STEPPING IT UP 2024 - Race #5
BURCS Frozen Folly 50k (SOLO)
Monday, January 15, 2024
Tuesday, January 16, 2024
31.1mi in 24 hrs (moving time 10 hr 40 min)
Doing this last year was a challenge - as I mentioned afterwards, I typically cover about 35 mi a week on foot during the school year, so covering 31+mi in an afternoon and a morning was definitely work. But I'm not sure I really appreciated how smoothly last year went... this year definitely showed me why this is a Frozen FOLLY.
I had originally planned to do this Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning (which is what I ended up doing) but then the weather struck and camcelled my trip to Rochester for Saturday and Sunday - and with temps in the 40's on Saturday, that seemed like the obvious time to start... once it stopped raining. Except I I ended up being super lazy on Saturday... and then again on Sunday, which might have been for the best since a blizzard hit when I would have been out running Sunday afternoon. It didn't drop much snow, but the sudden drop in temperature left black ice everywhere.
So Monday afternoon it was. I was planning to walk a bit, then run some miles, and then maybe wrap up with another walk... except the running never really happened. I walked to and through Washington Park, and then over the course of the afternoon and evening went for three more walks around here.Ended up with 12.2 mi for the day... not as much as I would have preferred! - and got to hear a very vocal barred owl calling over in Ridgefield Park when I was walking along Ryckman Alley.
Unfortunately having almost 19 mile to cover before 1:23 PM (the time I started on Monday) meant an early start on Tuesday. So 6:31 found me heading out to walk and then run many loops in my neighborhood... I had mapped out a couple of options that would let me run against traffic on one-way streets (because concrete sidewalks are murder on my legs and knees.) By keeping the loops in thr 1-2 mile range, I was able to stop back at my apartment every 30-60 minutes or so to grab food and drink, use the bathroom, and warm up a bit before heading back out. What I hadn't counted on was almost constant snow (which made running in the road potentially suicidal... 6 1/2 hours of watching lousy drivers doing stupid things on slippery roads left me with an even lower opinion of the folks I share the road with) and my legs deciding they really didn't feel much like running. So to keep myself from going totally insane (13-16 loops of the same route for seven hours...yeech) I varied my routes but tried not to stay out for more than 3 mi or so at a time. Fortunately as the afternoon hit I was also able to take advantage of Albany Med and St Rose having cleared their sidewalks to make the going a little easier, and managed to complete 18.9 miles with about 3 min to spare.
Now I just need to take screenshots of everything and get them to Benn at BURCS to make it official.
And I REALLY hope next year can be more like last year was.
Coming up in February - the Satan's Sidewalk Frozen Folly 66.6hr (how many miles can you cover in 66.6 hours?) and in March - the Ladybug 50k (similar to this, 50k in 24 hours - hopefully with better weather!)
2023 Event Totals
Run 54.9 mi, 15 hr 46 min
Bike 0 mi, 0 hr 0 min
Snowshoe 2.8 mi, 46 min
Kayak 0 mi, 0 hr 0 min
Bike 0 mi, 0 hr 0 min
Snowshoe 2.8 mi, 46 min
Kayak 0 mi, 0 hr 0 min
STATES: NY
