We’re four months into the FLRC Challenge, with over 7600 miles run so far. Three of our courses have exceeded the 1000-mile mark: Waterfront Trail, Black Diamond Trail, and Pseudo Skunk Cabbage. And two courses still have more miles run by women than by men: Tortoise & Hare and Thom B. You can discover all this on our Statistics page, and be sure to check it tomorrow for a hot new feature from our programmer extraordinaire, Steve Desmond. You know you love the stats.
The big news from the front of the race comes from Adam Pacheck, who continues his quest to sweep the Challenge. Along with Bob Talda, Adam completed all 10 courses this week. That catapulted him into 1st place in the Most Points competition for men, 2nd place in the Age Grade competition behind Caitlin Loehr, and 3rd place in the Most Miles competition. You may notice that Adam has the fastest time on every course except Forest Frolic and Danby Down & Dirty. He reported that since it was his first time at Danby, he had to stop a few times to check the course, ran a little extra on a road crossing in the middle, and had to sidestep literally hundreds of red efts in the trail. His next attempt there and another run on Forest Frolic may bring him up to the perfect 1000 point score. Finally, Adam also won the Tortoise & Hare in-person race in a time that was just off the course record, although the current course might be a hair (heh) longer than when Nate Lockett ran it.
Speaking of the Most Miles competition, Heather Cobb returned from her 50K in Wisconsin to up her total to 327 miles and regain the lead from Aaron King (now in 2nd), with Pete Kresock falling to 4th. At the FLRC board meeting (both Heather and Pete are on the board), both told me separately they had secret plans for upcoming Challenge efforts, so we can look forward to a spirited competition there.
Now that we have enough data across all the courses, it’s time to focus on the Team Points competition. If you’re an organizer type, I encourage you to exhort your team members to focus on certain courses, perhaps with some informal group runs. (Since it won’t be secret for long, look for my @Fabulous-50s team to put in some miles on Thom B. and the Black Diamond Trail this weekend.) Here’s how the scoring breaks out right now:
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The @Thundering-30s are in the lead with 42 points, thanks to having a whopping 39 members, including the distance demons of Heather Cobb, Aaron King, and Pete Kresock jacking up the Courses Run metric. They’re bolstered on the Age Grade side of the equation by Rich Heffron, Bill Watson, and Adam Schoene (and look out for when Chelsea Benson starts ticking off courses).
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The @Fabulous-50s are solidly in 2nd place with 46 points, thanks to age, guile, and general awesomeness. With more Challenge completions (7) than any other age group, the @Fabulous-50s are strong on Courses Run, and their Age Grade numbers are buttressed by Sean Nicholson, Caitlin Loehr, and Jean-Luc Jannink. (And I’m just about healthy enough to start contributing there too.)
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Thanks to Adam Pacheck, Jullien Flynn, Gabrielle Woo and a slew of other speedsters, the @Terrific-20s-Teens are crushing the field on the Average Age Grade side of the team competition. But with only 14 runners, they’re well back in the Courses Run side, dropping them into 3rd place overall with 59 points. Recruit more members, folks!
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The @Fantastic-40s have moved up into 4th with 73 points, with those largely coming on the Courses Run side of the equation thanks to Melissa Wallace and Jesse Canfield with ten completions and Peter Frazier and Elizabeth Kluz with nine. The @Fantastic-40s need Scott Dawson, Tristan Lambert, Matthew Yarrow, and Brian Lazzaro to post some fast times on more courses to bring their Age Grade numbers up.
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The @Super-60s-70s team has dropped to 5th despite some great running from Klaas Van Wijk, Bob Walters, Bob Talda, Steve Ryan, Ruth Sproul, and Anne Shakespeare. Don’t count them out, though, once Charlie Fay returns from Europe and Casey Carlstrom starts running at full strength again. But this team could use more recruits too—with only 13 members, it’s going to be tough to compete.
Last, but far from least, a big leaderboard and team welcome to Marcia Beckley of the @Super-60s-70s and Mark Perry of the @Fantastic-40s, both of whom posted their first Challenge runs this week.
See you out on the courses this week, and a bunch of us will be at the Black Diamond Trail start at 8:30 AM on Saturday if you want to say hi and post some Challenge miles!
