Greetings, runners! We had no races in December, but in this issue, we’re looking back on what the club accomplished in 2021 and looking forward to the Winter Chill 5K Series the last four Sundays in January of 2022.
CLUB NEWS
Board election and runner survey results
Thanks to the 111 people who responded to our board election and runner survey. The proposed board slate was elected with 102 votes for and 0 votes against, which means that Ian Golden, Tim Logue, and Becca Lovenheim are joining the existing directors of Adam Engst (President; VP of Track), Mickie Sanders Jauquet (VP of Roads), Pete Kresock (VP of Trails), Charlie Fay (Treasurer), and Bill Watson (Secretary), plus members-at-large Mike Allinger, Heather Cobb, Tonya Engst, Nancy Kleinrock, Steve Shaum, and Charlie Trautmann. Their efforts in helping to give FLRC direction and momentum are much appreciated!
The winners of our random drawing for free entry into all FLRC races (other than Finger Lakes 50s) for 2022 are Jamie Loehr, Patrick Milano, and Amy Sarno! We’ll have a more detailed report on the results of the rest of the survey soon.
FLRC accomplishments for 2021
Most people probably think of FLRC as putting on races, and that’s true. Our normal race calendar includes 22 races, far more than most running clubs, and we were able to hold 13 races—including our full roster of trail races—with over 1000 participations in even this pandemic-hampered year (a normal year sees about 4000+ participations). But FLRC does a great deal more than organize races, thanks to an active board and energetic volunteers. Some of the things we accomplished in the past year-plus include:
- Donated, raised, or helped coordinate over $27,500 in charitable donations, including:
- $13,513 for the Friends of Hammond Hill trail work (acted as fiscal sponsor)
- $4,251 for Loaves & Fishes (through Turkey Trot donations)
- $2,000 for Girls on the Run programs at BJM and Moravia Elementary Schools
- $2,000 for the Ithaca Youth Bureau track and cross country programs
- $2,000 in scholarships for two graduating high school seniors
- $1,200 for Wilderness Search and Rescue (for helping at our trail races)
- $1,000 for the Finger Lakes Trail Conference (Finger Lakes Trail maintainers)
- $965 for the Cornell Botanic Gardens (in relation to the FLRC Challenge)
- $650 for the Four Town First Aid Squad (from the Fillmore 5K)
- Developed and coordinated the innovative FLRC Challenge. Some stats:
- 193 signups, 164 of whom ran at least one course
- 86 completions
- 11 successful completions (of 13 attempts) of the FLRC 100K Ultra Challenge
- Over 4,550 runs logged
- Over 21,700 miles run
- 45 consecutive weekly recaps
- Made FLRC’s online presence more vibrant:
- Grew the FLRC Forum to 880 members and over 20,000 monthly pageviews
- Created a photo library with over 80 albums and 33,600 images
- Designed and implemented an innovative leaderboard for the FLRC Challenge
- Organized four virtual FLRC Presents talks in late 2020 and early 2021 with 80+ participations and over 200 subsequent views
- Formed a Diversity & Inclusion Committee that in 2020 and 2021:
- Developed a Diversity & Inclusion Statement
- Created first-timers’ documents to educate those new to roads, trails, and track
- Encouraged runners with disabilities to ask for accommodations at races
- Offered a free year of FLRC membership to anyone impacted financially by the pandemic
- Established a policy of free race entry for those in financial need
- Organized a Juneteenth group run in conjunction with the Southside Community Center
- Organized numerous in-person group runs, workouts, and team events:
- Held 20 low-key group runs on FLRC Challenge courses with 237 participations
- Coached 10 weeks of MITHACAL MILERS cross-country workouts with 113 participations
- Created the late-2020 Happy Holidays Scavenger Hunt, which had 100 participations across 6 weeks, and generated oodles of amusing photos on the forum
- Organized a mid-February snowshoe clinic to introduce runners to the sport
- Shared food and convivial conversation with 83 attendees at FLRC’s Annual Picnic
- Coordinated FLRC and High Noon teams in the five-race PGXC series, with 73 runners and 181 race participations for the season, with an end-of-season group run, and outdoor awards ceremony
- Hosted the fourth PGXC race at Taughannock State Park for nearly 300 runners
- Staffed an aid station at the Virgil Crest Ultras
- Worked to enhance board procedures, policies, and governance
- Rebuilt club membership from a 2021 low of 411 members to today’s 530
- Created or updated the club’s Cash & Investment Policy, Conflict of Interest & Confidentiality Policy, Ethics Policy, Privacy Policy, Race & Membership Fee Policy, Records Management & Retention Policy, and Whistleblower Protection Policy
- Worked on a significant bylaws revision to meet nonprofit best practices and New York State legal requirements
- Managed $100,000 in investments, establishing an investment policy designed to help fund FLRC’s philanthropic efforts from investment profits
- Brought in three new board members to replace departing members and fill in gaps in the board’s skills, experiences, and demographics
Monthly Thursday night group runs continue
Mickie Sanders-Jauquet is continuing to coordinate all-comers group runs on one Thursday night each month, followed by drinks and dinner afterward. Check the Group Runs & Workouts forum for details on these and other group runs.
