Recap of FLRC’s massive March indoor track meet

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FLRC’s final indoor track meet of 2018 went off without a hitch on Sunday, and full results are now available. The meet was one of our largest ever, thanks in part to being cosponsored by the Cornell Running Club as a National Intercollegiate Running Club Association (NIRCA) meet that drew teams from as far away as Buffalo, NY and Burlington, VT. Also increasing interest in the meet was a popular race walking clinic presented by Erin Taylor-Talcott, a world record holder in the 50K race walk who was fresh off a second place in an international 50K race walk in Monterrey, Mexico. And we were happy to see youth teams from Ithaca’s own GIAC Navigators and the Syracuse-based SAS ATOMS joining our regulars from the Corning-based Southern Tier SOAR and the Auburn Pulsars.

We kicked the meet off with four heats of the 3000m, culminating in a compelling final heat in which Sam Lagasse repeated his win from last month (a 9:49 in the 2 mile) by running an even more impressive 8:51. In the last lap, Lagasse turned up the speed to outkick David Richards (8:54) and Keith McAteer of the Syracuse University Running Club (8:59). Further back in the pack in the fast heat, Jullien Flynn of Red Newt Racing keyed off the extra competition from being in a mixed race to run a strong 9:57, a season’s best and 1:13 ahead of the second place woman.

Switching from our longest race to the shortest, the 60m showed incredible depth, with a slew of fast times across the last three heats. Patrick Skinner took the win in 7.19 seconds in heat 16, followed by Mike D’Angelo’s 7.25 in heat 17, William Zuckerberg’s 7.31 in heat 16 for the Cornell Running Club, and a tie for fourth between Arnoldo Burnett (heat 15) and Blake Williams (heat 17, for the University of Vermont Running Club) in 7.32. For the women, Charlie Slusser of Southern Tier SOAR won in 8.36, beating Rose Simmons of Mohawk Valley Community College’s 8.67. Four other women also finished under 8.87 seconds.

Next up was our exhibition event — the 800m race walk. It’s not a traditional event, but after Erin Taylor-Talcott’s presentation, we wanted to give people a chance to try race walking for real. It’s not as easy as it looks, and good race walkers speed right along. We had 20 finishers, led by Tayler-Talcott’s husband, Dave Talcott (himself an accomplished race walker) in 3:58 and followed by local favorite Gerrit Van Loon in 4:20 and the Cornell Running Club’s Claire Jones in 4:21. Geraldine Rogers even made the long drive down from near Rome for the race walking presentation and to try this race.

Changing gears again, we moved on to 19 heats of the 200m, and again, there was great depth. The two fastest times of the day came in the final 19th heat, but the next two finishers set their times in heats 18 and 17. In a finish that was really too close to call, Alex Worsley of the Cornell Track & Field Club nominally outleaned Blake Williams of the University of Vermont Running Club, 23.94 to 23.95. Without camera-based fully automatic timing, however, it’s impossible to know for sure who really won. For the women, Charlie Slusser of Southern Tier SOAR repeated her win in the 60m, coming through the tape in 28.87, nearly 1 second ahead of Mya Marsh of the Candor CSD Running Club.

Our final and largest individual event of the day was the 1 mile race, with 120 finishers across 10 heats. It was the fourth event in the MITHACAL MILE SERIES, so I’ll start calculating rankings soon — remember that you need to race four miles to compete for an age-group award. The mile races were exciting, and the times were impressive — fully 31 competitors ran under 5:15. The fast last heat featured blistering kicks and exciting finishes for both first and second, and third and fourth. Mik Kern, who won last month’s mile with a strong final lap in 4:41, tried for the same strategy this time, but Kody Parrott of the University of Buffalo XC and Track Club had a ferocious kick of his own, and managed to outpace Kern in the final meters, 4:36.1 to 4:36.4. Just seconds behind them, David Richards pulled off a similar feat to take third, beating Nico Tripeny of the B Team, 4:39.4 to 4:39.9. The women’s race wasn’t in the slightest bit close, with Kristina Schwartz of Red Newt Racing duplicating her teammate Jullien Flynn’s strategy of moving up smoothly to clock a 5:00.4, 22 seconds in front of second place.

