It was a gorgeous evening to kick off FLRC’s summer track series last night, with sunny skies, calm breezes, and warm temperatures on the Lansing High School track, with its long views across the lake. That was a huge relief after last year’s battles with constant storms, and it brought our attendance back toward normal, with 59 runners completing at least one event and 128 individual efforts—lots of people ran multiple events. It was a relaxed meet, with lots of families hanging out on the infield and cheering for each other—an unbeatable close to a summer day that we documented with oodles of fabulous photos from Jamie Love.

We led off with six heats of the 100m, where 17-year-old Aidan Gallager took the win in 11.67, just beating out Dakota Edwards in 11.80 and Christopher Simmons in 11.82. 14-year-old Mairead Lyerla was the top woman in 14.71, with Verity Platt (16.62) and 10-year-old Maple Hubisz (16.85) in second and third. The 100m is also notable for the really little kids, and everyone enjoyed cheering for 2-year-olds Julian Konwinski, Guinevere Goldberg, Adrian Kresock, and Joel Kresock, plus 3-year-old Skylar Weiner. On the other end of the spectrum were 64-year-old Joseph Sullivan and 74-year-old Joe Frank.

Next up was the 800m, where 17-year-old Thomas Wells nipped 47-year-old Roger Moseley at the finish, 2:25 to 2:26. 15-year-old Kathleen Sullivan ran a strong 2:40 to win for the women, outpacing Margaret Branine in 3:03. Joseph Sullivan and Joe Frank ran this one too.

In the 400m, Christopher Simmons and Roger Moseley shared the top spot with a 1:03, each running in a different heat, with Benjamin Lambert just a second off in 1:04. On the women’s side, Margaret Branine came back from the 800m to win the 400m in 1:16, ahead of Verity Platt in 1:23.

Our final individual event of the evening was the 1600m, where Adam Pacheck led a tight three-man pack for two laps before negative splitting a 4:34 for the win, with Adam Berkowitz closing out his FLRC racing days before moving to Minnesota with a 4:44 and Harry Greene coming through in 4:57. The women’s race was equally as exciting with Margaret Frank taking the lead toward the end and powering through the line in 5:48, followed closely by Liz Hartman in 5:53 and Laura Kessels finishing in a strong 6:01 while on vacation from the Netherlands. Equally as notable were our senior runners, with 70-year-olds Mike Homeyer and Anthony Fulgieri breaking 8:00 in 7:40 and 7:53 respectively, followed by 69-year-old Carl Franck in 8:16 and 64-year-old Joseph Sullivan (in his third race of the day) in 9:10.

A 4x200m relay capped off the meet with eight teams competing across two heats. In the first heat, Team Hubisz won handily in 2:19, while Team Edwards outran Team Wells in the second heat, 1:50 to 1:54. Taking fourth, aptly enough, was Team QuAdam, also known as “Four by Adam” with Adam Engst, Adam Schoene, Adam Pacheck, and Adam Berkowitz coming through in 2:05 despite their leadoff runner having spent the entire meet announcing and the other three having just run hard 1600s.

As always, we were only able to put on this meet with the able efforts of our dedicated volunteer team. Bob Talda was head timer, with Tom Rishel in his traditional role as starter and Adam Pacheck and Banyan Love recording bib numbers. Dave Kania wrangled Meet Manager for seeding and results until our laptop’s battery unexpectedly gave out. Tonya Engst managed bib pickup and adroitly fielded runner questions. Bill Watson organized runners into heats and Lars Van Galen visited from the Netherlands to provide backup timing. Special thanks to our additional volunteers and other lane timers for the 100m and 400m: Carl Franck, Amalia Skilton, Laura Kessels, Jay Hubisz, Katie Gannon, and Malaya Love.