Lick Brook & Treman FLT Star Posts

adamengst · April 15, 2022, 8:23pm

Use this topic for posts to collect “Community Stars” for the Lick Brook & Treman FLT course.

Here’s how it works.

Click the “Post Using This Template” button below to create a new post with Story and Shop Local headings and boilerplate text.
Replace the boilerplate text with your report for one or both sections. If you’re collecting only one star, delete the other heading and text. The headers are key—don’t change them.
You can collect a maximum of 1 point per course per day for each of the two sections.
Your post must be on the same calendar day as your run as entered in Webscorer.

Story

To pick up a community star, replace this text with something like a write-up of how your run went, a photo you took on the run, or a link to your Strava track. If you only want to share how you supported a local business, delete this Story header and text.

Shop Local

For another community star, if you got breakfast or a snack, or supported some other local business associated with your run, replace this text with the details about what and where! If you only want to share your story, delete this Shop Local header and text.

adamengst · April 16, 2022, 5:02pm

Huge kudos and FIRST MUD to @rebeccamlambert, who ran our hardest course on the first day in the rain. Let us know how it went and what the course looks like, Rebecca, since I’ve only seen the spots where the signs are. If you click through to the forum and click the Post Using This Template button above, you can get a Story star for your report.

And as you’ll see, because I’m just posting a normal reply in this topic, I won’t get a star for it (nor should I, since I didn’t run this course). In other words, it’s fine to reply to other people’s stories—it won’t confuse anything.

rebeccamlambert · April 16, 2022, 7:06pm

Story

Thanks, @adamengst ! The course was a little damp but otherwise in good condition this morning. There was a small swamp beyond Woodard Road on the Treman side, and it was pretty sloppy up at the top of Lick Brook (between Town Line and King), but nothing too dramatic. I did have to double-check the map at the Town Line intersection (~mile 10.5) because when the trail crosses the road, the blazes change from white to orange and the trail gets a new name (Tom’s Spur?); I just followed the orange blazes and eventually made it to that glorious FLRC turnaround marker, so it all worked out. Otherwise, everything was well-marked and in fine shape!

heathercobb3 · April 18, 2022, 12:22am

Story

The weather today was absurd, alternating between windy, sunny, snowing, and sunny and snowing. It’s a challenging course with a lot of mud, but the downhills on either side back to the parking lot are glorious! Kicked up a turkey, a deer, and a turkey vulture; heard and saw a ton of birds; trails were pretty quiet in both directions. Even though it was 50°, I was still roasting in a long sleeve shirt and tights. Contemplated jumping in Lick Brook but was late to Easter dinner.

Strava link for pictures.

D_G_Rossiter · April 18, 2022, 12:31am

Description on the web page is slightly incorrect. It says: "Continue on the Finger Lakes Trail across Town Line Road, all the way out to King Road.”

But, the main FLT (white-blazed) at the top of Lick Brook follows Town Line Rd. south towards the Barber farm field. The course seems to follow the orange-blazed FLT spur trail out to King Rd. So the text should be “Continue on the Finger Lakes Trail orange-blazed Buttermilk Spur teil across Town Line Road, all the way out to King Road.”

melissawallace · April 30, 2022, 6:04pm

Story

I ran the course this morning, it was beautiful out and my legs felt dead from the start. Not a great sign! I hadn’t run the FLT past Treman before and checked the directions several times. I will admit I was a little nervous running alone on unfamiliar trails – I have a friend who is scared of running alone because of bears, but I am scared of running trails alone because of evil humans. It turned out fine and the trails were beautiful. My legs continued to feel dead even on the descent back toward the car. I contemplated getting in my car and not finishing the Lick Brook part, but didn’t want to have this effort be for nothing (and have to do this again). The climb up Lick Brook hurt. I called my husband to tell him I quit my spring goal race. I passed an older couple and said, “ARE WE HAVING FUN YET?” They must have thought I was insane. When I got across Townline Road I thought I had the directions wrong and wasn’t supposed to be on orange blazes (which looked red, I kept thinking about those red-orange Crayola colors). I backtracked to Townline and then gleefully added more mileage when I realized I was right all along. I also got a bit off track next to a farmer on his tractor. WTF. This run was an adventure, mentally and physically. The turnaround back to the car and down Lick Brook was the best 15 minutes of my life, I felt like a slow gazelle.

scottpdawson · April 30, 2022, 9:37pm

Story

Okay, so this was insane. @amy-dawson and @teressa.naylor and I had a blast, but only because it was a shared traumatic experience. 13.1 miles on trail is NOT like 13.1 miles on road. And, my GPS way over-measured the course, clocking in at 14.46 miles. What’s up with that? The map on the FLRC website was really helpful, and having run Finger Lakes 50s before was also really helpful. Like @melissawallace I felt like stopping at the car and just calling it a day, but Lick Brook beckoned. They’ve done a fab job with the stair work there in the past few years, and yes, the descent was delightful. I’ve never been so happy to get back to my vehicle after a run.

