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Nice cool down miles on the Cornell track, powered by “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me.” If I ever got on I hope to ask the presenter about how his running is going.
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Nice cool down mile powered by a soccer podcast and ginger candy. Tip for US soccer fans: if you join the American Outlaws fan group you get first dibs on US Soccer team tickets.
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after our Beebe Lake run this morning, we went up to the Tburg track and ran a mile. Had the track to ourselves
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on our way through Ithaca, we got take-out from Chipolte’s, then after the track mile went over to our friends house on the lake to sit on her deck and have a great visit with friends while staring out at the water
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The Ithaca College track was a great place to run a couple of Sweet 1600s this evening! So soft and springy after yesterday’s Brookton Hill & Dale’s pavement. And the weather was awesome–about 70 and clear. Not having done any particular speed work recently, it was fun to just hold a reasonable pace and not push it too hard. Hoping to do Lick Brook/Treman in a couple of days, so need as much recovery time as possible. Spent the afternoon in my classroom at EAC Montessori and rode my bike the short distance to the track. Made it a little longer on the way back with some light, high-cadence spinning to keep the blood flowing through my quads. IC was pretty empty and it was super fun to rip around the perimeter road.
The lane you want to be in!
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Westhaven Farm CSA pick up day, so shop local meant more fresh produce–tomatoes, greens, summer squash, garlic, zucchini, and another round of fresh gazpacho like last Tuesday. Leftover sweet corn from Bigsby’s that I bought Saturday after doing the Jim Schug course rounded out the plate. What abundance we have this time of year!
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I haven’t done any speed work in a while, so headed to Cornell track after dropping my kids at camp next door and ran a couple 1600s (warm up and fast-er). Definitely need to get back on it! There were two women from the lacrosse team running 400s, but we didn’t get in each other’s way. It was in the upper 60s (hallelujah!) and such a relief after the heat advisories of the past two weeks! And loved wearing my challenge shirt!
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Made myself a knockoff CTB sandwich afterwards with TJ’s gluten free bagel, guac, salsa Fresca, melted cheese and scrambled eggs. Yum!
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After a rest day, I woke up this morning and decided to tackle my last FLRC Challenge course: the Sweet 1600.
After dropping the girls off at camp, I drove a short distance to the Binghamton University track. I’m still feeling sluggish from this past week’s training (115 miles over 8 days), so I wasn’t exactly sure how this was going to turn out. I walked around the track once to warm up, transitioning to a jog near the end, and when I crossed the start line, started my watch, and took off!
At first it all felt a little awkward, but about 25 meters in, my body relaxed and I found a rhythm. I glanced at my watch only a couple of times but fell into a zone and just focused on feel and maintaining that speed and accompanying level of intensity.
My watch read 1 mile after 7:54.8. I was elated. I’m back in the "7"s!
For months I have considered revisiting some of my old high school PRs because for awhile now I seem to have been within reach of several of them. Maybe it’s time for new PRs in the 1-mile, 2-mile, and 5K, only 30 years later! 
This Sweet 1600 was especially sweet for me, as it makes me want to explore these goals even more.
I completed this run with no vest, no water, no phone, nothing…and it felt good to run a few ounces lighter just this once. But that meant no photos! So here are a couple from the beginning of summer when my 10-year-old daughter Erin had asked me to start taking her running. We are now on the trails but started our training on the (flat) track. Unlike the photos, it was cloudy today, providing welcomed relief from the sun’s rays, along with the drastically cooler temperatures. But like the photos, I ran the mile in my Hoka Speedgoats! 
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After running the mile, I parked at the trail head on campus and went for a run on some of my favorite trails.
After the trail miles, I headed to the Vestal Farmer’s Market, which has hours on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and is set up at the Vestal Library. I was after more sweet corn, peaches, and watermelon (thinking of the Eddydale Farm Stand) but found some other delicious items. I bought way too many cucumbers from a kind Amish lady and her daughters who drove in from Newark Valley. No problem, we’ll make pickles. And I brought home sunflowers to brighten the kitchen table.
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I entered the final week of the challenge without a fast 1600, so I drove to Endicott to race the mile (my favorite distance) at a Triple Cities Runners Club meet. I arrived early to warm up: 8 laps clockwise in lane 4 (my 98th and 99th Sweet 1600s). I’ve always thought of mile races as 4-act stories where each act/lap has its own distinct place in the narrative, so I put my race report in that format.
Act 1/lap 1: The cast is introduced and the stakes are set. I quickly learned that I was racing only one other person. One of us would finish 2nd, the other 3rd. Everyone else was too far ahead or too far behind to matter. I sat on my opponent for the first 300 meters and then passed on the home straight when I felt the pace begin to lag.
Act 2/lap 2: Character growth. As a result of all the choices I had made in my life thus far, I found myself in the middle a mile race. I accepted these difficult circumstances and resolved to see it through to the end.
Act 3/lap 3: Penultimate acts are a great place for a crisis, and the mile always delivers. To put it mathematically, (distance remaining)x(discomfort) is maximized. Everything hurts, but there is still a long way to go. At this point in the race I was still in 2nd place, but there were footsteps behind me and they weren’t getting any farther away.
Act 4/lap 4: The climax. Everything that had happened so far was a buildup to this. With 300 meters to go, the runner behind me passed me. I tried to match the move but couldn’t stay close. I sprinted as hard as I could down the home straight and finished 3rd.
