The Journal: The Life & Times of the Central Park Track Club

WEEK OF FEBRUARY 25, 2003 - MARCH 3, 2003

  • THOSE DISTANCE MEDLEY RELAY TEAMS [3/3/2003]  At the USATF National Indoor Championships, the Central Park Track Club women's team consisted of Devon Martin, Melissa Tidwell, Jessica Reifer, Margaret Angell and the Central Park Track Club men's team consisted of Amerigo Rossi, David Epstein, Evan Zeisel, Clinton Bell.  You will note that there are two new names on the men's team, but these are names that may be quite familiar (to wit, they should ring a bell or two).  For those who don't know them, here are the brief biographies:
     
    Columbia University Men's Track Records
    Outdoor 800m, Amerigo Rossi, 1:50.37
    Outdoor 1500m, Amerigo Rossi, 3:48.79
    Outdoor 5000m, Amerigo Rossi, 14:23.42
    Indoor 800m, Amerigo Rossi, 1:52.83
    Indoor 1000m, Amerigo Rossi, 2:25.05
    Indoor mile, Amerigo Rossi, 4:06.40
    Indoor 3000m, Amerigo Rossi, 8:15.75
    King's College Track Club
    Amerigo Rossi    , 1:55.0 for 800m
    Amerigo Rossi    , 4:10.3 for mile
    Amerigo Rossi    , 14:59 for 5000m
    Amerigo Rossi, 26:20 for 8000m
    (note: on the same list, we found more of our teammates --- John Scherrer 9:11.56 for 3000m and Craig Anne Lake 3:03:56 for 2001 NYC Marathon)
    JP Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge 2001
    Amerigo Rossi, 17:50, winner
     
    Seton Hall University
    Assistant Coach, Clinton Bell

  • USATF INDOOR MASTERS/SUBMASTERS NATIONALS [3/3/2003]  If you are 30 years or older, you should consider running at USATF Indoor Masters and Submasters Nationals in  Boston on March 28-30.  Last year, we took 25 athletes and walked away with 14 medals (5 bronzes, 5 silvers and 4 golds (2 for Sid Howard, 1 each for Kim Mannen and Sue Pearsall)).  We're expecting a lot more hardware this year.  For more info, please click on http://www.usatfne.org/masters/boston2003/index.html#  Entries are due March 14, but the most important thing is to BOOK your hotel today---you can always cancel your reservations. 
     
    HOTEL
    The headquarters hotel this year is the Westin Copley Place Boston (617) 262-9600, 10 Huntington Avenue, Boston - $110 for single or double, and additional $10 per person per night for triple and quad occupancy.  This is a "Four Star" rated hotel, and is conveniently located in the Back Bay section of Boston. It is one block from Amtrak and subway   connection to the airport. Given this excellent rate, there are no arrangements with other hotels.   Call 1-617-262-9600. To get the special rates reservations must be made by March 7, 2003.  You MUST identify yourself as being with the National Masters  Championships at the time of making your reservation to get this rate.  The hotel sold out last year, and the special rates will not be extended.

  • WHY WE LOVE CRICKET [3/3/2003]  Why cricket, indeed?  And why not tennis, Formula One racing, or even curling?  Because cricket resides at the core of the postcolonial postmodernist project, in a way that curling could never do.  In an essay on West Indies cricket and post colonial cultural globalization, Hilary McD. Beckles wrote:

In the beginning of the twentieth century West Indians of all classes and ethnicities had made a substantial social investment in cricket.  The ideological centre of the game, nevertheless, like all other major cultural institutions, continued to be occupied by a native white elite whose hegemonic domination was contested by marginalised and excluded groups.  Promoted as a symbol of social elitism, high culture and colonial respectability, cricket ritualised the politics of an endemic struggle for social inclusion and by extension the contestations of imperial white supremacy ideology.

C.L.R. James' dialectical analysis of this process suggests that West Indian cricket, as a metaphor of the social relation of Empire and post-colonialism, must be understood as a contradictory action of subversion and accommodation.  For him, cricket culture in the West Indies possessed:

(a) an internal social contest for class and ethnic equality;
(b) an intense national desire to challenge at the level of ritual and defeat the imperial centre; and
(c) a deep-seated recognition of cultural affinity and identification with England that promotes sentiments of shared experience and solidarity.

Obviously, point (b) is the ideological force which generates so much delight when the colonials wallop England at their own gentleman's game ...

