Monday, January 16, 2006
Keuka Outlet trail run photo slideshow
After spending Sunday and Monday morning out in Rochester with Ann (no running on Sunday, to maximize the time I had with my sweetheart), and seeing as it was a bright sunny 30ยบ day, I decided to stop at the Keuka Outlet Trail on the west side of Seneca lake and do either a medium snowshoe run (if there was snow) or a longer trail run.
The trail parallels the Keuka Outlet Creek, which runs from Keuka Lake to Seneca Lake and features numerous rapids and two reasonably large waterfalls at old mill dam sites. At times during the last 200+ years the Outlet was home to up to 40 mills, though now all that remains are a few old building and some foundations. (One site has a fairly tall brick chimney and a hefty 4-5 ft flywheel as the main sign of the previous occupants.) Two means of transporting goods were developed in the valley the outlet has carved in its surroundings – first the Crooked Lake Canal, ran along the outlet and dealt with the 280 ft drop in elevation through an amazing 28 locks in 8 miles! Not surprisingly, the canal was never profitable, and when it closed a railroad was built on the towpath. In 1972 Hurricane Agnes destroyed much of the tracks, and the idea of converting the area into a recreational path was developed. The area is now managed by the Friends of the Keuka Outlet Trail, and 7 miles from Penn Yan to Dresden have been developed into a multi-use park, featuring mostly dirt/cinder/stone dust trail along the old rail bed. (Much of this info came from the Friend’s website, , with some additional info from the University of Rochester History Department’s section on canal history.)
Ok, now that you know far more about the history of the Keuka Outlet than you will ever care about, why did I decide to run there?
(1) it’s relatively level. OK, actually it rises 200+ feet in the direction I was heading, but that means downhill running all the way back.
(2) it’s very peaceful and very pretty – I can take pictures while enjoying my passage through nature!
(3) it also doesn’t see a ton of use, especially in the middle of the day, and I typically like solitude when I’m running.
(4) the whole path runs along the stream, and for some inexplicable reason I find that running and biking next to water resonates deep inside me (must be the turtle!)
(5) I also think the old mills are somewhat cool, as is the one remaining stone lock (much of the cut stone was claimed for local foundations, but somehow one lock did survive.)
(6) I’ve ridden there twice and run there (sort of) once – the latter was in mid-July in horrid heat and humidity, and I had to stop running after 20 to 30 minutes – my body just couldn’t keep going. Well, I knew heat and humidity would NOT be a problem in January!
After all that setup, the actual run is pretty anticlimactic – I had a good run in a beautiful place, and it was such a gorgeous day (for January) that I decided to push it and run for 2 ½ hours, or a total of 11.5 – 12 miles. I took something like 18 photos, some of which I’ll post so everyone can be jealous that I got to run in such a cool place on Monday. And since I haven’t done much over 2 hours since early November, I’m a tired sore puppy, aggravated by the cold that I woke up with Monday morning. (I’m glad I got the run in before that moved beyond the sore throat stage.)
Then I hopped in the car, drove 3 ½ hours back to Albany, and limped up the steps to my apartment.
So no racing this weekend, but a pretty darn good day in there all the same. Next weekend (assuming I’m something approaching healthy) I’ll add some more to the racing totals for 2006.
JMH
UPDATED INFO - Greylock Glen has been rescheduled for Saturday, January 28. Unfortunately I'm scheduled to teach class that morning (the only Saturday in January I'm going to be there) AND I'm doing the Lake Effect Snowshoe Duathlon (which may end up being a trail run duathlon) the next day. So no Greylock Glen this year... bummer. I'll just have to settle for the longer Greylock races next month...
2006 racing totals
snowshoe – 3 miles, 59.5 min
running – 0 miles, 0 minutes
riding - 0 miles, 0 minutes