That concludes my 100th Sweet 1600 of the challenge (Strava).
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I stopped at Old Mexico for tacos on my way home.
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This morning I headed to the track at Cornell to log a couple of Sweet 1600s. The main gate was locked, but the side gate was wide open. I warmed up a lap, ran a faster 4 laps, slowed down for 3 more laps. Because a portion of the Beebe Lake Course was likely closed, I tacked on a few extra miles on the East Ithaca Rec Way. I was surprised how much the fast mile contributed to a decent minute mile pace for my entire run.
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I had to get my allergy shots this morning which put me close to Gimme Coffee. I decided to stop in to see if they had more coconut lime bread. It was my lucky day, so I purchased one for my friend and chocolate milk for myself.
I also treated myself to a hand tied cut bouquet from Sow Pretty Flower Co. outside of Trumansburg, NY.
Aren’t they SO PRETTY!!!
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Great write-up and congrats on 100 miles!
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First, I’m slow on the uptake this morning. It took me way too long to figure out that the reason I couldn’t delete the text under the header is that I was trying to delete from the original post. 
I’m not going to Ithaca today, so I decided to hit the track in Tburg for a couple of miles. This time I warmed up two laps, tried to run a fast mile (I covered the ground) then slowed it down for two laps to complete 2 x 1600s. To add a few more miles to my run, I ran a slightly modified course of the May Day 5K. I have such fond memories of running this race, and I’m sad it hasn’t happened in a few years.
Check out this photo from 8+ years ago of my son and husband completing the ‘fun run’ event at the May Day 5K.
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I’m afraid the calories I have consumed supporting local businesses have not been offset by my running. 
But I ordered a bacon, tomato, and egg (BTE) sandwich from the Creekside Cafe. OMG, it was SO good. As my kids would say, ‘10 of 10, highly recommend!’
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Last post from Italy 
before the Challenge ends… hello from Tuscany!
We spent a week at the seaside in Marina di Grosseto with a couple of friends.
We took advantage of our location to visit a few towns in Tuscany.
The first town we visited is Pitigliano, also known as “The little Jerusalem” for the presence of a Jewish community that has always been welcome and well-integrated here.
This is the local synagogue:
Today we also visited Montepulciano and Montalcino. Both are in a very rich wine-producing region (the “Vino Nobile di Montepulciano” and the “Brunello di Montalcino” are famous local wines 
).
Here are a couple of photos from Montepulciano:
And here are a couple from Montalcino:
I found out that in Grosseto there is a very nice track that belongs to a track-and-field school, the “Campo di Atletica Leggera Bruno Zauli.”
On our way to Montepulciano, I asked my friends if we could briefly stop there, so I could do one last Sweet 1600. The track is in the city center, right next to the Zecchini Municipal Stadium. The space was recently renovated (in 2016) and is very well organized: in addition to the track, there is a field of natural grass for all activities related to athletics (discus throw, shot put, hammer throw and javelin throw), two platforms for the high jump, two for the long jump, two for pole vault, and the track even has a covered section!
And yes @kuwanna-dyerpietras you are totally right, it’s not good to trespass, so I am not recommending it to anyone. Unfortunately, most of these tracks in Italy are closed in the summer. I always try to find phone numbers online and call before checking them out, but I never get an answer.
But I gotta end on yet again another funny note… the day I got caught for jumping the gate of the track in Rome was quite memorable because… my boyfriend proposed! Can you imagine if I had gotten arrested and he had to propose in a Roman prison?!
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Today we had an excellent lunch at the restaurant Il Teatro Cucina Toscana in Montepulciano… highly recommended!
Sorry to miss the FLRC picnic! 
Congratulations to all the prize winners and finishers for rocking the Challenge, and thanks again to @adamengst, @tonya-engst, @heathercobb3, @Dave_K, and all those who organized group runs and contributed to creating such a wonderful running community in Ithaca!!!
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Congratulations!!!
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Congratulations, @Benedetta_Carnaghi, and may you have all the happiness that you so richly deserve! And best that the proposal didn’t happen in a Roman prison because of the Challenge. 
Thanks so much for the gorgeous photos. I’m utterly jealous of a partially covered track—can you imagine the excitement when the runners would go under?
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Thank you so much!!
Thank you so much!! And yes—the partially covered track is really cool, considering that I’ve done my first mile on the Cornell one under a terrible thunderstorm 
With that kind of view, obviously you had to get in a run this morning!
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Cognizant of the looming end of the Challenge, I decided I’d take a stab at a final Sweet 1600 on a track in the nearby town of Carhaix. I’d passed by the track numerous times and figured it was a 200m surface. Turned out it was something like 240-250m. Anyway, with very little running lately, and a wee bit of a hangover from the previous Saturday night apero, I did a 3 mile warm up and then a dedicated 1600m.
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Enjoyed a pile of langoustines from our favorite fishmonger at the Carhaix market for Sunday lunch! Yum!
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This is the craziest and best story I’ve seen as part of the Challenge! You deserve some sort of award for completing a course while outrunning authorities on the other side of the Atlantic. And Circus Maximus is a great name for a track ultramarathon and/or a metal band.
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Hahaha thanks @Petorius we can always organize an Italian FLRC track meet and call it Circus Maximus 
it makes it sound very adventurous!