Count us among those who aren’t in favor of changing the clocks twice yearly, as the switch to Daylight Saving Time cut into attendance. But we still had 4 teams and 122 runners who completed 314 events. Full results are on the FLRC website. For those taking photos at the meet, please share your images in our public album—we’d love to see what you captured!
With Barton Hall still quiet as people shuffled in, we kicked off the meet with two heats of the 3000m. In the second heat, Paul Zimmer took control right away, running a 9:15 for a comfortable win, though Lucas Baker worked hard to close the gap in second in 9:22. Our top woman was Liz Hartman, whose 11:55 was one place ahead of the second woman, Ashley Moscowitz, in 12:06.
The energy in the building picked up throughout the 60m, with 8 heats culminating in some seriously fast times. Braddock Salisbury took the win in 7.17 seconds, just a nose (almost literally) ahead of Ryan Haisler in 7.19 seconds and Aidan Tierney in 7.50 seconds. Tess Eisner was the fastest woman for the day, crossing in just 8.16 seconds, edging out Jalasia DeMember in 8.44 seconds and Megan Wong in 8.54 seconds.
After several exciting heats of the mile, the final question was if Paul Zimmer could double for the day. Although Ryan Lyppens led a tight pack for the first few laps, Zimmer soon gapped the group and pushed it in for the win in 4:37. Closing hard was Issac Mazzeo, one of our regulars at the Tuesday night MITHACAL MILERS workout, who finished in an impressive 4:38, with Lyppens third in 4:42, just edging out Alexander Simpson in the same time. Gretel Hillson-Schneider took the crown for the women in 5:36, with Liz Hartman second in 6:06. Speaking of doubling—props to 75-year-old triathlete Deb Bliss, who ran the mile in 9:14, 6 seconds faster than her time in January, and that was after doing the 3000m in 18:12.
Our final and most popular individual races were the 15 heats of the 200m, where Aidan Tierney avenged his third place in the 60m by breaking the tape in the 200m in 24.29, edging out Ryan Haisler’s 24.57 and Ryan Lyppen’s 24.66. Mattison Lucey of the Groton Project continued her dominance of the women’s 200m with her third win of the season and fastest time: 27.58, almost a full second in front of her January time. Second place went to Gretchen Hulsey in 32.02.
Throughout the meet, Brett Shelton and Steve Wagner of the SOAR Running Club managed the high jump and long jump. Those events proved popular again, with 23 in the high jump and 40 in the long jump. In the high jump, Hunter Heyden cleared 6 feet for the win—the same height as February’s winning jump—with Braddock Salisbury and Hicham Oulida tying for second with jumps of 4 feet, 8 inches. Gretchen Hulsey was the top woman with a jump of 4 feet, 4 inches, and Hadley Murray of SOAR was second with 4 feet. In the long jump, Noah Bosket leaped 16 feet for the win. Second place was also the first woman, with Megan Wong jumping 14 feet, 11 inches. Third (and second for the men) went to Camden Hulsey in 14 feet, 3 inches, with Maren Golden (second woman and fourth overall) notching an impressive first try at the event by leaping 13 feet 5 inches.
The final event of the day was the 4x200m relay, where 17 teams ran across three heats. Four teams broke 2:00 this month, with the win going to the ad-hoc Not Fast, Just Furious in 1:46, followed by a Cornell team in 1:47, an unattached team in 1:55, and the ad-hoc 😃 TC B team in 1:56 (who says emoji can’t run?).
As always, the meet was made possible by the highly amiable and capable efforts of 25 dedicated members of our track volunteer team—an embarrassment of riches! Gill Haines-Sharp showed up early to help us set up. Carl Franck once again served as head timer and master of the PA system, with Josh Brockner stepping in as head timer later in the meet, David Rossiter did a bang-up job as starter (sorry!), and Patrick Boyle and Heather Cobb kept everyone lining up on schedule. Jesse Koenecke and Laurel Gilmer were speed demons with Meet Manager, producing results in record time. Tonya Engst and Rebecca Lambert reprised their roles at the bib pickup table, recruited for the relays, and answered runner questions (before Tonya ran her season best in the mile). Moss Dengler was unflappable while recording bibs for the longer races with help from Sandy Gregorich, Katie Gannon handled backup timing and provided enthusiastic cheering, and Tom Rishel counted laps for the leaders. Our sprint timing team was Aeron Jauquet, Crosby Woods, Bob Swizdor, IHS students Jesse and Andrew, plus others filling in from other jobs. Once again, Bethany Schiller assisted Brett Shelton with the long jump, and Elodie Fey helped Steve Wagner with the high jump. Special thanks to Mickie Sanders-Jauquet for bringing FLRC clothing to sell and promoting FLRC’s philanthropic efforts with local coaches.
That’s a wrap of the indoor track season! Huge thanks to Cornell University and specifically Cornell Athletics for allowing FLRC to use the Barton Hall track and the high jump and long jump equipment. Cornell’s commitment to helping the community is extremely welcome and well beyond the norm among US educational institutions from the stories we hear.
FLRC’s next event is the Skunk Cabbage Classic 10K and Half Marathon coming up soon on April 2nd, and if you want to run, please register soon. If not, we need your help volunteering! Our next outdoor track meet will take place on June 27th, and we’re looking forward to our first outdoor track invitational, called Trackapalooza, on July 22nd.