It’s been mentioned already but it bears repeating: our women’s open team won the NYRR Club Championships five mile race in Central Park! You can see video of the race on the Running series on the YES network (the Yankees channel) and on the NYRR website. The next few airings will be on Sunday at 6:30 PM, Monday at 7:30 AM, and Tuesday at 1:30 AM. (There are other airings throughout the month). You can also check out the videos from NYRR. The first one has some great shots of the start of the races. You can see close-ups of our winning women’s team of Katy, Lauren, Kate, and Aileen lined up together in the first row, with Katrina content to line up in the second row behind Lauren. Videos of the finish of the top 50 men and top 50 women are also available.
After watching last year’s women’s race, with Westchester’s top five coming in ahead of our first runner, it was exciting to see Aileen Conlon 200 meters from the finish, running close to the leader and cruising to a second place finish. The women’s team scored an extremely low 41 points for the win (2-8-9-10-12). Aileen ran a 28:19 (5:39 pace) and is now second on the all time club top ten. (The top eight CPTC women ran PRs, along with many others). All five women either broke into the top ten on the five mile list, or improved their times or place on that list. Katy Masselam, running in her first race since her June 2:52 marathon was next with an eighth place finish of 29:04. (Katy has had a just a few things going on lately, what with running a near Olympic Trials marathon qualifier, moving to Rhode Island, getting married, and starting a new position in Boston). Right behind Katy, was Katrina Bruckschwaiger (29:05) in ninth, who continues her amazing advancement to the top of the metro area distance runners. Never say die Kate Irvin, who scored in the club track championships in the 800 and 1500, was next in tenth, with a 29:18, and rounding out the scorers was Lauren Esposito in twelfth with a 29:37. The women’s team increased their lead in the club standings over NYAC, and is now ahead by nine points.
Susan Strazza ran a 33:38 and led the women’s masters’ team to a seventh place finish. Deborah Barchat was first in her age group with a 35:40, and led the women’s 50+ team to a second place finish (an agonizing seven seconds off the winning team’s time).
The men’s open team came in fifth, which was a better result than last year, bunching ten runners between 30 and 68, led by Carl Dambkowski, who ran an excellent 25:31 (5:06 pace). Our men’s team had an amazing ten runners at 26:44 or better. Dan Seidel was next with a PR of 26:05, and right behind him was Jason Ostenson, with a PR of 26:08. Finishing next was Nick Thompson in 26:15, and Thom Little with a PR of 26:17. The men’s open team drops to third place in the yearly standings, but has increased their lead over Urban Athletics and Warren Street, the teams below them.
Mike Trunkes ran a 27:03 and led the master’s team to a fourth place finish. That team holds on to third place in the standings. Alan Ruben (27:53) led the 50+ team to a second place finish, moving them into second place in the standings. Frank Handelman, (36:10), running in his first Club Championships in seven years, led the 60+ team to a fourth place finish, which moves them up into sixth place in the standings, after not fielding a team in the first three races of the year.
A depleted Westchester TC team but an improved NYAC team made this women’s race the closest we’ve ever seen. The scoring gods were on our side this day. Through a very interesting (at least to me) quirk in the scoring mathematics, if the number of scored runners had been anything but five, then the CPTC women wouldn’t have come won. Let’s hope for more good fortune in the future. Good luck to everyone at the next club points race!