Our second PGXC race is this Sunday, so please sign up soon! It’s a nice suburban park course in Fairport, this side of Rochester, and we have a new post-race lunch stop planned.
Since the grass may be pretty wet today, we’re going to run a Ridiculous Relay, which boils down to about 8x400m on pavement. For those who haven’t had the pleasure before, here’s how it works. After our warmup, everyone lines up in order of speed so I can match up the fastest and slowest runner, the next-fastest and next-slowest, and so on, and then assemble pairs of people into four-person teams.
Then, one set of people from each team will start. Here’s the twist. Within each set, the runners run in opposite directions around the roughly 400m loop at the top of the Arboretum until they meet, exchange a baton, and then turn around and run back the way they came to the start. That way, the faster runners run farther, and the slower runners run shorter, but everyone runs for about the same amount of time. The pace should be quick—roughly mile race pace but not all out. Pace yourself because it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement and run too fast early on.
Once the first set of runners both make it back to the start, they hand off the baton to their team’s second set of runners, and the first set gets to rest and cheer for everyone else. While all this is happening, the other teams’ runners are doing the same thing. Laps are run! Leads change! Batons are dropped! Chaos ensues! The winning team will get all their runners back first after all sets of runners have completed 8 reps.
After the Ridiculous Relay, we have a special treat, so stick around after the cool-down!
Meet on Tuesday at 6 PM at the parking area in the bowl of the F. R. Newman Arboretum in the Cornell Botanic Gardens (Google Maps pin) and be ready to start the warm-up at 6:15 PM among the sculptures.
Invite your friends and recruit more people for your PGXC team!
Resources
- Administration: You must be an FLRC member and sign the waiver!
- Location: All XC workouts take place at the F. R. Newman Arboretum in the Cornell Botanic Gardens east of the Cornell Vet School
- Warmup: Jay Johnson’s Lunge Matrix and Leg Swings, then 10 minutes of jogging
- Cooldown: 10 minutes of jogging, then Jay Johnson’s Strength and Mobility
- FLRC Calendar: Subscribe to FLRC Races and Other Club Events