This will be our second-to-last Summer Speed workout in Stewart Park before we switch to cross country workouts in the Cornell Arboretum, so we’ll do another Ridiculous Relay. Teams! Speed! Batons! Chaos! What’s not to like?
But first, next week, on 7/28, we’ll be taking advantage of Stewart Park’s Small Pavilion for a potluck dinner directly after the workout, with FLRC providing burgers, hot dogs, portobello mushrooms, and buns (thanks to Lauren Milano and Dave Kania for shopping and cooking!). This will be our third potluck, and it’s always a lot of fun. Please RSVP by July 26 so Lauren knows how much food to get! Family is welcome.
For those who haven’t run a Ridiculous Relay before, here’s how it works. After our warmup, everyone lines up by speed so I can match the fastest and slowest runners, the next-fastest and next-slowest, and so on, and then assemble the pairs into four-person teams.
Then, one pair of people from each team will start. Here’s the twist. Within each pair, the runners run in opposite directions around the roughly 400m grass loop until they meet, exchange a baton, and then turn around and run back the way they came to the start. That way, the faster runners run farther, and the slower runners run shorter, but everyone runs for about the same amount of time. The pace should be quick—roughly mile race pace, but not all out. Pace yourself because it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement and run too fast early on.
Once the first pair of runners both make it back to the start, they hand off the baton to their team’s second pair of runners, and the first pair gets to rest and cheer for everyone else. While all this is happening, the other teams’ runners are doing the same thing. Laps are run! Leads change! Batons are dropped! Chaos ensues! The winning team will get all their runners back first after all sets of runners have completed 8 reps.
Resources
- Administration: You must be an FLRC member and sign the waiver!
- Location: Stewart Park in downtown Ithaca, which has lots of free parking
- Warmup: Jay Johnson’s Lunge Matrix and Leg Swings, then 10 minutes of jogging
- Cooldown: 10 minutes of jogging, then Jay Johnson’s Strength and Mobility
- FLRC Calendar: Subscribe to FLRC Races and Other Club Events