Persistence, Tenacity and Grit! That’s what we all witnessed from the Master Women who led us to a first place finish at club champs as well as placing us in the overall lead for NYRR club points! Just WOW!
Our scoring team was led by Paige Yellen (31:13), Jen St. Jean (31:31) and Amy Kvilhaug (34:30). These three amazing women were relentless and all grit leading us to the CHAMPIONS of club champs and also placing us in the overall lead for NYRR club points. Paige and Jen also placed 2nd and 3rd in their age group! Simply killing it!
Paige has been on fire since joining CPTC, consistently scoring for our team and just being an overall amazing team player. Paige led the team to this amazing victory and had this to say about the race:
With 97% humidity, Club Champs was very challenging. Though I lost a lot of time on mile 4, I was able to pick it up during mile 5…I was very happy for CPTC support along the course and especially at the big gathering spot, half mile to the finish.
Congrats to everyone!
Our next scorer was Jen St. Jean. I have to share that Jen is primarily a track girl and I emailed her asking if she could hang up her spikes and come out to support the road crew for this race. Jen left her house at 4 am to make it to the start and WOW was she a monster out there! Jen used the race as a tempo and still managed to kill it. Amazing! Thank you, Jen for being such an amazing team player and teammate! Come back to the roads anytime 😉
Amy Kvilhaug was our third scorer and as usual showed up focused and ready to do whatever it takes! I know Amy isn’t a big fan of the humidity but that didn’t stop her from grinding it out from beginning to finish and supporting our victory. Amy is a teammate you can always count on for showing up and giving her all. This is what Amy has to say about her race:
Go us for winning Team Champs! It should be an exciting fall going head to head down the finishing stretch with UA, Williamsburg and other strong teams.
As for my race….oh boy. I went out at what I thought to be a conservative pace (6:40, right where I wanted to be) but the humidity kicked my butt down the stretch. I told Audrey at the start that we all just had to finish because you never know what is going to happen in front of us. I had to remind myself of that same advice at mile 3.5 when walking off the course sounded like a much better option than climbing Cat Hill. I struggled significantly, but hung on and finished. Thankfully I did because I held the rear up for our scoring, and we only won the race by 2 seconds! Thanks to our track star Jen St. Jean for coming from CT as she and Paige were instrumental in us winning. I often just feel like I am along for the ride with my talented teammates. Looking forward to some shorter races coming up with the 5k (Percy) and 5th Ave” mile!! Anything over 5k for me is often a mere mystery as to what may happen in the race. Go Orange!!
Captain Ani was next in a solid 36:23. Ani battled the humidity and Cat Hill and picked it up on that last mile and has this to say:
Ani – Sue P & I only ones on 50+ crew and we came in 6th. Not much to report aside from saying that it was so humid we were all COATED in sweat at the end (and during. And before! That was rough going, especially at the 3rd & 4th miles. But if there was anything left in the tank, that last mile was favorable to show what you got!
It was great to see Julie Tucker out there for champs! After running a 5k two days before champs, she still showed up to support the team and give it all she had, including a crazy kick on the final stretch! . Great to see you out there Julie! Julie has this to share:
And as it turned out, it wasn’t a bad race for this ‘middle of the pack-er.’ I wasn’t sure what kind of race it was going to be given the conditions (and the fact that I ran a fast 5K on Thursday) but I wanted to come out for the team. I managed to run a decent time of 37:32 but more importantly, I executed better than usual for a slight kick at the end. I was really happy with the result and it has motivated me to redouble my efforts on the track.
Audrey Kingsley is back after battling some injuries and building a base again. Audrey ran a smart race and is looking forward to continue building for the fall season! Go Audrey!!!
And from the 50+ women, we had Sue Pearsall who ran a very solid race. It’s always great to see Sue tearing it up in Central Park!
Ladies, we are on fire! Next up is Percy Sutton 5k on August 25th. If you haven’t registered please do so ASAP. Let’s work together and keep our first place standing -We got this!