One of the intriguing things revealed by the Statistics page is the breakdown of course popularity by gender. Black Diamond Trail, arguably the most popular course of the year, has 451 miles run by women but only 328 by men. Sights of the Heights, however, the next most popular, has 396 miles run by men and only 304 by women. In fact, of the ten Classic Challenge courses, only Taughannock Rim & Falls is relatively even, at 225 for women and 216 for men. Overall, however, despite slightly more women than men having posted runs on the leaderboard (58 to 55), men have many more runs (953 to 773) and miles (4432 to 3301). In terms of distance, men are averaging 4.6 miles per run, whereas women are averaging 4.3 miles per run. Interestingly, these numbers vary by year—women ran more miles than men in both 2025 and 2022. The only conclusion I can draw is that it takes only a couple of mileage monsters—Gill Haines-Sharp in 2025, Liz Hartman and Amy Dawson in 2022—to shift the balance. Men hold 7 of the top 10 spots in Most Miles this year. Anyway…
As far as the top of the leaderboard goes, there have only been minor changes, with Dennis Stadelman on fire after being whacked by the altitude at Western States. He moved into second for Most Courses with 29 and first in Community Stars with numerous course reports, and he helped the @Super-60s-70s roar into the lead in Team Points.
We also saw two more completions this week, with Courtney Hill finishing off her tenth course to claim her medal, and 75-year-old Steve Ryan running a whopping 28 courses to complete his Personal Challenge. Statistically speaking, 37.5% of finishers are named Steve.
This week also brought our first FLRC Ultra Challenge finisher! Unsurprisingly, it was mileage monster Pete Kresock, who ran a Tough Tarmac Challenge on Monday, with a running time of 4:53:00 and an overall elapsed time of 7:09:16. Remember, for the FLRC 100K Ultra Challenge, you have to run the ten Classic Challenge courses in less than 24 hours; for the Tough Tarmac and Tough Trail Challenges, you have to complete the five courses in less than 12 hours. Who’s going to be next to record an Ultra Challenge?
Notes for the week:
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Get your shirt soon: Please come to a Tuesday night workout, Trackapalooza, or weekend group run to get your shirt—you can also contact me to arrange a pickup in Ellis Hollow sometime. I forgot about loading the shirts into the FLRC online store last week, but I’ll try to get to it this week.
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Course tweaks: I have updated the East Hill Dryden Rail Trail RunGo directions and course page to use the Rail Trail connector path between Game Farm and Stevenson Roads. The turnaround is a little random because it depends on where the construction for the bridge is. With luck, they’ll be done before the Challenge ends. The Ash Trail is once again closed on the Duck Trails course, but it’s easy to run closer to the pond to route around it. We’re also talking about rerouting the Blueberry Patch course slightly to avoid a poorly maintained trail. And Lansing Center Trail now has a porta-potty along with proximity to Scoops for WWDD (“What would Dennis do?”) ice cream.
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No official group run this weekend: Since it’s another race weekend, with the Fillmore 5K out in Moravia on Saturday, we won’t be having a group run. However, you can join Rachel Neugarten on Dryden Lake Lollipop or organize your own informal group run by posting on the forum.
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Photos of the week: Rachel Neugarten ran Fall Creek Trails before volunteering at Finger Lakes 50s last weekend, and along with this photo, she also captured a video of a family of mink. And Dennis Stadelman worked the Dairy Bar sculpture into his triple-scoop shot. Who’s going to go for four scoops?
Until next week, keep covering the ground!