FAQ #4: How do I tell which topics have new posts?
When a topic contains a post that the system knows you haven’t seen yet, it bolds the title of the post. When you’ve read all the posts in a topic, its title becomes slightly grayed-out. When you’re looking at a list of topics, you’ll also see a Last Visit line underneath the topics that have been created since your last visit.
If your notification level is set to Watching or Tracking (more on those in FAQ #5), you’ll also see a blue dot after the titles of topics with new posts. If it’s a small blue dot, you haven’t seen any of the posts in the topic. If it’s a larger blue dot with a number inside, the number indicates how many posts are new since you last tuned in, so you can get a quick sense of whether it’s just one reply or an involved discussion. The forum knows what you’ve read and automatically scrolls so you see new posts in a topic.
UPCOMING RACES
Winter Chill 5K Series scheduled for January 9th, 16th, 23rd, and 30th
Get out your hats and mittens for the last four Sundays in January, when the Winter Chill 5K Series is scheduled to return, thanks to the efforts of race director Sarah Drumheller. These low-key 5Ks in Cass Park are free, but you must be an FLRC member to run, so make sure to join or renew online before the races (and don’t miss the chance to get a snazzy Winter Chill T-shirt). There won’t be any day-of-race joining, but membership is just $20 for an individual or $35 for a family for a year, with multi-year discounts if you don’t want to fuss with it annually.
RACE RESULTS
2021 FLRC Trail Circuit Winners
We’ve crunched the numbers and calculated the winners for our annual Pebblehead, Stonehead, and Boulderhead winners. The FLRC Trail Circuit comprises all eight of FLRC’s trail races, plus Red Newt Racing’s Lucifer’s Crossing.
The Pebblehead winners—calculated from each runner’s top three performances—are Ellie Pell and Adam Pacheck. In fact, Adam and Kristofor Norberg tied with a maximum score of 300 points, but Adam won the tiebreaker by amassing an average larger margin of victory. The women’s Stonehead winner—total points across all Trail Circuit races—is Sarah Ridenour, who earned the top spot again after winning it in 2019. Gerrit Van Loon takes the men’s Stonehead title after finishing seven of the nine Trail Circuit races. Gerrit’s seven runs also netted him the Boulderhead title with a total of 137.5 Trail Circuit miles completed out of a possible 150.36. The rules for each contest and further results can be found in our full write-up of the Trail Circuit.
Eighty-six runners completed the FLRC Challenge
The FLRC Challenge still has a few hours to go, and the completions kept coming all day, with 20 new completions since last month. Even more impressive, we’ve crossed the 4500-run mark and have cruised past 21,700 miles! Standings didn’t change much until the last day, when Margaret Frank roared into the lead for Most Points for women, taking over from Jullien Flynn. The Most Miles competition, where Pete Kresock and Karen Ingall were duking it out while Bob Walters dropped to third place after a trip to Hawaii for the Honolulu Marathon, ended in a sportsmanlike tie, with both Karen and Pete finishing with exactly 1345.3 miles.
The team competition also heated up in the last few weeks, with the Fabulous 50s briefly taking the lead before the Thundering 30s put the hammer down. Amanda King, Aaron King, Pete Kresock, Liz Hartman, and others hit the trails to take over the Most Runs category on several contested courses, and Margaret Frank logged five super-fast efforts across the final five days of the year. It was great to see both teams rally to the cause.
Finally, kudos first to Heather Cobb, who completed the FLRC 100K Ultra Challenge for a second time, on this attempt making it under the 24-hour cutoff by the razor-thin margin of 6 minutes and 27 seconds. Be sure to read her write-up! And then, with a December 30th effort, Pete Kresock notched his second completion of the Ultra Challenge as well, finishing in 13:20:11 running time and 17:00:06 total elapsed time.
Looking forward to seeing you at FLRC events in 2022!
—Adam Engst, FLRC President and VP of Track