The Staten Island Half was the third half-marathon put on by the NYRRC in about a month, plus an 18-miler thrown in as a lure for long distance mavens Steven Monte and Michael Rennock. Perhaps as a result of the abundance of long races, only six CPTC masters braved an early Sunday morning ferry to Staten Island.
Two CPTCers set age-graded PRs on New York’s other island: Hank Schiffman and the surging Giovanni Caracci. Hank ran 1:30 on a warm day to finish third in his age group. His 80.2% was the highest age-graded percent of the day for the team – that is the second time in three races (also in the Queens Half) that he has been our top performer. I will right now re-read Hank’s website advice on staying injury-free.
Giovanni now has a rare two-race streak of age-group PRs. He ran 1:39 (70.7%), a full ten minutes faster than he ran at Queens, before his streak began.
While he did not set an age-graded PR today, Yasuhiro Makoshi’s 1:28 (80.0%)won his age group for the 15th time in about a year. What’s more, during that same period he has had the best age-graded performance among CPTCers six times, and also ran the highest number of races: 20. If we had an MVP masters award – do we? – I nominate Yasuhiro.
No CPTC women crossed the pond today, so I have little to say other than that I think I saw Rae Baymiller running in the park this week and I sure do hope that means she is going to race soon.
On a personal note, and speaking of crossing bodies of water, your stringer made it to Hackensack and back today, finishing second overall and first masters in the Hackensack 5k in a post age 40 PR 17:39 (77.9%). If anyone else runs a PR at a non-NYRRC race, let me know so I can include it.
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