Having cut their teeth at the NYRR Thursday Night at the Races Meet January 25th with an impressive 4:11 clocking the 50+ 4 X 400 relay team of Rob Neal, David Dorsey, Jonathan Simon and Mikal Scott brought their collective talent back to the armory competing again in the 4 x 400 relay at the prestigious Millrose Games the early afternoon of Feb 3. Overcoming enormous pre-race jitters the team ran amazingly well slicing over 4 seconds off their previous time finishing in 4:07.43 garnering 3rd place and setting a new CPTC indoor 50+ record! No mere words of mine can capture the excitement this quartet displayed leading up to race day and the day of. Their energy was felt by all who encountered them.

Here it is in their own words.

From Mikal Scott:

My short version of Millrose

Anxiousness started kicking in on Friday afternoon; was looking forward to the experience.

It was good idea that we all met at John’s place.
His wife made a great comment about the four of us; how her girlfriends would be so jealous cuz she
had 4 really fit 50yr old men in her place.
When we left to do our warm up run down to The Armory, I knew the temp was in the high teens, but I was
soo hyped that I couldn’t tell you if it was 19 or 90 degrees.

I do remember a bit of calmness came over me when we saw the CPTC DMR girls on their warm up run.

Walking in the athlete’s entrance, tracking down and getting a briefing from Devon, changing in the gym with all the high school athletes where we
were the minority in age was most memorable. Great to see us anxious together, each dealing in their own way.
Kinda in that misery loves company thing. LOL

Pinning my Mum’s memorial tribute to my bib helped a lot with my anxiousness; it was the 2 yr anniversary of her death and it just happened
to fall on The Millrose Games.

Once we were in corral, I felt much better and I just remember pacing and pacing and pacing.
Next thing I knew Rob and the opening leg guys were off.

What a great time I had cheering my teammates before my turn to run.
I ran and boy did I really enjoy that.

Rob, John & David left after we took some pics. I ran into Hank Schiffman(CPTC 60’s) a little later, he was walking with medals.
Congratulated him and as a lark I wandered over to the awards desk and lo and behold I was informed that we finished 3rd. I collected
them and immediately call the team. They had already arrived back at John’s place.

I told them that we had won real medals, not participation stuff.

My 3 teammates were all back at The Armory so fast they must have used a Star Trek transporter!
Reuniting we were all super smiling and happy, a HUUUGE contrast to when we first arrived earlier that morning.
We were ginning ear to ear, high-fiving and then took pictures WITH medals, met Nicole Rodriguez from
Conversation P.A.C.E. who expressed interest in interviewing us.

Yea. it was cool and fun.

Thanks to Gerry for organizing us.
MEGATHANKS to the great Sid Howard for taking splits for us (see attached).

And most importantly, it was memorable.

From David Dorsey:

So I began my journey to Washington Heights from my humble quiet neighborhood in Staten Island.

I met John at his place and shortly after we were met by the rest of our team Rob and Mikal.

From the time we got to the Armory till the gun went off I was a nervous wreck!! The last time I was that nervous I was standing on line to get on King da La rollercoaster at 6 flags!!?

When I stood on the track as 2nd leg to take the baton from Rob all I could think of was what Armando said “Run hard and hold on in the last 100m”.

My Dad once told me when I was 15 that I could be in the Olympics for the mile..I ran track for Cardinal Hayes HS in 1982 when the Armory track was wood! Well Dad we didn’t get to the Olympics but we did have the awesome thrill and honor to run with the big dogs at Millrose 35 years later!!

Thank you to Tony, Devon, Sid, Gerry, Armando, my amazing teammates Rob, John, and Mikal and this incredible CPTC family!

Love you all much!
God bless you!!

Mikal Scott, Jon Simon, David Dorsey, Rob Neal

From Rob Neal:

It was an honor to compete with you all.  400 meters is somewhat unnatural for the un-initiated, but you all faced it admirably and took 5 seconds off our prior time in the Millrose pressure cooker.  That is a really strong result.  Many thanks to Sid, Hank and Hal for their race humor and perspective, Tony and Devon for building confidence and fitness, team captain Gerry for keeping us organized and the Armory team for hosting an incredible event.  I look forward to racing with you all again soon.

From Jon Simon:

I also want to thank Rob for walking us through everything.

It was a fun, fast time!

Congratulations Rob, David, Jon and Mikal. Well done!

Hoping for two 50 year old 4 x 400 relay teams at Penn in April!