(As an aside, the day before, in the outdoor Belmar Parade Day Mile in Binghamton, the Ithaca-based Red New Racing team of Kristina Schwarz, Jullien Flynn, and Rachel Hilliard, who was head timer for Sunday’s track meet, swept the women’s elite race in 5:15, 5:29, and 5:44!)

As always, we closed out the meet with 6 heats of a relay race — a 4 by 400m this time. Despite all the collegiate runners participating, the Candor CSD Running Club replicated their February win, clocking a team effort of 3:55.

Finally, I want to thank our volunteers, who get better and better at running these track meets even as the number of runners grows — they deserve significant appreciation for putting on a 6-hour event for hundreds of runners and spectators. Rachel Hilliard shouldered head timer duties after being shown the ropes by Scott Wehrwein, and Adam Pacheck did a stellar job with backup timing and lap counting. Jullien Flynn and Emily Funk juggled athlete entries, scratch, and seed time changes with aplomb, and produced results faster than ever before. Becca Lovenheim wrangled a record number of runners in her role as head clerk-of-course, with Tonya Engst shepherding each heat to the starting line. Tom Rishel started each race perfectly, with no false starts or major delays for reloading. Julie Quinn recorded finisher order calmly and accurately, no mean feat when four runners finish in quick succession within seconds. Josh Brockner and Alex Colvin joined us to time the lane-timed races and both were generally helpful as necessary. David Keifer, Carl Franck, and Tonya Engst came early to help set up, and David both managed rolling bib pickup and had many things torn down before the final relay heat was done. My thanks to each and every one of you — numerous runners and coaches have commented on how smoothly our meets run due to your efforts!

We’ll be taking a break from track for a few months before starting up the summer meets at Lansing High School. The dates for the summer meets are June 19th, July 17th, and August 21st — get full details and event info here.

See you then!

High School Seniors: Apply for a $1000 FLRC Scholarship

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The Finger Lakes Runners Club is proud to announce the following scholarship program:

Program Eligibility

  • Two unrestricted, $1,000 scholarships will be awarded to two deserving high school seniors who participated on their school’s cross-country and/or track and field teams.
  • Eligible students must reside in Tompkins or a surrounding county.
  • FLRC membership is not required.

Process

  • To apply, applicants must submit a letter describing their academic, extracurricular, and running achievements. Those applying should include any plans they have for a running career beyond high school and the personal benefits they have gained by participating in the sport.
  • Applicants should include two letters of recommendations—one from a teacher and one from a coach. Please do not send complete transcripts or additional material for consideration as these will not be reviewed.
  • Mail application materials to:

FLRC Scholarship Committee
Attn:  Lorrie Tily
P.O. Box 185
Locke, NY 13092

Identification of Recipient

  • The Scholarship Committee must receive scholarship applications by April 27, 2018.
  • Committee members will review submissions and identify recipients by May 18, 2018.
  • Recipients may be asked to present their scholarship application materials to the FLRC Board of Directors.

Try Race Walking at FLRC’s March Track Meet with World-Record Holder Erin Taylor-Talcott

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Here’s something to brighten your week—looking forward to learning race walking with Erin Taylor-Talcott at FLRC’s March 4th track meet.

Erin has had an outstanding athletic career as a race walker, with a current focus on the 50K distance. The About section of her Facebook profile tells us that she is a world record holder in the 50K and has 23 U.S. records. Erin is also notable for her efforts to get women included equally in Olympic race walking and to help women receive equal prize money in USATF-funded races.

When race walking, one foot must be in contact with the ground at all times. To see what race walking looks like and to learn more about Erin, watch this video.

If you’re interested in race walking, you can watch, learn, race, and review at the FLRC March 4 track meet:

  • Watch at 9:00 AM: Erin will be race walking in the first event of the meet, the 3000-meter race, so you can watch her to see how it’s done. (Experienced race walkers are welcome to compete in this event or the 1 mile, though we don’t have a special race walking heat.)
  • Learn at 9:30 AM: Once Erin finishes competing and recovers from her race, she’ll conduct a free race walking clinic behind the bleachers. Beginners are welcome and highly encouraged!
  • Race at 10:45 AM (estimated): After the 60-meter sprints, we’ll have one heat (or more, if necessary) of an 800-meter race specifically for race walking, making it possible for those who attend the clinic to give race walking a try on the track.
  • Review your race: After the 800-meter race, Erin will be available to talk about how the race went for you, if your form was legal, and what to try next in the pursuit of more race walking.

