We’ve suddenly moved into the heat of summer, @Challengers, but remember, this year, you can put off the longer, harder courses until the cooler fall weather if necessary. Nonetheless, we’ve already exceeded 5,100 miles this year.
The leaderboard has started to heat up as well, with last year’s Most Points winner Sarah Woodyear moving into third now that she has completed 7 of the 10 Classic Challenge courses. On the men’s side, Geoff Van Fleet is now in second, pushing Columbia Warren into fourth, as John Hummel holds onto third. Bob Talda made his way into second for Age Grade, and Tonya Engst took over third for Community Stars, though we both remain behind prolific poster Dennis Stadelman. The team competition just got tighter, too, with the @Fabulous-50s catching up with the @Super-60s-70s, and both being within two points of the @Fantastic-40s.
Just a few notes this week:
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Taughannock Falls group run and party: We have a special group run on Saturday at 8:30 AM. After we do the lovely Taughannock Rim & Falls course, we’ll repair to the nearby home of Scott and Amy Dawson for refreshments and socializing. Everyone is welcome to join the party!
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Submit those race results: Congrats to everyone who ran the Gorges Ithaca Half or the Twilight 5K and submitted those results to the Freeville Fly-In and Lakefront Loops 5K courses!
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Farthest-flung Sweet 1600: With Steve Ryan running a Sweet 1600 in Seattle, the question came up as to whether that was farther from Ithaca than Dennis Stadelman’s Sweet 1600 on the Placer High School track in Auburn, CA. Calculating the distance of both from the Ithaca Commons baffled me briefly, since Steve’s distance was 2233 miles, whereas Dennis’s was 2322. But indeed, Dennis retains the crown for the most remote track of the year. (Sarah Giesy still gets honorable mention for running a mile on a track in Rezzato, Italy, on April 16, a few days before the Challenge started.)
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Sweet 1600 PR: Kudos to Patrick Milano for running a 5-second PR at the Charlie McMullen Mile last weekend, giving him a 4:39 for the Sweet 1600 that’s going to be tough to beat.
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Photos of the week: Some nice race photos this week due to the Gorges Ithaca Half, from Andrew Flyak and his wife Solo, Paula Klaben, and Leo Chang.
I’m taking next Friday off from the updates due to travel—keep covering the ground while I’m away in search of a remote track!