Use this topic for posts to collect community stars for the Ludlowville Loop course.
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This course is a neat, scenic loop along Lansing backroads I’m unfamiliar with. In fact I’d only ever been to the beautiful Ludlow Falls once, when I carried my infant son in a pack while touring Lansing’s waterfalls on a series of mini hikes.
RunGo App directions were useful here, albeit not totally necessary as there aren’t many turns. I moseyed on through the roads with a tailwind on the front half alongside Salmon creek and a headwind on the back half after turning onto Holden Road. With a mile to go, I took the RunGo voice’s suggestion to knock off a Sweet 1600 at the Lansing HS track along the way. (Ultrachallengers should definitely do their track mile here. The track is easily accessible and you drive right by its parking lot on the way to the Ludlowville Loop.) I walked the steeper hills and a bit on the flats as I concluded my first 50-mile week since running my last ultra in early October.
@Jamie and I had another adventure on the virtual running circuit. Like @Petorius , I had only ever been to Ludlowville Falls once before. This run is gorgeous with beautiful creeks and scenic vistas, definitely a few challenging hills, even at the very end…be prepared! Sadly no bathrooms in the park.
I asked Pat Tyrrell of Lansing about this, and he said that the closest public bathrooms are in Myers Park, which is about 2 miles away. Not ideal, I know, but possibly closer than home.
Good to know, Adam. Thanks for asking!
Tackling this at high noon wasn’t the smartest, but how else is one supposed to get heat acclimated? 
The road by Salmon Creek would be nice on a cooler, less sunny day, and once I got on the ridge (after the incredibly rude climb that is Brooks Hill), a strong headwind made running difficult. After I finished, I headed down into the falls to soak my feet. (To get down there, follow the fence to the right as you face the falls. It’s a little tricky having to climb over a boulder, and can be muddy/slippery, so use caution.) When the wind blew just right, the mist from the falls would lightly coat my warm skin. It’s like being at the base of Taughannock but better.
(Tons more pictures on my Strava.)
This felt so good on my feet.
I made a roadside friend!
General PSA: When running this course yesterday, just before the left turn onto Brown, I had a couple dogs chase me out into the street from a house on the left. One looked like a husky mix and the other looked more like a hamster than a dog. The larger dog ultimately proved not to be aggressive, but it was a hard dog to read until it actually got right next to me and I could tell it wasn’t going to bite. The smaller dog looked less friendly, but was a great deal less capable of acting on its own aggressions other than chewing your shoelaces off. Neither were as friendly as Heather’s cow, which I did not have the pleasure of encountering on the run.
(no option to delete my original reply, but it’s clear I am the only one with any concern about this, so I’m moving on from it)
I was chased by a dog at that location years ago, but there were no loose dogs when I ran by it the other weekend. Unfortunately loose dogs are always a threat anywhere we run, but they’re more prevalent on farms like this course goes by. I’ve found it best that when a dog chases me, I shout “no, go home” in a loud, authoritative voice (I lower the octave). Some people carry gel pepper spray, but there’s only been one time a dog has gotten close enough for it to be useful if I had it. In that case I kicked my foot out before they were in the strike zone and they ran away. Just offering my experience.
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.
(deleting my reply and moving on)
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!
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).
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 
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.
So happy I decided to run this course this morning. It was beautiful and I loved the overcast hazy and occasional sprinkle. 
Rungo worked great, though I do feel a bit deceived “all down hill from here” huh? 
Not my interpretation 
but I still loved this run. A good solid road run, that I very much enjoyed 
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.
