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.

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!