Central Park started with 153 members entered to run in this year’s upcoming ING NYC marathon. And as of this article 117 are listed in the marathon database as participating on November 2nd. We talked to a couple of club members.
Alan Ruben
Alan just recently stepped down as the Club’s president but has been a member for 18 years now. He has run in the last 21 NYC marathons, posting his best time of 2:32:17 in 1993. His last marathon was Boston this past spring where he ran a 2:47:37. When asked about his training Alan answered, “[I attend ] Tuesday/Thursday night workouts with Tony, long run or race at the weekend. [My mileage is] about 60 miles per week.” We also asked who was their favorite celebrity, “Lance Armstrong – I get extra kudos from my non-running acquaintances by beating him.”
Kate Casto
Katie is a brand new club member, having joined the club just 6 months ago. This will be her second NYC Marathon. She ran last year’s race in 3:08. She knocked 10 minutes off that time this past spring in Boston. We asked Katie what she does to prepare for 26.2 miles, “Summer base and shorter races, then 12wk buildup to the marathon with some higher mileage, long runs, and workouts.” Who was her favorite/least favorite celebrity runner? “Hmm, don’t think I have one…but was quite annoyed last year that every time I talked to someone about running in NYC last year I would get a comment back about Katie Holmes running in it as well.”
Susan Strazza
We last talked to Susan before Grete’s Great Gallop Half Marathon where she ran 1:29:54. Susan has been a club member since 2003. She has run 15 marathons, and this will be her 9th consecutive NYC marathon. Susan has been working her way back from injury, “[I] recovered from a stress fracture in my right heel bone (Jan 2008) and was sidelined Jan-April. [I] started running again in May. With the marathon in mind as my goal I started back by rebuilding my base and general running fitness; then starting in July focused on “marathon training”, more miles, longer long runs, Tuesday track and Thursday road workouts. Based on Grete’s results the workouts and effort have paid off as I seem to be back (maybe even a little stronger) to where I was a year ago.” When asked about celebrities, Susan made a very good point, “[My favorite celebrities are] the ones you don’t hear anything about. I give those ‘celebrities’ extra kudos for running the marathon for the experience (like pretty much the rest of the 35,000+ runners do) and not the publicity.”
Thom Little
While Thom hasn’t run as many NYC marathons as Susan or Alan, his times (and NYT article) speak for themselves. This will be his 5th NYC marathon, 4th in a row. He joined CPTC just after the 2005 marathon and the next year ran a 2:25:55 which placed him 34th overall. In this year’s past NYC marathon Thom ran a 2:32:49. And while everyone we talked to (including Thom) cited “lots of miles and Tony’s workouts” as the basis of their training, Thom has been supplementing all his hard work with “a diet rich in hops & barley.” Thom’s favorite running celebrity isn’t an actor, a musician, or cancer survivor, it is himself. “He is more of a local running celeb, but he is my favorite nonetheless.” Maybe our last poll should have included Thom Little as a choice.