From Thom Little of the Open:
The men’s open team scored first place in the Fifth Avenue Mile, an event that CPTC continues to dominate.
Andrew Combs and David Peters ran the NYRR Road mile clocking a 4:06 and 4:16 respectively.
After those two outstanding performances, the men’s open team was led by new member Brian Cavanaugh running a 4:25. Brian’s time is yet to be credited to the proper section in the results, but you can see him in the photos. Trevor Middleton placed 4th overall in the men’s open followed by Matt Lacey and Phil Falk. Rob Gill not only won his age group but won the overall heat running a 4:30. He signed some autographs after as well as did a few interviews. CPTC’s top runners were rounded out with a huge PR of 4:31 by Sergio Soto.
From Andrew Moore of the 50+:
Congratulations! A very impressive day for our 50+ team. We had nine solid performances from our runners and came away with the top team finish for the age group. CPTC scoring was led in impressive fashion by Coach Tony Ruiz who came in at a quick 4:59 followed just a few spots back by Kevin Foley at 5:06. Scoring third for the team – but winning first place in the 55-59 division – was Alan Ruben at 5:13.
The rest of the team was also very speedy across the board – not a bad time among them: Peter Allen 5:15, Chris Donnelly 5:18, Tom Raymond 5:24, Arthur Palmer 5:37, Oscar Garcia 5:47, Frank Morton 6:02, Dennis O’Donnell 6:02. Well done all.
At the next races, we move up to the longer distances – Grete’s Great Gallop half marathon October 14 followed by the NYC Marathon November 4.
From Hank Schiffman of the 60+:
And what a day it was. If not for Harry Lichtenstein’s tumble at the start the day was better than a good piece of chocolate cake for the rest of us. Yes, Allan Dias didn’t finish where he deserved, but he was like a house on fire. He was splendid. Hats off.
I believe Harry was just behind the first row to the left at the starting line. I was in the row behind his and over a few places to his right. Ray Baymiller (99.11%!!!) was a couple of rows behind me. Out of the corner of my left eye I saw what appeared to be someone going down. Suddenly I felt something soft under my left foot. I realized I had trod on an arm or hand, but dared not look back or stop. Surely it was Harry. The New Yorker had an article last year, or before, on people getting trampled. One fact: more people get run over by crowds going towards something, as the opening of a store (Green Acres for a holiday sale day a few years ago) as opposed to people fleeing something, like fire. The start of a foot race is of the former. People are pushing forward towards the finish line. I have no idea what caused the fall. But the wall of humanity behind has no idea that a person is down. I spoke with Ray after the race. She was behind Harry but had not seen a thing, unaware of the accident. Larry Kellogg had spoken with Harry post race: he “was pretty well bruised though.” Our thoughts go out to him. Mitigating factors are that I weighed 138 before the race and had on my NB Minimus trail runners, no spikes. But what about all the others?
Allan blazed the way for the rest of us in 5:38 (5th mens 60-64). I was 6 seconds behind Allan. Our 3rd scorer was Sam Mann, 5:59, followed 3 seconds later by Chris Neuhoff. Dashing Dan Molloy crossed the line in 6:14. Injured, but determined, Super Sid Howard, at 74 years (2nd in 70-74) ran it in 6:20. Hal Lieberman, at 69 crossed the line in 6:35. Dave Delano rounded us out at 7:36. A total of 8 CPTC men over 60 crossed the finish line for our team.
Thus our men 60+ (17:21) took 1st place to Taconic, 2nd (17:48), 3rd Shore AC (17:52) would surely have taken 1st had Harry Nolan not walked off injured, 4th Witold’s (19:06), Van Cortlandt, 5th (21:36) and Rockland, 6th (21:45).