The men outnumbered the women this weekend, especially with Nicole and Ivette not pictured.
The women previewed the course in Golden Gate Park on Friday afternoon. At the time, the course “seemed flat and fast,” according the Christina Argueta. “Like a Desperate Housewives episode, it seemed more downhill than uphill,” Nicole thought.
A pre-race meeting in the lobby in their pajamas was foreshadowing of the soft, cuddly course, which ended up being quite muddy and slower than expected.
“On Saturday, we all realized how much we had underestimated the course. It was deceptively challenging – even the downhills sucked your energy!” said Christina. “I think we may have overlooked a few hills,” Ivette admitted.
The race didn’t start that way, however. It was a full house on the course, so the women made it their mission to get out fast. “My brain must have been in a fog. I was in no shape to go out in sub-5:40, but I was trying to not get spit out the back once we hit the narrow trails of mile 3,” Nicole said. Ivette agrees, “I kept my composure even after I started a little fast. I could really focus on starting 10 seconds slower and surge right after the last hill to wake up my legs.” Andrea is proud that she “stayed mentally engaged the whole race and managed to kick it in at the end and pick some people off.”
The women placed 17th as a team. Cat, who placed 55th overall, said, “I guess for me it was just awesome to be healthy and able to represent CPTC this year! I had a blast scurrying around with everyone and even though it wasn’t our strongest team showing, I’m proud of how we all got out there and gave it our all this weekend!”
The next day, Andrea, Cat, Christina, Taylor, and Phil went on a shakeout-turned-adventure run in the pouring rain. “It was the most insane 10 minutes of rain I’ve ever run in. I couldn’t see, thought my contacts were going to fall out, and was getting a brain freeze. We saw four downed trees that could have hit us if we hadn’t sought shelter in an entry way for a bit.” Andrea said.
This tree was knocked down in the storm. We hid in a building vestibule and survived the storm unscathed.” – Christina
The women are now taking some downtime before hitting the indoor track!
From Sylvie Kimche of the 60+:
On a very mild, springlike morning, in the absence of Barbara, still sidelined by a stress fracture after the NYCM, Lynn stepped up to the line to get our W60+ team to 2nd place and 1st place overall for the NYRR Club Team competition!!!
In her own words:
Way to go Lynn! Running strong and with enthusiasm as always!
Yours truly, Sylvie, ran 1:17:02, for 1st in the age group and for the team. And since my time was slightly better than last year (an 18″ improvement) and I’m a year older, I was quite happy with my race and I’m happy to report that my AG% was higher too (88.78% vs 87.02% ly) but I could not reach the magic 90% in a long race on a tough course. Oh well, there is always the 1st team race next year….the Washington Heights 5K in early March…
With this magnificent 2nd place (considering that the average age of our scorers was 71yrs-old while the 1st place team’s – VCTC – average age was 10 yrs younger…), the CPTC W60+ has definitely cinched 1st place for 2015 (142 pts, ahead of NY Flyers 116 pts and VCTC 112pts)
A big thank you to all and special thanks to Lynn, Caryl, Deb and Mary for completing the team on 5 different occasions and being a big reason why our W60+ team is finishing the 2015 NYRR team competition in 1st place.
Last recap for 2015! On to 2016!
Happy holidays and all my best wishes for a Happy, Healthy & Speedy New year to all! ☺
Thanks to Dave for his post-race get-together for us older masters and for giving me the opportunity to celebrate my 69th birthday (yes 69 !!!) with my amazing teammates!
GO ORANGE!