Ludlowville Loop Star Posts

Yeah, I concur with Heather. There’s no predicting loose dogs, though they’re more prevalent in rural areas. I too just shout at them as loud as I can, which usually scares them off. (And keep in mind, I’ve probably had only four or five run-ins in the last 22 years of running in Ithaca; it’s not common.)

The one time I had a real problem was riding the ElliptiGO out near Locke about 10 years ago. I was going up a hill, so moving fairly slowly, and a pair of dogs came out at me. I can’t remember if it was an actual junkyard or just a farm with a lot of equipment lying around, but because I couldn’t go fast enough up the hill, I couldn’t get away. So I hopped off and shouted at them. Had there been only one dog, that might have worked, but in this case, the alpha dog couldn’t back down without losing face in front of the beta dog, so it took me a while to walk away holding the ElliptiGO between me and the dogs. I didn’t have a pump or anything to protect myself with, though I think I tried throwing gravel with some efficacy. No rocks around; nor were there any people. Generally speaking, I think people would come running if someone is shouting and control the dog.

In short, the anecdotes can seem a little scary, but the actual likelihood of there being a problem is very, very low and could happen anywhere. So it’s worth thinking about how you’d react if a dog was threatening, but I don’t think it’s worth changing your behavior in a major way.

I certainly didn’t intend what I wrote to make anyone apprehensive about running this course. More so that if someone were to run into the same dogs that they would feel better knowing that they did not bite. Had I known this myself on this encounter, I would have just kept on running and ignored them instead of stopping and bracing for what I thought was going to be an attack. I and my wife have both been bitten within the past two years (her much worse than me) and I’m a little more wary now than I used to be when I see them coming, even though we ourselves are dog parents and animal lovers in general. I don’t believe these two are a real threat. I can’t guarantee that obviously, but it wouldn’t discourage me from bringing my kids on this run. Maybe Adam would allow heading east on Storm Road and cutting down 34 to get to Gulf? It adds about a mile to the trip but allows you to bypass the house in question.

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(deleting my reply and moving on)

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by the time I finished running this 11 miles I was hungry! I like this route but it wore me out. Didn’t run into any loose dogs, by the way

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After tackling a couple of trail runs this past week, it made sense to mix in some road miles today. Before leaving, I reviewed the course with my husband who thought I should run it as designed to get the Brooks Hill out of the way (it looked like that was the one major climb). Thankfully, I saw (I think) Rebecca Lambert finishing the course just as I arrived. She recommended running it reverse due to the sun as the course was quite warm. I also liked the idea of making left hand turns as opposed to crossing intersections.

I’m glad I took her advice … only wished I would have done a better job looking at the written course directions. After trying to make turns where I was supposed to, I finally figured out to memorize the name of the roads of the next 2 turns. It’s even more fun when your eyes have reached the point that you need progressive lenses but wore your contacts (I tried monovision pairs, but they weren’t for me). I had to hold my phone a mile away just to read the directions.

It was such a beautiful course!! I didn’t prefer the roads closer to the start/finish due to more traffic, narrow shoulder, and curves. Thankfully, drivers appeared to follow the speed limit and were very courteous.

When I reached Brooks Hill, I was so happy not to have had to run up it. I also enjoyed the shade on Salmon Creek Rd. I was quite tired once I hit mile 8. I loved the red bridge, and at that point I remembered @heathercobb3 post of soaking her feet in the water. It sounded so good!!

I was glad to reach the finish and headed over to check out the falls.

They were absolutely gorgeous. Once I saw how far down I would have to go to reach the creek, I decided to enjoy the falls from above. I’m sure I could have make it down, but I had zero desire to climb back up.

These early standings make me feel accomplished. Not many people have completed these longer course, so my times are high (for me) in the standings. I’ll enjoy that while I can!

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I completed the Challenge today by running Ludlowville with an eye on the 1:14:50 at the top of the leaderboard. I would need to average 6:48 pace or better to move into first place. I banked a little bit of time on the slightly uphill Salmon Creek Road in preparation for the aptly-named Brooks Hill Road. The climb was tough and put me behind goal pace at mile 4, but the hardest part was over. I enjoyed the subsequent downhills and had an uneventful run until mile 8.

I knew that course was mostly right turns. When I arrived at Searles Road Exn couldn’t remember if it was a dead end or part of the course. There was no dead end sign so I figured I should run down a bit and make sure. It was indeed a dead end, so I turned around and got back on course. I lost about two minutes. My run had been comfortably ahead of goal pace at that point but now I was cutting it close.

Thankfully, the massive downhill on Brickyard Road helped me get back on pace. The final uphill was mercifully short and I finished in 1:14:06 (Strava).

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This was the first time I’ve run more than 10 miles since finishing the Challenge last year! I was feeling a little intimidated by the distance, so I went in with the plan to take about two hours and keep the effort easy, especially on the hills. I ended up walking a few minutes on the climbs, and my legs are definitely a little trashed now, but overall I felt good for the whole course. Thank you to the Challenge for the motivation to go long :muscle:

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Here’s a happy me for having completed the run! I was so grateful to the Ringo directions when they said “it’s all downhill from here”. A bit hazy today, so no real beautiful long view on the ridge. Still, it’s a nice course.