You can register now to race! To register for the 800m race walk, be sure to select the 1500m race walk (our registration software doesn’t have an 800m option, but it will be an 800m at the meet). Pre-registration is free to all FLRC members, and either $3 (students) or $5 (adults) for nonmembers. Day-of-race registration costs $10 for everyone. The registration fee includes as many races as you care to run (or race walk!).

Smooth Running and Fast Times in FLRC’s February Indoor Track Meet

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FLRC’s February 2018 indoor track meet is in the books! On Sunday, 230 runners piled into Cornell’s Barton Hall to compete in the 2 mile, 800m, 200m, 1 mile, and 4x400m relay. We had runners as young as 5 and as old as 70 (sometimes in the same heat). Everything went swimmingly (runningly?) and good times were had by all, both on and off the track. Results are now available.

In the 2 mile, Sam Lagasse seeded himself at 10:00, and then proceeded to give a master class on pacing while running at 9:49, lapping even second-place Joe Thompson, who finished in 10:55. Local runner Rich Heffron had also seeded himself at 10:00 and might have been able to give Lagasse some competition, but Rich was unable to make the meet given that his wife gave birth to their first child a few hours before. Congratulations, Rich! For the women, Veronica Dailey ran a 12:52 for first place, with 52-year-old Anne Shafer-Nolan (coming off a strong performance at the Hartshorne Memorial Masters Mile) not far behind in 13:03.

We had 9 heats of the 800m next, and it was a strong field, with 15 runners going under 2:10. In the final heat of the day, Corning-Painted Post West’s Bryce Derick took the lead in the last lap and managed to hold off a spirited kick by teammate Quinn Nicholson, winning in 1:59.9 to Nicholson’s 2:00.2. The women’s race was almost as close, with Alyssa Walker of the Crusaders running a 2:21.0 to beat Corning-Painted Post West’s Alyssa Walker by 1 second.

Next up were the sprinters in the 200m, and Jhamir Brown of Elmira took the crown with a masterful 24.05. After him came a tight pack of Lance Jensen of the Candor CSD Club Runners, second in 24.85, Steven Shepard of Chenango Forks, third in 24.88, and Tyreek Billups of the Cornell Track & Field Club, fourth in 24.98. Similarly closely contested was the women’s race, with Isobel Sheffey of Watkins Glen beating Elora Ferrie of Corning-Painted Post West 27.54 to 27.79.

The most popular race of the day was the 1 mile, with 80 runners spread across 8 heats. It also proved one of the most exciting as all the runners in the fastest heat went out in a tight pack for three laps. Eventually, though, it broke up a bit, and Mik Kern went to the front at the start of the final lap and threw down a ferocious kick to beat Steven Segal of Notre Dame High School 4:41 to 4:43. The women ran strong as well, with Aneisa Dodson of Elmira crossing the finish line in 5:27, 1 second ahead of Katherine Mertus of Corning-Painted Post West.

Finally, in the 4x400m relay, Lance Jensen anchored a powerful Candor CSD Club Runners team to clock a 3:51.6, not quite 2 seconds ahead of Elmira’s team, anchored by Patrick Hemmenway, which finished in 3:53.0.

This was one of our smoothest meets yet, thanks to the efforts of an increasingly experienced volunteer team, and they deserve huge thanks for putting on 5-hour event for hundreds of runners and spectators. Scott Wehrwein was head timer, with Aaron Proujansky as backup timer; he also did double duty counting laps for leaders. Jullien Flynn set new speed records of her own in getting results out after each event (with help from David Keifer and Casey Carlstrom), and her work in entering day-of-meet entries and changing seed times made everything run well. Becca Lovenheim exercised a calm hand while wrangling runners as clerk of course, and Bob Swizdor shepherded each heat to the starting line. Tom Rishel, a past president of FLRC, did a bang up job (sorry) of starting each race. Pete Kresock and Jesse Koennecke recorded finisher order, which is sometimes easier said than done when four runners finish within a second or two of each other. Jesse also took a break to run the mile and lower his PR by a few seconds before coming back and taking over as head timer for the relays. Tonya Engst ran registration and the 1 mile, lowering her 2018 personal best by 5 seconds in the process. And David Keifer was instrumental in both setup and teardown, along with handling rolling bib pickup and helping out wherever else he could. Thanks to all of you!

