CPTC has grown through the years, achieving many milestones along the way. Thanks to Jodyann Raymond, a member of the club since 2007, the team can now add representation among the sprinters at the USA Indoor National Track & Field Nationals to the list. Jodyann qualified for the 60m event by winning the NYU Gotham Cup Meet on January 18th, finishing in a blazing time of 7.57 seconds—the equivalent of running 17.74 mph. The USATF indoor nationals will be held in Boston the weekend of February 28th.
CPTC’s sprint coach, Shaun Dietz, will be traveling to Boston with Raymond. Dietz used to coach her when she was in high school at Theodore Roosevelt HS in the Bronx. After high school, she became an NCAA division III champion twice: once in the outdoor 100m and once in the 4x100m relay. Since joining CPTC the summer between her junior and senior years at CCNY, she’s set the club record in the 60m, 100m, 200m, 4 x 100m, and both sprint medleys. She graduated from CCNY in 2008 with a BA in media communications, and has worked with the marketing department at an ad agency.
Despite these impressive accomplishments, Jodyann says she’s not sure her siblings understand what a big deal it is to qualify for nationals. She’s confident, however, that her mother, who used to compete in track & field during her younger days back in Jamaica, grasps the magnitude of her achievement.
As for the nationals, Raymond faces a new set of challenges. Although she has run several races in Boston, she’s never competed at the Reggie Lewis Track & Athletic Center before. Even more daunting is that she’s never competed against anyone else in the field. Still, she seems to be taking the challenges in stride. When asked if she would modify her training for this big event, Jodyann says that she will stay with what she knows and not do anything drastically different.
The trusted routine that has gotten her to the national stage consists of training almost every day either on a track or in a school hallway, complemented by regular weights work in a gym. To date, though, she has reported no hallway collisions with teachers or students. And when she toes the line on Saturday, Feb. 28th in the opening heats of the 60m in Boston, she hopes to stay in her lane and create yet another milestone for the club. The meet will air on ESPN2 on Sunday, March 1st at 5pm EST.