C.L.R. James also wrote: "I haven't the slightest doubt that the clash of race, caste and class did not retard but stimulated West Indian cricket. I am equally certain that in those years social and political passions, denied normal outlets, expressed themselves so fiercely in cricket (and other games) precisely because they were games.  Here began my personal calvary. The British tradition soaked deep into me was that when you entered the sporting arena you left behind you the sordid compromises of everyday existence. Yet for us to do that we would have had to divest ourselves of our skins. From the moment I had to decide which club I would join the constrast between the ideal and the real fascinated me and tore at my insides. Nor could the local population see it otherwise. The class and racial rivalries were too intense. They could be fought out without violence or much lost except pride and honor. Thus the cricket field was a stage on which seleced individuals played representative roles which were charged with social significance."

Is cricket a British art-form that must be co-opted and reappropriated in order to be a meaningful instrument of anticolonial resistance?  Is it the case that in order to turn a residual colonial practice into a subversive anti-colonial one, the cultural practice must first be learned and assimilated according to the terms of the dominant colonial order.  Such a sophisticated analysis of cricket does not appear to have been made for the sport of running, much less the more mundane question of how to choose which running club to join.  But if you have read this journal entry up to this point without quitting, it should be quite clear that we must be the right club for you ...

  • BROOKLYN BRUNCH [3/3/2003]  All runners and spectators for the Brooklyn Half-Marathon this Saturday are invited to a post-race brunch at Jesse Lansner's apartment.  Please RSVP so we know how many bagels to buy.

    WHERE:  150 Ocean Parkway, Apt. 2C (between Caton Avenue and Albermarle Road)
    WHEN:  Saturday, March 8, 2003, 10:30 am
    DIRECTIONS FROM BAGGAGE PICK UP:


    SUBWAY DIRECTIONS:  F train to Ft. Hamilton Parkway.  If coming from Manhattan, exit at the front of the train, at the Ocean Parkway exit.  Walk two blocks along Ocean Parkway.

  • DOUBLE TROUBLE [3/3/2003]  Charles Allard, Jr. writes from Japan:  After neglecting to write my race results for over a week I turn to the web site and find a world record, an American record and two PRs (well done Jerome).  How can I write anything after that??  Especially as I lost the race for the second month running to the same guy I lost to last month!
     
    Let me explain.  On the 22 of February I ran the Kawasaki Monthly Time Trials.  This time, in line with my marathon training I decided to run BOTH the 5K and 10K race.  Theoretically at the time trials you can run the 1K, 3K, 5K and 10K in one morning.  I ran the first 5K, easily but strong in order to run the 10K hard and get a good long run out of the morning.  Slowly I ran the 5K in around 19:00 minutes.  I then lined up 5 mintues later for the 10K.  And off we went.
     
    I was pleased to find myself running with one other guy for about 2K when he pulled ahead.  It then dawned on me that this was the same guy who beat me last month.  I sped up.  He sped up.  I sped up.  He sped up.  He sped up again.  And thus it stayed all the way to the finish with me finishing in 37:37, almost exactly :30 slower than the previous month, and almost exactly :30 slower than the distance between us in the previous month.  BUT, the astute reader will think as I did, it's actually better because I ran the 5K as well!
     
    I checked the times for the 5K.  The same guy who beat me in the 10K won the 5K race.  Oh, misery!

  • FUTURE MEMBER [3/3/2003]  Charles Allard, Jr. writes from Japan:  On Sunday, my wife Krysia gave birth to a baby boy, Charlie, 8.3 pounds.  He came out in almost record time with just about three pushes from Mom.  Unfortunately he had to go into the ICU because of build up of fluid in his lungs.  He is still in the incubator for now but getting better.  I knew right away he was destined to be a good track club member.  Why?  Every good club member has an excuse why they didn't run well.  From aching feet to too much beer.  Charlie tried to come out in record time, didn't quite do it, but had an excuse ready to go!  ":I tried really hard to beat the clock but my lungs were full."  Pictures will follow.

  • NEAR REAL TIME [3/2/2003]  The beauty of the Internet is that we posted the results for the distance medley relays at 3:24pm, when the men's event was scheduled to start at 3:06pm.  Yes, we know that you'd say that we could have lopped a few more minutes off, or that the splits were not present (sorry, but those usually come via blackberry at the airport ...).
     
