Grete’s Great Gallop half marathon on October 6 was the latest club points series race and the men’s and women’s open teams, as well as the masters teams, were fighting to stay in the lead, or move up in the standings. For the third club points series race of the year, CPTC women came in first and second overall! For this long distance race it was Lauren Esposito and Allison Lind leading the way. Lauren continued her amazing comeback this year with another overall win with a time of 1:22:19. This was Lauren’s first overall win since last year’s Shea Stadium 5k club points race and the fifth time she has won a NYRR race in her career. Allison, coming back from a great performance at September’s Philadelphia half marathon, came in second in 1:22:42. This is now the eighth time this year that a CPTC woman has won a NYRR or USATF championship race.

Lauren and Allison led the CPTC women to a second place finish in the open team scoring. Additional scorers for the women were Andrea Costella in sixth (1:25:33), Maria Pavkovith, seventh (1:27:59), and Susan Strazza, seventeenth (1:30:03). The 40+ team also came in second and Susan double scored for that team. Additional scorers were Deborah Barchat (1:42:07) and Jan Farnung-Krause (1:47:47). The 50+ women came in first, with Deborah and Jan double scoring for that team. In addition, Mary Diver moved up to the longer distance and scored for the winning team with a 1:56:50. This was the first win of the year for the women’s 50+ team, after coming in second three times.

Most of the CPTC men, Lauren, Allison, and some other CPTC women had to contend with lapped runners as they ran the last few miles of the half marathon, which was two plus loops of the park. Although the top two men in the race at least had a bicycle escort trying to move lapped runners out of the way, everyone else had to fight their way through the pack. The open men’s team came in a close second, again led by Carl Dambkowski, who came in eighth, with a 1:13:34. The additional men’s scorers were Dan Seidel in tenth, (1:14:37), Jason Ostenson, thirteenth (1:15:10), Russ Pfeffer, fifteenth (1:15:24), and Jacob Cooper, sixteenth, (1:15:31). The men’s 40+ team won their division for the second straight race, led by Alan Ruben (1:17:59), Steve Monte (1:19:21), and Peter Allen (1:20:27). Alan double scored for the 50+ team, which won their division for the first time this year. Also scoring were Yasuhiro Makoshi (1:25:57) and Chris Neuhoff (1:40:54).