Our second track meet of the 2019 season is in the books! Although mid-winter illnesses kept nearly 50 pre-registrants from running, we still had 224 finishers and 376 entries across our traditional 5 events, including some stellar times, particularly in the mile and 3000m.

Team attendance was up, thanks to collegiate club teams from Cornell, Ithaca College, Morrisville State, Syracuse University, and Columbia-Greene Community College. They joined the Ithaca College crew team and our regular youth groups: the Auburn Pulsars, GIAC Navigators, Team SOAR, and the Corning-Painted Post school teams.

We kicked things off with four heats of the 3000m, with Cornell grad student Sam Lagasse unleashing a ferocious kick in the final laps to win in 9:10, 11 seconds in front of Ryan Buzby and James Felice, who he’d been running with until the kick. Amrita Ramamurthy of the Cornell Running Club took the win for the women in 10:50, well ahead of Rylee Campeau’s second place in 12:08.

James Felice was only warming up in the 3000m, it turned out, as he posted a 2:02.4 in the 800m for the win, just .2 seconds ahead of Owen Juan. Elora Ferrie of Corning-Painted Post West ran an impressive 2:26.8 to take the women’s crown, just ahead of teammate Charlotte Nevins in 2:27.9, with 53-year-old Michelle Rohl placing third in 2:28.1.

It took 17 heats of the 200m to get to the fastest sprinters, with Conor O’Neill finishing first in 23.90 seconds, half a second ahead of Caden Bennett’s 24.46. In the women’s race, Charlie Slusser of Team SOAR came through in 28.99, beating Maddie Olson of Corning-Painted Post West, who ran a 30.45.

The mile was the marquee event of the day, and even though several top seeds weren’t able to run due to illness, all the runners in the fastest heat (of nine!) were seeded at 4:40 or faster. They didn’t disappoint, with only one person missing the seed slightly and Louis Greco laying down a 4:32 for the win. Oliver Rapp of the Cornell Running Club kicked hard, but slightly too late—he took second place in 4:33.

Finally, in the 4 by 400m relay, the Syracuse Running Club proved dominant, winning the relay by 20 seconds with a 4:14.

The meet ran smoothly despite an unusually large number of heat and seeding changes. Our new system for downloading finishing times directly from the Time Machine into the meet management software introduced some slight delays between heats of the longer races—that’s more a testament to how fast we had been before than anything else. Jullien Flynn was once again instrumental in managing all the entries, seeds, and results.Josh Brockner managed the timing with aplomb, and lots of people, including Ian Golden, timed the sprints. Tom Rishel worked through various issues with the pistol to start each heat. Bill Watson reprised his role as clerk-of-course swimmingly, with help from Bob Talda, Ellie Pell, and Jesse Koenecke. Tonya Engst and Jesse ran registration and bib pickup, with some late help from Casey Carlstrom. Adam Pacheck recorded finishers, with help from David Rossiter, and Ethan Pacheck’s video of the finish line helped clarify some tight finishes. Aaron Proujansky handled backup timing and lap counting, and he took over as head timer for the relays. Finally, special thanks to Bill Watson, Bob Talda, David Rossiter, Casey Carlstrom, Jesse Koenecke, and Gerrit Van Loon for help with early morning setup and afternoon teardown

We hope to see you at our final winter meet of 2019 on March 10th—you can sign up now!