  • WORLD CUP UPDATE [3/2/2003]  England 204-8, Australia 208-8.  Australia wins, with a boundary scored on the third last ball of the match.  Very dramatic stuff indeed.  Australia moves into the Super Six round with the maximum number of points.  England will have to wait for the outcome of the Zimbabwe-Pakistan match.  Zimbabwe will advance if they win.  Pakistan can advance if they win AND with a high enough run rate.  This is the time when England's forfeit of the match against Zimbabwe blows back – when two teams have equal number of wins, the head-to-head winner advances! 
     
    The only world-class player on the Zimbabwe team is Andrew Flower.  He and bowler Thomas Olonga wore black armbands when they played against Namibia in Harare on February 10, to highlight the "death of democracy" in their country.  As a result, the Zimbabwe Cricket Union may ban them from playing Pakistan.  One source said:  "Players are fed up with the way the ZCU has acted.  Either they are rabid supporters of Zanu-PF [Mugabe's party] or they are cowards who are not willing to stand up for their players.  Either way, it looks bad.  This campaign, against the best interests of the team, proves that they are the ones carrying out a political agenda."  Peter Chingoka, head of the ZCU, replied in bureaucratese:  "There has been no such thing.  We have an employer/employee relationship and we have instructed both players not to wear anything that will send a political message.  Further details between employer and employees would not be appropriate."
      
  • BEST TIME UPDATE [3/2/2003]  David Epstein's 1:57:59 at last week's USATF New England championships moved him into the 7th best time.
     
  • USATF NATIONAL INDOOR CHAMPIONSHIPS RELAYS [3/1/2003]  Actually, the distance medley relays are exhibitions, not championships.  As such, we do not find teams traveling from southern California to run these races due to the expense and distance.  In the women's DMR on Sunday at 2:50pm, there are six teams: Lynx Elite, Central Park TC, Reebok Boston Running Club, Westchester TC, Syracuse Chargers and Greater Boston Track Club.  In the men's DMR at 3:06pm, there are eight teams: Syracuse Chargers, Georgetown, Athletics East, Central Park TC, Greater Boston Track Club, New York Athletic Club, Lynx Elite and Reebok Boston Running Club.  These are the regional 'big boys' and 'big girls.'  
      
  • RELAY QUESTIONS [3/1/2003]  Since Stacy Creamer is a celebrity (among other things, being a well-known elite masters runner), we were asked by quite a few people about her running in the W35-39 team.  According to the USATF rules, it is admissible for relay teams to be composed of athletes from different age groups.  For classification purposes, relay teams are assigned the age group of the youngest member.  Already, last year's record-breaking W30-39 4x800m relay team had Denise Whittaker-Crain, a masters runner running with three 30-something-year-olds.  The admissibility of an older athlete is premised upon the sad, but often real, fact that the older you get, the slower you run (or, in Jack Brennan lingo, the faster you used to run).  For the road races, we cannot imagine where our open men's team would be without Alan Ruben (M45-49) leading us in so many races ...
     
    Although we have not yet been directly asked about this second question, we can hear the rustling in the grapevines.  The new world record for W35-39 4x800m stands at 10:23.5.  At the Boston Indoor Games of 2002, Regina Jacobs set the individual world record for 2 miles in a time of 9:23.38, a minute faster than four women from her same age group could do.  What gives?  The situation is this --- the record book shows a 'soft record' that is attainable by your team, you assemble your team, you train hard, you find the right venue, you make sure that you meet all the official timing requirements, you fill out the paperwork and you get that record.  You have earned that record, 'soft' or not.  Alternately, you can say, "Baah, I am sure that I can do it if I really wanted to, but it is too much work and besides it is pointless.  So I'd rather lean back in my couch, sip a few beers and watch Joe Millionaire."  It is your choice.  The record book contains a few more 'soft' records, such as the 6:21.80 for W35-39 4x400m and the 25:06 for W40-49 4x1600m.  What are you going to do about it?  It is your choice ... 
     
  • WEB LOG ACTIVITY REPORT [3/1/2003]  What else except to say that this February was another good month?  We will note that AOL.com is very quickly being displaced by the broadband internet service providers, with Time Warner Road Runner-Verizon-RCN getting a 23% share vs. AOL.com's 5.3% share.  Do you still own any Time Warner AOL stock?
     
