The 2024 FLRC Challenge is in the books, or, more accurately, the Challenge leaderboard is no longer accepting changes. Congratulations to the 106 people who qualified for a finisher medal this year! A record 199 people registered, and 161 ran at least one course, which gives us an overall completion percentage of 53% and a 66% completion rate for those who got started. Both numbers are down a little from last year, which just goes to show that the Challenge isn’t as simple as it sounds. (If it were easy, it wouldn’t be a challenge!) As Tonya noted, it’s 90% perspiration and 10% administration—fitting those runs into a busy schedule requires effort.
Before I share this year’s winners, please join me in a round of virtual applause for everyone who participated, particularly those for whom completing all ten courses required significant physical effort. We’re all impressed by those who complete the FLRC 100K Ultra Challenge or the new Tough Trail or Tough Tarmac Challenges, but it’s perhaps more of an achievement when someone works their way up to covering 13.1 miles for the first time or when a child completes a Personal Challenge. Kudos to Adrian Kresock, Joel Kresock, Simon Woods, and Archer Hartnett in that last category!
Top Spots
Although the team competition never heated up this year, there were still changes at the top of the leaderboard on the final few days, leading to these final standings.
-
Most Points for Women: Nora McIver-Sheridan regained her 2022 crown with 2023 winner Liz Hartman sitting this year out, as did Jilene Demont, who placed third in 2022 and 2023. Nora also set a new Most Points record with 994.67, clocking the fastest times on all but Sweet 1600 and Lakefront Loops 5K. Second-place Caitlin Loehr (age 58!) was the fastest woman on Lakefront Loops, and third-place Cecelia Madsen took the win for Sweet 1600, edging fourth-place Molly Doruska by just 0.87 points.
-
Most Points for Men: For the men, Adrian Haws was dominant, scoring 992.17 points with the fastest times on four courses. For the remaining six, he was close enough to the leader to lose only minimal points. Second place went to Roger Moseley (age 49!), and 2023 winner Patrick Milano fought his way back onto the podium with two fast last-day runs that pushed him ahead of Peter Frazier, who enjoyed a day or two in the sun before the final day.
-
Age Grade: Unsurprisingly, Caitlin Loehr remained undefeated in the Age Grade competition (which levels the playing field for age and gender), with the highest age grade recorded in the Challenge: 75.16%. Roger Moseley was second with a smoking 72.88%, and Peter Frazier worked his way into third place with 68.32%.
-
Most Miles: Unsurprisingly, Pete Kresock defended his Most Miles titles handily, logging 482.8 miles, though that was down from last year’s 576.6. With last year’s second-place Caitlin Loehr putting in many of her miles off Challenge courses while training for the Sydney Marathon, Tristan Lambert ground his way into second place with 367.7 miles, and Melissa Plank won the Most Improved award for her third-place finish with 337.6 miles, 200 more than last year!
-
Community Stars: Melissa Plank also won the Community Stars award thanks to regular, emoji- and photo-laden posts describing her runs. We all know her a lot better now.
Second and third place went to Dennis Stadelman, who regaled us with tales of trails and notes on newts, and to Pete Kresock, who joined Dennis as a role model for budding ultra runners. -
Team Points: Despite the best efforts of Caitlin Loehr, Jean-Luc Jannink, and Brian Harrington, the @Fabulous-50s couldn’t muster a late-season kick as in previous years, so the @Fantastic-40s ran away with the team competition, scoring 23 points to 41, led by Roger Moseley, Peter Frazier, and Tristan Lambert. That’s three wins in a row for the @Fantastic-40s and four second-place finishes in a row for the @Fabulous-50s. (What happened to the @Thundering-30s after 2021?)
Although these top spots come with bragging rights, the FLRC Challenge prizes go deep, with 47 runners garnering nearly $1600 in prizes, which you’ll receive as a credit at the Finger Lakes Running Company (soon—I have to put the list together for Ian). Check the Awards page to see how much you’ve won.
Ultra Challenges
The FLRC 100K Ultra Challenge remains one of the hardest goals to achieve, and just like last year, only three people managed to complete it. Pete Kresock kicked off the Challenge by starting his Ultra Challenge just 4 minutes after midnight on the first day and set the fastest time for the year. Dennis Stadelman waited for warmer weather in June before completing his 100K Ultra Challenge. And Xander Dawson became our youngest 100K Ultra Challenge finisher ever with help from his family. And we added the Ultra Challenge to the leaderboard!
To encourage more people to challenge themselves, we added the FLRC Tough Trail Challenge and FLRC Tough Tarmac Challenge, which split the 100K Ultra Challenge in half. Instead of all ten courses in 24 hours, you have to run only the five trail or road courses in 12 hours.
All told, 11 people total completed the Tough Trail Challenge, with Dennis Stadelman doing it first on the second day of the Challenge and again in July, plus leaderboard developer Steve Desmond, Julie Barclay, Scott Dawson, Pete Kresock, Elizabeth Dawson, Amy Dawson, Damian Clemons, Brittany Cronk, Ryan Allen-Parrot (who set the fastest time), and Tristan Lambert.
The Tough Tarmac Challenge attracted half as many people, all of whom doubled from the Tough Trail Challenge: Amy Dawson, Elizabeth Dawson, Pete Kresock, Scott Dawson, Damian Clemons, and Ryan Allen-Parrot (who again set the fastest time).
It’s also worth calling out people who completed all ten Challenge courses multiple times over the season. Top honors here go to Melissa Plank, our only quadruple finisher. Rebecca Lambert and Tristan Lambert took the triple crowns. Amy Dawson, Pete Kresock, Michelle Woods, and Brittany Cronk all did double duty, finishing twice each.
Sign Winners
Finally, I want to acknowledge our sign winners. Those who ran the most times on a particular course take home that course’s sign. The people who owned our courses this year are:
- Sweet 1600: Patrick Milano with 85 runs, his third year in a row
- Duck Trails: Mik Kern with 57 runs
- Lakefront Loops 5K: Pete Kresock with 33 runs
- Lindsay-Parsons: Tristan Lambert with 10 runs
- FH Fox: Dirk Swart with 31 runs
- Valley Views: Jamie Loehr with 13 run
- Treman Trailipop: Pete Kresock with 13 runs
- Hammond Hill Hoctathon: It’s complicated and will be explained at the picnic
- Run Rabbit Run: Scott Dawson with 13 runs
- Freeville Fly-In: Adrian Haws with 9 runs
Our last photo of the week goes to Patrick Milano’s shot from his final Challenge run for 2024 on the Lindsay-Parsons course. If you look closely, you can still see the smoke rising from his spikes.
There are many more tremendous achievements and great memories from this year’s Challenge, and I’ll touch on some of these highlights at the award ceremony at the FLRC Annual Picnic on September 19 (please RSVP and sign up to help!). Make sure to come to get your medals, signs, shirts, and general accolades! (If you’re out of town, ask a friend to pick things up for you.)
Thanks to everyone for participating! We’re already starting to discuss new courses for next year’s FLRC Challenge, so if you have ideas, let me know.
See you at the picnic, and get ready for next year’s FLRC Challenge!