Shop Local

We deserved a beer and a pretzel. That’s what the manual says. Liquid State was happy to oblige, and we had a wonderful time talking, laughing, and replenishing those lost fluids!

amy-dawson · April 30, 2022, 10:17pm

Story

Scott and I convinced @teressa.naylor to do this with us on this gorgeous spring day!! It was an ADVENTURE and, while crazy hard, it was also SO much fun! I fell shortly after the turnaround near the Treman Center - it was a super graceful roll in the leaves but I did gouge my hand a bit. Of course, that was when we realized we should be minding our proper trail run preparation and have a whistle, first aid and more things. We did have water and food, but things can happen so if I ever do this again I’ll have a bit more with me.

Lickbrook was something I was dreading because I still remember the last time I did it, and I was giving myself a hard time for not packing poles for that leg. I was pleasantly surprised to see the stairs - WOW that was awesome! And, as we ran by the waterfall, I decided this was the perfect location for a date or double date picnic.

Shop Local

Early in the run I was explaining the community points to Teressa and suggested Liquid State after. Who doesn’t love points, right? Then after the run Scott said, “do you want to do something?” All of us were game for a beer and a pretzel. It almost felt like one of our Oregon hiking days as we hobbled in looking pretty broken. Such a great shared experience. @scottpdawson posted all the pictures so I’ll leave those off

Petorius · May 1, 2022, 9:48pm

Well done to the three of you! This one is way tougher than the toughest course last year, and even for a trail HM is one of the tougher routes an RD could come up with. But you already knew that after running CT50!

I think it is longer than 13.1. I measured 14.0 last week, and it just feels longer too. My watch probably isn’t accurate but it seems like everyone is consistently getting close to 14.

If you run it again, I’d recommend doing the Lick Brook side first. You’ll tackle the biggest hill on fresh legs and not have the mentally daunting task of coming to the car with another 4-5 miles and a long hill remaining.

steve-desmond · May 4, 2022, 1:37am

I went through all my past FLT runs in that area, and the overlapping sections are averaging around 5% longer than the “On The Go” map is measuring them as – my guess is their underlying trail track is a little too smoothed, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s actually closer to 14 on foot.

scottpdawson · May 4, 2022, 9:10am

Whew! That makes me feel better.

adamengst · May 4, 2022, 2:57pm

Once we have a couple of Strava tracks from people who are pretty certain they followed the course completely correctly, we can update the distance in the leaderboard to make sure everyone gets full credit for their miles.

melissawallace · May 5, 2022, 2:37pm

I agree about doing Lick Brook first – I am going to do that next time. There will be a next time!

patrickmilano · May 8, 2022, 11:57pm

Story

The FLRC Challenge is aptly named. This course is tough! I ran it last week, but missed a couple of turns and did some backtracking, so I came back again to try for faster time. Last week I opted for trail shoes, and hiked most of the steep parts. This week I wore XC spikes and tried to run the whole thing. Spikes are obviously not ideal over the rocky parts of the trail, but they were very nice on dirt, especially on the tight turns going downhill. I shaved 5 minutes off last week’s time, so mission accomplished. Strava.

Shop Local

I swung by South Hill Cider on the way home to pick up some sparkling cider.

jennifer.woltjen · May 9, 2022, 9:10pm

Any Strava posts from this Challenge course available to look at? My husband and I are planning to run/hike it in a few weeks. Thanks!

heathercobb3 · May 9, 2022, 9:59pm

@jennifer.woltjen the post above your has a link to his Strava activity.

jennifer.woltjen · May 9, 2022, 10:30pm

Thanks! Just saved your Strava route.

Jamie · May 12, 2022, 7:13pm

Story

Hi all,
This was the HARDEST run I have done in years. We did Lick Brook first and I ran that well but then lost all my energy going up Treman. I was hoping to finish in under 3 hours and did 3:10 but there was lots of walking in there - and not only on the uphills.

