At the Joe Kleinerman 10k, the final scoring race of the year, a few cold-weather-resistant runners set PRs, but most dramatically the 50+ women’s squad, led by Sylvie Kimche, Mary Diver, and Judith Tripp, eked out a one-second victory over GNY to take the overall team title for 2009. Going into the race, they had trailed GNY by only one point.
Sylvie and Judith, along with Lynn Blackstone, led the 60+ women to 2nd place in the race and second overall for the year. Another razor-thin margin, of three seconds, gave the 40+ women (Yumi Ogita, Audrey Kingsley, Sylvie Kimche) third place, and propelled them past GNY for second place overall.
The 50+ men continued their dominance of their age group, having won an astonishing nine out of the year’s ten races. Alan Ruben (35:58, 2nd in age group), Yasuhiro Makoshi (37:53, 1st in M55-59), and Andrew Moore (38:24) cruised to an eight-minute team victory. For the 40+men, Jim McQuade (on whom more shortly), Alan Ruben, and Josh Rayman (36:12) grabbed third place, and fourth overall for the year. Faster Masters columnist David Greenberg achieved a post-40 PR, running 36:48.
The open women’s team — led by Kate Irvin (35:53 PR, 1st W30-34), Sarah Alaei (37:26, 2nd 25-29), Kristan Lucas (37:53 3rd W25-29), Katie Casto (38:45, 4th W25-29), and Andrea Costella (38:46, 3rd W30-34) — enjoyed a comfortable three-minute victory, and ended up in second place for the year.
The open men took sixth in a tough field, and maintained fourth place for the year. The scoring team consisted of Jim McQuade (33:56 PR, 3rd M40-44), Steven Josefowicz (34:10), the indefatigable Jake Cooper (34:21), myself (35:02), and Michael Basen (35:07). A notable 43-second PR belonged to Michael Chary, who dipped under 36 minutes to run 35:57.
I’d like to end by noting how remarkable Jim McQuade’s run was on Sunday. He’d had hopes of going under 34 minutes for a few years now, and had been frustrated several times. “This was a sweet one,” he told me.
It wasn’t merely that he ran a 31-second PR; it was that he’d run the NYC Marathon in 2:45 at the beginning of November, after which he took off an entire week from running and then waited 25 days before attempting his first workout. He used the fitness he’d retained from all his marathon training, and a mere three pre-Kleinerman workouts, to finally crack 34 minutes. The last mile sealed the deal: he ran a 5:21.