T-3 weeks and counting to the end of the 2026 FLRC Challenge! Remember, folks, November 15 is the last day of the Challenge this year, so finish off those courses. And for those of you who have been lax about entering them—I know who you are—please take a few minutes and put them in already, would you?
Four more finishers this week bring us to 55 total! (And notice the new little widget at the top of the Completions page that gives us a count.) Congrats to Xinyi Wang, Michelle Woods, and Simon Woods for completing their Classic Challenges, and to Rebecca Lambert and Jacqui Treml for finishing off Personal Challenges: 20 trail-intensive courses for Rebecca, and all 44 courses for Jacqui. That makes Jacqui only the third person to complete all the courses so far this year!
Also of special note is the Classic Challenge finish by Simon Woods, making him the youngest-ever finisher of the Classic Challenge at age 11, which he just turned this month. Simon captured that title from his brother Crosby Woods, who was 15 when he completed the Challenge in 2021, taking second in Most Points for men to the redoubtable Adam Pacheck both that year and in 2022. Simon has completed a Personal Challenge every year since he was six, running as many courses as his age each year. I’m looking forward to seeing what he can do in the future, as well, given the Challenge examples set by his brother and his parents, Michelle Woods and Ian Woods. Michelle’s photos are definitely my favorites for the week, and they capture the fabulous fall running we’ve had all week.
For the first time all year, there are no non-numeric changes at the top of the leaderboard this week. We’ll have to see what happens next week. In terms of overall mileage, we are at 17,700 miles for the year, which is a lovely large number, but isn’t where we need to be to make 20,000 miles by the end of the Challenge. We have 23 days left and need 2300 miles, which makes for some easy math: 100 miles per day, or 700 miles per week, whereas we’ve been averaging only about 520 miles per week. Last year, our mileage spiked in the last five weeks, with two weeks over 1000 miles, so if we can put together that sort of push in the next few weeks, we can still make it to 20,000.
To help you get those final miles in, Heather Cobb is hosting a group run on Sunday morning where you can run either the East Hill Rec Way or East Hill Dryden Rail Trail courses. If you reach the turnaround point on the East Hill Dryden Rail Trail course, you can gaze in wonder at the new bridge over Route 13 that was dropped in this week! I don’t know exactly when it will open, but I’ll contact the Dryden Rail Trail Task Force to find out.
Three more weeks of covering the ground!