Ithaca Runners Battle Cold and Snow in PGXC Championship

Posted by

Written by Adam Engst, High Noon AC team captain

Remember that snow last Thursday? You know, the white stuff that’s still covering the ground everywhere in Ithaca? Well, they had it in Syracuse too, and it made for a memorable 2018 Pete Glavin Cross Country Series finale. The course was covered in three to four inches of ice, snow, and slush — in that order — as 205 runners turned the lollipop course with two loops of the candy part into a disgusting mess of  slipping and sliding. Some people did better than others depending on their footwear choices or by just being lighter of foot. In the end, a good time was had by all, and it was capped off by an awards banquet where High Noon and FLRC individuals and teams placed well. (Series recap and awards for our local runners.)

On the individual level of podium finishers, Adam Pacheck took second overall in the race, Ian Golden was third in the Masters division, Adam Engst was second in the Vets category, and Deb Bliss won the Ultra Vet division. On the team side, the High Noon men’s teams took a strong second in every category they competed in — Open, Masters, Vets, and Super Vets — and the FLRC women’s teams took fourth in Open, third in Masters, second in Vets, and third in Super Vets. (Full results are available here.)

In the team competitions, the High Noon Open team couldn’t compete with the Syracuse Track Club team that dominated every race. High Noon did manage to hold off Checkers AC (Buffalo) in fine fashion, thanks in part to a particularly nice race from Sean Dunn.

The heartbreak race of the day was the Masters category, where High Noon had gone into the final race tied with GVH for the lead. They had won two races, and we had won two, with the other taking second each time. We pulled out all the stops, recruiting Ian Golden for another race and running all their top Vets down to Masters. However, GVH did the same, putting their top four Vets onto the Masters team and almost losing the Vets category in the process. Even though Ian came through for with a strong third overall, it wasn’t enough and GVH took the victory.

After Casey Carlstrom’s third place Vets finish at the Taughannock race, I decided to run him down in an effort to win Masters in this race, and that decision came back to haunt us in the Vets category. Because GVH stacked their Masters team so deep, if I had left Casey on the Vets team, we would have beaten GVH in the race, though we still had no chance in the series. Nevertheless, our Vets team was only four points out of first.

Finally, although our Super Vet team had no chance against a powerful Syracuse Track Club, they ran well to stay ahead of GVH.

On the women’s side, the FLRC Open team toughed it out in the cold and slush for fourth place, led by Amanda King.

Thanks to Nancy Kleinrock, who was running with the Masters team down from the Vets and running with a broken wrist, FLRC was able to field a three-woman Masters team that took third, led by Julie Barclay’s fifth place finish.

That left just three women for the Vets team, but they posted some strong times, taking second to a Checkers team that has dominated the series.

And finally, FLRC’s Super Vet team, led once again by Ultra Vet Deb Bliss, ran well to take third.

That’s it for the 2018 season! If you didn’t run this year but have enjoyed reading these race reports, consider joining us next year. A number of our teams could use some more depth to be able to compete against clubs from much larger cities. Ithaca has the talent; we just don’t have as large a
pool to draw from. Stayed tuned next summer for announcements about joining our teams in 2019!

Running in Barton Hall: A Reason to Become an FLRC Member

Posted by

For the most part, FLRC races and other activities are available to everyone, regardless of whether or not you’re an FLRC member. However, as a member you’ll be able to:

• Receive a discount on most FLRC-sponsored races.
• Get free entry to all meets in FLRC’s summer and winter track series.
• Run in Barton Hall during the winter months.
• Meet and train with other runners with your own interests and abilities.
• Attend the annual club meeting and banquet.
• Participate in the annual vote for club officers and Volunteer of the Year award.
• Support the club in its mission to promote a healthy lifestyle through running.

I mention this not to be all promotional, but because the general public is technically not allowed to run in Barton Hall, whereas FLRC members are allowed — it’s a liability thing. Just sign in as an FLRC member at the front desk when you come in. I need to generate a list of members to give to the Barton Hall building coordinator soon, and it will make everyone’s life easier if the list I generate in a week has more people on it so there’s less confusion with recently joined members.

(And yes, I will once again be coordinating evening track workouts — probably Tuesday nights — for the MITHACAL MILERS group, possibly starting in December if Barton is available, and definitely in January. You’ll want to be an FLRC member if you plan to come to those.)

You can join and pay online ($20 per year for an individual, $35 for a family, with 3- and 5-year discounts). There’s also a paper form if you’d rather not register online. https://fingerlakesrunners.org/join/

Adam Engst, FLRC Vice President of Track

PGXC Race #4 at Taughannock an Ithaca success!