Super Frosty Loomis Race Report

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First off, thanks to our supporting and sponsoring organizations: Finger Lakes Running & Triathlon Co., Stonewall Wine & Spirits, Hopshire Brewery, Old Goat Gear Exchange, Friends of Hammond Hill, and of course the Dryden Hotel for their fabulous hospitality. Thanks to Ann & Charlie Leonard for allowing us to use the Hammond Hill-Ton and their land, on which about 1/4 mile of the course passes — including the start and finish. Thanks to Adam Engst, Tonya Engst, and Carrie Sipe who facilitated timing and registration. Thanks to Joel Cisne, Gretchen Gilbert, Eric Jon Maki, Gary McCheyne, and Bob Talda, who helped with various duties on the course, at the Hill-Ton, or with equipment and supplies. Thanks to Melissa Gustafson Schmidt for the fabulous veggie soup! Thanks to Matt Westerlund who provided the loaner snowshoes from Bob Dion’s wonderful snowshoe company. Thanks to Gracie Pajonk for taking and sharing some awesome pics from the race! A special thanks to Will F. and I believe Michael A. & Eric P., who helped get an injured runner back to the finish. The report is that she is okay, but very sore today.  Lastly, a huge thank you goes out to fellow race directors Boris Dzikovski and Dave Kania. If I missed anyone, please let me know and I apologize.

Highlights from the race include Jamie Woolsey’s women’s 10K course record by nearly eight minutes, and Sarah Ridenour’s fourth consecutive win in the Mini-Loomis 5K. We also saw a new course record by Tom Olson in the men’s Mini-Loomis 5K, and a tight three-way battle in the men’s 10K between myself (Eric), Jeremy Drowne, and Mikhail Kern. It left us separated by less than four seconds at the finish line and left me very sore today! Big thanks to everyone who came out yesterday — this was our biggest Loomis so far. We hope everyone enjoyed themselves and we hope this will encourage more people to get out on the trails all year round!

– Eric Sambolec, Race Director

Race start. PC: Gracie Pajonk

 

View results.

Huge thanks to Gracie Pajonk, who came with her husband Eric Pajonk to the race and took a slew of pictures at the start and finish. You can view her gallery here. You may view, download, and share the full-resolution photos for free and in any way you like. Gracie just asks that you credit her as the photographer when sharing in public. You can tag her on Facebook using her profile “Gracie Pajonk” or on Instagram as @minimalgrace. We realize there aren’t that many people in these photos, but let us know if you’d like to see this sort of photography at other FLRC races.

While you’re at it, don’t forget to tag FLRC on Facebook as @FingerLakesRunnersClub, and on Instagram and Twitter as @FLRCithaca.

FLRC Annual Meeting Celebrates 50 Years of Running on March 18th

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Join us for the 50th anniversary of the Finger Lakes Runners Club!

On March 18th from 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM at Joe’s Restaurant, we’ll be providing light appetizers and brief remarks about past, present, and future of the club. We’ll also have exhibits of memorabilia from the good old days of running in Ithaca. (And if you have anything great, please bring it to show off!)

To sweeten the deal, you can join your fellow club members and aspiring pastry chefs in our annual dessert contest! Enter your favorite dessert and the winner of the contest shall receive a $25 gift card to the Finger Lakes Running & Triathlon Company. Or just come, sample all the desserts, and vote for your favorites.

Attendance is free, but please RSVP so we can give a head count to Joe’s Restaurant.

FLRC Group Runs Begin February 4th

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Running with other FLRC members just got easier, thanks to several group runs being organized for 2018!

