Calling themselves the Uptown Trotters, a contingent of past and present CPTCers ran the 50-mile, 9-leg Need for Speed Relay on June 10th. With a finishing time of 7 hours 28 minutes, they came in 12th of 73 Coed Open teams (or 21st of 117 teams overall).

Not a bad showing, considering that most of the team jogged it (three had done a 10k the day before). And given that the team lost twenty minutes looking for the exchange area in Scarsdale. Race organizers provided no maps for the route, just ambiguous text instructions.

But let us not cavil. It was all for a good and popular cause—domestic violence! And what scenery. Bear Mountain to New Rochelle, sublime to ridiculous.

Second-year Need for Speed veteran Andrea Ostrowski took the challenging 8.4-mile opening leg, with many steep trails and turns and one spectacular crossing of the Hudson (1 hr, 9 min). Exulting in the cool grey morning as she crossed Bear Mountain Bridge, she saw a sign by the railing: “LIFE IS WORTH LIVING” and thought, Oh what a nice thought! Then, a little farther down: “Call Our Suicide Prevention Hotline…”

Michelle Santomassino had leg 2 (7.5 miles, 1:13), a hilly course, with a spectacular finish on the high trestle bridge over the waterfalls at Croton Reservoir. Margot Sheehan and Mary Diver got flatter, less-panoramic segments through cemeteries and bike paths (6.8 and 6.4 miles) and ambled through them at a leisurely clip, but still came in at 57 minutes each. Team captain Phil Vasquez finished up with back-to-back legs (9.6 miles, 1:15) that took him all the way from Scarsdale down to the edgy New Roc City shopping mall in New Rochelle.

David Howard was the star athlete on the squad (6.5 miles, 43:36; 4.7 miles, 36:06). Sprinting into an exchange area full of baseball caps and well-filled t-shirts, he stood out like a hired ringer. “That felt really great!” Dave said. “I just passed 20 people!”