Wow! As someone who subscribes to both NHL Centre Ice and NBA League Pass, I m used to watching excessive amounts of sports on any given evening. But nothing can compare to the Armory s Thursday Night at the Races. It doesn t matter how many times you ve been in the past, nothing can prepare you for the amount of track action held in upper Manhattan. I mean, we re talking over THIRTY races in a three and a half hour period. The action never stops, and if you take one trip to the facilities or to look at the results sheet, you suddenly find yourself five races behind.

With so many races, it s impossible to talk about all that happened (unless your name is Roland Soong). So below are tidbits of some of the goings on from Thursday……

A. CPTC had their own 400 meter race! That s right, the Devon Martin Invitational occurred on Thursday, where six CPTCers competed for the rights to represent our club at the Millrose Games 4x400M relay. How cool is that! I ll let Coach Devon give a more detailed report on the proceedings.

B. I don t know why it occurs, but it s a scientific fact that indoor tracks have the driest air of any building in the area. The Armory didn t disappoint, as stepping into the venue felt as though you were running in South Mountain Park!

C. New to the Armory this year is a huge, and I mean ugly huge mural of various track and field athletes (and you wonder where your Armory track fees go). Included in the mural were runners, hurdlers, high jumpers, and wheelchair athletes. At least one person commented that they are willing to pay big bucks to see a wheelchair race on the heavily banked Armory track…..

D. Word on the street was that Coach Tony Ruiz competed in his first ever Armory race on Thursday, running in one of the 800 meter heats. Tony ran the race in style, winning his heat with ease! Outside of this and the Devon Martin Invitational, Otto Hoering was the only other CPTC member to win his or her heat.

E. Fibbing about seeding times became a hot discussion throughout the meet. To make it into the seeded men s 3000m event required a “time” of under nine minutes. Not believing the qualifying times given to him, the seeding coordinator said there goes the biggest bunch of liars on the track right after the seeded heat went off. However, our own John Roberts can t be considered a liar, as he ran a VERY impressive 8:38.8 in that section. What to put down as your seeding time has unfortunately become an important part of decision for the modern day track athlete. I don t have time to give a full discussion of the issue here, so expect another journal entry in the near future on this topic.

F. As said before, an enormous number of track athletes competed during the competition. There were TWELVE, count em, TWELVE heats of the men s 800 meter. By the end of the meet, another wave of men s 1500 meter runners seemed to appear almost magically out of the air, leading Sue Pearsall to say that the runners are multiplying like Gremlins!

G. As the meet winded down, the question of the day was “What the heck does the term dipping mean?” Coincidentally, isn t this the exact same question Brad asked on Thursday s Real World / Road Rules Challenge Reunion show……

H. Numerous CPTCers wanted team competition in non-running events. There appears to be ample interest in a Central Park Track Club tournaments in poker, mini-golf and Minesweeper. For better or worse, no one mentioned having a CPTC Simon Says event…..

I. It would be irresponsible for me not to mention the number one topic of discussion throughout Thursday s proceedings, the music. During the entire meet, loud music blasted non-stop out of the Armory speaker system. It got so bad that you couldn t hear results, splits, final calls for events, or any other instructions given by any meet officials. Most people seemed to be in agreement that the men had a better music selection in their races compared to the women. I must agree with this assessment. As an example, let s look at what some of the runners had to race to. JR Calvey and Noah Lansner competed in the third heat of the men s 3000 meters, where they raced to a medley of Teenage Wasteland Baba O Riley [Why doesn t anyone know the real name of this song? — Ed.] by the Who, The Twilight Zone by 2 Unlimited, and then the themes to the X-Files and Stars Wars. As bad as this was, Katy Masselam and Katherine King had to run their entire 800 meter heat to the theme of Carnival Cruise lines!! Yes, the women got the short end of the stick.

J. Strangest song choice of the night had to go to the dance version of Rocket Man , which as one observer noted sounded like Elton John on crystal meth. Trust me in saying that it was beyond creepy! If the Armory plays a dance version of the classic hit Say You, Say Me next time, I ll eat my words and do a run in tights!!!