  • WORLD CUP UPDATE [3/1/2003]  As much as we would like to portray the Australia-England match tomorrow as the mother-of-all-matches of this tournament, the majority of the cricket world begs to differ.  Today, India played Pakistan.  Based upon the tumultuous political history between these two countries, it is rare for them to play each other.  In the 1999 test match held in Calcutta, 90,000 plus Indian fans were roaring in the stands and tossing garbage at the visitors.  The riot police had to clear all the spectators out and the match was completed in an empty stadium.  For today's match, every theatre showing the satellite broadest in the New York City metropolitan area was sold out last night with standing room tickets being hawked for $35 apiece as were the tables at all the Indian restaurants which had bought the game.  The pressure on the players is immense.  For the world's fastest bowler Shoaib Akhtar of Pakistan, "You can lose the World Cup - but don't lose to India."  The losers can expect to have their effigies abused back home.  Yet the players themselves are genuinely cordial with each other, as one veteran said, "You may be quite friendly with the odd Australian or South African player and exchange pleasantries with a lot of others, but the camaraderie and kinship between Indian and Pakistani players is real."
     
    Final score: India 276-4, Pakistan 273-7.  India wins by 6 wickets.  For India, as for all six matches of this tournament so far, the star was the little man Sachin Tendulkar, acknowledged as the greatest batsman of the contemporary era, with 98 runs from 75 balls.  Pakistan's opener Saeed Anwar outdid Tendulkar with 101 runs.  
     
    In the other match today, Kenya beats Bangladesh by 32 runs (217-7 to 185 all out) to clinch a spot in the Super Six round.  Australia and India are the other teams that have clinched spots.
      

  • 400,000 [3/1/2003]  At the beginning of this week, we had projected that we would reach this milestone at the beginning of next week (Monday?).  Instead, with 800 home page hits on the day after those record-breaking relays, we got there a couple of days earlier.  That extra piece of action is the perfect illustration of the reason of our success --- if you have fresh and interesting content, they will come; conversely, if you have stale and uninteresting content, they won't come.   It is that simple.  It should not have had to take billions of internet venture capital dollars to re-discover that principle.
     
    In the past some of our readers have sent in screenshots of the counter at various milestone numbers.  Some have even gone so far as to refresh the home page dozens of times in a row in order to claim the dubious honor of being the 100,000th or 200,000 viewer.  So far no one has come forward to claim this latest milestone.  With our own excessive viewing of the site while we update it, we figured there was an outside chance we would be the lucky viewer, but it was not to be, as our first glance at the page this morning was a few minutes late.

    Of course, we thought about editing the photo for our own glory, but that would compromise the honesty and objectivity this site is known for.

    That this website should arrive at this 400,000 figure was, and still is, unthinkable.  After all, we are just a club of about 200 team members and this website is notorious for its self-absorption/self-indulgence.  So what interest can the rest of the world conceivably have in us?  Our answer is consistently, "Who knows?  But we don't care!"  Whatever the motiviations of people are, we know that we will inexorably roll towards that 500,000 mark around September of this year.  See you then!

  • USATF NATIONALS [3/1/2003]  Due to recent budget cuts, the Central Park Track Club website will not be able to send a reporter to cover this event.  So we will have to rely on the participants to inform us about the happenings.  Actually, compared to our current crop of workout reporters who are trying to outdo each other in weirdness, David Epstein is a real reporter who writes well.
     

  • BIKE SUMMER [3/1/2003]  This winter has been depressing but the warm weather will be here soon ... we think ...  This weblink leads to a list of cycling events in New York City from June 27 to July 26, 2003.  Can't wait, eh?  Eh?
     

  • WORLD CUP UPDATE [2/28/2003]  In their second last game of the preliminary round, Australia set a few records.  Against the Australian attack, Namibia was bundled out for 45 runs, the second lowest score ever (earlier in the tournament, Canada tallied only 36 runs against Sri Lanka).  Even those 45 runs were mostly unintended nicks that flew over the slips (in baseball terms, 'seeing-eye pop-fly singles').  Glenn McGrath of Australia collected 7 wickets for 15 runs in 7 overs, for the best bowling statistics ever.  For the Australians, Darren Lehmann collected 28 runs (two sixes and four fours) in the final over for the best World Cup score.  Australia's winning margin of 256 runs was also the best ever.  At this point, Australia is guaranteed a position in the Super Six round.  For their last game, Australia will face England which is in a must-win situation.  There is zero chance that Australia might throw this match away, like the infamous favor that Peru did for Argentina in World Cup Soccer play.   The Independent writes about England's chances: "If Nasser Hussain's boys were watching Australia, who had already qualified for the Super Sixes, on television it is to be hoped that there were some sturdy sofas in the room behind which to hide. It was not viewing designed to offer any semblance of hope to a team already midway to the floor."
     
