@Challengers I’m pleased to note that we have not one, but two finishers so far in the inaugural year of the FLRC Tough Trail Challenge.
Unsurprisingly, since he helped put the thought into our heads, Dennis Stadelman
completed a Tough Trail Challenge on April 21, when he was thinking about going for a 100K Ultra Challenge but realized he had to be functional the next day. Nevertheless, he came down to Ithaca and ran all five trail courses.
Now, talk about dedication to one’s craft. After he completed the work on the leaderboard, Steve Desmond decided he needed more test data, so he went out in the heat on Tuesday and completed the Tough Trail Challenge as well, starting with Duck Trails and Hammond Hill Hoctathon, putting FH Fox in the middle, and finishing with Lindsay-Parsons and Treman Trailipop (so he could enjoy the stream at the end).
Impressive running, you two! Who will be next? And which of the folks who claim they prefer roads to trails is going to be the first on the Tough Tarmac leaderboard?
@Challengers Congratulations to Julie Barclay, who completed the FLRC Tough Trail Challenge today with special guest Gabby Woo (@gplwoo) visiting from out of town (Gabby was third overall in Most Points in 2021). I gave them special permission to tweak the FH Fox course to avoid the coyote-infested areas and add more mileage at the end to compensate.
Looks like that might actually be a WebScorer submission bug (or manual submission) for Hammond Hill, since it overlaps with Treman and makes the total time less than the running time. My guess is Hammond Hill was their first course of the day? Might be worth removing the “Total Time” column if it’s not reliable…
Oops! @julie19 said that Webscorer failed and she had to add it manually but I was assuming it was still in the correct order. Julie, what time did you start at Hammond Hill? I can adjust the start time of results (though not the day).
@Challengers, we have our fourth Tough Trail Challenge completion—congrats to Scott Dawson, who ran all five trail courses today to complement Amy Dawson’s Tough Tarmac Challenge from last week.
Scott also set a new high water mark for running time, completing the courses in just 5:33:57, about 8 minutes faster than Steve Desmond’s completion from May.
Uh oh, Steve, you’re going to have to work harder to regain your lead, because <drumroll> Pete Kresock has just completed a Tough Trail Challenge, dropping the fastest running time to 4:52:10, about 34 minutes faster than Scott Dawson’s previous record!
As always, Pete’s run reports (12345) are well worth reading, @Challengers, especially for the drama associated with the 12-hour cutoff time. He started at 4:01 AM and knocked three courses off early, but then had to head home to parent for much of the rest of the day. By the time he got back out on the trails, the sand was rapidly running out of the Tough Trail hourglass, and he ended up finishing the Hammond Hill Hoctathon with just 4 minutes 20 seconds to spare. Who says ultras aren’t exciting?
That’s amazing, Pete! Such drama! I also found Hammond’s gate-to-gate segment from Hammond Hill Road down B1 and the snowmobile trail to Canaan Road to be some of the most delightful, flowy trail miles around. Way to go!
@Challengers It warms the cockles of my heart (whatever they are) to see the Tough Trail Challenge drawing so much attention, to the point where Dennis Stadelman decided to run it again! He was a bit faster this time, dropping 18:30 off his running time and over an hour off his elapsed time.
@Challengers After Scott Dawson completed his Tough Tarmac Challenge keeping Xander Dawson company, Amy Dawson and Elizabeth Dawson took over after that, completing their Tough Trail Challenges. I suspect they were out on the trails during the torrential downpours we had this afternoon—I look forward to hearing reports.
Check it out, @Challengers! Not one, but two independent Tough Trail Challenge completions yesterday. Congrats to Damian Clemons and Brittany Cronk, who took advantage of the gloriously cool and damp weather to hit all five of our trail courses in one day. Damian also set a new speed record for the Tough Trail Challenge, completing the courses in ju 4:41:52, just over 10 minutes faster than Pete Kresock’s time (though Scott Dawson retains the shortest total elapsed time).
Damian and Brittany ran their courses in completely different orders, though it looks like they were on FH Fox and Hammond Hill Hoctathon at the same time.
BTW, I had been a little vague about the prizes for Tough Trail and Tough Tarmac Challenge completions initially, but after much pondering and research and back-and-forth with USA Racing, I’ve placed an order for aluminum signs that are like the course signs awarded to the 100K Ultra Challenge finishers but, appropriately, half as large.
The times for the Tough Trail Challenge just keep getting faster, @Challengers. Congratulations to Ryan Allen-Parrot, who dropped the running time record that Damian Clemons set two days ago by another 21 minutes to 4:20:33 and reduced the fastest elapsed time to a mere 6:45:15.
Given that these were the first five courses that Ryan ran for the year, I’ll be watching to see if he does a Tough Tarmac Challenge for the remaining five.
I’m gonna have to do it again to try to retake my former lead…nice work, 