K. Now, if I was in charge of the music for a race, this is what I d go with:

1. Country Grammar – by Nellie. Nellie s best song, and he makes a ton of St. Louis references to make it even better!

2. Let Me in Now – by the St. Lunatics. It would be unfair to give Nellie a song without giving one to the premier rap groups of St. Louis as well. No need to take sides when you don t have to!

3. Homewrecker – by Gretchen Wilson. The best song of 2005! And you thought St. Louisians only know rap!

4. Istanbul – by They Might be Giants. They might not be from St. Louis. but due to their popularity in the city, TMBG became the unofficial adopted alternative band of the metro-area.

5. Johnny B. Goode – by Chuck Berry. St. Louisians can rock it out too!

6. Meet Me in St. Louis! Admit it, you knew this was coming!

7. Crazy Bitch – by Buckcherry. The group rhymes with Chuck Berry for crying out loud! Besides, if the song is good enough to warrant a Grammy Award nomination, it s good enough for me!

L. I guess after allowing me to choose my music medley, then it would only be fair to let others choose their own medley as well. But oh no, that would only lead to people choosing medleys based on lesser cities like Dallas, Detroit, Houston, and heaven forbid, Chicago! We can t let this happen!!! One Armory track official had it 100% right when he said This music is the pitz! , and I agree wholeheartedly! So that settles it. Burt Reynolds, you must convene the Men of the Square Table and institute a new Man Law: no music should be played during indoor track competitions!

M. By 10:30, the last heat of the 1500 meter finally concluded, ending another exciting night at the Armory. Unofficial Central Park Track Club results are listed below. Note: I did the best I could to record everyone s time, but it is possible I missed a mark or two. I take full responsibility for any errors and omissions in the results below.

Women s 3000m

Katy Masselam: 9:59.1
Katrina Bruckschwaiger: 10:18.9
Sarah Alaei: 10:26.4
Andrea Costella: 10:30.7
Katherine King: 10:33.3
Felice Kelly: 10:37.9
Kristel Adler: 10:42.1
Kristina Maletz: 11:00.3
Ligaya Mishan: 11:17.9
Susan Strazza: 12:17.6
Margot Sheehan: 13:08.3

Men s 3000m

John Roberts: 8:38.8
Russel Pfeffer: 9:12.9
Sean Fortune: 9:24.6
Neil Fitzgerald: 9:34.2
Jay Barry: 9:09.3
Neil Brenner: 9:15.3
Alan Ruben: 9:31.5
Armando Oliveira: 9:31.9
Noah Lansner: 9:39.5
JR Calvey: 9:44.3
John Afflect: 10:01.1
Otto Hoering: 10:25.3
Steven Rosenbaum: 10:25.7
John Gleason: 12:51.3

Men s 400m

Adrian Cricholow: 51.5

Women s 800m

Natalie Gingrich: 2:16.3
Katy Masselam: 2:22.2
Catherine Stone: 2:29.6
Andrea Ostrowski: 2:52.6

Men s 800m

Evan Zeisel: 1:59.2
Steven Monte: 2:11.5
Tony Ruiz: 2:07.6
Michael Lyons: 2:25.7
Frank Handelman: 2:26.2
Otto Hoering: 2:22.2
Armando Oliveira: 2:23.9
Steven Rosenbaum: 2:24.1
Mike Potter: 2:25.0
Sid Howard: 2:31.5
Kimihiko Oishi: 2:32.0
John Gleason: 2:56.7

Men s 1500m

Jason Ostenson: 4:05.0
Michael Basen: 4:25.5
Thom Little: 4:28.8
Seth Bender: 4:29.5
Armando Oliveira: 4:40.3
Brian Scheffer: 4:41.0
Joe Bolster: 4:56.9
Michael Lyons: 5:13.9
Kimihiko Oishi: 5:15.3