82 runners participated in the third annual running of the “Two Hollows” version of FLRC’s Monster Marathon and Half Marathon in the Kennedy State Forest in Harford, NY, with 12 runners completing the marathon and 63 runners finishing the half marathon—2 more than last year, which keeps our participant trend positive!
Conditions were excellent for running, with a cool, breezy, and cloudy start moderating to warm mixed sunshine by noontime, and only a few drops of rain during the race. In the half marathon, ultramarathoner Inger Aaberg was able to best Chris Petroff by just under one minute (1:50:11 versus 1:51:09) for the win. However, neither of these times was faster than last year’s win by Donna Langerfeld (1:49:40) or the course record set by Nancy Kleinrock in 2023 (1:39:35). Meanwhile, third and fifth places in the half were taken by California-based running couple Tyler Rose and Allison Cronk, back home in central NY for a visit with family.
In the marathon, local runners dominated the top places, with Ryan Allen-Parrot defending his win from last year in 4:28:01 and coming within three minutes of his 2024 course record (4:25:23). Lori Johnson was second in 4:41:06, over nine minutes faster than last year and with an excellent rally after some ankle trouble early in the race. Kevin Dames of Cortland was third, just three minutes behind Lori (4:44:06). Some notable college-age performances came from Joey Roberts in the marathon at 5:33:14 and Mia Bressler at 2:23:49 in the half. Kudos to our final two finishers in the marathon (Jenifer Hochuli and Ben Leonard), who pushed on after just making the 2:30pm cutoff time and finished their trail marathons.
And if runners at FLRC’s Forest Frolic race this year took the crown for “Most Lostiest”, the 2025 Monster may stand out in history as the “Most Sprainiest,” with quite a few runners rolling ankles and injuring lower legs and toes (even some wasp stings in the mix), perhaps due to the somewhat technical trail conditions that were quite dry and thus set up for speed.
Regardless, huge thanks go out to all our volunteers, starting with our Communications Team lead Diana Hackett, and also the marking crew of Lucia Chen (who also turned in a great half performance) and Bob Talda, along with the RDs. Special thanks to the international trails system creator, Alex Gonzales, who maintains these trails in the Kennedy Forest so nicely. Day of race, we were thankful for our highly effective crews on registration (Steve Nathans-Kelly, Diana Hackett), aid stations (Pam Cronk, Bob Swizdor), food delivery and food serving (Michelle Dardia, Jon Marks), and timing (Adam Engst, Heather Cobb, and Diana Hackett AGAIN!). The Village Taqueria and the Dryden Market in Dryden provided some really tasty post-race lunch food from close by. Gerrit Van Loon swept the course, and there was a lot of sweeping, since he had to deal with our enthusiastic course marking and trail decorating. Margaret Frank (fourth in the marathon!) also cleaned up after our party by running the trails several days after the race to find dropped flags and any runner litter, keeping the trails in pristine shape. Bob Swizdor doubled as our wilderness extraction driver, bringing multiple sprained ankles back to home base. Jamie Love was on deck to capture photos of runners in some incredibly lush corners of the State Forest (available soon on our photos page), although she was unable to find our elusive monster, played enthusiastically this year by Dylan Raisch—thanks for your dedication to the role, Dylan! Runners reported being greeted, cheered, and chased (and had a variety of opinions about these encounters), and in a Sasquatch-like move, the only photo we have of the monster is the grainy image below that may have been taken by a runner—we have no more evidence than this. Gone are the days (2024) when multiple teams of monsters frolicked in the reaches of the Irwin and English Trail lowlands and even posed for Jamie. We’ll see what next year brings for our monster!
The monster cometh, the runners runneth.