Finger Lakes 50K Race Report

In the few days prior to traveling up to New York for the Finger Lake 50s, I had checked the weather a few times and noticed the weekend precipitation predictions steadily increasing to a point where I wondered things like, “Why all the rain and cool temperatures? Is it even summer up there? I wonder what texture of mud they have?” Knowing that we would be truck camping in the Finger Lakes National Forest, I even did some updating on my truck’s camper shell to create as much of a water barrier as possible.

When we arrived in the forest Friday evening, clouds hung in a low, white-gray blanket overhead. The forecasted weather was indeed accurate: the temps were cool and rain fell intermittently. To truck camp we parked along the gravel Potomac Road while tent campers packed their stuff a couple hundred yards to a small campground near the finish line.

The rain continued in spurts all night and was sometimes heavy enough to wake me up as it pounded the shell roof. A couple times I awoke to the sound of rednecks driving their unnecessarily loud trucks and vans, at what I suspect was well over the 35 mph national forest speed limit on Potomac Road. I wish I could be that skilled, having the ability to let so many people know just how awesome I am at 1:00 AM on a Friday night of July 4th weekend. Maybe one day.

It didn’t feel like much later, around 5:00 AM, when the cars of non-camping racers began rolling in. It was obviously futile to continue any further sleeping attempts. At least it wasn’t raining when I emerged from the humid shell, which made the initial gear preparation easier, but it didn’t take long for another moderate shower to begin and complicate the breakfast and coffee prep.

After a bit of deliberation regarding the combination of rain and 50-something degrees, I opted for the long sleeve wool shirt. I was pretty sure it wasn’t going to stop raining anytime soon. By 6:30 AM, the 50 milers and 50Kers were gathered at the start line. The crowd was laid back and the final race director instruction proved entertaining as they knew the conditions were not exactly optimal. Anne and the other 25K runners would have to wait until 8:30 for their start.

Off we went for the first 16.5 mile loop, beginning with a quick 0.5 mile descent down the gravel road. As usual, I wasn’t surprised to see a small group sprinting to the front. Buh bye, suckas. Lots of hours left to play in the mud, why be in such a rush? The initial singletrack was plenty wet with a couple slick wooden bridges, and it began to quickly climb us right back up. The scent of wet pine needles and mud filled the air. Heaven.

It didn’t take long to start seeing and smelling pasture land and the first cattle field with an infamous cattle gate. “Don’t let the cows out” is a bit of an event slogan. This is fun. It reminds me of the cow pastures I ran as a youngster. And the mother cow that head butted me once when my grandad had me chase its calf to tag it. No cows in sight here but I also couldn’t see particularly far through the dense fog. Nor did I want to take the time to gawk around solely for cows.

We popped out onto the gravel Mark Smith Road at 2.5 miles for more fast descending that led to a climb up the Gorge Trail at mile 3.7. This was mostly runnable, gradual grade climbing so I never felt too bogged down, nor was there much power hiking time. My spine muscles were making themselves known by threatening to spasm after the less than stellar night of sleep combined with the faster descending.

The Interloken Trail comes up next along with a visit to The Beach aid station around mile 5. Nothing looked like a beach, but there was a swampy pond nearby covered in a layer of mist. Too bad I didn’t bring a camera. By the way, it was raining and the trail was a muddy mess with lots of standing water and tree roots aplenty through here. I could be wrong, but I think someone was smoking weed in the woods as I puddle hopped on by.

Back to another short gravel road jaunt. I really enjoyed how this was broken up into such a variety of surfaces even though elevation-wise there’s never a ton of variation all at once. It’s like a combination of various races I’ve done in WV, OH, and PA all rolled into one.

Up another portion of the Interloken Trail. My collapsible water bottle flew out of my waist pack, so I picked it up and carried it in my hand for a bit. Not knowing the trails, I didn’t realize a more gnarly downhill was coming. A downhill of many roots and plenty of water. On the descent, I attempted to put the bottle back into the pack with one hand, at which point I missed and it fell to the ground again, right in front of the runner behind me. Try again, but now with two hands behind my back while still running downhill amongst the rocks and roots.

And then it happened. With my hands still behind my back, as my right foot and ankle entered some deeper water surrounded by roots, I felt something I’d only ever experienced one other time. The feeling of my ankle rolling so far that the joint subluxes and there’s an interesting popping/grinding sensation. At first I didn’t even feel much sharper pain, just a dull pressure and ache that was still enough to make me slow up and limp. Another 50-100 yards of trying to bring myself back to normal-ish running, and I’m right back onto non-technical gravel road at The Library aid station just beyond 10 miles in.

