Use this topic for posts that will collect community stars for the Town & Gown Up & Down course. You can also ask questions or make comments about this course.
Here’s how it works.
Click the “Post Using This Template” button below to create a new post with a Story heading and boilerplate text.
Replace the boilerplate text with your report for one or both sections. The header is key for distinguishing between posts and replies—don’t change it.
Your post must be on the same calendar day as your run as entered in Webscorer.
Story
To pick up a community star, replace this text with a write-up of what your run was like, a photo you took on the run, a link to your Strava track, or something similar. Don’t delete the Story heading above.
What a nice route! Like a trip down memory lane. I hadn’t gone up the cascadilla road trail in 5 years according to my Strava, PR’d it today even if it was a fair amount of fast walking. When I used to work on campus I would walk the trail near the engineering quad on lunch breaks — so nice to be back there again.
Lovely quiet route at 6:15am! We’re so lucky to have such great places to run.
A day in the mid-60s was perfect for this longish paved course. I parked down along Lynn St. and found both the sign and Joe! We briefly chatted as I found WebScorer on my phone. I assured him there would be plenty of hiking on my way. Off I went. Up up up and then up up some more. I chuckled as I approached Williams St. with RunGo telling me to run UP that street with a “You’re welcome.” To be honest, I didn’t run it. Hah! Eventually I made it to the flats of College Town and the Cascadilla trail. As I approached the wooden bridge at the end of the trail to cross over, I thought, “Oooh, pretty!” So I took out my phone to snap a photo. Not sure what happened there but my RunGo app decided to close so there I was fumbling with my phone in consternation. I rebooted RunGo, re-downloaded the directions, and took off again while vowing to NOT take another photo along the way, no matter how lovely the landscape. It was early evening, so around Cornell’s Engineering School, I ran into a herd of students departing campus for College Town. Upon wending my way around Uris Library, I smiled to see so many students sitting on the verdant Libe Slope relaxing in the sun. The rest of the course was filled with waterfalls, red buds, apple blossoms, and, eventually, down down down down and back over to Lynn St. Three courses done. Seven left to go.
Last night I wasn’t sure I’d be up early to get a run in before going to work early for a meeting. Luckily for me, my kid started pounding on my bedroom door and 5 a.m. yelling about a nightmare. After calming him down enough so he’d go back to sleep, I had enough time for coffee followed by an über soggy T&G U&D.
The coffee must have been extra strong. I made good time up the Cascadillla Winder Strava segment and was on pace for my fastest T&G U&D thus far.
Oops, I forgot it’s Slope Day. No drunken undergrads swarming the slopes in the rain at 6 a.m., but I had to figure out how to detour around the festival grounds to avoid the section behind Uris that was fenced off. I made my way around the quad before realizing it wasn’t completely fenced, so I doubled back to make sure to cover the ground and avoid DNF-ing the Challenge course run.
The lost time was enough to give up on attempting a fast run and instead just splash my way back down to Fall Creek. The Remington Downhill Mile was as fun as always.
Another fun Challenge run with Jamie. Our legs were still super sore from our North Country adventure on Sunday so we had to take this one easy. The hills are impressive, but so is the varied scenery with lots to keep our interest piqued.
Today was rainy and cool so it was a good day to run fast on a road course. I parked on Linn street and did a 2.5-mile warm up jog with some strides. Then I ditched an outer layer, changed my shoes, and started running.
Right away RunGo announced that GPS signal was poor, but it seemed okay for all the directions in the first mile. When I got Hollister Drive, the parking lot direction was late, so I stopped to get my phone out to reorient myself.
I had to stop again right before the stairs to the suspension bridge because the directions sounded confusing based on where I was. I consulted my phone again and the map indicated that I had been running off course. (I had actually been on course the whole time according to my watch’s GPS, but I didn’t know that at the time). At that point I decided to jog back the start and try again. Too much time had been lost and I wanted to make sure that my fast attempt was 100% on course.
I took a break to recover and let a heavier patch of rain pass by. Then I did a few more strides to get warmed up again and set off for a second try.
