Thanks for bringing us out to these great trails! A lovely morning with Diana, who has now guided me on two Challenge courses. I came prepared with the map and RunGo, but she had the .gpx on her watch which was very easy to follow. (We didn’t get lost, at least!)
Ran/hiked this course this morning with fellow challenger Marie. I don’t know what was up with my phone (operator error?) because we ended up doing several loops more than once, but we did manage to complete all the loops. It’s a well maintained and beautiful trail through woods and fields with gorgeous views of the surrounding ridges.
My oh my! It really is hot today!
Eyes cloudy and dilated from a eye appointment, Barb had to see for both of us! Tech was very finicky today so we managed to get 6.27 miles out of the 4.3 course. Lots of hiking bc high temps and our course errors. We’ll have to do this one again! But happy we ran with optimism despite the facts:) Gorgeous course!
This was part of my trail challenge day, so here are the links to all of my posts from the day: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Ah, I saved the best for last. Really happy with the shorter distance, and the fact I’d been to the group run for this. I forgot my colored cheat sheet, though, and was happy I have a pretty good memory for spatial things. You know what, though? I expended more energy swatting the mosquitos and other flying creatures away than I did running. So. Many. Bugs. When I did run, it was mostly to get away from the bugs. I told Amy before the run that I thought I’d do this one in an hour, so that motivated me to pick it up on the latter miles to get it in just under the wire. Whew! I was happy to hit Franco’s on the way home for a slice and knots, and then Garrett’s for an incredibly delicious beer.
I decided to visit Lindsay-Parson this morning. After reading posts about direction issues and bugs, I tried my best to prepare. I printed out the color coded map and directions and queued up RunGo Rachel. After Maps taking me past the parking lot, I hoped Rachel would be more on the ball!
After last year’s Lime Hollow escapade where I ended up smashing 1000s of deer flies in my hair, I doused myself in bug spray and put on a hat.
I’ll spare you all my stream of consciousness as it was so convoluted even I couldn’t keep up. Rachel gave me good directions … I was only confused by what I think said ‘stay straight on blue’ at the Overlook where it seemed more like a right to me. And the only other issue was me missing a turn onto a he purple trail. I did check my progress on the RunGo map several times because I don’t trust myself on trails.
I started the run/hike around 7:45 am. It was cool but humid. I did not have any issues with bugs.
Am I a trail baby for appreciating the mowed paths?!?
It was a nice cool morning for this course but still the sunshine was intense in the fields. On the other hand the deep shade in the woods was blissful. I did douse myself with bug spray before heading out which I do think helped with the deer flies. I was trying to run this one significantly faster than my first attempt during the group run where we took several wrong turns, but running it right after @arobertson 's strength and conditioning class maybe wasn’t the best idea. I was pretty tired.
I favorited the course in RunGo before leaving Ithaca because I knew from my last run here that I don’t have cell service at the start. Luckily this worked and RunGo worked like a charm. I was a bit anxious that it might get confused at the various cross-over points so did keep pulling out my phone to check my progress. RunGo seemed to know which direction I was going and was spot on the entire time!
I attempted to go down to the beaver pond for my cool down but must of taken a wrong turn and I didn’t have the energy/time to make a second attempt. But here is a photo from above.
I’d made very tentative plans to have a go at the Tough Trail Challenge today. My body felt pretty awful running a Lakefront Loop yesterday afternoon, so I wasn’t sure I’d even feel like running at all today despite having the day off for July 4th. I packed my gear and clothes the night before anyhow, just to be ready.
Turns out I woke up wired at 3 a.m. chomping at the bit to get running. I made it down to Lindsay Parsons to scan the sign at 4:01. The dry trails made the headlamp run alot easier this time compared to my run here for the Ultra Challenge 100k at the same time of day.
I’ve run the route enough to navigate it without RunGo but didn’t trust myself to spot all those sneaky turns in the dark. Everything was smooth sailing and I finished the 4.5 miles in a reasonable time given the lack of sunlight. I don’t recall spotting any wildlife in the glow on this normally critter dense course. The bullfrogs though were out in full force for an all night party in the pond.
