Can Lake Reconn

September 6 - 8

 

Hello, Canandaigua Lake!

With the Can Lake 50 mere weeks away, I decided it was time to visit the scene of my future suffering. On October 12th, I will run the complete circumference of Canandaigua "Can" Lake, one of New York's famous finger lakes. It's billed as a "beginner friendly" ultra, great for first-timers and back-of-the-packers. But I couldn't just take their word for it, could I? No, I had to see for myself:  How bad are the hills? How interesting is the scenery? And.....yeah, how bad are the hills? I needed some intell. I needed a Can Lake reconn road trip!!

So I took Friday off work, printed out the cue sheet, packed my running gear and trusty pepper spray and hit the road. Nothing like a good road trip into the unknown--with an element of danger thrown in--to make me feel like I'm on a big adventure!

 I arrived in time to drive the two parts of the course I would be running, and found a nice spot on the rocks to take in the view.

The lake is beautiful, surrounded by gorgeous homes and mountains. My guess is many of these palaces are vacay homes. Not many people around on this weekend after Labor Day.

Leading up to this road trip I had been logging a crazy amount of miles, including 3 runs OVER 26.2. That is, three ultramarathons in 1.5 months! And while normal people would taper for 2 -3 weeks before running that far, I've been doing my longest runs on back to back weekends AND hitting the strength training pretty hard.

Suffice it to say I wasn't exactly well rested for this 34 miler on the Can Lake course. But the whole point of this insane training is to practice running when you're dead tired.

At least we'll have some pretty scenery to view while we're suffering. This is my fav pic of the lake:

 

The course starts in town, then goes counter-clockwise around the long, skinny lake. The west side of the lake, which runs about the first 20 miles, is the prettiest--but it's also the hardest. Our first big bad hill is 10 miles in, on Coye Road.

There's plenty of suffering to be had on Coye. Though the hill is only a 3% average grade, it drags on for 2 miles, which gets old. The reward is a nice long downhill with a great view of the lake.

But Coye is a walk in the park compared to Bopple. Bopple Hill offers 600 feet elevation gain in just under a mile, with a 6% average grade. The race director describes it this way:                                                A short but very steep wall followed by a short gentle grade and a long steep wall.                                    Wall is right! OMG, Bopple is brutal.    

It just keeps going up....

 

 Mocking you, taunting you, laughing in your face.

Making you hurt!

 And hurt some more!

 

 

Yep.

 



I'm just hoping my legs won't be trashed by the time I reach the top, because I will still have 34 miles to go! The good news is, the next 4ish miles are downhill, then flat all the way to Monica's Pies.

Monica's is famous for its grape pie, but I had the apple and it was excellent! You can't go wrong here. Not that we'll be stopping for a slice...

After Monica's we turn and head along the southern end of the lake. At this point it'll be 20 down, 30 to go!

Not long after we reach the east side of the lake is the first cutoff, at 28.7 miles. Of course, I've been doing the math--and then re-doing it, obsessing over it, and re-doing it again--and if the handy online calculator is correct, I'll have 7.5 hours to make the cutoff, so I'll need to average no more than a 15:41 pace. Should be doable, as long as I don't drop too much time on Coye and Bopple.

Well, I wish I had some nice pics to show of the other side of the lake. But other than the cute little village of Vine Valley, there really isn't much to see....except for more big homes and this nice little park...

And this once-upon-a-time general store.

And this is where I finished my 34 miles, back on the rocks where I enjoyed my first views of the lake the day before.

Nothing like a little course reconn to help sharpen your mental game! Bring it on, Can Lake!