My legs didn’t feel quite as fresh on my second Cascadilla climb and my first mile was 8 seconds slower than my first attempt. But my time to the suspension bridge was about 20 seconds faster overall since I didn’t stop at all. I think it was worth it.
Once I was on Highland Road it was smooth sailing back to the start. The hard part of the course was behind me and I knew the roads well enough that I wouldn’t have to stop and check for directions again. I ran all of the road sections at a hard tempo pace and felt really good almost all the way back to the sign. I finished in 35:46.
This was a fun course. The elevation change is enough to make it interesting without being punishing (like Triple Hump) and there is a nice variety of gorge trails, campus roads, and quiet neighborhoods to enjoy.
We were unable to join the FLRC group run but decided to try the course in the afternoon. As expected, the initial mile of hill was hard, but the rest of the run was really nice. We had to dodge students in graduation garb and proud parents, and the wonky gps for RunGo made the verbal prompts unreliable, but the map was easy to follow.
My second time out on this course, so I knew exactly how steep the start would be and how great coming back down is! And it was a treat to be able to run with friends again! Thanks for the photo @Dirk_Swart!
I ran Town & Gown Up & Down with Marie and crew, and Marie’s photo across Libe Slope to the lake shows how romantic and dreamy it was during this misty run.
Ran this course twice back-to-back on an pleasant Sunday afternoon between the weekends of graduation and reunion. I enjoyed the course, especially the section through Cayuga Heights, where I had logged many miles several years ago preparing the the 1981 Ithaca Marathon.
Be sure to pull up the Town & Gown Up & Down (2025 FLRC Challenge course) in RunGo, not Town-Gown-Up-Down. From experience I can tell you, this will save a lot of confusion and wrong turns.
Those are strange cues, @ks_eggs since in both cases, the RunGo directions are to just go straight, if I’m understanding your spots correctly. This is the connection to Ho Plaza.
Whoa. That was my fault. Going back to RunGo, I see now that I had accidentally pulled up a route called Town-Gown-Up-Down, which is the exact same course, but has a very sparse set of, sometimes inaccurate, cues. The Town & Gown Up & Down (2025 FLRC Challenge course) route in RunGo has what I would have expected - a nicely detailed, accurate description of the course. Sorry for the confusion.
Aha! This is super strange. There are two copies of that route showing up in the app and two copies of the official one. But the spurious route can’t be found on the RunGo website at all. Moral of the story is to use the one with the longer, official-looking name.
This course seemed pretty daunting (in name and description), but it wasn’t so bad with a friend (and two four-legged friends) on a cloudless early June day!
We ran it all gently and made sure the pups had a moment to cool off in the stream by the tennis courts before rejoining the course.
Everything was in bloom and we enjoyed the scent of honeysuckle, dames rocket, and what my iPhone taught me was black locust flowers coming down Remington and then behind Boynton.
What an effort, and of course a joy too. With 645’ of cumulative elevation, this course was beginning to occupy a place of fear in my mind … So! Nothing else for it but to run it. Blessed to do so with Iris + her dog Charlie & my own 1yo hound, Sunny. The mind(s) that sequence these runs is really wonderful, bold & thoughtful. I’m surprised to feel kind thanks to all those who put this together & share it with us.
To be honest, I didn’t run it. Hah! Eventually I made it to the flats of College Town and the Cascadilla trail. As I approached the wooden bridge at the end of the trail to cross over, I thought, “Oooh, pretty!” So I took out my phone to snap a photo. Not sure what happened there but my RunGo app decided to close so there I was fumbling with my phone in consternation. I rebooted RunGo, re-downloaded the directions, and took off again while vowing to NOT take another photo along the way, no matter how lovely the landscape. It was early evening, so around Cornell’s Engineering School, I ran into a herd of students departing campus for College Town. Upon wending my way around Uris Library, I smiled to see so many students sitting on the verdant Libe Slope relaxing in the sun. The rest of the course was filled with waterfalls, red buds, apple blossoms, and, eventually, down down down down and back over to Lynn St. Three courses done. Seven left to go.
