What is it about the Queens half marathon that inspires CPTC masters to stay home in huge competitive packs? Just five of the men’s masters team showed up, and zero of the women’s. Which is about the same as last year. The low turnout combined with the approximate temperature and environment of the Titanic’s boiler room assured that no age-graded PRs were set. Fellow website correspondent Hank Schiffman led the charge with an age graded 73.7%, which put him back in the top 10% of runners in the race, after lamenting his failure to do so last race. Bravo and let this not be the last time, Hank. He also finished second in his age group.
A slow week is ok by me, because as Jeff Wilson rightly pointed out, I was negligent last week by not noting that the great Rae Baymiller had returned to the roads in a typically dazzling fashion. In the four-miler last week, Rae ran what is easily the best CPTC age-graded race of the year with a world-class 93.7%, or 28:51 in young people’s time. This from a runner who ran a hard-to-comprehend world record 2:52 marathon in the 55-59 age group. All salute Rae – will she be able to improve on a 93.7? Stay tuned.
Also worth a note as I get this column underway I was asked why the NY Marathon won’t be included in my reports. The simple answer is that as far as I can tell, the NYRRC does not report age-graded percentages in their results of the marathon. No, I don’t know why.
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