Report from Jacy Kruzel and Veronica Jackson of the Open:
Summer racing is upon us, which means high temps and high humidity. For the CPTC Open Women’s team, Summer also equates to fast times. Don’t be fooled, at the Queens 10K on Saturday the humidity was 91%, but two ladies came away with shiny new 10K PRs. Congratulations to Colleen McGurk, who dipped under 39 to PR in 38:56! Jackie Erdos also PRed with a time of 41:19, which was a PR by over 3 minutes!
Colleen McGurk
Photo: John Le
Jacqueline Ballou Erdos
Photo: John Le
To help us to our 5th place Open Women finish was Jacy Kruzel, Colleen (and her new PR!), Andrea Bradsaw, Grace White, and Imra Bribiesca. Jacy Kruzel was excited to be racing a new course and thoroughly enjoyed the absence of the Central Park hills out in Flushing Meadows Park. She also remembered during the first mile with Andrea Bradshaw, Grace White, and Colleen – and how awesome it was to be running four across in CPTC uniforms.
Andrea Bradshaw
Photo: John Le
Andrea also commented on how great it was to run with teammates throughout the race. Whether it was the first mile, or the home stretch, she could see a CPTC jersey in site. Dani Strutz shared this sentiment as well, noting her teammates helped the humidity seem bearable. From starting the race with Erin Reddan to then running amongst Nick, Mikal, and Hank, she had the support of teammates every step of the way.
Nick Garramone, Hank Schiffman, Erin Reddan, Dani Sturtz
Photo: John Le
As many of the girls noted, it was great to see Coach Tony out there. Jackie found Coach Tony‘s shouts to “pump those arms, higher, higher, higher” really helped her kick it up a notch in the last few miles
Tony Ruiz
Photo: John Le
For Grace, the race was a great way to kick off her fall marathon training cycle. We are excited to see what the fall has in store for our team!
Grace White
Photo: John Le
A Happy Belated Birthday to Erin, who raced full force into her new age group with a strong showing on Saturday!
Erin Reddan
Photo: John Le
We wanted to remind everyone to sign up for the next team scoring race – TEAM CHAMPS on Saturday, August 5th. We score TEN DEEP so please please sign up today!
Happy Running!
Jacy & Veronica
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Report from Ani Go of the 40+:
Masters 40+ women swim to 2nd place!
Oh the humidity! The CPTC masters 40+ ladies journeyed to the exotic land of Queens to race the 10k at Flushing Meadow Park! At 7:45am, it was already steaming with 90% humidity wrapped in 70 degrees. The scoring team of Colleen McGurk, Susan Lind-Doyle, and Captain Ani Go put on the swim goggles and doggy paddled to 2nd place. The unsinkable Colleen McGurk, our first scorer, was in full force–another PR (38:56), 3rd in her age group with a 83.37%–2nd best AG rating, her first highest being the 5th Ave Mile in 2015! She also places on the masters all time best list for the 10k. Bonus–scoring for the open ladies as well. Colleen is here to compete and win!
Susan Lind-Doyle bravely came into battle after injury–she’s a self-healer with the kinseo-tape! Susan is our talent from the 50+ team, placing 2nd in her age group. Her words:
After having to take off April and May due to injury, I slowly tried to increase my mileage hoping for no pain. I decided that if I could get 2-3 runs in that were 10km distance by race day- I was going to run the race.
I went into the race just hoping I could finish without pain and I did! It was a packed crowd out there, a good course and it was great to hear Tony cheering us on!
Captain Ani hardly broke stride, dashing to the start before the horn! Captain reports:
Not a strong swimmer, I had to pop up above the waves a couple of times before sprinting for the finish. That was rough but I came to the battle! Although not my best time by far, it was still good enough to place in the top 10 of my age group!
Additional support came from Audrey Kingsley, who ran a perfect flat time (xx:00!) and Jennifer Ranck, on a roll in distance, brought her A game to the race! She is so inspiring and strong. Jennifer reports:
I went into this race with so little in the training/endurance tank and expectation/goal only being able to finish and mentally fighting to get back into training/consistent running with possibly needing walking breaks along the way. With all that, I did not falter too badly.
After a horrible corral start in Wave 2, I simply went out with whatever would feel comfortable keeping my HR in check and listening to my body. Somehow it felt comfortably easy to run first 2.5 miles consistly at 8:40 pace but during first mile or second, I could not avoid the super cold water hose spray (much worse than rain would ever feel) which covered the entire width of the course and then started having to manage a fibromyalgic reaction to that water along with everything else. I set my Strava on my watch to auto-pause when walking – so I did manage to run 5.7 of the 6.2 miles (3-5 miles slowly) and completed the course in just over an hour (1:02.00 – flat! 9:59 overall average pace).
The takeaway is between the nice quicker start feeling comfortable pace-wise at this stage and the fast kick in the end, there’s some good running stuff still there waiting under the surface. Hope to build on or tap into it over the summer and into the fall if my mind and body allow me to.
Congrats to our open and masters teams!
Next up–team champs!!! But to gear up, how about a nice 5k at Icahn and a fun meet to watch after? Oh, lookie! https://www.gotracktownusa.com/events/5k-road-race/
Go Orange ?!!!
Captain Ani