I love that you named your RunGo, Rachel. And if the trails are just grass and not worn enough from use to create and actual trail you definitely want them to be mowed. Nothing baby about that.
Awhile back I asked about a name for RunGo, and @Petorius said he calls her Rachel! I didn’t want her to have an identity crisis, so I stuck with Rachel! 
Not just Rachel, but RunGo Rachel. It doesn’t sound as good without the alliteration 
And those wide, mowed path aren’t that easy to run under the blazing sun, especially when it’s uphill near the end.
I call all GPS units Linda after this infamous video from 10 years ago. When the lady yells at me to “turn left” I find myself saying “listen Linda!” followed by a string of expletives. @raenb0 calls her’s Pam, and @dianahackett Barbara (I believe).
I can’t wait until AI technology lets us pick what celebrity, real or fictional, we want for the RunGo voice. Right now I’m imaging it as James Earl Jones or Tony Soprano.
Before smartphones, my husband had a Garmin GPS unit for his truck. He called her Carmen.
Challenge within a Challenge
This course and FH Fox are my two favorite new-to-me trail courses in this year’s Challenge. For now, I give the edge to FH Fox, but that is probably because I have still only run this course in the middle of the day. Early morning or late evening would probably be better for catching sight of some critters.
Despite this only being my 3rd run of the course, I decided to make the Challenge more interesting by running it totally backwards without a map or RunGo or any printed directions. The highlight of this was descending the hill toward the northern pond and seeing a ‘pterodactyl’ take off and fly over the water. The great blue heron perched on a snag far from me. When I got to that side of the pond, it took off and flew to the other end of the lake. No good photos from that but it was fantastic to see!
To celebrate my survival of the reverse Lindsay Parson, I stopped at Dennis’s Homemade Ice Cream (great name!), conveniently located on the way to Treman Trailipop, for some delicious mango ice cream. So good, I almost called it a day here!
My dear frenemy Barbara and her constant lies about being at the top of the climb…
My sister in law @lynsayayer and I chose a very hot and humid day for this course, made all the more challenging by the aggressive deer and horse flies every time we stopped to confirm directions (there were many stops to check multiple maps). At some point I realized I was bleeding from multiple bites as I ran.
We used the color-coded map as well as RunGo to triangulate, and only did one small stretch in reverse. But we covered the ground, and got some free trail snacks, too!
A gorgeous course I hope to have time to run again this summer! The meadows were awe-inspiring.
I think it was 85 degrees and very humid when we finished. I ended up using an entire 1.5 liters of water (with 2 liquid IV packets dissolved in it) while we were running.
This was only my second time here. The first was with Simon, my 8-year old navigation expert who knows the trails super well from hiking them multiple times with Ian. Knowing he wouldn’t be there to help guide me, and wanting to do a faster effort, I studied the map and the RunGo directions beforehand very carefully, basically memorizing them.
I was running along so well with RunGo in hand, doing all the loops without any confusion, and was just about finished, already heading back on the easy grassy red trail. I was feeling proud of my fabulous navigation skills when I suddenly got mixed up and thought I had somehow missed a “turn left on red”… so I turned around and ran all the way back to the yellow/red intersection before realizing that I really had been going the correct way the whole time! A very silly error that cost me 2 or 3 minutes. This is the third time I’ve made a silly mistake right at the end of running hard on a tricky course (I’ve done it on Hammond Hill in a past year, FH Fox this year, and now this one). Oh well. Part of the challenge! I’m going to try to re-do this once more, hopefully without messing up. Still really enjoyed this course!
Here you can kind of see the thicker line showing my back-and-forth confused state.
My Challenge ends here. I drove over from FH Fox to do my second run of the day and try to put myself in the top 3 for points. The grassy trails also gave me a chance to try out my brand new cross country spikes (Brooks Draft XC (verdict: I like them)).
I improved my score from 63 (from my previous run where I missed a turn and went long) to 93. Good enough for 3rd in the overall standings unless someone overtakes me in next 9 hours.
At no point was I ever tempted to run the other 3 trail courses. A double is plenty for me.
