Greg Cass and Phil Falk
(All photos: Michael Ahern)
From Phil Falk of the Open:
The Open Men’s team had a great showing at Saturday’s Club Championships Five Miler. With mercifully cool-ish weather and even a light drizzle during the warm-up, conditions were about as good as you could ask for early August.
As Mary W put it during her opening remarks: “Today is about winning! … … Just kidding, today is about camaraderie.” (But maybe also a little about winning, I think I might have heard.) In any event, the team brought it, took third place, and crushed the next closest team, our usual closest competitor, by more than six minutes. Hoo-ah! Great job guys!
The team really drew on its depth and got the benefit of a host of different runners – regular road guys and track crossovers, longtime vets and relative newcomers, short distance and long. For this race, that what it takes – really strong efforts all around.
For the scorers, we had the following guys:
Carlos Jamieson 25:28
Jonevan Hornsby 25:57
Francois Lhuissier 26:03
Matthew Lacey 26:07
Phillip Falk 26:15
John Roberts 26:16
Greg Cass 26:20 (?)
Thomas Hynes 26:27
Stan Berkow 26:46
Peter Brady 27:02
Sean Gage 27:20
PRs to note:
Gerd Zeibig – 19 seconds, 29:37
Dima Karlin – 96 seconds, 29:01
Sean Gage – 72 seconds, 27:20
John Gendall – 27:46
Brenn Jones – 29:19 post-college PR
Josh Rayman
From David Greenberg of the 40+:
The 40+ brought the desire, the heavy artillery and the hemoglobin to the Team Champs – finishing unofficially in second place, around 69 seconds behind Urban Athletics, pending some results corrections.
Turnout at all ends of the spear was outstanding. The five scorers of 2013 finished in an average of 28:16, a full 1:10 faster than 2012, or 14 seconds per mile. The result is that we significantly closed the gap to points leaders Urban Athletics, and put some major space between us and Van Cortlandt, who had been challenging our standings on the season points podium. Put another way, the squad was 22 men strong this year, while we had only 15 last year. To me that big turnout is the best number of all.
The scorers were Peter Brady, Josh Rayman, Jim McQuade, Jesus Mateo de Castro and 55-year-old Stuart Calderwood, who ran an 85.5% AG race to help us out. David Dorsey was our fifth man.
For Peter, the race was his first step back to competition after winning the 800 at Masters Nats. “ I’ve been nursing a hamstring injury since Masters Nationals so I’ve been doing even less running and more cross training than usual but obviously all the speed work I did from March through July is still paying dividends,” Peter wrote afterwards. The race was also the launch of his sharpening up for the Fifth Avenue Mile. He has been second and third at the famed road mile – let’s hope the Orange Wall can give him a little extra push this year.
Josh Rayman came back to town from the Great (temporarily) Green North, turned up the heat and ran his best 5 miler in CP since 2008, just like that. This was the second race he has scored in this year.
Josh checked in after – read to the end to learn what his last mile was – I did see the scorch marks on the pavement after but didn’t know they were Josh’s handiwork:
“I was pleased with my race after a grueling week of travelling from Berlin and Lisbon to New Hampshire and down to New York and very little sleep with the kids still on European time. I had a real battle with the 50-54 winner back and forth much of the second half of the race with him continually surging and me repassing him until the last mile when I had a very solid 5:05-6 mile. It was great to see my teammates run so well and Big Fella ready to join the masters’ squad next year should give us a boost.”
Jim McQuade sped to his best AG score since 2011 with his 28:15/82.4.
Despite not training up to his very high standard, Jesus Mateo de Castro came to the line and ran just 14 seconds slower than last year, when he was our top man. He was our top man in the groups, with his second place in the 45-49. Peter also medaled, scoring a bronze in the 40-44.
David Dorsey came within a whisker of the 80% barrier to complete our top 5.
Race of the day honors go to Kimihiko Oishi, who ran an all-time 5 mile PR (by 20 seconds!)and his best-ever AG score for any distance. 31:50/73.1%. Way to bring it for the big race. Kimihiko told me after:
“My work had been busy with many night calls since 2009 but now I have a better schedule with fewer calls. Finally, I started feeling less sleepy and can run more mileage, race, practice etc. I hope I can run a PR marathon in November.”
Wayne Merdis also had a clutch day, running his best AG ever in the NYRR db: 61.6%.
Frank Ayala used some good sharpening 400s at Coach Tony’s Tuesday workout to grab a Central Park 5 mile PR
How about these guys for running their best 5 milers since 2011: Jim McQuade, David Bosch, Andre LeJeune and Michael Caggia. Great races, all – but Michael Siegell upped the standard by running his best 5 miler since 2008. The big race atmosphere no doubt also helped Gregg Lemos-Stein, as he ran his best AG of the year in CP.
Fighting off age and injury, Mickey Hawtrey, Nigel Francis and David Greenberg ran faster in 2013 at team champs than they ran in 2012, which is pretty sweet.
Finally, an orange welcome to Mohammad Lahseni and Louis Pahnke, who ran their first races for CPTC.