    The five-day test matches can make for dull entertainment (except for the aficionados).  By comparison, the ODIs (One-Day-Internationals) are exciting because the mathematics is obviously tight (as in, you need to score 14 runs from the last 6 balls of the match).  So it was with the thriller between Sri Lanka and the West Indies.  Sri Lanka compiled a modest 228 runs when they batted first.  West Indies came back and fell short with 222 runs (needing 14 runs from the last 6 balls).  But not before some heroics from batsman Ramnaresh Sarwan, who was fell by a rapidly rising delivery, went to the hospital for stitches, got out of bed and went back to score 36 more runs not out.  If only he could have slogged those six more runs, it would have been a true fairy tale.
     

  • CORRECTION [2/28/2003]  At a recent Thursday night race, Zeb Nelessen commented that his splits didn't reflect his time (see Famous Saying 1461).  Had he made the same claim today he would have actually make sense.  It took the sharp eye of mathematician Paul Bendich to notice that, while the Clockwork Orange team's listed time of 10:08.1 worked out to an average of 2:32 per 800m, no individual runner had run slower than 2:26.  Where did the extra time come from?  Since all four members of the relay had run the mile only a few minutes earlier, it's possible that they ran even slower than they thought, but there is no evidence to suggest that any of our timers had any problems.  The only possibility is that we wrote down the wrong time, and then, while posting the results, were too tired to notice that the numbers didn't add up.  The correct result should be 9:34.2.  We apologize for the error.

  • THURSDAY NIGHT AT THE RACES WRAP UP [2/28/2003]  The night began with a large number of heats in the mile race.  We had seventeen entries among the hundreds of milers.  Yet, somehow, this fourth and last meet of the series was not as exciting as the previous ones.  One major reason was that our attention was turned to our main event, the 4x800m.  And after the relay, the interest seemed to have waned for the rest of the evening.
     
    The 4x800m relay was a late addition to the program.  There were seven teams entered in the race, of which five were composed of Central Park Track Club members.  The addition of this event, which was going to take just over 10 minutes to complete, provided the opportunity for two of our teams to go after some records in the book.  You all know by now that our two teams did break those records.
     
    Record-breaking events like these happened not by chance, but through careful planning.  It must have all begun some time ago when coach Devon Martin began to read the record book and compared the listed records against the current personnel.  There may be some 'soft' records in the book, and we may have some obvious candidates.  To arrive at a team of four runners, it may be necessary to identify, persuade or otherwise cajole others who may be running the first track race of their lives.  Then it becomes a matter of preparing the teams with warm-up races.
     
    For the men 35-39 team, the American record was 8:51.9, which worked out to be 2:12 pace on the average.  During this indoor season, we have these results for our four runners: Paul Groce, 2:05.0 at the last Thursday Night At The Races; Chris Potter, 2:07.83 at the NY Elite Invitational; Glen Carnes, 2:11.0 at the second Thursday Night At The Races; Armando Olivera, 56.8 at 400m at the first Thursday Night At The Races, 55.4 at 400m at the second Thursday Night At The Races, 3:09.84 at 1200m at the Armory Collegiate Invitational, 4:08.4 at 1500m at the MAC Last Chance Meet and 4:27.81 at the mile at the NY Elite Invitational.  All these times are faster than the required 2:12 average pace.
     
    For the women 35-39, the world record was 10:29.15 (2:37 average) and the American national club record was 11:01.44 (2:45 average).  During the indoor season, we have these results for our four runners: Kim Mannen, 2:24.7 at the last Thursday Night At The Races; Darlene Miloski at 2:40.0 at the last Thursday Night At The Races and 2:40.65 at the MAC Last Chance Meet; Sue Pearsall at 2:44.0 at the second Thursday Night At The Races and 2:45.4 at the third Thursday Night At The Races; Stacy Creamer at 2:39.0 at the previous Thursday Night At The Races.  Before the race, it would appear that the American national club record was easily within reach but the world record would come down to a matter of seconds.
     
    We have several people taking 200m splits for all the teams, which can be framed into a 'running' commentary on the race.
     
