The Penn Relays is called a carnival which may seem odd unless you’ve been there.
First off the crowds are incredible. The high school, college, and post collegiate athletes (Olympic development and masters) plus an always large Jamaican contingent are enthusiastic and loud. More than 400 races over 3 days means that on average one race goes off every 5 minutes.
Then there are the smells. Not the typical Icy Hot / Bengay variety of track meets, but the aromas of a street fair. There are booths that sell cotton candy, funnel cakes, Jamaican hot cakes, and sausage and peppers. Not exactly ideal pre-race fueling choices, but the spectators seem to love it.
This one of a kind event had CPTC members traveling by planes, trains, and automobiles to get to Philly to race. Lightning though delayed Day 2’s events by two and a half hours. Trying to stay relaxed and out of the cold damp weather, the CPTC contingent set up camp in the Palestra (fancy Italian word for gym) and waited for races to be called. Sid and Tony kept busy by shuttling back and forth from the Palestra to the gate to meet arriving CPTC athletes to give them their credentials to get into the stadium.
Finally, the weather cleared and the team made its way to the stadium to watch the first of seven races with CPTC runners competing. Things got off to a fantastic start with the men’s 4 x 100 40+ coming in first. Randy Frey, Darnell Gatling, Tony Fulton and Val Barnwell smoked the field in 44.24. The crowd went wild as CPTC in lane four motored down the final straight-away to a huge victory.
Apparently, though, the Flocast cameraman wasn’t terribly impressed; he must have fallen asleep as the race reached the far turn. The giveaway? His camera was trained on the famous Penn brick wall. Luckily he regained consciousness in time to catch the finish.
CPTC team members, family and friends were all duly impressed with the first place medal that the guys lugged back into the stands. Yes lugged. The award can be described either as a super-sized pizza or a really fancy sewer plate. Either way it begs the question: who got to keep it and where are they going to display it?
A few hours later Randy Frey took 1st in the men’s 100 45+ in 11.6 followed by teammate Val Barnwell in 11.73 for 2nd.
The most confusing race of the day had to be the mixed 400 x 4 50+ that had 3 CPTC teams plus one other team (Team Atomic Orange) sporting the national color of the Netherlands. The race officials were apoplectic when the lead off legs came down the straight-away in a tight bunch, all closing hard. Usually it’s fairly easy to call out the team closing so the appropriate person can move to the inside and get the handoff. No such luck, the officials couldn’t sort out who should move to the inside and chaos ruled. Amazingly nobody dropped their baton or ran outside of the transition zone.
Out of the13 team field, CPTC Men’s 50+ (Frank Handlemen, Salih Talib, Sid Howard, Norman Goloskin) took 8th overall, the Women 40+ (Catherine Stone, Andrea Ostrowski, Sue Pearsall, Sue Hill Krogger) took 9th overall and was the 2nd women’s team – beating 2 men’s teams. The mixed 50+ (Noah Perlis, Marie-Louise Michelsohn, Sylvie Kimche, Mary Diver) took 13th.
The last race of the day for CPTC was the Olympic development men’s 4 x 400 where Jeff, Evan, Adrian and Idris took 5th place.
After everyone made their way back into the stands, the only thing left to do was take a team picture. The team then hit the road and left the sights, sounds, and smells of the carnival behind them.