The summer is usually a quiet time when it comes to Tompkins County sports with college and high school out of session. But over at Ithaca High School, the local track and field scene converged for plenty of fun.
On August 1, the Finger Lakes Runners Club (FLRC) held the fourth annual “Trackapalooza” meet. It was originally scheduled for July 18, but the event was postponed two weeks due to poor air quality from the Canadian wildfires. Although that meant that there were fewer participants with the change in date, that didn’t put a damper on all the festivities.
FLRC puts on many meets throughout the year, but they’re naturally geared towards running-based events. But Adam Engst, club president and director of track meets, felt bringing in the field events made for a more complete competition.
“The idea behind Trackapalooza was to recreate a bit more of what people were used to in high school and college from a true weekend invitational when there would be a bunch of different events that you’d be able to try,” Engst said. “What we tend to get from people is, ‘Oh, thank you. I don’t get to run the 100-meter dash or the 5,000-meter run or things like that.’ And then of course there are people who usually don’t get to jump or throw that often.”
With more events than usual, it takes a combined effort to put on such an extravaganza. The SOAR Running Club helped run the long jump and triple jump, while the Groton Project handled the shot put and discus. Trackapalooza has had pole vaulting in the past through the Tompkins County Pole Vault Club, but they were unable to make this year’s edition.
The inaugural Trackapalooza in 2023 was held at Ithaca High School, but it had moved around over the past couple of years with Lansing hosting in 2024 and Groton in 2025. With its return to Ithaca, there were quite a few Little Red athletes, past and present, who took part on their “home” track. One of them was Kenzie Burke, a rising senior who won the 200-meter dash and placed second in the 100-meter dash.
“It’s so nice,” Burke said. “I hope we can do future events here, open the track up to way more meets in the offseason and kind of build a community with people all over,” Burke said. “The Finger Lakes Running Club did a great job running this meet. It went pretty smoothly, and I had a lot of fun.”
Burke wasn’t the only Ithacan to enjoy some success at Trackapalooza. Class of 2020 graduate and Bucknell University standout Alex Simpson won the 5,000-meter run, and rising senior Elsa Weatherspoon placed third overall in the long jump.
Trackapalooza’s reach goes beyond Tompkins County. There were a couple of throwers from nearby counties (Odessa-Montour’s Brody Williams and Spencer-Van Etten’s Kaylee Kastenhuber), and a few runners from Syracuse also made the trek down to Ithaca. In previous events, there are some from out of state in Pennsylvania who participate. While there’s always a strong sense of competition between track and field athletes, it’s clear events like these show how unifying they can be.
“I think runners tend to be both competitive and companionable,” Engst said. “We’ve all gone through the same things. We’re all doing the same things. When it comes to a race, someone will have a better day. Someone will have had better training. But they’re not doing anything to prevent you from achieving your best. If anything, they’re helping you achieve more by dragging you to a faster time, giving you someone to go after that kind of thing.”
Not only does Trackapalooza attract competitors from different towns, it also welcomes all ages to participate. They even have heats that consist of children ages five and under called the “toddler heat.” It’s fair to say that those races were one of the more entertaining parts of the event.
“I thought it was so awesome,” Burke said. “I’ve never seen anything like this just having so many different types of people, so many different age groups, all all just running and having fun. I thought it was really something special. It was really nice to see.”
While not much has changed in the four years Trackapalooza has been held, there’s the hope that it can turn into a destination meet that brings in more people from all over New York and the Northeast, similar to the Hartshorne Memorial Masters Mile that FLRC hosts in January.
“We get people from everywhere, and the level of competition is just insane,” Engst said. “I would love to extrapolate that to just get some fast people coming up from New York City, Philadelphia, Toronto, Boston, and actually have this meet be a bigger deal. Whether or not I’ll ever manage to do the marketing and whatnot to make that happen, we’ll see.”
