Sherman Lau

Photo: John Tran

The outdoor track season kicked off back in April, when CPTC sent a 40-49 age-group 4 x 400m relay team to compete at the Penn Relays. The team of Sherman Lau, Peter Brady, Neil Fitzgerald and Gerry O’Hara finished 5th in 3:47.1. It was a very respectable showing in a sprint event for a team composed primarily of middle distance runners and there was unanimous agreement that Gerry was the team MVP for arranging VIP parking at his son’s fraternity and cold beers after the race!

Road Captain David Alm gave this summary of his track season:

My best performance, I think, was a 3:43 1200 in the DMR at the NBR-DWRT track meet in early June. I’d just run the 5000 in 17:18 an hour or so earlier, and I’d never raced a 1200 before, so I wasn’t sure what kind of speed I had in me, but Armando, Gerry, and Brenn needed a fourth, so I figured I’d give it a shot. My 400m splits were consistent and all under 75, which I was surprised by because I’d just done a 12×400 workout the Monday before and only did one rep in sub-75. I think the 5000 might have warmed me up. All of my other track races this summer have been 5000s, and all in the low- to mid-17s, which has been frustrating, but I feel like I’m on the cusp of getting back down to where I want to be.

David Fanfan

David Fanfan was a newcomer to track competition and shared his thoughts:

I did the Tuesday night track 5k on June 26 and again on July 10. It was quite an amazing experience. I now realize that you can get faster times on the track versus the road so there really isn’t a comparison but it felt so good to be out there trying something new. Up until then, I would only run the track on East 6th Street with CPTC-NB for marathon training. To be out there at Ichan, on a somewhat competitive level, brought my running journey to a new level . My debut night I ran my fastest 5k ever, finally breaking 19 at 18:53 and wearing spikes for the very first time. That was an incredible experience. Then on July 10, after putting in some heavy mileage for marathon training, I attempted to run again but this time only getting 19:21. Still one of my faster 5ks if you ever care to look at my history and it was a hot and humid evening.
Both nights were fun, seeing current and former teammates, laughing and sharing tips to keep improving our performances. I now know that attending more of these Speed Series, will certainly benefit my future running. And I have to give a special shout out to Larry Sillen for taking such amazing photos to capture the moment.

And Joe Oleary writes:

I didn’t get to do much track racing at all this season but I did have one result that I’m pretty proud of.

At the NYRR Tuesday night speed series, I ran a 2:28 800m, which is by far the fastest I’ve ever run for that distance (I split a 2:38 at last year’s 5th Ave mile). I also won my heat, which was the first time I’ve ever won any running related event.

Thanks for putting this together. I’ll see everyone at Team Champs Sat.

