It’s overwhelming. There were so many outstanding performances last weekend that we’re afraid we’re going to forget to mention many of them. Four team wins: open men and women, and 50+ masters men and women. Eleven age group award recipients, two age group winners, and five members winning prize money.
Open men win their second points race of the year with a score of 87 points over GNY’s 120. John Roberts led the open men with an 8th place time of 32:31. The rest of the men’s scorers: Birger Ohlsson (33:05), Sean Fortune (33:08), Eric Boucher (33:19) and Jason Ostenson (33:29).
Masters (40+) men were second with Mike Trunkes (34:45), Peter Allen (35:15), and Alan Ruben (35:21). Alan (who also was first in his age group) led the men’s 50+ team for the win, with Tom Phillips (37:23), and the legendary John Kenney (38:16) completing that team.
As we’ve said many times, everyone who runs affects the scoring. Not only do open men and women outside our top five push our competitors further down in the scoring, but the mere presence of so many orange singlets can have an intimidating effect on the competition. There were 9 CPTC men under 5:30 pace and an astounding 23 men under 6:00 pace, with many running PRs.
The CPTC women needed to win this final points race of the year in order to win the overall yearly points race series. But seven athletes traveled to Ohio to participate (and place seventh) in the USA National Club Cross Country meet. Could the CPTC women win anyway? And would some of the cross country runners compete in the Ohio race and (covered in mud) immediately head for the airport back to New York to get ready for the 10K the next day? By now you know the answer to that. Thirty-four CPTC women towed the line on Sunday morning, including six very tired, jet-lagged cross country runners. It was a dominating performance by the open women as they scored 32 points to win over NYAC’s 62. When our team comes in 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 that pretty much tells the whole story. New member Sara Vergote was first for the club with a 35:53. Right behind Sara were Aileen Conlon (35:54), Kate Irvin (35:59), Katrina Bruckschwaiger (36:10), and Lauren Esposito (36:18). Sara moves to sixth on the club all time 10k list. Aileen runs a course PR. Kate runs a PR and moves into seventh on the all time list. Katrina runs a PR and moves into ninth. And Lauren runs a PR and improves from her debut CPTC race from three years ago at this same event and remains on the list in tenth. In all, 9 CPTC women ran sub 6:00 pace, and 20 women ran sub 7:00 pace, including many others with PRs!
Masters (40+) women were fourth led by Stacy Creamer (40:56), Susan Strazza, (41:01), and Jeannine Bardo (45:29). The winning 50+ team was led by Deborah Barchat (45:52), Silvie Kimche (winner of the 60-64 age group in 47:22), and Mary Diver (47:49).