Posted by

On Sunday, November 4, we ran the fourth race of the Pete Glavin Cross Country series on our “home” course for the year at Taughannock Falls State Park. A flat 6K that’s roughly similar to the 5K done as part of the Cayuga Lake Triathlon or the 5K Chili Challenge, the course wound around the fields by the lake before heading up to the falls and back. The weather was superlative, the leaves were gorgeous, and our out-of-town competitors were wowed. We made sure to mention repeatedly that Ithaca is always flat, dry, and sunny. :-)

Thanks to a tremendous turnout from Ithaca-area runners, this was the largest PGXC race in history, with 234 finishers. The High Noon men fielded a record seven teams, including two teams in both the Open and Masters divisions, plus a historic first Ultra Vet team of 70+ runners (David Keifer, Jim Miner, and Cory Byard). And the FLRC women contributed a slate of four teams from Open to Super Vets.

Our teams ran well too, with Adam Pacheck winning the race overall for his first victory in the series. Deb Bliss continued her dominance of the women’s Ultra Vet individual category with yet another win, Adam Engst was second in the Vets category, followed by Casey Carlstrom in third, and Eric Sambolec took third in the Masters category. Thanks to some newcomers to the series, the High Noon Masters team notched its second win of the season and with only one exception, all local teams placed third or higher. Full results are available here.

Along with the High Noon Masters win, there were a number of other strong team performances. Led by Adam Pacheck’s first place, the High Noon Open I team placed second behind a powerful Syracuse Track Club, and our Open II team took fourth.

The High Noon Masters I team benefited from the addition of Ian Golden and our strategy of stacking the Masters team with some of our top Vets. GVH once again tried the same strategy but weren’t able to field a deep enough team to compete with our fourth and fifth runners. Plus our Masters II team took fourth, only four points behind Checkers.

Even with our two top runners running down to Masters, the High Noon Vets team placed a strong second to GVH, led by Casey Carlstrom’s breakout race of the season.

The Super Vet category has become tight this year. The High Noon team managed a fourth against a deep Syracuse Track Club, which took advantage of the absence of GVH’s top runner to win.

Finally, our new High Noon Ultra Vet team ran well, but were competing against a strong GVH team and took second.

On the women’s side, the FLRC Open team took third (and if we’re not mistaken, the race was won by the daughter of ex-Ithacan Katie Durrant, Sarah Danner, running for Checkers).

The FLRC Masters team also took third. Despite missing three of their top runners, the FLRC Vets team were led by Caitlin Loehr’s fourth place finish and took second, missing first by just one point. And finally, the FLRC Super Vets rounded out the day with another third.

The fifth and final race of the 2018 Pete Glavin XC Series will be November 18 at Drumlin’s Golf Course in Syracuse.

2018 Stonehead, Pebblehead, & Boulderhead Results

Posted by

We’re very pleased to announce the winners of the FLRC Trail Circuit in the Stonehead, Pebblehead, and Boulderhead divisions. This year, the Trail Circuit included the following races (some of which aren’t FLRC races, but are included for historical reasons that could, but won’t, be explained).

• Super Frosty Loomis Snowshoe Race
• Thom B Trail Runs
• Highland Forest 1-2-3 (not FLRC, cancelled in 2018)
• Tortoise & Hare Trail Run
• Tanglefoot Trail Runs (not FLRC)
• Finger Lakes Fifties
• Forest Frolic Trail Runs
• Forge the Gorgeous Trail Run (cancelled in 2018 due to trail washout)
• Lucifer’s Crossing (not FLRC)
• Monster Marathon & Half Marathon
• Danby Down & Dirty

To refresh your memory, the Stonehead and Pebblehead rankings are based on the percent of your time in the race compared to the winner, who gets 100%. For Stonehead, your ranking is your cumulative score across all the races in the Trail Circuit. For Pebblehead, only your best three races are counted. The Boulderhead rankings are based on total number of miles run during the races in the Trail Circuit.

Stonehead

Due to its combination of percentage back from the winner and total number of races won, the Stonehead award goes to the runners who have both speed for a high place and the durability to run a lot of the races. This year, Nancy Kleinrock was the runaway winner on the women’s side, with 725 points across 8 races, outpacing Yvette De Boer (485 points in 5 races) and Paige Anderson (429 points in 6 races). For the men, Bob Swizdor took the stone with 587 points across 7 races, with Bill King in second (495 points over 6 races) and Nancy’s husband Steve Shaum in third (430 points over 6 races). Nancy and Steve are also FLRC board members and past race directors.

