FLRC Footnotes for October 2021

Greetings, runners! Our racing season is winding down, but we have results to share from the Danby Down & Dirty, with three men breaking the previous course record, and multiple club wins in the fourth PGXC cross-country race. One more PGXC race remains on the calendar in November, and we’re looking forward to the return of the Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving Day. But first, here’s what’s happening with the club.

CLUB NEWS

FLRC photo library gains photos from 27 more classic club races!

The new FLRC photo library continues to expand, with thousands of photos from past runnings of the Skunk Cabbage Classic, Hartshorne Memorial Masters Mile, Forest Frolic, Twilight 5K, and other races photographed by the energetic Steve Gallow. Steve is working his way through uploading all his FLRC photos, so you may see some blank albums until he finishes, but they’ll all be up soon. If you have a bunch of old pictures from FLRC events, let Adam Engst know, and we’ll figure out the best way to get them uploaded.

Saturday group runs keep touring FLRC Challenge courses

Do you need the Pseudo Skunk Cabbage course to finish off your FLRC Challenge? Or maybe you’re just looking for a companionable weekend group run. Either way, Heather Cobb continues to lead all-comers group runs on FLRC Challenge courses, with Pseudo Skunk Cabbage scheduled for November 13th. Check the Group Runs & Workouts forum for details.

FLRC Forum FAQ #2: What’s the advantage of logging in to the FLRC Forum?

Everyone can read public posts on the FLRC Forum website without logging in. This helps newcomers get a feel for what makes our running community special. However, you must have an account and be logged in to reply to posts, “like” messages, respond to polls, and send and receive private messages. Also, when you read posts while logged in, the system keeps track of which you’ve read so you can easily read only new ones on subsequent visits. 

Accounts are free and simple to set up—click the Sign Up button in the upper-right corner of the screen. (If you already get email notifications from the FLRC Forum, you have an account.)

Once you have an account, you can log in with your email address and password, or use your Facebook, Google, or Twitter credentials if they rely on the same email address as your forum account. Like most systems, you can have only one email address associated with an account. So, if you’ve signed up using a Gmail address, you can’t log in using a Cornell email address.

If you haven’t yet logged in to the FLRC Forum, give it a try! It’s fast, modern, and a great way to catch up on past discussions you might have lost track of in email.

UPCOMING RACES

Turkey Trot scheduled for Thanksgiving morning on November 25th

Although it’s still a month away, be sure to block off the morning of Thanksgiving for our annual Turkey Trot. We expect to hold the low-key prediction run as normal, and race director Bruce Roebal has plans well underway. Remember, voluntary cash donations from this run support Loaves & Fishes of Tompkins County, which feeds hundreds of people in our community every month. Could you do us a favor and post this Turkey Trot poster on bulletin boards you see frequently?

RACE RESULTS

Danby Down & Dirty 10K course record broken by top three men

It was a gorgeous fall day for the 2021 running of the Danby Down & Dirty, with 127 finishers. Thanks to some incentive from previous record-holder Ian Golden, three men broke the 10K course record. Golden’s 41:47 had stood since 2007, but Mason Coppi (38:48), Matt Lipsey (41:34), and Dan Timmerman (41:44) all came in faster. Francine Barchett was first for the women in 57:12, with Liz Hartman second in 59:14. In the 20K, Kristofor Norberg continued his trail winning streak with a 1:37:03, outpacing Tim Phelps in 1:40:52. Katie Sick was the top woman in 1:47:31, followed by Amelia Kaufman in 1:53:35. Kudos to race director Pete Kresock for putting on a well-marked and organized race, aided by numerous FLRC volunteers. Don’t miss the excellent photos from photographer Jamie Love!

FLRC Open and Vets women win again in PGXC #4 at Taughannock State Park

Despite race organizer Charlie Fay having to reroute the course due to Cayuga Lake flooding parts of Taughannock State Park, the FLRC Open and Vets women’s team both won closely contested races on October 31st, the third win for each this season. The Open A team of Bella Burda, Kathleen Kanaley, Sarah Codd, Jenny Berkowitz, Gabrielle Woo, Margaret Frank, Liz Hartman, and Amanda King tied with Buffalo’s Checkers squad with 32 points but won the tiebreaker on the strength of Gabrielle Woo’s fifth-place finish being two places ahead of the fifth-place finish for Checkers. (That’s the glory of cross-country scoring, where people who aren’t the fastest can be the most important!) The Vets team of Caitlin Loehr, Brenda Osovski, Sandy Gregorich, Kim Jackson, and Julie Randall won as well, sneaking past Rochester’s GVH team by a single point. Also taking home a team trophy by virtue of fielding five runners was the unopposed FLRC U19 team of Jack Barton, Banyan Love, Benjamin Lambert, Oliver Lambert, and Ryan Savage. The fifth and championship race is coming up fast on November 7th at Finger Lakes Community College in Canandaigua—good luck to all our runners!

Four runners complete the FLRC 100K Ultra Challenge in October

As summer temperatures have waned, interest in the FLRC 100K Ultra Challenge has risen. For the Ultra Challenge, you have to run all ten FLRC Challenge courses in a 24-hour day, a test of logistical planning as much as physical endurance. Congratulations to Karen Ingall and Bob Talda, who completed the Ultra Challenge together on October 16th, in 17:42:35 running time and 22:36:49 total elapsed time. Props too to Dennis Stadelman, who completed the Ultra Challenge on his own on October 20th, with a running time of 18:16:04 and a total elapsed time of 23:10:43. And finally, in an impressive effort that goes down in the books with an asterisk, Heather Cobb completed all ten courses on October 23rd with a running time of 20:25:17, but sadly, she was just over the cutoff with a total elapsed time of 24:48:54. 

Fifty runners have now completed the FLRC Challenge—when will you?

Despite being 36 weeks in, the FLRC Challenge continues to pick up new registrants, now up to 192 participants, 50 of whom have completed all ten courses. Total mileage is closing in on 17,000 miles, and we’ve collectively logged nearly 3600 runs. It’s not too late to sign up if you want to challenge yourself to run ten courses by December 31st!

Standings have changed a bit since last month. In Most Points, Adam Pacheck has increased his lead with 987 out of 1000 points, and Bill Watson has moved into second, ahead of 15-year-old Crosby Woods. The women’s standings haven’t changed much, but Jullien Flynn’s 964 point lead is now only 23 points ahead of Gabrielle Woo in the women’s standings. 62-year-old Bob Walters (923 miles) now has a commanding lead in Most Miles, with Karen Ingall (840 miles) holding on to second place and Pete Kresock (799 miles) coming up fast in third. In the Age Grade competition, 55-year-old Caitlin Loehr lost and regained her lead, with 29-year-old Adam Pacheck taking the lead and then dropping back to second after Loehr ran a stellar South Hill Rec Way. 54-year-old Jean-Luc Jannink remains in third. Finally, in the team competition, the Thundering 30s continue to lead with 32 points, while the Fabulous 50s remain in second but have slipped slightly to 39 points. 

Until next time, see you on the roads, trails, and tracks of the Finger Lakes!

—Adam Engst, FLRC President and VP of Track