Personally, I plan to do Treman first the next time; I think it will vastly improve my time. I think having fresh legs will help with the long uphills and winding woods and then the downhills. Then I am sure I will walk up Lick Brook but that is only one mile of walking versus several miles of walking up hills after getting so tired on Lick Brook.

A few notes
It was very dry today and not muddy - Yay!

It was very hot today. We had hoped to start running early but after several false starts we didn’t get going until 9am. I would strongly recommend starting earlier.

The trail is extremely well marked on the Treman side.

On the Lick Brook side, you have to cross a creek at about 200 yards from the parking lot. I suspect the actually FLT goes across the creek but I also suspect that everybody goes across the railroad trestle (although this really confused us because it says No Trespassing!) However, you need to be safe because we had a train cross the trestle just in front of us! Check out the picture.

The trail is generally well marked on the Lick Brook side. As DG Rossiter said, when you get to Town Line Road you go straight across the street and start on the Orange blazed trail (but I agree with Melissa Wallace that they look Red to me).

While on the Orange blazed trail, after a small uphill, you will get to a fork in the trail where you have a meadow on your left and clearly marked Blue blazed trail goes to the right. The trail also goes straight but there is no Orange blaze to be seen. However, you still need to go straight and you will see another Orange blaze in about 100 yards.

Another point - when you are at the turnaround of the Lick Brook section you will be running about 100 yards in a mowed section next to a house on your left as you run towards King Road. There are about 20 post hole sized holes in the grass! Be careful where you put your feet; I almost tripped several times. You might want to run five yards closer to the house to avoid them.

Finally, I want to suggest that there might need to be warnings about this run. As Scott said, 13.1 miles on a very hilly trail is NOT like 13.1 miles on the road. I consider myself reasonably fit and I was exhausted at the end of this run. I suspect endurance trail runners find this a reasonable run but for the average FLRC challenge runner, this is likely a stretch. After all, it is around 3 hours of running.

Caitlin suggested that maybe people should be allowed to break it into two separate days so they can finish all 10 courses in the Challenge without risking their health on this run. Just a thought. Jamie

caitlin-loehr · May 12, 2022, 7:44pm

Story

Oh my goodness, this is quite a run! I am ready for a nap. Jamie and I were hoping to get an early start as we knew it was going to be the hottest day of the year, so far. Unfortunately we had several delays/false starts. First we decided we really should wait to see our daughter out the door for her 3rd and almost final (last one is tomorrow) AP exam of the year (and of her career!). Then we got three quarters of the way there when Jamie realized he had forgotten his phone…so back home we go. Then we scanned the start code and headed off in the Lick Brook direction only to get immediately confused. We really missed the RunGo directions. We had no idea how we were supposed to cross the creek and were loath to get our feet completely soaked right from the get-go. Finally, we realized the only rational option was to look both ways and do as the trains do (despite the ominous looking sign telling us not to). We headed across and scouted the trail a bit before returning to the start for a redo. Finally we were off.

Without RunGo supporting me I was super glad to have Jamie with me as he is really good with directions. The trail changes color several times but we made it to the top and back without incident. I was glad we did Lick Brook first as I can’t imagine running down that hill on super tired legs. The falls was beautiful. As we were heading out from the falls we heard the ominous sound of a train whistle in the distance. Sure enough at 9:51 am a long train came zipping along the tracks. We had to wait a few moments for it to cross but at least I felt pretty safe when we did hop across the trestle AFTER the train.

We made a quick stop at the car to load up on water, we didn’t carry any for the Lick Brook leg but I’m sure glad I had some for the Treman side. It was hot, sunny and dry. At least most of the muddy areas were pretty well dried up. At this point I had more stamina than Jamie and he told me all I had to do was follow the white blazes all the way to the end and back. I was a little timid to go off on my own but thought I should put in the effort for a good time so that I wouldn’t necessarily have to come do this one again. You never know what the future will hold and I know our summer is already pretty busy. There definitely were a few tricky turns but I kept my head up and my eyes searching for white blazes, when they weren’t trying to guide me over the roots and rock. I did take one tumble, jarring but not serious.

I was so happy when I saw the beautiful yellow and blue challenge sign at the top of Treman…it’s a long climb. I felt like my Fairly Godmother had just tapped my shoulder and told me it was okay to turn around now. The return trip went much faster, though still some significant up hills, and down hills.

For the record, my watch clocked the run at 13.2 miles, my phone gave it 13.9.

Shop Local

On the way home we stopped at Eddydale Farm and I picked up some parsley for my garden.