With Shelly Marino as our volunteer Group Run director and a few FLRC members who’ve volunteered to lead these runs, we’ve been able to schedule a regular run for the first and third Sundays of every month, starting on February 4th. These runs will begin at the base of the Black Diamond trail, near the Children’s Garden and turtle at Ithaca’s Cass Park.

An important historical detail is that Black Diamond in this case refers to coal, and to the former railroad line that the Black Diamond trail follows. What Black Diamond does not refer to is a super-steep ski slope! So, although this trail does have a slight incline up from its base at Cass Park, it’s not a challenging hill by any standard.

We hope to have several volunteer leaders at each of these runs, with, perhaps, one leader actually leading, one in the middle, and one “sweeping” at the back. If you’d like to join the Group Run team and lead these runs regularly (or just occasionally), please get in touch with Shelly.

Mingling and registration will begin at 8:30 AM and we’ll start running at 8:45 AM. The group will run along the trail for about a half-hour and then turn around. In this way, everyone should start and finish together, regardless of pace, and we hope that everyone will find a few buddies going at an enjoyable speed. Walking or stopping to rest is also okay!

You need to register only once for the entire year—your registration is mostly just signing a liability waiver. You can do this online here, or if that’s not convenient for you, make sure to arrive at 8:30 so there will be time for you to register.

For more details, visit the Group Run page.
FLRC will also be involved with the popular Eat & Run runs that Vicki Brous has led in the past, and we believe that these will kick off in March of 2018, on the second and fourth Sunday. These runs will have a later start time than the 8:45 AM Black Diamond runs. Stay tuned to the FLRC site for details.

Hartshorne Results and Recap

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The 51st running of the Hartshorne Memorial Masters Mile is now in the books! We had some great times and exciting races. No new records this year, but Robert Jackson of New Brunswick missed setting the Canadian 60-64 indoor mile record by just 0.59 seconds. We hope to have the videos of all the races posted next week, but in the meantime, you can check out the results here.

Before some quick race summaries, I’d like to thank the volunteers who made this event run so smoothly. Jim Miner and Megan Powers handled registration; Nancy Kleinrock and Herb Engman entered results; Joe Simpson was clerk-of-course; Bruce Roebal manned the lap counter and rang the bell; Steve Shaum called splits; Bert Bland, Sean Nicholson, Joel Cisne, and Aaron Proujansky kept college kids from wandering onto the track; Megan Powers and Tonya Engst held the finish tape for the elite races; Dan Hurley was the starter; and Peter Taylor did the announcing.

All of the elite races were ably paced by rabbits: Matthew Herbert for ME40s, Mik Kern for ME50s, Genna Hartung for WE40s, and Jullien Flynn for WE50s. It’s a surprisingly tough job, and they all did it with aplomb.

I’d also like to thank my assistant race directors, Tom Hartshorne and Charlie Fay. Without their help everything would have been immensely harder.

Finally, putting on an elite event like this is possible only with the help of our sponsors: Cayuga Medical Center, The Ainslie Reilly Group at Morgan Stanley, Bangs Ambulance, the Hartshorne Family, Sean Nicholson, Joe Daley, Ken Zeserson, Bill Quinlisk, Felder Track & Field, and a grant from the Community Foundation of Tompkins County’s Myrtle Dee Nash Memorial Fund.

Now, on to the races!

Men Elite 40s 

Mark Williams of Columbia, NJ led from the start and held off challenges from Dave Welsh of Haddon Twp., NJ (second) and Scott Weeks of Groton (third) to win in 4:31.81.

Women Elite 40s

Sascha Scott of Syracuse ran away from the field for her third-straight Hartshorne win in 4:59.05, less than half a second slower than last year’s winning time. Christy Peterson of North Wales, PA was second and Dianne DeOliveira of Brick, NJ was third.

Men Elite 50s

Kent Lemme of Pittsfield, MA defended his title from 2017 in 4:42.76, also about a half-second slower than his 2017 win. Second and third places repeated from 2017 as well, with Mike Nier of Rochester, NY taking second and Stuart Galloway of Fonthill, Ontario in third. Running in his first elite 50s race, Ithaca’s Alex Colvin came through in fourth, improving on last year’s time by 7 seconds.

