I interviewed Yumi Ogita a few weeks ago, in March, after Coogans – and we talked mostly about that race – which looked plenty fast to both her and me. I did ask her back then for her short-term running goal – and she said that her target for the Kidney 10K was to break 40 minutes.
The results are in…and Yumi not only broke 40 minutes, but 39 too. More than that, she ran the very best CPTC women’s masters age graded road race result of 2009, and right around the 14th best CPTC women’s mark (between the mile and the marathon) since 1987, when Alan Ruben started tracking results. Yumi ran a rapid 38:50 for an 86.1%, which I believe is her best age-graded percent ever. In absolute terms, it is the fastest 10K she has run in the park since 1998. She won the 45-49 by a full two minutes and was the fourth fastest CPTC woman of any age. Now I am out of superlatives.
Other than Yumi, the road racing has been a little quiet in May. Bud Heyman and Robert Howard set 52-week age graded PRs in the Kidney competition, and Judith Tripp won her age group for the fifth time in six races.
On the team front, here’s how it broke down:
1st place: Women’s 40+, Men’s 50+ and Women’s 60+
2nd place: Women’s 50+
4th place: Men’s 40+
5th place: Men’s 60+
The dominant teams were the women’s 60+ and men’s 50+ – each won their age group by around 8 minutes. Take a look at the men’s 50+ team – they have some strong players up and running this season, in Alan Ruben, Stuart Calderwood and Michael Rennock – all of whom could run a 10K in the 36 minute range or better.
Nobody ran well at the Mother’s Day race in CP, but in the Wall Street 3 miler, Stacy Creamer continued to sharpen up for the duathlon with an age group win and overall 5th place finish.
Off the beaten path, literally, Hank Schiffman won the 50-59 in the North Face 21K trail race up in Harriman State Park, despite the mud, the rain, the fog, and the severe lack of pavement.