One of FLRC’s primary goals is to provide opportunities for runners of all stripes, flavors, and persuasions. Whether you enjoy trails, roads, track, or cross-country, prefer social workouts or races, like to run by yourself or in large groups, or gain satisfaction from volunteering at an event, we have a place for you. Nowhere is that more evident than when we look back on what we accomplished together over the last year.
The club had a fantastic 2025, hosting a race or a group run every weekend, along with a coached workout every Tuesday night, a series of Monday and Wednesday track workouts in the winter, a Couch to 5K program in the spring with biweekly Zone 2 and Chill group runs afterwards, and Thursday night Young at Heart social runs. Plus, FLRC members coordinated workshops on strength training, fascia release, and balance for runners, and we celebrated with various club parties. It all added up to an FLRC event roughly every other day over the entire year. We set an all-time record for race participation, our record-high club membership continues to flirt with the 1,000-member mark, and we ended the year in our strongest financial shape ever. All these accomplishments were made possible by volunteers—that is, by you!
Here are a few stats to give you a sense of the breadth and depth of FLRC’s accomplishments in 2025.
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Races: For the first time in years, the weather allowed us to put on a full slate of races. We hosted 25 races during the year with a record number of 4,572 finishers from:
- 9 trail races with 985 finishers (up 141 from last year)
- 10 road races with 2,639 finishers (up 346)
- 6 track meets with 948 finishers (down 44)
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Group runs: We organized numerous group runs, workouts, and team events with nearly 3,800 participations for the year (up about 500 from last year), including:
- 20 weeks of MITHACAL MILERS indoor track workouts with 1,197 participations (averaging 60 people per night with lots of kids as part of the Family Running Program)
- 10 weeks of Monday/Wednesday winter track workouts for scholastic runners with an estimated 485 participations (averaging 27 per night)
- 11 weeks of Summer Speed workouts with 335 participations (averaging 30)
- 14 weeks of cross country workouts with 413 participations (averaging 30)
- 10 FLRC Challenge group runs with 173 participations (averaging 17)
- 8 weeks of Sunday Skunkday runs with 141 participations (averaging 18)
- 28 weeks of Young at Heart group runs with 590 participations (averaging 21)
- 7 weeks of Couch to 5K group runs with 91 participations (averaging 13)
- 18 general group runs with 260 participations (averaging 14)
- 105 attendees at the FLRC Annual Picnic in August
- 3 weeks of the Happy Holidays Scavenger Hunt online game in December and January, generating oodles of amusing photos on the forum
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Volunteers: FLRC exists solely because of its volunteers. Over the past two years, we’ve found the Helper Helper volunteer management system essential for coordinating and communicating with volunteers. It also makes it easy to pull out some astonishing stats. Impressive as these numbers are, they don’t include board meetings, committee meetings, club infrastructure work on equipment and merchandise, and informal discussions among club leaders. Race directors also invest significant amounts of time beyond what’s captured in Helper Helper.
- 239 people volunteered for at least one FLRC event, and we had a great collection of super volunteers:
- 46 people volunteered more than 12 hours (1 hour per month)
- 16 people volunteered more than 24 hours last year (2 hours per month)
- 8 people volunteered more than 48 hours last year (4 hours per month)
- 2,400 hours volunteered (over 3 person-months!), including:
- 502 hours for Finger Lakes 50s
- 280 hours for Skunk Cabbage
- 137 hours for Trackapalooza
- 132 hours for group runs and workouts
- 116 hours for the Monster Marathon
- 100 hours for an average indoor or outdoor track meet
- 40 hours of timing non-FLRC races for the community
- 239 people volunteered for at least one FLRC event, and we had a great collection of super volunteers:
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Donations: We donated or helped coordinate $21,223 in charitable donations, including:
- $9,833 for Loaves & Fishes (through Turkey Trot donations)
- $2,100 for Wilderness Search and Rescue (for helping at our trail races)
- $2,000 for the Ithaca Youth Bureau track and cross-country programs
- $2,000 in scholarships for two graduating high school seniors
- $1,590 for porta-potties on the Black Diamond Trail and Hammond Hill
- $1,700 for the Four Town Ambulance and First Aid (the profits of the Fillmore 5K)
- $1,000 for the Finger Lakes Trail Conference (Finger Lakes Trail maintainers)
- $1,000 in Mini Grants to the GirlStrong and Run Ithaca youth running programs
In addition, FLRC’s Timing Team helps out with four community races: the Cayuga Heights Elementary School 5K, the Belle-Sherman 5K, the World Caring Day 5K (Northeast/DeWitt), and the Easy as Pie 5K (Brooktondale Community Center). Our efforts helped those races raise a total of $12,226.
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Fundraising: Although much of our donations are covered by race registration fees, we also offset some through direct community donations. Plus, generous track sponsors always make the Hartshorne Masters Mile possible. Thanks to everyone who donated!
- $8,000 raised for the Hartshorne Masters Mile
- $5,138 raised in donations during race and membership registrations
- $1,800 raised in direct donations
- $500 donated from our PGXC participation
- $295 raised for the trail porta-potties
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FLRC Challenge: In its fifth year, the FLRC Challenge once again provided local runners with structure for their running from April to September. Some stats from the leaderboard:
- 157 signups, with 134 people completing at least one course
- 101 completions
- 3 completions of the FLRC 100K Ultra Challenge, 5 completions of the Tough Trail Challenge, and 7 completions of the Tough Tarmac Challenge
- 2,449 total runs logged
- 11,858 miles covered
- 485 run report “star posts” from participants sharing with the community
- $1,576 awarded across 200 prizes to 40 athletes
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Cross-country: We coordinated FLRC and High Noon teams in the five-race PGXC series, placing third overall in the PGXC Club Cup rankings. Highlights included:
- We fielded 91 runners and combined for 218 race participations for the season (up 15 runners, down 21 participations).
- Cross country is as much about the food as the running! In addition to post-race group lunches across the state, we held pre- and post-season parties for about 30 people each.
- We hosted a PGXC race at Treman State Park, welcoming 230 runners from Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, and other upstate areas. The 75-person FLRC/High Noon team outscored all the other teams handily.
- FLRC’s women’s Vets and Ultra Vets won their divisions for the series, with the U19 and women’s Masters and Super Vets teams taking second. Our High Noon men’s teams took third for Open, Masters, and Vets.
- FLRC’s Hailey Whetten won the PGXC series overall for the women, with Ryan Jacobsen winning the U19 division, Julie Barclay winning the women’s Vets division, and Anne Shakespeare winning the women’s Ultra Vets division. We also claimed numerous other top 10 spots.
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Online presence: As much as we’re all about interacting in person, an online presence is essential in today’s world. Accomplishments include:
- Grew the FLRC Forum to 1,583 members, up 216 from last year
- Hosted 4,006 forum posts for the year
- Racked up more than 186,000 page views by actual people on the forum
- Increased the size of our photo library by 32 albums and over 7,500 photos (we’re moving the photo library to Google Photos this year)
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Club governance: With hard work behind the scenes, we:
- Increased club membership from 935 last year to 955 at the end of 2025
- Managed over $246,000 in assets, including $212,000 of investments that generate revenue to fund FLRC’s philanthropic efforts
- Brought in two new board members to replace departing members and fill gaps in the board’s skills, experiences, and demographics
Let’s see what we can do together in 2026!