FLRC’s February 19th meet was another huge one, with 252 runners across 4 individual events and 2 relays (42 heats all told) for a grand total of 536 entries. Phew! It was a record number of teams too, with 18 teams coming from all over New York and even several from Pennsylvania.
We always start with the longest race, which this month was the 2 mile, where Ace Serianni outlasted Joseph Thompson to take the tape in 10:37. Olivia Lovejoy of Elmira won the women’s race in 12:06, with Amrita Ramamurthy of the Cornell Running Club in second in 13:17.
After 20 heats of the 200m, we ended up with nine runners under 25 seconds, with Alex Spicer of Corning-Painted Post finishing strong in 24.05 to edge his teammate Carrington Vaughn’s 24.06. The women’s race was almost as close, with Elmira’s Agrieanna Mathewson running 27.22 to beat her teammate Hannah Brooks’s 27.33.
The 800m proved to be one of the most exciting races of the meet, with Corning-Painted Post’s Kevin Moshier, one of the top cross-country runners in New York State last fall, winning in 1:58.1 over Owego’s Clayton Wolfe, who came through just a half-second later in 1:58.6. In another nail-biter, Alyssa Walker of Team PREFO took the women’s crown in 2:25.7, outleaning Elmira’s Madaleen Nelan, who finished just two-tenths of a second later in 2:25.9.
In the 1 mile, Kevin Moshier paced his Corning-Painted Post teammates through the first five or six laps before dropping out to let Quinn Nicholson and Jack Ustanik battle for the win. Nicholson took it in 4:32, with Ustanik back just slightly in 4:36. It was another deep race, with the top ten men all under 5:00. On the women’s side, Kristina Kronauer of Red Newt Racing won handily with a 5:09, followed by a trio from Corning-Painted Post — Katherine Mertus, Emily Nui, and Cleo Baker — all of whom finished within tenths of a second in 5:19. Sadly, the second mile heat was marred when world-class super-vet runner Coreen Steinbach went down shortly after the start, breaking her clavicle. Our best wishes for a speedy recovery, Coreen!
Although we were tempted to dock some of the teams in the post-Valentine’s Day 2x400m relay for insufficient smooching, we resisted the urge, and Owego’s middle distance runners took the top two spots, with Clayton Wolfe’s team running a 1:51.2 to beat Vince Duvall’s team’s 1:54.2. In the more traditional 4x400m relay, Corning-Painted Post’s Alex Spicer followed up on his 200m victory to anchor the winning relay team in a smoking 3:39.6, beating out Owego’s 3:55.8, anchored again by Clayton Wolfe.
Such a big meet would have been impossible to put on without the hard work of numerous volunteers. Carl Franck helped set up, managed rolling bib pickup, and arranged the relay heats. David Keifer helped with setup, team registration, heat management, result entry, and breakdown at the end. Tonya Engst was also there the entire time to help with setup and registration before moving on to take over heat management, which was key in keeping the meet moving. Mickie Jauquet did setup and registration and heat management as well, plus coordinated FLRC gear sales. Alex Colvin and Harris Bockol filled out essential roles on the heat management team. Ved Gund and Jesse Koenecke entered day-of-meet registrants and seeded the races, with Scott Wehrwein moving from backup timing to take over the computer to enter results with Jesse — they were the last ones working! Tom Rishel, after making it clear that he remains a pacifist, did a great job with the gun as starter. Alex Looi returned from Vermont to be head timer, with Julie Quinn reprising her usual role of recording finishers. Aaron Proujansky shouldered the harder-than-it-looks job of counting laps for the leaders and helped Julie keep finishers in order in big heats. Casey Carlstrom and Kevin Nelson and Jullien Flynn all helped out with backup timing. And finally, Jim Miner pitched in to help break down all the equipment at the end.