Full Stonehead Rankings

Pebblehead

The Pebblehead award is for those of us who are bit more fragile, or potentially just busy on many race weekends. It uses the same scoring system as Stonehead, but across each runner’s best three races, so it rewards raw speed. On the men’s side, Dan Timmerman pulled off a hat trick with wins at Forest Frolic, Lucifer’s Crossing, and Danby Down & Dirty for 300 points. Past winner Eric Sambolec (who co-race directs Super Frosty Loomis) took second with 292.09 points, sneaking past physical therapist extraordinaire Brian Lee’s 291.44 points. For the women, there was very little surprise in seeing the speedy Yvette De Boer win with 297 points (thanks in part to a dominating overall victory in the Monster Marathon), beating Nancy Kleinrock’s 289 points and Emily Funk’s 281 points. (Emily is also an FLRC board member and co-race director of Tortoise & Hare).

Full Pebblehead Rankings

Boulderhead

As implied by the sheer rockiness of the name, the Boulderhead division is determined by raw grit and number of miles run—speed is irrelevant. However, completing a hat trick of her own with another top three place, Nancy Kleinrock won the Boulderhead award for the women (and, technically, overall) with 126 miles. In second was Paige Anderson with 108 miles, and in third was trail-running newcomer Megan Powers with 66 miles. The men’s award was a squeaker, with Ron Cunningham taking the win with 88 miles over Robert Seltzer’s 87 miles. And Mark Morrison wasn’t far back in third with 84 miles.

Full Boulderhead Rankings

Thank you to Adam Engst for compiling these statistics. Congratulations to our winners and thanks to everyone who enjoyed the fabulous trails of the Finger Lakes with us this year. We hope to see even more competition in 2019!

Down and Most Definitely Dirty in Danby

Posted by

Thank you everyone who came out to Danby this past Saturday to stomp through the swamp and then crush your quads on some big descents. The forest had the sloppiest race day trails it’s had in years. It appears the crummy forecast didn’t scare everyone away. On the contrary, we had way more registrants than I expected and 141 total runners starting — 90 in the 10K and 51 in the 20K. We had a handful of first time trail runners and a bunch more new to the race. To all of you, I can (almost) promise the course will feel so much easier if you come back next year!

20K Webscorer Results

10K Webscorer Results

The FLRC Pebblehead, Stonehead, and Boulderhead winners and ranking will be announced shorty.If you have any pictures you’d like to share, tag us on Facebook @FingerLakesRunnersClub or on Twitter and Instagram @FLRCithaca.

Posted by Finger Lakes Runners Club on Tuesday, October 23, 2018

Several speedsters took home potable prizes for overall and age-group wins. Oliver Rapp and Greta Seive won the 10K race in 50:54 and 55:23, respectively. Also impressive was our youngest runner, 10-year-old Jack Barton, finishing in just over an hour.

Fresh off a dominating course record run at The Monster Marathon, Yvette De Boer was our women’s winner in 2:02:15. On the men’s side, Dan Timmerman was victorious in 1:32:36. Only a few minutes later, Xavier Salvador edged out Eric Sambolec in a downhill spring by one second, taking second place. The Cornell Running Club continued its trend, upping the competition at FLRC races this year. Rapp and Salvador both ran strongly while representing CRC.

This was my first go at directing a race, and overall I was pleased with how smoothly things seemed to go. I never could have done this alone, and want to thank the following people for their time and their help: Kathy, Dave, and Andrew Putnam, and  Anne Shakespeare all came out early to help me set up the aid stations, signs, and starting area; Steve Shaum and Nancy Kleinrock took care of bib pickup and race day registration, arriving early to help out before they both ran the race; Mickie Sanders-Jauquet and Allie Jauquet also helped with registration, along with t-shirt sales and timing, and on top of that they stuck around to help clean up; Gary McCheyne helped out with all the equipment and without him I would have been totally lost figuring out all the little needs needed to put on the race. Gary was also a course marshal at the first turn off the road; Aaron Proujansky directed runners at one of the road crossings; Sheena Heise and Ashley Gresock handled the Mile 3 / Mile 10 aid station in the middle of the woods; Amelia Kaufman and Zoe Freer-Hessler directed runners and took care of the Mile 6 aid station near the finish; My wife Hayley Kresock helped out at the finish and with cleanup, helped me keep my sanity throughout, and most importantly, arrived on time with the beer; Gerrit Van Loon swept the whole course after completing the 10K, then stuck around to help clean things up and load the van; Adam Engst led the timing crew and helped with cleanup, and over the past two weeks was able to answer a barrage of question I had about race details; Captain Michael Salter and his Wilderness Search and Rescue crew kept track of runners and made sure everyone stayed safe and accounted for. Lastly, Andy Jordan wasn’t present, but as the previous Race Director he ensured a smooth transition and made things pretty easy for me.

