The four mile Fitness Mind, Body, Spirit Games club points race on September 8 replaced the 5k Shea Stadium run as a club points race. The race finished on the west side at Tavern on the Green. While this is always a problem when a race is run north and south of the 72nd street transverse it was a much bigger problem with this race since the finish was less than 400 meters south of the Daniel Webster statue. Hordes of tour group pedestrians interfered with the race as people crossed the road during the race, while all of the runners were trying to finish. In addition, the lead truck didn’t get out of the recreation lane soon enough and stopped dead, temporarily blocking the course for the lead men, as it tried to get into the other lane. This forced some of the lead runners to actually move out of the race lane, into the bicycle and non-racing running lanes.

CPTC open men placed five guys between 11th and 23rd, and finished third, led by Carl Dambkowski, who ran an excellent 20:49 on the warm day. Following very closely behind Carl were Jason Ostenson (12th), Nick Thompson (17th), Will Seidel (19th), and Jacob Cooper (23rd). As usual, the CPTC men’s depth was amazing, with 19 racers running sub 23 minutes (sub 5:45 pace). The 40+ masters men finished an agonizingly close second, finishing five seconds behind West Side. They were led by David Dorsey (22:12), Alan Ruben (22:14), and Peter Allen (22:30).

Separate races allowed CPTC women to shine yet again. For the second points race this year Aileen Conlon and Kate Irvin finished first and second overall, running 22:53, and 23:26. And for the fifth time (out of seven races) the CPTC open women won with a low score of 32 points. Rounding out the scoring were Allison Lind (8th), Natalie Gingerich (10th), and Katrina Bruckschwaiger (11th). The 40+ masters team finished third with the trio of Catherine Stone (26:03), Sue Pearsall (28:22), and Andrea Ostrowski (30:27).