FLRC’s 2024 Accomplishments

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One of our big goals with FLRC is to provide opportunities for runners of all stripes, flavors, and persuasions. Whether you enjoy trails, roads, track, or cross-country, prefer social workouts or races, like to run by yourself or in large groups, or gain satisfaction from volunteering at an event, we have a place for you. Nowhere does that become more obvious than when we look back at what we accomplished together in the last year. 

The club had a fantastic 2024, coordinating a race or a group run every weekend, along with a coached workout every Tuesday night and a series of additional Monday and Wednesday track workouts in the winter. Club membership grew to an all-time high, and we ended the year in our strongest financial shape ever. All these accomplishments were made possible by volunteers—that is, by you!

Here are a few stats to give you a sense of the breadth and depth of FLRC’s accomplishments in 2024.

  • Races: Although we were sad to cancel Super Frosty Loomis for the second year in a row due to a lack of snow, we put on 24 races during the year with a total of 4,081 finishers from:
    • 7 trail races with 728 finishers (up 68 from last year)
    • 10 road races with 2,293 finishers (up 229)
    • 6 track meets with 992 finishers (up 279)
  • Cross-country: We coordinated FLRC and High Noon teams in the five-race PGXC series, placing second overall in the PGXC Club Cup rankings behind only the much larger Syracuse Track Club, our highest place ever. Highlights included:
    • 76 runners and 239 race participations for the season (down 2 people, up 10 participations)
    • Pre- and post-season gatherings of about 30 people each
    • Hosted the third PGXC race at Taughannock Fall State Park for 230 runners from around the state 
    • FLRC’s U19, Vets women, and Super Vets women won their divisions for the series
    • Two FLRC and High Noon runners won their age groups overall for the series, with another five placing second and two more placing third
  • Group runs: We organized numerous group runs, workouts, and team events with over 3,300 participations for the year (up over 500 from last year), including:
    • 23 weeks of MITHACAL MILERS indoor track workouts with 1,267 participations (up 166; with lots of kids as part of the Family Running Program)
    • 12 weeks of Monday/Wednesday winter track workouts for scholastic runners with an estimated 559 participations (first year)
    • 14 weeks of Summer Speed workouts with 354 participations (up 179)
    • 11 weeks of XC workouts with 362 participations (up 91)
    • 9 FLRC Challenge group runs with 197 participations (down 15)
    • 7 weeks of Sunday Skunkday runs with 198 participations (up 29)
    • 15 general group runs with 184 participations (down 4)
    • 9 race course preview group runs with 63 participations (down 22)
    • 115 attendees at the FLRC Annual Picnic in August and 54 at the Winter Trail Festival in December
    • 6 weeks of the Happy Holidays Scavenger Hunt online game in November and December, generating oodles of amusing photos on the forum
  • Volunteers: Over the past two years, we’ve found the Helper Helper volunteer management system essential for volunteer coordination and communication. It also makes it easy to pull out some astonishing stats. These don’t even include board meetings, committee meetings, club infrastructure work on equipment and merchandise, and informal discussions among club leaders. These stats also probably underestimate the amount of time race directors put in.
    • 240 people volunteered for at least one FLRC event, but we had a great collection of super volunteers:
      • 54 people volunteered more than 12 hours (1 hour per month—up 4 from last year)
      • 24 people volunteered more than 24 hours last year (2 hours per month—up 8 from last year)
      • 8 people volunteered more than 48 hours last year (4 hours per month—same as last year)
    • 2,738 hours volunteered (over 3 person-months!), including:
      • 353 hours for Skunk Cabbage 
      • 325 hours for Finger Lakes 50s
      • 201 hours for group runs and workouts
      • 164 hours for Trackapalooza
      • 155 hours for the Monster Marathon
      • 125 hours for an average indoor or outdoor track meet
      • 105 hours for the Hartshorne Masters Mile
      • 35 hours timing non-FLRC races for the community
  • Donations: We donated or helped coordinate $20,270 in charitable donations, including:
    • $7,370 for Loaves & Fishes (through Turkey Trot donations)
    • $2,300 for the Ithaca Youth Bureau track and cross-country programs
    • $2,000 in scholarships for two graduating high school seniors
    • $1,800 for a porta-potty on the Black Diamond Trail from May through October
    • $1,750 for Wilderness Search and Rescue (for helping at our trail races)
    • $1,200 for the Four Town Ambulance and First Aid (the profits of the Fillmore 5K)
    • $1,150 for the Friends of Hammond Hill trail work (acted as fiscal sponsor)
    • $1,000 for the Finger Lakes Trail Conference (Finger Lakes Trail maintainers)
    • $900 for a porta-potty at Hammond Hill from May through October
    • $800 for the Cornell Botanic Gardens (in relation to the FLRC Challenge)

In addition, the three community races we timed raised a total of $8,886 for their organizations.

  • Fundraising: Although most of our donation expenses are funded through income from race registrations, we also offset some through direct donations from the community. Plus, sponsors always make the Hartshorne Memorial Masters Mile possible. Thanks to everyone who donated!
    • $7,700 raised from track sponsors
    • $4,200 raised in donations during race and membership registrations
    • $650 raised in direct donations
    • $500 donated from our PGXC participation
    • $407 raised for the trail porta-potties
  • FLRC Challenge: In its fourth year, the FLRC Challenge once again gave numerous local runners structure for their running from April to September. Some stats from the leaderboard:
    • 199 signups, with 140 people completing at least one course
    • 106 completions
    • 3 completions of the FLRC 100K Ultra Challenge, 12 completions of the Tough Trail Challenge, and 6 completions of the Tough Tarmac Challenge
    • 2,650 total runs logged
    • 13,222 miles covered
    • 509 run report “star posts” from participants sharing with the community
    • $1,572 awarded across 202 prizes to 47 athletes
  • Online presence: As much as we’re all about interacting in person, an online presence is essential in today’s world. Accomplishments include:
    • Grew the FLRC Forum to 1,367 members, up 122 from last year
    • Hosted 4,685 forum posts for the year
    • Racked up more than 115,000 page views by actual people on the forum
    • Increased the size of our photo library by 30 albums and 9,243 photos
  • Club governance: With hard work behind the scenes, we: 
    • Massively increased club membership from 872 last year to a record 935 at the end of 2024
    • Managed over $215,000 in assets, including $187,000 of investments that generate revenue to fund FLRC’s philanthropic efforts
    • Brought in two new board members to replace departing members and fill gaps in the board’s skills, experiences, and demographics

Let’s see what we can do together in 2025!