Two @Challengers didn’t let the air quality issues stop them this morning. Congratulations to Melissa Plank for completing her first FLRC Challenge, which she has documented with lots of stories and photos (putting her into a tie for fourth in Community Stars).
Congratulations as well to Nora McIver-Sheridan, who was our 2022 Most Points for women winner with 984.52 points. Finishing off her Dryden Lake Lollipop catapulted her into first place in Most Points for women this year with 981.58 points and dropped Liz Hartman into second place and Jilene Demont into third, the same positions they held in 2022. However, both Liz and Jilene have more points than last year, and with 7 weeks left in the Challenge, they could chip away at Nora’s lead.
@Challengers, Congratulations today go to Ruth Sproul, who is our oldest finisher so far at 71. She has run the Lakefront Loops 5K course 10 times now, but finished off her courses with a Sweet 1600 on the Lansing track this morning. Ruth is also leading the Community Stars competition with her regular photographs, and she’s one of the top reasons that the @Super-60s-70s team is currently in second place overall.
@Challengers Congratulations to our 25th finisher of the year, Bruce Lauber! Bruce finished off his Challenge with a Sweet 1600, leaving the shortest for last.
Here’s a special completion, @Challengers—kudos to 7-year-old Simon Woods, who completed his Personal Challenge of running 7 courses this year, culminating with what sounds like a great Blueberry Patch effort.
@Challengers Congratulations to Rachel Neugarten, who completed her Challenge with a Dryden Lake Lollipop this morning. Bonus points to her for organizing group runs for both this one (looks like she started with Jesse Koenecke and probably passed Jamie Loehr and Ana Riley on the trail) and last week’s Ludlowville Loop—these long courses are always easier with friends!
@Challengers Congrats to Melanie Smee for hiking her tenth course to complete the Challenge despite a hip injury. While it sucks not to be able to run, it’s great that Melanie got out there with friends anyway.
@Challengers We have our second Personal Challenge completion—congratulations to 12-year-old Elizabeth Brown for finishing off eight courses this summer!
I’ve been busy organizing Trackapalooza, @Challengers, which is my excuse for not getting around to congratulating Bill Begeal and Elizabeth Rechtin, who claimed their medals by running the Dryden Lake Lollipop course on Saturday. They’ve run most of their courses together and despite finishing, have continued on to an additional effort on Six Mile Creek already.
Plus, since they’re both on the @Fabulous-50s, finishing their courses helped the team score significantly. The @Fabulous-50s are still 16 points back from the @Fantastic-40s, but that’s a huge improvement from the 24-point gap last Friday. Time for the team competition to start heating up!
@Challengers We have two completions (so far) this weekend. First up—congratulations to 11-year-old Erin Pietras, who completed her eight-course Personal Challenge by hiking the muddy Blueberry Patch course with Kuwanna Dyer-Pietras for her final course.
And congratulations as well to Ana Riley, who saved the shortest for last and knocked out a quick Sweet 1600 for her tenth and final course after completing the Ludlowville Loop during last weekend’s group run.
The pace is picking up, @Challengers — congrats to Mary Howard, who got up early to run Dryden Lake Lollipop this morning and finish off her Challenge.
@Challengers Two more one-and-done completions today! Congrats to Steve Ryan, officially our oldest finisher at 72, for covering the ground despite injuries that prevented him from running as he’d like. He finished off with a muddy Blueberry Patch this morning with FLRC stalwart Bob Congdon for company.
And one more catchup completion, @Challengers—congratulations to Stephanie Mulinos, who actually finished on Sunday with a Dryden Lake Lollipop, but who didn’t show up until we worked out that she had two courses that hadn’t posted successfully in Webscorer. Remember, if you think you’re done but aren’t showing up on the Completions page, check your Activity Log (click your name anywhere on the leaderboard and then click Activity Log) and then use the instructions on the Timing page to repost.
Sunday saw two more completions, @Challengers. Congrats to Matthew Plank, who hiked the muddy Blueberry Patch course with Melissa Plank for his one-and-done finish, and to Ryan Vooris, who took advantage of the cooler weather to run the Dryden Lake Lollipop on a gorgeous afternoon.
The completions continue to roll in, @Challengers, with three people taking advantage of the glorious weather this week so far. Congrats to Brenda Osovski, finishing her first Challenge with Blueberry Patch on Monday, Bob Talda, who ran Blueberry Patch on Tuesday for his tenth course, and Molly Doruska, who did her Blueberry Patch back in May before a research trip to Senegal and finished off her remaining courses in the last two weeks, culminating with Dryden Lake Lollipop this morning.
11 days left! And 45 people have one, two, or three courses remaining, so those completions should start to come fast and furious.
Five more completions since my last check-in, @Challengers! Congratulations to:
Andy Klepack, whose speedy times moved him into second place for Most Points for men. He closed out his first FLRC Challenge with a 5:52 Sweet 1600.
Andrea Kiely, one of our Tuesday night workout regulars, knocked off both the Sweet 1600 and Lakefront Loops 5K yesterday to claim her first FLRC Challenge medal.
Tonya Engst, who continues her recovery from 18 months of inactivity and back surgery in 2021 with her second FLRC Challenge completion, a Dryden Lake Lollipop effort with Sarah Ridenour.
Sarah Von Schrader, who ran an easy Ellis Hollow Creek Crossings course this morning for her tenth course and first FLRC Challenge completion.
Dan Verderosa, who took a break from Ellis Hollow Creek Crossings, which he’s done five times, to run Lime Hollow and a Sweet 1600 this morning, claiming his second FLRC Challenge medal.