It was great to see a ton of familiar faces out there and a bunch more new ones. I hope to see all of you on the trails again. Our off-roading resumes at the Thom B Trail Runs in May 2019. Next up is the Turkey Trot Prediction Run on — you guessed it — Thanksgiving morning. Then, stay tuned for the Winter Track Series and Winter Chill 5k series in January.

Happy trails!

Pete Kresock

Race Director, Danby Down & Dirty

Strong Individual Performances in PGXC Race #2

Posted by

The second Pete Glavin Cross Country Series race of 2018 took place in extremely wet and soggy conditions in Akron Falls this past Sunday. We had a smaller turnout due to the lengthy drive, so we didn’t win any age groups, but we still managed some good individual performances. Full results are available here.

The High Noon Masters team eked out a second place finish in front of the host Checkers club from Buffalo. High Noon was led by strong runs from Brian Lazzaro, Adam Engst, Alex Colvin, Tom Mullins, and Bob Swizdor (who won his age group in the Danby Down & Dirty trail race the day before). If we’d had Eric Sambolec near the top of the masters pack like in the first race, we might even have beaten GVH. The High Noon Open and Super Vets teams both placed fourth.

On the women’s side, the FLRC Vets and Super Vets both took third, with the Vets team just two points behind GVH. Sandy Gregorich, Lorrie Tily, and Tonya Engst all ran well. With Katie Stettler and Nancy Kleinrock they would have taken second easily, but the Checkers Vets team may be too fast to catch.

Individually, we still took home five awards, just one less than in the first race. The men’s and women’s races were both 6k in length. Adam Pacheck was second overall in the Men’s Open race in 19:26. Adam Engst won the Vets category with Alex Colvin just 10 seconds behind in second place. David Keifer was second in the Ultra Vets category on the men’s side, and for the women, Deb Bliss won the Ultra Vets race.

The next race is October 21 at Mendon Ponds Park near Rochester, followed by our hometown race at Taughannock Falls State Park on November 4.

No Comments

filed under: News

Monster Marathon & Half Marathon Results

Posted by

Thanks to all the runners that came out for the Monster Marathon and Half this past weekend! This year’s race was a lot cooler than the past few years when it was run in mid-August. 85 runners finished the half marathon. Another 20 gutted it out for a second lap, where the hills get steeper and the miles stretch out longer. We had at least one runner complete her first trail race and her first half marathon.

Hats off to Yvette De Boer who demolished the marathon distance course record. Her winning time of 3:06:50 was almost 24 minutes faster than the previous overall record. (What’s more, the 2018 course was about 0.4 miles longer than the last few years. She also owns the half marathon CR on the old course in Virgil.) Yvette shocked everyone by finishing her first out and back before all of the men had started the half marathon, and looked just as smooth cruising along on her second loop. Nancy Kleinrock was second overall in 3:36:38, after marking part of the course the night before. Ed Housel was third overall and the first man in 3:47:06. Hot on Ed’s tail was Paul Jensen, who ran the fastest non-handicapped marathon with a gun time of 3:51:45. (Paul also finished fifth overall in the Ithaca 5&10 10k only a week earlier!) Rounding out the top five and the awards was Shawn Spriggs in 4:10:40.

In the single out-and-back half marathon, Daniel Seigers held on for the win in 1:33:04, with Amelia Kaufman close behind in 1:36:47. Anna Gannett, James King, and Gerrit Van Loon finished close together in third through fifth. After finishing mere seconds ahead of perennial Stonehead contender Bill King, Gerrit then went out for another full loop to sweep the course, thus completing a marathon for the day.

Full results

Elsewhere, the mysterious and menacing forest monster is said to have migrated down from Virgil and was spotted somewhere near the Rock Pile aid station, motivating many to hightail it down the steep and rocky Red Pine Trail.

