We’re very pleased to announce the winners of the FLRC Trail Circuit in the Stonehead, Pebblehead, and Boulderhead divisions. This year, the Trail Circuit included the following races (some of which aren’t FLRC races, but are included for historical reasons that could, but won’t, be explained).
• Super Frosty Loomis Snowshoe Race
• Thom B Trail Runs
• Highland Forest 1-2-3 (not FLRC, cancelled in 2018)
• Tortoise & Hare Trail Run
• Tanglefoot Trail Runs (not FLRC)
• Finger Lakes Fifties
• Forest Frolic Trail Runs
• Forge the Gorgeous Trail Run (cancelled in 2018 due to trail washout)
• Lucifer’s Crossing (not FLRC)
• Monster Marathon & Half Marathon
• Danby Down & Dirty
To refresh your memory, the Stonehead and Pebblehead rankings are based on the percent of your time in the race compared to the winner, who gets 100%. For Stonehead, your ranking is your cumulative score across all the races in the Trail Circuit. For Pebblehead, only your best three races are counted. The Boulderhead rankings are based on total number of miles run during the races in the Trail Circuit.
Stonehead
Due to its combination of percentage back from the winner and total number of races won, the Stonehead award goes to the runners who have both speed for a high place and the durability to run a lot of the races. This year, Nancy Kleinrock was the runaway winner on the women’s side, with 725 points across 8 races, outpacing Yvette De Boer (485 points in 5 races) and Paige Anderson (429 points in 6 races). For the men, Bob Swizdor took the stone with 587 points across 7 races, with Bill King in second (495 points over 6 races) and Nancy’s husband Steve Shaum in third (430 points over 6 races). Nancy and Steve are also FLRC board members and past race directors.
Pebblehead
The Pebblehead award is for those of us who are bit more fragile, or potentially just busy on many race weekends. It uses the same scoring system as Stonehead, but across each runner’s best three races, so it rewards raw speed. On the men’s side, Dan Timmerman pulled off a hat trick with wins at Forest Frolic, Lucifer’s Crossing, and Danby Down & Dirty for 300 points. Past winner Eric Sambolec (who co-race directs Super Frosty Loomis) took second with 292.09 points, sneaking past physical therapist extraordinaire Brian Lee’s 291.44 points. For the women, there was very little surprise in seeing the speedy Yvette De Boer win with 297 points (thanks in part to a dominating overall victory in the Monster Marathon), beating Nancy Kleinrock’s 289 points and Emily Funk’s 281 points. (Emily is also an FLRC board member and co-race director of Tortoise & Hare).
Boulderhead
As implied by the sheer rockiness of the name, the Boulderhead division is determined by raw grit and number of miles run—speed is irrelevant. However, completing a hat trick of her own with another top three place, Nancy Kleinrock won the Boulderhead award for the women (and, technically, overall) with 126 miles. In second was Paige Anderson with 108 miles, and in third was trail-running newcomer Megan Powers with 66 miles. The men’s award was a squeaker, with Ron Cunningham taking the win with 88 miles over Robert Seltzer’s 87 miles. And Mark Morrison wasn’t far back in third with 84 miles.
Thank you to Adam Engst for compiling these statistics. Congratulations to our winners and thanks to everyone who enjoyed the fabulous trails of the Finger Lakes with us this year. We hope to see even more competition in 2019!