@Challengers One thing I love about the Challenge is how it changes every year. In 2021, Jamie Loehr was our first finisher, though it took several weeks due to courses opening in February and continuing to do so through April. In 2022, Rebecca Lambert was our dark horse first finisher, coming out of nowhere to finish in 10 days. For 2023, Jamie worked hard to reclaim his 2021 crown, but Rebecca doubled down on several days to finish in just 7 days and finish first again. I joked last year that someone would have to go for the FLRC 100K Ultra Challenge to beat Rebecca.
But if you check the Completions page, you’ll find another entry. Congratulations to Amalia Skilton, who has now completed her fourth FLRC Challenge in a row. As many of you know, Amalia is moving to Edinburgh, Scotland, next week, and while she hopes to be back in July to collect some more Challenge miles on runs with friends, she applied for and was granted a Personal Challenge exemption to the rule about running courses before the start date.
She has been ticking them off, one by one, and contributing corrections and suggestions to the RunGo directions throughout, and her last run on the Lindsay-Parsons course this morning made for her final run. I don’t have the FLRC Challenge medals yet, but I’ll definitely be saving one for Amalia.
@Challengers Congratulations to Jason Jenks, our third finisher of the FLRC Challenge, and the first person to cross the line without doing the Ultra Challenge or having a Personal Challenge head start.
Jason has been piling the miles on this year, and he claimed his finisher’s medal in style by running both long trail courses today, starting with the Hammond Hill Hoctathon in the morning and finishing with the Treman Trailipop this afternoon. Impressive!
And, she’s done! We knew it wouldn’t take our 2022 and 2023 first finisher long, @Challengers, and although Rebecca Lambert was sidetracked briefly by an ill-timed case of COVID, she has now completed her FLRC Challenge. Congratulations, Rebecca!
And I’ll note that Dirk is the first of the @Fabulous-50s to finish, bringing that team into second place behind the @Fantastic-40s, which has two finishers so far.
@Challengers I think it’s only appropriate to congratulate Melissa Plank on finishing with lots of emoji! She gets big points for the fortitude necessary to knock off a course every couple of days, finishing with the big (and well-documented) effort today on Treman Trailipop. Nice running, Melissa!
@Challengers I was at a conference without my usual monitoring software running, so I missed Tatyana Brown’s most excellent completion of the FLRC Challenge on May 14. Whereas most people so far were laser-focused on getting their ten courses in, Tatyana logged 15 runs (three Sweet 1600s, two Duck Trails, and two Lakefront Loops) en route to finishing off her Challenge with a Freeville Fly-In. And that’s with making the drive from Elmira to log the courses. Congratulations, Tatyana!
@Challengers As I predicted, Patrick Milano finished his Challenge on Sunday with an easy Lindsay-Parsons loop. That solidifies his position at the top of Most Points, nearly 150 points ahead of Tristan Lambert and Jason Jenks. But a number of Patrick’s runs haven’t even been at full speed yet—his fastest Sweet 1600 is only 6:38, well over the 4:47 he ran last year as the fastest of four sub-5:00 miles.
@Challengers Congratulations to our ninth Challenge finisher of the year: Kyle Reynolds! He came from Elmira to run our courses, completing many of them with Tatyana Brown, though his final course was a Sweet 1600 that I imagine he did closer to home.
And there we go, @Challengers—as predicted, Tristan Lambert became our tenth finisher today with a sprightly Run Rabbit Run. That moves him into second place for Most Points and Age Grade, though still distinctly behind Rebecca Lambert for overall household points given that she sits atop Most Points and Most Miles right now, plus third in Age Grade. The question is whether Ben Lambert or Oliver Lambert will be the next Lambert to claim a medal.
I have enjoyed the Challenge the last 3 years. This year Tatyana took charge and made sure we completed the challenge early so we could return to the courses we liked the most later in the year instead of letting it drag on and just needing to finish.
@Challengers Congratulations to Bill Blessing, who persevered through a variety of nags to complete Freeville Fly-In for his final course. Excellent work!
@Challengers This weekend brought another finisher—congrats to Elizabeth Rechtin, who picked a cool, damp morning for her Freeville Fly-In effort to claim her medal.
Two more completions today, @Challengers. First, apologies for missing Bill Begeal last time—he and Elizabeth Rechtin ran almost everything together but I must have caught the leaderboard in between updates, so I missed him before.
And today we have Peter Frazier finishing with Lindsay-Parsons after laying down at 17:59 at Twilight to knock his Lakefront Loops time down a bit. Peter is now at the top of the Age Grade rankings and third in Most Points.
Another two completions this weekend so far, @Challengers. First, the indomitable Jamie Loehr finished the Hammond Hill Hoctathon for his final course after being sidelined briefly with some knee pain, and of course, Dennis Stadelman claimed his completion medal as part of finishing the 100K Ultra Challenge. Both Jamie and Dennis are 62, which ties them with David Cutter for oldest finishers so far.
@Challengers, we have a new leader for Most Points for men! Congrats to Adrian Haws, who finished his Challenge this morning with a Hammond Hill Hoctathon that was 3 minutes faster than previous leader Mik Kern. With his tenth course, he moves into the Most Points lead with 992.69 points. Other efforts that contributed were Tuesday’s leaderboard-topping 4:46 Sweet 1600 and Saturday’s Run Rabbit Run that bested Roger Moseley’s previous leading time by 1:30. Adrian now holds the fastest time on four courses and the second fastest time on the remaining six.
Adrian also leaped to the top of the Age Grade competition with a 66.14%. That’s particularly impressive given that he’s 29 and thus competing against some serious age-group world records. But Age Grade levels the playing field for older runners, and the top spot will almost certainly change once 57-year-old Jean-Luc Jannink, 58-year-old Caitlin Loehr, 49-year-old Roger Moseley, and 38-year-old Nora McIver Sheridan complete all their courses.
@Challengers It was a good day for Challenge completions, with not one, not two, but three people running their final course to claim their medals.
Joette Foster led off the morning with a warmup Sweet 1600 to finish, but then ran a speedy sub-8:00 and another easy one to cool down. Caitlin Loehr joined this morning’s group run on Hammond Hill Hoctathon to notch her final course, which also put her atop the Age Grade chart and in second place for Most Points for women. Finally, Lois Meyer also ran the group run for her final course, and at age 63, she has taken over the crown for oldest finisher so far.
Also, with Joette and Caitlin being part of the @Fabulous-50s team, the gap between them and the leading @Fantastic-40s has dropped to just 11 points. Hmm!
@Challengers Congrats to Bob Talda for braving the gusty, wet, but oh-so-welcome cool weather this morning to run Freeville Fly-In and claim his Challenge medal. At 63, he ties Lois Meyer for our oldest finisher so far.
It has been 18 days since our last finisher, @Challengers, so I was particularly happy to see Melanie Smee qualify for her finisher’s medal today. She had gotten close in mid-June but wisely held out for this morning’s cool weather to run Freeville Fly-In for her tenth course. Congratulations!
Melissa Plank 
on finishing with lots of emoji! 
She gets big points for the fortitude necessary to knock off a course every couple of days, finishing with 