Women Elite 50s

Running down with the elite 40s for more competition, Alisa Harvey wasn’t able to match her 2017 time but still won the division easily in 5:26.44. In the actual elite 50s race, Anne Shafer-Nolan of  McDonough, NY was first in 6:06.67, with Mary Swan of Jamesville, NY and 66-year-old Coreen Steinbach of Pompey, NY second and third.

Men Section 1

This race proved one of the most exciting of the day, with 44-year-old Scott Dawson of Trumansburg running off the shoulder of Groton’s Keith Eggleston (58) for most of the race before throwing down an impressive kick to win in 5:23.91. Eggleston was second in 5:31.32, and third place went to Jean-Luc Jannink of Ithaca, who also made up numerous places in the last lap.

Men Section 2

Another kick for the win came from Steve Vanek of Ithaca, 46, who blazed through his final lap to hit 5:58.88 and to beat 62-year-old Mark Rybinski of Manlius, NY and High Noon alum Rod Garratt of Santa Barbara, CA, 54. Ithaca native Caleb Rossiter, 66, was fourth in his 25th — and, he claims, last — Hartshorne Masters Mile.

Men Section 3

Ithaca newcomer Joel Leff, 67, and 64-year-old Ken Hodges, also of Ithaca, battled to the wire in this heat, with Leff out-leaning Hodges by 7 hundredths of a second in 6:25.85. (The race was timed by Leone Timing with fully automatic timing, so we really do have accuracy to the hundredths of a second). Third place went to Jack Salisbury of Tully, NY. Honorable mention to David Keifer (71) and Jim Miner (69), both of Dryden, who placed eighth and ninth, but were the oldest runners in the heat.

Men Section 4

71-year-old Joe Reynolds of Newfield, a fixture at FLRC races for decades, powered through 8 laps to win handily in 8:49.92. He beat Harland Bigelow of Lisle, 73, and John Saylor of Brooktondale, 71. But the most exciting part of this race was when 93-year-old Dixon Hemphill of Fairfax Station, VA, outkicked 89-year-old Richard Sullivan of Buffalo, NY in the final 60 meters.

Women Section 1

Kim Jackson of Cortland, 49, led the entire race, winning in 6:47.95, trailed closely the entire time by Newfield’s Christine Reynolds, 47. The next four places were decided in the final 100 meters, with Louise Mahar of Ithaca, in third, Amy Dawson of Trumansburg in fourth, Tonya Engst of Ithaca in fifth (separated by less than 2 seconds), and Lorrie Tily of Locke in sixth.

Women Section 2

Jane Leff of Ithaca, 67, running her first Hartshorne, ran away with this race, beating the Buffalo area Belle Watling team in 10:26.54. Sandy Balling of Tonawanda, NY (71) was second, Christa Maier of Williamsville, NY (77) was third, and at 83 years of age, Edna Hyer of South Wales, NY was fourth in her 22nd Hartshorne Masters Mile.

Congrats to all our winners, and thanks to everyone who came out to run. And if you showed up to watch, I hope you enjoyed the spectacle!

– Adam Engst, Race Director

Stellar performances at FLRC’s January indoor track meet on Sunday

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FLRC’s first indoor track meet of 2018 is in the books, and there were some stunning performances! With 188 runners, attendance was down a bit from previous years, even though the previous day’s high school meet was canceled due to bad weather — the roads were still a bit treacherous and the SAS ATOMS team from Syracuse wasn’t able to come. We still had 300 race entries across five events. Full results here.

Running for High Noon, Rich Heffron started the day off with a commanding win in the 5000m, running 16:40 to Jim Derick’s 17:13. Not content with a single 5K for the day, Rich then ran down to FLRC’s Winter Chill 5K, where he again took first in 19:05, albeit in extremely cold conditions. Claire Mason of Corning-Painted Post West took the women’s race in 20:50, besting several of her teammates by almost a minute. Also note that Erin Taylor-Talcott clocked a 24:54 while race walking — that’s about 5 minutes off the women’s world record.