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So happy I decided to run this course this morning. It was beautiful and I loved the overcast hazy and occasional sprinkle. :smiling_face::running_woman:
Rungo worked great, though I do feel a bit deceived “all down hill from here” huh? :thinking: Not my interpretation :sweat_smile: but I still loved this run. A good solid road run, that I very much enjoyed :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:



And the falls were flowing good :blush:

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Super nice running this course with these lovely women @amandaking and @MWoods this morning. The miles flew by. We started out early and it was sticky and hazy so we didn’t get much of a view from the top, but the fog had cleared by the time we returned and the falls were stunning. This is such a lovely road run for a Sunday morning with very very little traffic.

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Running this course in the excellent company of @medardia and @Stephanie_Mulinos made the miles go by much faster. We saw a peacock at the yoga farm! We got an early start but it was still muggy and sticky, at least with cloud cover, and luckily the air quality has improved. We ran the course backwards to get the hills out of the way, and passed several runners, at least one person was wearing an FLRC shirt so we guessed they were also completing the course. We cooled our feet and snapped photos at the waterfall to end the morning.


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Happy Fourth of July! :sparkler::fireworks:
Matt and I decided today would be a good day for an early morning very long walk :blush: :wink:
Started at 8am. Very little traffic and a lovely fog to start off the walk.


There was a beautiful breeze the whole time. And the sun burned off the fog for the lovely mountain top view :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:
The early morning rains has the falls roaring

Such a lovely end to the nice scenic walk :blush:

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Backroads all the way
Salmon Creek gurgles right along
Follow it upstream

(I’ll do a full 100k write up soon. For now it’s the haikus I thought of while running the courses.)

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What a beautiful morning (Saturday the 15th) and very scenic course. It certainly was a challenge! Brooks Hill was hard even walking. The last half being downhill helped my out of shape self finish feeling pretty good, but tired enough not to venture down below the very enticing falls.

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A hot and humid run today but what a gorgeous route !! I walked the steep hills but Rob took them in (literal) stride. Finished up with a dip in the falls, then home for plenty of ice water and a nap.

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Fun times at the FLRC group run! They rain held out and the sun was mostly hidden making for pleasant running weather. I started with a big group and ran much of it with @JesseKoennecke and @stephen-jesch . They dropped me on the Gulf Road climb, but I ran hard-ish the last 3 miles to try to up my points for the course. Special kudos to Adam and @heathercobb3 for the water stop and watermelon and especially Heather for escorting my 10-pound, sweat soaked singlet back to the finish.

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I just returned from a (very hot and humid) week on Cape Cod last night and was so excited to find Ithaca much milder! This morning it was in the 60s and barely humid— what a gift at the end of July! I have three of the longest courses left (Blueberry Patch, Ludlowville, and Dryden Lake), with only 3 weekends to complete them, so I knew I had to tackle one today (before I head to NYC for a work trip tomorrow). Given yesterday’s rain, I decided to put off Blueberry Patch. I was feeling too beat from running in the heat all week to take the half, so Ludlowville it was!

I LOVE a scenic road course, so I was looking forward to exploring new-to-me roads. The blue skies and puffy white clouds were so inviting, I think I passed three other challengers on the course!

I decided to run it in reverse (counter clockwise) to get the hills out of the way and have a more gradual descent at the end. I’m not sure if that was the best strategy, but it meant I was able to run negative splits, which always feels better than dragging at the end!

Running past the goat farm along the ridge, I saw the cutest batch of baby goats clustered under a tree. (Hard to tell in the photo— they are in the background).

The farm dog suddenly ran out the driveway barking at me and into the road, where I was thankfully prepared after reading everyone else’s posts, to shout “no, go home!” It worked! Probably helped that it looked more like a muppet than a menace, but it sure was grumpy!

Just as I turned down off the ridge I saw @ks_eggs coming the other direction. I wasn’t sure if he was running the course because he didn’t have any water or snacks I could see, and I’m such a baby I need ALL the fuel for this distance, it was hard to imagine setting out empty-handed!

The beautiful scenery continued (only dampened by the smell of the manure from the dairy farm), and I captured a few bucolic moments.

After the very steep descent on Brown Hill Rd, I was grateful for taking the course in reverse! Just a few slight downhill miles to go on Salmon Creek Road, and I finished strong at the falls, where I had snacks waiting for me :slight_smile:

Keith and I connected at the finish and I shared some pretzels because I just couldn’t bear the thought of his empty stomach! Then I climbed down to get a better look at the falls and the cave behind them. (Thanks @heathercobb3 for the tip about how to find the path!)

For those contemplating which direction to take the course, here’s an elevation snapshot from counterclockwise. You can see how brutal it was at the start, but I think my knees and IT band appreciate that I didn’t run DOWN it.

And finally, although I didn’t run the Blueberry Patch course today, I did head out to a real live blueberry patch with my kids in the afternoon! Can’t recommend the kind farmers, delicious organic berries, or sweet rescue farm animals more highly! Hillberry Blueberries is the BEST.

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Nice story, Iris! I think I passed you around the turn from Buck to Brickyard (or VV for you). I had even less with me than Keith, bearing only my Happy-Face running shorts, socks, shoes and watch. I intersected with Keith as I finished the course and we chatted a bit before he ventured off. It was a beautiful morning for a run, indeed!

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Yes! I had the same thought when I saw you: he couldn’t possibly be running 11 miles with only shorts! Glad it went well