Our first week of the 2024 FLRC Challenge is nearly done, and we’re off to a fantastic start. 134 people have signed up so far, well ahead of last year’s 108, and 77 people have recorded at least one run already. I’d love to see us break 200 runners this year.
If you haven’t registered yet, the courses are waiting for you. Sign up soon to get in on the shirt order, which goes in May 7 and will be delivered in June. For those already participating, recruit your friends—the more runners who join, the more community we can build (and the larger the running store gift certificate awards and club donation to the Cornell Botanic Gardens will be at the end). If you’re shy, you can hide your times, the Personal Challenge remains available for anyone who can’t or shouldn’t run all ten courses, and there’s a financial aid option for those who wouldn’t be able to afford to participate otherwise. Details on the Challenge home page .
For those new to the Challenge, you need to download the Webscorer app and sign into it with the account you created when you registered for the Challenge. Full instructions are here, and feel free to ask me or a friend who has done it before if you have questions. I strongly recommend that you get the RunGo app and load the instructions for a course the first time you run it by yourself. Each course page has the links you need. Also, since several people have asked, you get community stars by starting a course within 5 minutes of someone else. So, if you and a running partner are entering your times manually after the fact, make sure to sync up.
In previous years, we had some competition to see who would finish the Challenge first. This year, however, Pete Kresock put it out of reach instantly by not just running all ten courses, but running them all on the first day, starting at 12:04 AM, for an FLRC 100K Ultra Challenge completion. Amalia Skilton wasn’t far behind, thanks to a Personal Challenge exemption I granted so she could finish before moving to Scotland. The first finisher the last two years, Rebecca Lambert, looks like she’s aiming to be next, though Patrick Milano and Jason Jenks aren’t far behind, and Dennis Stadelman stopped an Ultra Challenge effort at five courses when he realized he needed to be functional the next day.
Along with the leaderboard, check out the Star Posts for each course on the FLRC Challenge forum . Your fellow Challengers are posting about their runs, complete with photos, and the posts are a great way to get to know people a bit before you meet them on a group run. Photo of the week goes to Theo Milano, whose Personal Challenge, even if he’s too young to realize it, is to complete all the reasonable stroller-compatible courses this year with his father.
Don’t miss Sunday’s group run on the Lakefront Loops course, complete with post-run bagels and cream cheese and other snacks.