A Look at CPTC Results from the NYRR Team Championships 1987-2019

Often referenced as just the Club Champs, the NYRR Team Championships race is the pinnacle of club racing in New York. The race itself consists of a familiar 5 mile loop through Central Park and has separate races for the Men and Women and each open team scores 10 runners. This race forces teams to really show their depth and while it usually does not take place during most runner training peak, you can bet each runner is pushing hard for every position and maxing out their fitness level. I’m very fond of the normal course with a runners having to ascend the large cat hill at about 3.5 miles into the race. It’s a late enough test of strength to drop any pretenders, but those that can conquer the hill get a fast, slightly downhill final mile and with a very competitive field, you can get some fast times (as long as the weather agrees).

The race has grown in size quite a bit since its first running in 1987 with 309 runners (60 of which were from CPTC) and had over 2,000 participants last year. CPTC consistently sends about 100 runners to the race each year and the team has finished at least in the top 4 clubs in the open division every year since 2010 with the Women’s team winning the race in 2017 and 2018. In the Masters categories, CPTC has also had lots of recent success with the Men winning the 40+ and 60+ divisions last year. The race in general has always been one of the more competitive races on the NYRR calendar. Since the race’s inception the top Men have run many sub 25 minute races with the average time of the top 10 Men mostly in the mid to high 24 minute range. The Women’s race historically has been fast as well. Over the last 15 races, 11 times the Women’s average time for the top ten places has been in the 28’s (and once even under 28 minutes). The chart below shows the average times for the top ten runners from every year.

CPTC’s times have mirrored the general race (albeit a little bit slower) and with most of the team’s top runners toeing the start line, the team has seen consistently fast results since the race’s inception. The Men’s times fluctuate from year to year but consistently averaged in the 26 minute range with a few years in the 27’s. The women’s times have shown a downward trend as CPTC has closed the gap between its top racers and the field. While the women never averaged below 31:45 as a team prior to 2005, in 6 of the last 7 years the team has averaged 31 minutes or under. While the team’s top runners are showcased in the chart above, you can check out the visualization below to see every CPTC Club Championship result since 1987. Search last names to highlight specific results from team members.

If you are looking for some interesting names to search in the above visual, I’d suggest taking a look at some of the team’s most frequent competitors. Below are the 5 Men and Women with the most Club Champs races under their belts as a CPTC member.

A version of this post was first published at http://www.stlannex.com/blog_cptc_results. All results from https://results.nyrr.org/home.

Please let me know if you find any error in the data or statistics shown. I’ve tried to clean the results as much as possible, but I’m sure a few errors are still in there. For example, upon first glance Alan Ruben appeared to have the 5th most races on the team because several of his results were under Alan S Ruben and others under Alan Ruben. Update (10/4/2020): Additional name discrepancies were found in the Top 5 CPTC’er lists. Harry Lichenstsein has been added to the men’s side and Audrey Kingsley has been added to the women’s side. Additional Sylvie Kimche’s total has been adjusted up to 17 (most all-time!) to account for NYRR using different names in her results.