That stupid bottle in my left hand gets dropped about one minute after this moment, image from Trails Collective/Ian Golden

A handful of seconds after spraining, lingering at the aid station, hating life while debating how smart it will be to continue, image from Trails Collective/Ian Golden

It didn’t feel terrible, so I kept going onto the next section of trail. I’m also kind of a stubborn, arrogant fool so unless there’s a bone sticking out or the pain is very severe, it’s unlikely I’d stop though I knew the risks. Was this smart? Probably not. It definitely prolongs the recovery afterward and would be particularly risky because the ankle is more likely to sprain again during any continued attempt to keep running on this day, as well as in the weeks ahead. If it had been my left ankle, I think I would have had no choice but to quit because it is far less forgiving from all of its prior battering. By the way, the ankle is known as “the forgiving joint.” Let’s hope this is true.

Limping quickly onward to a short piece of uphill paved road and to the Backbone Horse Camp. The only pavement in the race that I can recall. I didn’t notice any horses, but at least there were a couple of other runners around to provide a little distraction. This next section rolls nicely along the Backbone Trail, which is mostly grassy overgrown gravel road with plenty of squishy and slippery mud sections. The final aid station, The Outback, comes at the edge of the last cattle field, about 13.5 miles into the loop. That field was super mushy so I was not looking forward to revisiting it on a second loop, expecting it would be magnificently churned up at that point. (Should be great to plant seeds right now though.)

swamp

The course turns southward with another section of the Interloken Trail. There’s a ridiculous number of wooden bridges to cross because the area appears to just stay wet. It was a pretty jaunt through the pine forest with thick fog still in accompaniment. If I had known I would be forced to run slower I really would have brought that darn camera. It felt more like September than July.

I was hoping that I could trust my GPS, the watch time, and my location instinct as 16 miles clicked on by. My priority goal of evenly splitting the loops for a roughly 4:30 finish time wasn’t going to happen given the ankle sprain, so I set my sights on simply finishing and just trying to be careful enough to prevent too much worsening. Maybe if I can’t be the fastest overall 50K runner, I can be the fastest old (masters) 50K runner?

I noticed immediately upon starting up the first climb of the second loop that the course conditions had deteriorated further. This encouraged a quicker turnover because any attempts at creating a long, forceful stride on inches thick mud resulted in a power sucking experience and more ankle pain. Thank goodness the packed gravel roads remained in wonderful shape despite the fact that the rain had started to come down even heavier. These road sections provided a brief but welcome respite from the now thicker and deeper mud.

At this point, I was definitely not sad to have worn the long sleeve wool baselayer because I certainly wasn’t overheating in a downpour. I noticed while being so soaked that the repetitive movement had weirdly generated a foamy layer on my shoulders. This must be what they mean about working yourself into a lather? First time for everything.

Didn’t put my fenders on so mud was flinging everywhere

Every section of trail that was a mess before had become either deeper puddles, deeper mud, or were now fully flowing creeks. I became really paranoid about not being able to see what the heck I was stepping on, which is not an ideal thing you can focus on if you want to go fast. It already gets hard enough to control the stability of your legs once fatigue sets in.

Descending back down toward the Library aid station around mile 27, wouldn’t you know that the same section of rooty creek trail caused my ankle to subtly roll again! Come on. The race director was hanging out at the aid station and wanted to know if I had had any difficulty with the course markings. I said no but that I did really hate that last descent at this point. Hopefully he didn’t take it personally.

The rainy frolick continued and I really hoped that the people driving along that paved road would see me through the fog. Back along the Backbone Trail I tried to consume mostly liquid calories to reach that final super mushy cow pasture because eating solid food always starts to feel like an annoying chore. Some Coca-Cola provided a nice lift, but yeah, I was over it. Close enough to stumble in for a finish to avoid my greatest fear (a DNF) but demotivated from the injury-induced lackluster performance. Limp down the final portion of the Interloken Trail again with the ankle becoming increasingly less reliable and swollen. This had really become a technical mud and water nightmare from all of the foot traffic. Like I said, this section clearly doesn’t drain well anyway, so this time around I was tripping all over the place (though I still refused to succumb to gravity and fall!)

a boy and his cow

I somehow held on to be the first masters runner, thus acquiring the first giant wooden cow trophy of my career. It was really a big old pile of manure to not be able to give full effort considering that I had started out feeling generally good, the temperatures were great for pushing the intensity, and the course layout worked well for my style. I really did enjoy moooving through the course design for much of the first loop. Until I rolled my damn ankle and the priorities changed. Have I whined enough yet? Nope.

Few things are as frustrating to me as not being able to push up to the true fitness, psychological, and strategic barriers that should be the limiters on the day. But this is the way of the trail racing world. It is that greater level of unpredictability and challenge that a trail runner is often seeking. There are always factors that cannot be accounted for and circumstances that will create challenges that are not listed on the race entry web page. And I’m okay with that. So I guess I’m done whining now. I don’t wanna have a cow, man.

puffy in all the wrong places