From Phil Falk of the Open:
The Open Men put out solid effort on the roads on Saturday at the Front Runners Pride Run, taking fourth place. With many runners diverting their efforts to the track out at Icahn, we drew on our depth to field both a track team and road team on the same day, and turned out a competitive result.
On the conditions, the official report says 72 degrees and 79% humidity, which on paper doesn’t sound bad, and true enough, we’ve yet seen hotter, stickier days in the park. But I know the heat hit me pretty hard, and I bet most people wouldn’t disagree. Making a quick estimate from the results from the five-miler just two weeks ago, I’d say times were at least 35-40 seconds slower. And that’s if you’re a heat-dissipating machine (looking at you, GZ). Of course leading off with those beastly Harlem hills doesn’t help much either.
For the results, the team was led by Greg Cass, at 27:09, followed closely by Steve Sundell (27:10) and Phil Falk (27:16). The scorers were rounded out by Jeff Ares (28:02) and Sean Gage (28:32). Congrats to both Steve and Sean for their first road race for CPTC, and to Jeff for keeping notching down those times – good things to come from these three!
Five weeks remain until the road Team Champs in August. Perhaps a week of rest for some, and few good weeks of training for all. Happy trails!
From David Greenberg of the 40+:
The few, the proud, the 40+ sogged away from the starting line into the hills…and did the best they could. Six of us joined the race and while no one had a great race, sometimes it’s all about the effort. We were fifth in the team competition.
The top three were David Bosch, John Milone and David Greenberg, and Yasuhiro Makoshi from the 60+ helped out with the scoring.
I’m not going to mention times, because it was not a PR situation, but I did a quick comparison between Portugal and FRNY, and for the three who did both races, the average slowdown was a full 90 seconds, or 18 seconds per mile. Wayne Merdis wins the 40+ shark award by slowing just 39 seconds. In the other groups, Cap’n Hank slowed just 7 seconds – he’s your man should you need to race uphill in a hot tub.
Our #1, Dave Bosch, tells the tale:
“For me it was kind of reminiscent of last year’s club champs – hot, humid, but also a little hillier. I was just glad to be in the first corral again with my CPTC compadres after not running a step in May due to a heel injury of unknown origin sustained after Boston (“cuboid paroneal syndrome” – don’t get it). During the race I just tried to keep David Greenberg in sight for the first few miles, as I figured he would run smart. After that it was just monitoring the threshold at which I would blow up in the heat and staying under it. Needless to say, normally I won’t be first, and we won’t be 5th – it’s not good enough for us. But it was good for me to be back!”
Also out there were Andre Lejeune and Laurence Go, doing what’s important. Like David Bosch, Andre is on a comeback. He wrote afterwards:
“It was my first race back in a year after battling a hamstring injury and I’m so glad that I was able to contribute to the team… I’m really looking forward to more races and it was good to see all my teammates and coach.”
The next scoring race is team champs on August 3 – five score so we need a big crew ready to go.
And only 15 weeks of training til the USATF Masters 5k XC Championship in Flemington, NJ – get ready to spike up.
Remember: if heat and humidity are the poor man’s altitude, then we all just spent the weekend in Telluride.
From Hank Schiffman, 50+ alumnus:
CPTC men 50+ continue to dominate team competition with different members in the spotlight.
Scoring just one second behind John Milone, age 40, in 31:26 and 3rd age graded man overall was 60 year old Yasuhiro Makoshi, 3rd in our men’s 40+ team. He scored 1st on our 50+ men followed by Art Palmer 31:55, 80.32%, 19th age graded man overall. Both finished 1st in their age groups at the Philadelphia Marathon last year. 3rd CPTC scorer was Chris Donnelly 32:50, 74.92% who at 51 was the young fellow, 13th in his age group, losing 10 seconds on the 5 mile Portugal run 13 days earlier, a badge of honor.
Yasuhiro was 1st men 60-64 and would have taken 2nd in men 55-59 away from Art who was doing a bit of alchemy with getting the race formula correct toying with a conservative start.
Talent transmogrified to carnage in the heat, humidity and hills of Olmsted and Vaux’s vision of Central Park. Timothy Smith, who just last week ran a sub 19 5k and shone brightly on Tuesday workouts on the 6th Street track crossed the line in 35:01 proving the point that life is not only not fair, but capricious, a lesson not lost on Art.
This was a competitive team race with West Side Runners less than a minute behind, and Brooklyn RRC 13 seconds behind them.
Hank Schiffman
From Hank Schiffman of the 60+:
Into the heat and humidity of 5 hilly miles of Central Park we ran.
Yasuhiro Makoshi proved a triple threat, scoring for our men’s 40+, 50+ and 60+ teams. 31:26 placed him 1st in age group, and both our men 50+ and 60+. His 84.41% was the highest age graded score among our men and 3rd highest of men overall. The next fastest time for men 60-64 was just shy of a minute and a half slower. He is a phenomenon and we are fortunate to have him. The rest of us do our part to make his efforts worthwhile on a winning team.
We fielded 5 of the 1st 10 runners men 60-64. My time of 33:35 was slower by 7 seconds than the Portugal 5 mile race 13 days earlier but good for 4th in age group and 16 age graded men overall. My hat is off to Coach Tony’s Tuesday workouts in rain and heat. Training in adverse conditions gives confidence come race day.
None of our CPTC 60+ men ran this race faster than the other; the course was certainly hillier this time around. With heat and humidity, this was not a PR kind of day. It was a day for place, not time. 7 out of the top 10 finishers in the Portugal race in men 60-64 had over 80% age graded where Yasuhiro’s 86.15% was only good for 11th overall, this race had only 4 over 80% out of 10. His effort in these conditions moved him up much higher in age graded overall.
Allan Dias was our 3rd scorer with a time of 34:32. But up until the last mile my money was on him scoring 2nd. None the less, it was good for 5th in age group and 78.18%. He is integrating speed and duration, just shy of nailing it. The Founder’s 5k and the 5 mile Club Championships should prove interesting.
Bob Holliday, 7th men’s 60-64, was right behind him in 34:42 and 77.81%. Had Allan burned to a crisp, Bob was right there to hold the line. I’m wondering if Bob has a CPTC singlet.
8th mens 60-64 was Chris Neuhoff at 35.45 and 74.54%. NYRR now has placed Chris in the 1st corral where he belongs.
Kevin McGuire was 13th in the same age group in 40:25 and 66.23%. Kevin runs Tony’s Tuesday track workouts and is inured to these conditions.
Harry Lichtenstein ran 45:04 for 59.40%. Harry was game for this big day.
Fred Trilli ran 48.46 for 57.95%. Again, he was our only man running in the above 60- age group. Hold on another year and a month and a half Fred and I’ll join you.
Going by my unofficial calculations figured on the back of an envelope addressed return to sender, our men’s 60+ now leads the Taconic Road Runners for 1st place by one point. With a good number of our 60+ guys sitting on the bench with injuries, we can still field an impressive number who would toe the starting line on a hot and humid summer day.
Do not wait to register for our Founder’s 5k, the Club Championships, and the Percy Sutton 5k races. There is some danger in getting locked out of the NYRR races but I think we have some pull on registering for the Founder’s race.
Captain Hank
Official Standings not counting Portugal or FRNY:
1st: M 50+
2nd: W Open, W 60+, M 60+
3rd: M 40+
4th: W 40+, M Open
7th: W 50+