Percy Sutton

On a beautiful Saturday morning, on a re-designed course (still as hilly as before IMHO), our W60+ team , with an average age of 71+  took 4th place in the W60+ category. 

Unfortunately we did not have a 3rd W70+ runner to score in the W70+.

Barbara Byrne, our lone 60+ runner was 1st for the team – as usual – and 1st in her W65-69 age group in 25:08

She had this to say about her race:

It was good to be up in Harlem and experience the feeling of a race again after I have done so little this year.  I had very low expectations because it has been difficult enough to manage between 9 and 10 minute pace while attempting to “train”, if you could call it that!  With that in mind, I’ll be happy with the result and hope for better form in the fall.

Congratulations for all the fine performances across the various age groups.

Lynn Blackstone, just shy of the 78th birthday, was elated to be 3rd for the team. She’s always excited to score for the team. Her 35:01 was good for 2nd in her W75-79 age group.

No comments from Lynn, but I’m sure she would have said she ran to her training, was happy to score for the team and will train more the for next races… ?

I was 2nd for the team and 1st in my W70-74 age group in 25:45. I was happy with this result as I have not been able to train much – spending too much time with the remodeling in my apt and suffering from a bum knee for the past few months. 

I must add that I did not particularly like the redesign of the course – a slightly less steep hill in the 1st mile but then a long steep downhill and a tight turn into a very steep short hill. By that point, my quads and my knee were dead… 

I preferred the old course with the very steep hill a few blocks after the start.

I wonder if anyone feels the same???

—————————————————————————————————————————————————-

Fifth Avenue Mile

On a damp and cool Sunday morning, our W60+ and 70+ came in force to take gold in both age groups! We rock!

This race marked the return of Sherrel Harmon from almost a year lay-off due to tore quads in a freak accident at Van Cortlandt Park last fall. Welcome back Sherrel! We missed you!

It also marked the return to form of Deborah Barchat who is running well and happy after a number of years of knee problems. Welcome back to form Deb!

Unfortunately for Deb, she was just shy of her 70th birthday by a week and therefore could not score for the W70+ team. And she missed scoring for the W60+ team by 1″ only…. but she was happy with her race as she improved her time over last year by 11 seconds!!! Way to go Deb!

Barbara Byrne

For the winning W60+ team (ahead of the much younger VCTC team by only 12″…), Barbara Byrne was 1st for the team and 1st in her W65-69 age group (do you see a pattern here? ?) in 6:48, a terrific 92.03% age grading performance. 

In her own words:

The crowd of runners on 5th Avenue, warming up, cooling down and waiting with anticipation in the corrall, was fortunately effective in waking me out of my lethargy.  Even more so, finding CPTC teammates.  I had seen Sherrell warming up and stood with Deb ready to start so knew we had a team.  This year, I was not at the front line in recognition of lack of starting speed.  It worked out pretty well, pace was even throughout, though I had to persuade my legs they could keep moving after the 800.

Delighted to get under 7min.  

Congratulations to all of us for representing well – Sylvie with a 95%+ effort despite lack of training!  All the mens masters teams were amazingly strong .  I’m proud to wear the orange.   

Thanks to the meteorological department for sending cooler weather.

Sherrel Harmon was 3rd for the team and 8th in her W65-69.age group in 8:12

Here is what she had to say about her race:

I’m so happy to be running and racing . Being the caboose again for the team in my 1st race after such a long time out was icing on the cake.

 A huge “Thanks” to our cheering squad at 70th St. I put the pedal to the metal because of them”

 Congrats to all the Golden Girls too we were all” Stars” shining brightly on such a dreary morning!

Deborah Barchat, in her last race in the W65-69 age group ran 8:13 – an 11″ improvement over last year – who else can boast about that ??? – and was 9th in her age group. 

The W70+ team was truly golden!

Lynn Blackstone who had just turned 78 was 3rd for team and 1st in her age group too in 9:24 in an excellent 82,41% age grading performance. Way to go Lynn!

Judith Tripp was 2nd for the team and 5th in the W70-74 age group in 8:48:

It was really nice seeing all my teammates.  Perhaps next time we can go get a cup of coffee — I know the weather was a bit wet and chilly and it was tempting to get home!

Sylvie Kimche

Yours truly, your team captain, Sylvie Kimche,  scored both for the W60+ and W70+ team.

I was 2nd for the W60+ team and 1st for the golden W70+ team, in a time of 7:06 good for 1st in my age group:

It was not a record breaking performance for me as last year (I was 13″ slower) but I’m quite happy with my result (still a stellar – if I may say so – 95.77% age grading performance) given my lack of training and level of stress…. Maybe, it will give me a chance to run faster next year…. No matter what, I love this race, seeing all my teammates running and cheering.

Congrats to all, especially all the men’s masters teams, all first place from 40 to 70! Whoah. Amazing!

Thanks to Tony, Devon and all the cheering crowd at the top of the hill at 71st street. A real energy booster!

And it was great to see a sea of ORANGE down the Avenue…??

Unfortunately we don’t have any team W60+ and/or W70+  for the next 3 races for lack of enough runners (Bronx 10 miler, SI Half & NYCM). But let’s come back in force for the Ted Corbitt 15k in December!

And hopefully, with the addition of a few W60+ runners to the team, we’ll be able to field teams in more races in 2019!

Again, congrats and thanks to all!

Go ORANGE

Sylvie