First time Race Director Daniel Longaker did an outstanding job taking the race over from Karen and Tim Ingall, who decided to step down after many years at the helm. We appreciate all the support from the running community and the amazing volunteer crew. Daniel thanks the following for their volunteer efforts:

Gary McCheyne was instrumental in helping to navigate the ins-outs of obtaining and transporting all the equipment required to put on the race. Pete Kresock and Nancy Kleinrock marked the course Friday night and then ran the marathon on Saturday morning. Bob Talda set up the timing clock at 6:30 AM and the timing crew of Adam Engst, Tonya Engst, Melissa Kuo, and Dave Kania all assisted with timing for the remainder of the day. Previous long-time race directors Karen and Tim Ingall, along with their young son Eamon, set up the start/finish aid station, just in time for Yvette’s arrival at the marathon halfway point. Gerrit Van Loon swept the course after finishing fifth in the half marathon. Thanks to Steve Vanek for an early morning coffee pickup and to Brenda Michaud and Rich Heffron, who joined Steve at the bib pickup table. Special thanks to Dean Russo (Rock Pile) and Makoto Endo (Lean-To) who each single-handedly managed an aid station for the duration of the race!  And finally, thank you to the Forest Monster, who did not maul or eat any runners.

Congrats to everyone who finished! We hope many of you register for the Danby Down and Dirty 10K/20K Trail Race coming up on October 6. The Down and Dirty is FLRC’s final trail race of the year and the last in the 2018 Trail Circuit.

Ithaca 5&10 Wrap-Up

Posted by

Well,…another Ithaca 5&10 is in the books. Could we have asked for a nicer day? Okay, well maybe a few degrees cooler. Pre-registration was up from last year, and we had over 200 runners in the 5k and 10k combined. The amazing thing is the crazy number of kids and parents that ran the fun run mile. Thank you Yvette and Linnie for making that all happen!

After spending the summer running trails, Ellie Pell stepped back onto the road to take the women’s 5k win in 19:15. For the men, Miles Rouches of Cornell Running Club led four runners to sub-17-minute finishes, coming out on top in 16:24. But wait, Cornell Running Club wasn’t done yet. In the two-loop 10k CRC women swept the podium, led by Claire Jones’ 42:03. Aaron Nobles took the men’s win in 34:11, with CRC’s Xavier Salvador finishing 11 seconds back for second place. In all, CRC had over 25 runners between both distances and came prepared to throw down!

With a weekend off from the Pete Glavin X-C series, several members of the High Noon AC and FLRC teams took age-group wins while keeping their legs fresh between meets.

2018 Ithaca 5&10 Results

Thank you Mickie and Amy for jumping in to help out on Saturday. Of course the two of them cut up some mean eats Sunday for the runners and helpers. Thank you Ally for manning the clothing sales — she’s a real pro! Thanks to Pete for helping Gary put out 119 “No Parking” signs along the route; Zsofia, Steve, and Nora for assisting with packet pick-up on Saturday at FLRTC; Brenda, Shelly, KC, and Emily for all the set-up and pre-race work. John and Dan for setting up the course (we heard nothing but good things about it… no one went off course or got lost this time!); Pat, Charlie, Sheila, and Alan for being the critical and special course marshals; Aaron, John, and Bill for taking down the course and packing it all up; Officer Jordan and the Ithaca Fire Police for working the busy intersections. A huge thanks to all the Ithaca College and Cornell students that came down and helped course marshal. There’s been lots of accolades from many runners. Thank You!

That wraps up our 2018 road race season. We’ve got two more trail races to go – The Monster Marathon & Half on September 22, and the Danby Down & Dirty 10k/20k on October 6. (Registration for Danby is still open.) We’re also fielding men’s and women’s teams for the Pete Glavin Cross-Country Series, and it’s not too late to join. Lastly, tradition continues with our non-competitive Turkey Trot Prediction Run on Thanksgiving morning.

5k winners Miles Rouches & Ellie Pell

10k winners Aaron Nobles & Claire Jones

 

August Track Meet: Cool, windy, rainy, and fast!

Posted by

FLRC’s 2018 track season is in the books! On a dark and windy (and a little rainy) night, 117 runners from 1 to 71 heated up Lansing High School’s track. And no, we’re not making up any of that numerical nicety, although 1-year-old Willow Donovan did get a lift from her father for the middle section of the 100m, and 71-year-old David Keifer is a regular at our meets as both a runner and a volunteer. Full results are now available.

The 5000m proved surprisingly exciting. Not because of the times, with the Groton speedster Scott Weeks winning it in 16:09, but because Dave Cook started well back in fourth and worked his way up until they were neck-in-neck in the final lap. Weeks tapped his vaunted 800m speed in that final lap and managed to pull out the win by 1 second. Mary Bushallow was the only female entrant, taking the win in 23:16.