Way off at the extremes of human activity, Glenn Redpath and Alexandre Tilmant ran Badwater and the Vermont 100-miler in July, respectively. Glenn was 12th overall, running 135 tough, tough miles in just less than 30 hours. Alexandre was 17th in Vermont, getting it done in 19:34.
Closer to home, Richard Nelson set a new 5k PR at the Founders race – 17:12, to win the 40-44. Keeping it in the family, David Greenberg won the 45-49, completing the sweep.
Alan Ruben
From Hank Schiffman for the 50+:
Stuart Calderwood, 29:43, 85.54%, 1st Men 55-59, 12th Men Overall AG.
Alan Ruben, 30:32, 83.94%, 4th Men 55-59, 25th Men Overall AG.
Yasuhiro Makoshi, 31:20, 84.67%, 1st Men 60-64, 20th Men Overall AG.
How’s that for a Murderers’ Row?
I don’t know what fact is most remarkable: that Stuart at 55 would have taken 2nd Men 50-54, that Yasuhiro was 1st Men 60-64 (by 42 seconds) double dipped again scoring for both 1st place CPTC teams, that Alan, just shy of 84% ended up only in 4th place Men 55-59, or that none of these fellows was below the age of 55.
These guys nailed 1st Men 50+ in 1:31:35, besting WSX by 2 minutes and 35 seconds and UA by 3 minutes and 34 seconds.
Backing up this effort were Takeshi Yamazaki, 33:51, 72.06%, Timothy Smith, 33:56, 73.05%, Marc Mizrahi, 34:21, 71.03%, Oscar Garcia, 36:07, 68.11%, and Budd Heyman, 36:23, 69.86%.
We are hoping to see Tim Smith in orange and blue running the Fifth Avenue Mile after his return to Dartmouth.
Thank you Stuart. And thank you Stacy for cheering us on.
CPTC Men 50+ is a class act.
Hank Schiffman
Allan Dias
From Hank Schiffman of the 60+:
Out of the 85 men 60+ running this race, 12 wore orange and blue. How’s that for team spirit?
2 of us were 70+: Hal Lieberman, co-record holder of mens indoor 70+ 4 x 800, at, 42:46, 68.17%, and George Hirsch, nipping on his heels, 43:20, 78.33%, 2nd in his age group. I’m thinking George knows somebody at NYRR as his bib number was 179.
We had 2 guys in the 65-69 group: Brooklyn’s own, Fred Trilli, 44:52, 62.98%, and Dave Delano, 45:55, 60.97%, not coincidentally named and related to the person the East Side Drive is named after.
Which leaves 8 in the 60-64 group, comprised of 41 men. That puts our guys at just under 20% of the entire group. Look at it this way, one of every 5 hands that turned off alarm clocks going off that morning put on a singlet with a blue maple leaf on it. Yasuhiro Makoshi walked away with first in age group by 42 seconds, running 31:20, 84.67%. He was 20th in the race overall age graded, only bested on our men’s team by Stuart Calderwood’s 12th at 85.54%. The only real question is whether Yasuhiro will still be scoring for our Mens 50+ team when he is 70. Hitting on all cylinders, Yasuhiro is in a league of his own.
Our next 2 scorers could have been any of the next 4 guys. I (33:03, 82.45%) ran the first 4 miles alongside Allan Dias, 33:14, 81.24%, 68 age graded overall men, expecting him to surge at the appropriate moment. (The last 4 x 400 at Tony’s Tuesday workout I ran 82 and he finished 50 meters ahead of me) But he was not on his game this day, so when Gabe Gonzalez motored past us in the last mile I jumped in after him. Gabe made the line 8 seconds ahead of me. I paid for putting in a 300 meter effort 100 meters too early. But Gabe was stronger than me anyway. Bob Holliday, in his final appearance in orange and blue this year before returning to the Windy City, cruised in at 33:48, 79.88%, 82 age graded of men overall. Chris Neuhoff, the White Rabbit, had a roaring start, but could not maintain his fiery pace yet still crossed the line in 34:46, 77.69%, 120 overall men age graded.
That left 3 of our men in the 60-64 age group to back us up, all within a minute and a half. Phil Vasquez, 40:40, 65.66%, Kevin McGuire, 40:40, 65.81%, and Harry Lichtenstein, 41:54, 63.88%. These guys have been faithful attendees, there to catch us in the times we don’t have our big guns crossing the line. In the past they have done just that.
Taconic Road Runners teased out 2nd place to West Sider Runners by 2 seconds. (It takes as long to say it as it takes to happen) This double scoring race should advance our lead on them by 6 points. It would have been 10 if not for those 2 seconds.
Our next venue is the Autism 5 miler on September 7th at 8am, followed by the 5th Avenue Mile on September 29th, a Sunday.
I’m writing this the day following the race, at The Old Town Inn on Block Island. Who by chance is here as well? Annie Onishi.
Captain Hank
Hank Schiffman
__________
Standings after Front Runners:
1st: W 60+ (up from 2nd), M 50+, M 60+ (up from 2nd)
2nd: W Open
3rd: M 40+
4th: M Open
5th: W 40+ (down from 4th)
8th: W 50+ (down from 7th)