This is it, the final weekly recap of the 2024 FLRC Challenge. (I’ll do one more at the very end with our final accomplishments.) You have three more days to complete your courses, and Webscorer will stop accepting automatic and manually entered times at 11:59 PM on Monday, September 2. Tomorrow looks a little wet, but Sunday and particularly Monday should be glorious running days.
We blasted through 2,500 total runs and 12,000 total miles with our biggest week since the first one, and I’m confident we can exceed 13,000 miles for the year, especially since there are a couple of people who shall remain nameless who still need to enter some runs from earlier in the year. If you’re in that situation, please get your backlog entered. The dates aren’t important, but our overall mileage is since I use it when talking up the Challenge to local trail promoters.
We had 23 finishers this week, bringing us to 85 total. Congrats to (deep breath): Marie Donnelly, Tonya Engst, Laurel Gilmer, Laura Helmerick, Laura Taylor, Andrea Lachance, Dina Maxwell, Paula Kilts, Cecelia Madsen, Stephen Jesch, Thomas Everest, Ballard Smith, Columbia Warren, Anne Shakespeare, Ryan Allen-Parrot, Christian Lincoln, Maddie Dorward, Bruce Lauber, Stephanie Mulinos, Michael Niemack, Sandra Thananart, Ruth Sproul, and Michael Wood. Lots of great effort went into those completions, and they generated some motion at the top of the leaderboard.
Notably, Cecelia Madsen moved into third for Most Points, bumping Michelle Woods down. Also, Peter Frazier ran some fast times to take over third place in Age Grade from Adrian Haws, and Caitlin Loehr’s stories and group runs moved her into third place for Community Stars, one point ahead of Pete Kresock. In other words, there’s still time for lots to change—why wouldn’t I put it past Pete to lay down another 100K Ultra Challenge on Monday to bookend his first-day Ultra Challenge?
Remember, you’ll pick up your medals—and your FLRC Challenge shirt if you ordered one (we’ll also have some more for purchase)—at the FLRC Annual Picnic on September 19 at Treman State Park. Please RSVP by this weekend so I can submit a headcount to the caterer.
Photos of the week go to Julie Barclay, who got pacing help from Liz Hartman for a 6:27 Sweet 1600.
To Marie Donnelly, for reminding me of the bonus prize that comes with the FH Fox sign this year:
And to document that I’m not a complete poser, I did Lakefront Loops 5K at a run/walk this year for my longest course:
There’s no group run this weekend because the Monster Marathon and Half Marathon is Sunday, September 2 (registration is now closed). So you can focus on whatever courses you still need. And a few of you are just a course or two away from a double, triple, or even quadruple finish.
Three more days to cover the ground!