Weeks and Cook are both frequent entrants in our meets, but the sprints brought a newcomer, Ching Yu Chang, a veterinary student from Taiwan on a 2-month internship in Ithaca. He won the 100m in 11.39, nipping Kobe Oates in 11.50. On the women’s side, Anna Lowe of Team PREFO ran a strong 14.90 for the win, well ahead of Lansing Lightning’s Annoura Stewart in 16.48

Chang then came back in the 400 and won that too, running 54.03 to Devine Fenner’s 55.50. Lowe and Stewart recapped their 100m races too, with Lowe winning the women’s title in 1:15.6 and Stewart close behind in 1:18.5.

The mile was the marquee event of the night, with twice as many entrants as any other race. Unsurprising, perhaps since it was the final chance for runners to get their fourth mile in the MITHACAL MILE SERIES. In fact, the title in the 20-29 division was being contested in this race, since both Adam Pacheck and Mik Kern needed one more race, and Adam was leading by only a couple of seconds. Kern knew this was his only chance, but after the first lap or so, it was clear that Pacheck had the win in sight. The stiff breeze slowed the times, so Pacheck ran a bit slower than last month to break the tape in 4:36, with Kern gamely coming through in 4:45. The ever-versatile Dave Cook, despite not figuring in the race early on, came on hard to run 4:52. For the women, 16-year-old Catie Eisenhut of Lansing Lightning ran a strong 5:26 for the win, with Megan Luckner second in 5:31. Two other Lansing Lightning runners broke 6:00, so look for the Lansing girls to have a strong cross-country team this year.

We’d like to say more about the 4x200m relay but the rain clouds were so heavy that the ever-advancing darkness made the heats almost impossible to see—we were starting to worry about collisions during the handoffs. That said, our headlamp-equipped volunteers determined that the irrepressible Ching Yu Chang anchored an ad hoc winning team in 1:50.

Speaking of our volunteers, they once again did a fabulous job in challenging conditions that forced us to separate the registration and results table from the finish line. Josh Brockner is coming into his own as head timer now that Scott Wehrwein has moved on; Bruce Roebal continues to be a great starter; Jullien Flynn has become a wizard with entries, seeding, and results; Becca Lovenheim worked wonders with heat management as clerk-of-course with help from Carl Franck; Adam Pacheck did a good job in taking over recording finishers from recently departed Julie Quinn; Truck Rossiter handled backup timing with aplomb, Ally Salce provided lap counting and bell ringing services; Tonya Engst and David Keifer managed registration for individuals and teams; Tom Rishel floated quietly to wherever he was needed; and Anne Shakespeare and Ruth Sproul and Scott Dawson pitched on lane timing and other jobs as needed so other volunteers could race.

That’s it for 2018, and we’ll see you in January 2019 in Barton for the indoor season! As always, if you have any suggestions for how we can improve our meets, let me know. We’re constantly tweaking and adjusting as our meets attract more and younger runners while trying to make sure they’re as enjoyable as ever for long-time participants.

Joining the Cross-Country Team for Fall 2018

Posted by

September is just around the corner, and it’s time to sign up for fall cross-country races!

Cross-country is a team sport, and runs typically take place on mowed fields and easy trails. Generally speaking, scoring is based on each team member’s place in the race, so unlike most running races, there is a strong team component.

The FLRC team competes in the five-race Pete Glavin Upstate New York Cross-Country Series (PGXC). Most PGXC teams are co-ed, but men in the Ithaca area run on the High Noon team, while women run on the FLRC team. The two teams carpool together and hang out together at races, much like one co-ed team. In 2018, our teams will join forces to compete in the new PGXC Club Cup competition.

For the first time this year, men and women will run the same distances: 5K for the first race, 6K for the next three races, and 8K for the final race. You can run in all the races, some of the races, or just one.

Races take place in the broad Ithaca/Syracuse/Rochester/Buffalo area, and our home meet this year is at Taughannock State Park (don’t panic, the course is completely flat!). We typically carpool to races, and carpooling can be a great way to get to know your fellow teammates!

Each race costs $20, or you can register for the five-race series for $70 and get a hat.

Dates and details, and a signup link, are here.

2017 team wins beer

We know who’s bringing the beer to the end-of-season party! Julie Barclay, Lorrie Tiley, Jen Spano, Tonya Engst, and Amy Dawson have big smiles after their team win in the 2017 Syracuse race.