In the 60m, Alex Spicer of Corning-Painted Post West ran a 7.25 for the win, just .3 seconds faster than Jesse Richard’s 7.55 — two other men ran under 8 seconds. For the women, Charlie Slusser of Southern Tier SOAR won in 8.70, beating Lillian Jensen of the Candor CSD Club Runners by .29 seconds.

Without Leon Atkins of the Auburn Pulsars to continue his historical dominance in the 400m, Alex Spicer picked up his second win, running 53.14 to Keegan Cochran’s 54.00 and Lance Jensen’s 54.85. Jillian Perrault of the B Team took the women’s crown with a 1:05.21, handily finishing ahead of Leah O’Connell of the Candor CSD Club Runners, who came through in 1:08.64.

The 1 mile race was the most exciting of the day, given entries from some of the top high school runners in the area. In the final and ninth heat of the day, Dan Gahagan of Corning-Painted Post West led for most of the race, and fended off numerous challenges from brothers Gabe and Aaron Planty of Watkins Glen. Gahagan ran a 4:31, with Gabe Planty second in 4:32, Groton’s Richard Moore a strong third in 4:35, Aaron Planty fourth in 4:40, and Jason Matthewson of Elmira fifth 4:42. But it didn’t end there, with the next five runners also under 4:45! Alyssa Walker of the Crusaders won the women’s race in 5:25, with Olivia Lovejoy of Elmira second in 5:30.

In the middle of the mile, we were pleased to announce the news that Elmira native Molly Huddle set a new American record in the half marathon with a 1:07:25 at the Houston Half Marathon. She broke Deena Kastor’s 2006 record of 1:07:34 by 9 seconds, and in the process also set unofficial records for the 10 miles and 20K. Speaking as someone who was once outkicked by a then 17-year-old Molly Huddle in the mile in Barton Hall, it’s always great to see her running successes.

With six heats of the sprint medley (400-200-200-800) relay, there were a number of good races as well, with the final heat pitting Keegan Cochrane against Corning-Painted Post West’s Bryce Derick in the ultimate 800m. They traded leads several times in the four laps, and all eyes were on their furious sprint to the finish, with Cochrane outleaning Derick for the win by just a few hundredths of a second.

As always, coordinating a meet with so many runners and so many heats was possible only thanks to the tireless efforts of volunteers. Jullien Flynn managed the essential computer tasks of race day entries, heat changes, and untangling of results with aplomb, with help from Zsofia Franck, who also helped line up young starters in the sprints. Tonya Engst, Becca Lovenheim, and Carl Franck wrangled all the heats, a task made trickier by needing to rearrange heats around the missing SAS ATOMS. Scott Wehrwein was head timer for most of the meet, ably backed by Josh Brockner, who took over running the Time Machine at the end. Aaron Proujansky did backup timing, Bob Swizdor and Hal Coghill recorded finishers, and Brenda Marchewka did a great job managing the lap counter for longer races. Lesley Middleton helped with registration, Lorrie Tily and Ximing Yin helped timed the 60m, Bert Bland and Bob Talda showed up early to help with setup. Thanks to you all!

2017 Turkey Trot Results

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We are extremely lucky and forever thankful to be part of such a wonderful and generous community. This year, the Turkey Trot set a record with $4,030 in donations for Loaves & Fishes of Tompkins County. Additionally, the 397 runners was the second most we’ve ever had in 40+ years of the run. While the morning was cool and crisp, the overall weather was perfect for Thanksgiving morning.

For those not in the know, the Turkey Trot is not a traditional competitive race, but rather a prediction run. Participants write down their predicted times before running, then complete all or part of the course without a timing device. Those closest to their predicted times win pies. This year, Ben Kornblum, Gerrit Van Loon, and Rowan Cynch were all within one second of their predicted times for the 5.5-mile course. Bob Walters was only two seconds off, and seven other trotters were within ten seconds of their prediction.

2017 Turkey Trot Results pdf

The honor roll has been updated to include everyone who’s run five or more times in the history of the race: Turkey Trot Honor Roll 2017 pdf

Also, the Ithaca Journal covered the race twice. Once a few weeks before Thanksgiving, and again at the run itself. It’s been reported that the latter made the newspaper’s front page on Black Friday. (Click the links for interviews, photos, and a video from the Journal in it’s coverage of the run.)