Remember when Tom Hanks used to win an Oscar every year, which was generally ok because he was a good actor and kept finding interesting roles? Or when the New York State Senate would meet most days? Or when Johnny Gray would go out too fast? These were things that were written about a lot, but they happened so often that they lost their bite. So how do I keep writing about Yumi Ogita’s accomplishments in a fresh way? How about this: After her 87.0% PR at the Japan Run (6:05 pace for four miles), Yumi has the club’s four best age-graded races in 2009. She has won her age group six races in a row, and she finished third woman at the Japan Run, a race with 2,342 women. Finally, a year ago, she was running 6:20 pace in 4-mile races and now she is down to 6:05.

While Yumi leads from the front, several other CPTCers have been running well. Fifty-six year old Yasuhiro Makoshi has run ten races in about ten weeks, winning his age group in three of them and very nearly setting an age-graded PR with his 83.0% over 5 miles on Father’s Day (6:10 pace). Yasuhiro has run 20 races in Central Park over the past 52 weeks, leading second place CPTC ironman Giovanni Caracci by three. The woman with the most race t-shirts is long-time member Lynn Blackstone, with 14 shirts in her drawer.

There has been a scattering of age graded PRs, but as we saw last summer, as a team we seem to see more improvement in the spring and fall than the summer. That said, sharp improvement comes from long-time member Robert Howard, who not only ran his fastest age-graded time of the past 52 weeks, but of the last 14 years, with his 67.2% on Father’s Day. Along with Yasuhiro, Giovanni and Lance Armstrong, Robert is a good example of racing one’s self into shape: at age 61, after a sporadic 2008, he has already run 11 races in 2009 and keeps getting faster. Finally, twenty-year + member Philip Vasquez ran has fastest age-graded score in three years (72.6%) at the Japan Day race.

The team competition has brightened along with the DJIA, especially for the women:

First Place: 40+ Women, 50+ Women, and 50+ Men
Second Place: 60+ Women
Fourth Place: 40+ Men
Eighth Place: 60+ Men

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