FLRC Challenge Courses 2022

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For the 2022 FLRC Challenge, we’ve chosen a completely new set of courses, making sure there’s something for everyone. Courses range in length, surface, hilliness, and location. Check out their pages for driving directions, course maps and directions, and (in time) custom RunGo voice directions using your smartphone or Apple Watch.

Our goal this year was to increase geographical diversity to bring in more running friends from Brooktondale, Dryden, Lansing, and Trumansburg and share some of their favorite courses with those who have been more centered on Ithaca. We also want to encourage the social aspect of running, so for each course, we’re highlighting local businesses that would offer a perfect post-run spot for brunch, an ice cream snack, or dinner and drinks. Remember, supporting local businesses earns you community stars!

Courses include:

  • Sweet 1600 (1 mile, track): Feeling frisky? Test your legs at 1600 meters on any standard track (just 9 meters short of a mile—we’ll round up for mileage calculations). You can even run this race in FLRC’s summer track meets for some competition, and it’s also a great way to continue to rack up Challenge efforts while you’re traveling.
  • Lansing Center Trail (3.4 miles, grass): To give everyone a sense of classic cross-country running, this loopy course takes you on mown paths around fields. You’ll want to run this one multiple times after you get your bearings.
  • Cornell Botanic Gardens Beebe Lake (4.0 miles, road and trail): Those returning from last year will remember some of this course, which now takes in some trails within the F. R. Newman Arboretum and extends out around Cornell’s scenic Beebe Lake.
  • Taughannock Rim & Falls (4.6 miles, trail): You can’t beat the view of Taughannock Falls, one of the area’s iconic destinations. At 215 feet high, Taughannock is even taller than Niagara Falls, and you get to run the rim trails and all the way to the base of the falls. Yes, there are hills.
  • Long Loomis (5.7 miles, trail): We couldn’t resist revisiting one of our favorite state forests at Hammond Hill. This year, however, we’re doing the longer course from our Super Frosty Loomis snowshoe race.
  • Inlet Shore Trail (6.1 miles, pavement and trail): This downtown Ithaca course takes you out and back on the shores of the Cayuga Inlet, through Cass Park and around the trails at Allan H. Treman State Marine Park. It’s a great mix of urban and natural running with no major road crossings.
  • East Hill Dryden Rail Trail (7.5 miles, trail and pavement): Incorporating last year’s downhill East Hill Rec Way mile, this course adds in the Dryden Rail Trail, taking you all the way out to Route 13 and back.
  • Jim Schug Trail (8.0 miles, trail): Starting smack in the village of Dryden, this course takes you out and back on another old railroad bed for a flat, fast run through wetlands and alongside Dryden Lake.
  • Brookton Hill & Dale (10.4 miles, road): You want to run long, and you want to keep it on roads. This course takes you through the rolling hills and valleys of Brooktondale, starting and finishing at Brookton’s Market.
  • Lick Brook & Treman FLT (13.1 miles, trail): Our longest and toughest course this year follows the Finger Lakes Trail alongside Treman State Park on the west and Lick Brook on the east. Work your way up to this one, and there’s no shame in hiking it.

Special thanks to these organizations for allowing us to use their spaces: