Running with Eric

On sunday morning I ran the Medved Madness trail race at Mendon Ponds Park. I finished in 2:28:53 for the long course which was around 14 miles? I last ran this race in 2023, but the course changed significantly since then.

The race had most of the hills right at the front. While it is nice to be able to attack the hills with fresh legs, I probably went out too aggressively. While none of this park is flat, on the middle section where there was a bit less climbing I felt like I was getting passed by many other runners.

The weather was a slight rain, and the trails were significantly worse than my race last week. The main problem I had on the muddy trails was that I had to slow down a lot for the downhills. The worst section of the trail was the northwest corner of the park where I was in mud up to my knees at one point. However I made it through the race without falling which means I was either extremely lucky or too cautious.

With the course having almost no resemblance to the last time I ran this race and the distance of the long course being a bit of a mystery, I never knew when I was approaching the end of the run. The good news is that I felt fairly strong even over the final few miles.

I hope to run one more race before the Buffalo Marathon which will be a 10k on the 18th at either Highland Park or Letchworth Park.

On Sunday morning I ran the Medved Madness 13 mile trail race in Mendon Ponds Park. This was my first time running this race, and I finished the course in 2:14:41 which is not too bad of a pace for trails.

While it was my first time in this race, most of the trails in Mendon Ponds are very familiar to me. The start of the course was running a portion of the dirt cheap stage race in reverse, with the second mile having some of the worst mud on the whole course. We then started running through the east side of the park, which is more dry but also has some of the steepest hills.

At mile seven I was almost trampled by a herd of deer.

The southern portion of the course runs through the sections of Mendon Ponds that I am the least familiar with, and turned out to be relatively flat. While Mendon Ponds is always mud and hills, there turned out to be slightly less of both than I initially expected on this course.

My biggest mistake in this race was to not carry any water. This was starting to catch up with me on the final two miles of the race, but I managed to push through. I ran the whole course only walking the very steepest of the hills, and felt pretty good for what was my first trail race of the year.

My next race is the Vale of Three Falls 10k in Letchworth Park two weeks from now.