This was my second time running the Harvest Classic which, like last year, was staged at the Emmi Farm near Baldwinsville. Last year’s race traversed the grassy paths near the blueberries. This year’s edition followed a more circuitous route following farm trails and roads. In spite—or perhaps because—of the pandemic, this year’s field was considerably…
I registered for the Helderberg to Hudson half marathon a month before I ran the Syracuse Half Marathon last November, before I learned of two local races—the Earth Day half marathon and the Good Samaritan 5K—scheduled to run on the same weekend. As COVID would have it, I was able to run all three in…
We signed up for the Thousand Island races at the end of January, months before the events’ May 30 start date and weeks before COVID played havoc with the racing schedule. In April, during the worst of the pandemic, the organizers opted to shift the event to August 22. The three month delay allowed organizer…
Racing is back! The story is familiar to legions of runners: We welcomed a busier race schedule in March and shelled out race fees in anticipation of a full slate of spring races. We even squeezed a couple of races in as talk of coronavirus and a pandemic gradually consumed the news. Then everything shut…
A race is a major event when it has its own statue. Syracuse’s Mountain Goat Run, a ten mile race first run in 1979, is one of the oldest and largest races in the area. Last year, nearly 2,000 runners and walkers climbed to the three highest points in Syracuse on their way to the…
The Earth Day Half Marathon and 5K is a sizable event that, for many, launches a season of half marathons in the Syracuse area. It serves as the innagural event in Willow Running’s race series. This year’s edition race was initially scheduled for April 18, the day I had planned to run the Helderberg to…
Like virtually every race in the U.S., Syracuse’s annual Good Samaritan Run was affected by the Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting shutdowns. Originally scheduled for April 18, the race was postponed until May 23 before organizers went the virtual route. Races such as the Good Samaritan Run, The ARC Race, Cupid’s Chase, and the Superhero…
The Shamrock Run was the last race of the “old normal.” The I Run for Pi Race held a week later took place in the shadow of the new. The world had changed in the week between these races. Le Moyne College announced that students would not be returning to campus at the end of…
Le Moyne’s spring break started on March 6. Tipp Hill and the Pi Day race served as bookends for my break, but I would eventually finish the semester using Zoom and Canvas and the races were the last I would run during the “old normal.” Covid-19 changed everything that quickly. The Tipperary Hill Shamrock Run…
Competitive cyclists quickly learn about the miracle of the draft—or they ride lonely time trials for 40 miles. This makes the sport tactically complex, because the strongest, fastest riders often lose due to the vast advantages conferred by riding in the slipstream, where riders typically save 30% of their energy. A pack is like a…
The congestion that dogged me in the Winter Warrior and Chilly Chili finally broke a week or so before the Super Couch Potato. I looked forward to a fast, flat race in relatively decent weather (for February). Instead, I spent Super Bowl Sunday in bed with gastroenteritis. Stomach bugs are always unpleasant, but I usually…
For many runners and walkers in the Syracuse area, Cazenovia’s long-running Chilly Chili 5K announces the start of the new running season—though we never really stop racing through the winter in upstate New York. My first, and prior to our move to Syracuse in 2017, only visit to Cazenovia had been for a bicycle race…