CPTC 2018 TRACK & FIELD RESULTS: M40-49 AGE GROUP

Athlete

Meet

Date

Distance

Result

AG%

Peter Brady

NYRR  Night at the Races Meet #2

1/14/2018

1000m

02:39.1

91.8%

Sherman Lau

NYRR  Night at the Races Meet #2

1/14/2018

1000m

02:46.9

87.5%

Peter Brady

NYRR  Night at the Races Meet #2

1/14/2018

600m

01:30.2

89.0%

Sherman Lau

NYRR  Night at the Races Meet #2

1/14/2018

600m

01:34.0

85.5%

Peter Brady

Ramapo Armory meet

1/19/2018

800m

02:01.2

92.7%

Peter Brady

NYRR  Night at the Races Meet #3

1/25/2018

800m

02:02.6

91.6%

Sherman Lau

NYRR  Night at the Races Meet #3

1/25/2018

800m

02:06.5

88.8%

Brenn Jones

NYRR  Night at the Races Meet #3

1/25/2018

800m

02:19.0

78.6%

Brenn Jones

NYRR  Night at the Races Meet #3

1/25/2018

5000m

18:41.6

74.8%

Peter Brady

NB Indoor Grand Prix

2/10/2018

Mile

04:30.6

91.1%

Peter Brady

NYRR  Night at the Races Meet #4

3/1/2018

Mile

04:30.6

91.1%

Brenn Jones

NYRR  Night at the Races Meet #4

3/1/2018

Mile

05:13.5

78.7%

Peter Brady

USATF Masters Indoor Nationals

3/16/2018

3000m

09:06.8

89.1%

Peter Brady

USATF Masters Indoor Nationals

3/17/2018

1500m

04:15.6

89.2%

Sherman Lau

USATF Masters Indoor Nationals

3/18/2018

800m

02:02.3

86.9%

Sherman Lau

Loucks Games

5/11/2018

Mile

04:59.1

82.5%

Peter Brady

NYRR Tuesday Night Speed Series #1

6/12/2018

800m

02:03.2

91.2%

Joe Oleary

NYRR Tuesday Night Speed Series #1

6/12/2018

800m

02:28.1

73.9%

John Milone

NYRR Tuesday Night Speed Series #1

6/12/2018

Mile

05:04.7

79.9%

Peter Brady

NYRR Tuesday Night Speed Series #2

6/26/2018

5000m

16:22.0

85.4%

David Alm

NYRR Tuesday Night Speed Series #2

6/26/2018

5000m

17:25.5

78.4%

David Fanfan

NYRR Tuesday Night Speed Series #2

6/26/2018

5000m

18:53.4

71.8%

Sherman Lau

NYRR Tuesday Night Speed Series #2

6/26/2018

1500m

04:29.2

84.7%

John Milone

NYRR Tuesday Night Speed Series #2

6/26/2018

1500m

04:40.2

80.7%

David Alm

NYRR Tuesday Night Speed Series #3

7/10/2018

5000m

17:37.7

77.5%

David Fanfan

NYRR Tuesday Night Speed Series #3

7/10/2018

5000m

19:21

70.6%

Peter Brady

NYRR Tuesday Night Speed Series #3

7/10/2018

800m

02:02.9

91.4%

Sherman Lau

NYRR Tuesday Night Speed Series #3

7/10/2018

800m

02:05.0

89.9%

John Milone

NYRR Tuesday Night Speed Series #3

7/10/2018

800m

02:14.2

83.0%

Neil Fitzgerald

NYRR Tuesday Night Speed Series #3

7/10/2018

800m

02:15.2

86.0%

Sherman Lau

NYRR Tuesday Night Speed Series #3

7/10/2018

200m

        26.47

82.2%

Peter Brady

NYRR Tuesday Night Speed Series #3

7/10/2018

200m

        26.79

81.2%

Peter Brady

USATF East Region Champs

7/22/2018

800m

02:01.5

92.4%

Sherman Lau

USATF East Region Champs

7/22/2018

800m

02:05.6

89.4%

Neil Fitzgerald

NYRR Tuesday Night Speed Series #4

7/24/2018

400m

        58.56

84.5%

David Alm

NBR/DWRT meet

6/2/2018

5000m

17:18

78.90%

I put together the above table by scouring through the NYRR and USATF website searching for CPTC masters runners. I tried to highlight each person’s top age-graded score and I included results from both indoor and outdoor track. It’s great to see John Milone’s name in the results with very solid AG-scores after he was sidelined during indoor track season with a knee injury. I also want to give props to Sherman Lau for being one of our more prolific track runners and also for recently achieving a 90% AG score (reflecting a world class level) for his recent 2:05 800m at age 46 (I am a firm believer in the rule of rounding up age-graded scores and rounding down race times. It may be illogical, but if I run 1:59.99 for 800m, I am far happier and feel good about saying I’m a sub-2 minute half-miler, whereas running 2:00.01, which is essentially the same is much less satisfying). It’s also good seeing Neil Fitzgerald’s name back in the results as he prepares for the upcoming World Masters Athletics Championships in Malaga, Spain in early September. We are losing Neil to the M50 age-group, which should help his chances since he will be at the bottom of his new age-group when he competes at Worlds.

-By 40+ Track Captain Peter Brady