Story
I earned my Challenge medal today by finishing Cayuga Cliffs. I was eyeing @Ryan_Jacobsen’s course-leading time of 32:55, so I did a 2-mile warm up on the road with some strides so that I was ready to run fast from the start.
I summoned RunGoRachel, scanned the sign, and took off down the hills. I enjoyed the easy descent despite knowing I’d have to run back up later. After I entered the woods, Rachel was late telling me about the first right turn and I ran straight to the overlook. I realized my mistake and made my way to the steep loop.
The footing was definitely tricky, especially as I was trying to take the sharp turns downhill. Despite that I strongly agree with Rebecca’s preference for a clockwise loop here. The other way with such a steep downhill would have been even trickier.
After I completed that loop I made my way back to the intersection and took a right straight back to the dead-end overlook. I spent a little too much time looking for the rest of the trail before realizing that I should have turned left uphill to skip the overlook and then turned right. I probably lost about 45 seconds total to navigation errors.
After that I headed to the fields and it was mostly smooth sailing from there. I really like grass courses (speaking of, I would love a redux of Lansing Center Trails in 2026) so it was nice to be able to cruise around the field for a while without having to worry about slipping on hairpin turns.
The out-and-back to Fiddler’s was uneventful except for a fallen tree which I enjoyed hurdling (of course it was much lower than a regulation 36" steeplechase hurdle that I would not dare attempt).
Once I left the woods and started heading back to the start on the grassy trail it was clear that Ryan’s time was out of reach. Nonetheless I pressed onward and tried to finish strong. I reached the sign in 33:27.
Of course if I hadn’t made any wrong turns I would probably have run the fastest time, but Ryan also lost about 45 seconds to a wrong turn so his run could have been a lot faster too. Navigation can count for a lot in the Challenge!