    For the men, we have
    Paul Croce, 30.09, 1:00.17, 1:30.95, 2:03.31
    Chris Potter, 28.66, 1:00.61, 1:34.19, 2:08.37
    Glen Carnes, 30.65, 1:02.91, 1:35.91, 2:11.37
    Armando Oliveira, 27.28, 56.50, 1:28.68, 2:04.82
     
    For the women, we have
    Kim Mannen, 34.5, 1:10.4, 1:43.9, 2:27.1
    Darlene Miloski, 36.5, 1:14.1, 1:54.4, 2:34.9
    Sue Pearsall, 39.6, 1:20.1, 2:02.2, 2:43.2
    Stacy Creamer, 37.6, 1:17.0, 1:56.5, 2:38.3
     
    For the men, there would in fact be little suspense as every runner was expected to and did deliver the better-than-target pace.  The American record was taken down from 8:51.09 to 8:28.3.  For the women, we used our fastest runner to build a big cushion in the first leg and then our second runner came through with a big-time effort that was 5 seconds faster than her season best so far.  By the third leg, the suspense was removed.  The world record was taken down from 10:29.15 to 10:23.5.  For both teams, there was a 'youthful' exuberance effect as when the runners started out too fast and paid dearly at the end.  We believe that if these people get another opportunity this season, they will better those records through better pacing.  They may get another chance at the Front Runners Track Meet in a few weeks' time.
     
    The eight runners on this team are home-grown products in the sense that we did not recruit an all-star team for this purpose.  Some of these people joined our club with aspirations of running marathons before we straightened them out.  In the case of Kim Mannen, it took many years of lobbying and it was only until she threw up six times during her last marathon in Houston that she saw the light.  Their accomplishments tonight were therefore all the more sweeter.  In the case of Stacy Creamer, she could not have imagined this moment when she joined us in 1987 and not even over all those years since until the idea was proposed to her recently.
     
    As we told you, this race had five Central Park Track Club teams.  Among the other three teams, there were also some very fast runners (Isaya Okwiya, Craig Chilton, Adam Manewell, Kira Morser (who became our 6th all-time best 800m after tonight), Alexandra Horowitz, to name a few).  And of course anyone familiar with our team would wonder just where Charlotte Cutler, Devon Martin, Jessica Reifer, Evan Zeisel, David Epstein, Oliver Martinez and company were.  But on this night, those other runners did not get a chance to set records because of age-group/nationality requirements and/or resting for the distance medley relays at the USATF National Indoor Championships this Sunday.  We began this report by saying that these records come opportunistically due to the presence of the right personnel for the right occasion.  But those opportunities would not be realized without the depth and organization (which means, especially, coach Devon Martin) of this club.
     
  • RECORD SETTING NEWS [2/27/2003]  At the Thursday Night At the Races meet, two Central Park Track Club 4x800m teams set new records.
     
    New American Record for Men (35-39), 8:28.3

    Chris Potter, Glen Carnes, Paul Groce, Armando Oliveira
     
    New World (and American) Record for Women (35-39), 10:23.5

    Stacy Creamer, Sue Pearsall, Darlene Miloski, Kim Mannen
     
    The first installment of photos is available.  More to come.
     
  • 4x800 RELAY TONIGHT [2/27/2003]  At the Thursday Night At The Races, there will be a special 4x800m relay event added right after the mile races.  We will be fielding two teams, with a reasonable chance to break American and/or world records.  This is all the more remarkable because these are fully home-grown runners (as opposed to a collection of people assembled purely for this purpose) who will get their chance for a moment in history.  Come out and cheer them!
     
    Tonight's lineup:
     
    American Record for the Men (35-39):  8:51.09  (2:12 per leg) 
     
    Central Park Track Club Relay Members In Order: 
    Paul Groce 
    Chris Potter 
    Glen Carnes 
    Armando Oliveira 
     
    World & American Record for the Women:  10:29.15  (2:37 per leg) 
    American National Club Record:  11:01.44   (2:45 per leg) 

    Central Park Track Club Relay Members In Order: 
    Kim Mannen 
    Darlene Miloski 
    Sue Pearsall 
    Stacy Creamer 
     
    From the website: http://nationalmastersnews.com/relays_indoor_2002.html.
     

  • TRAVELING VIOLATION [2/27/2003]  Our attention is mostly turned towards the World Cup in Africa these days, but some old stories have begun to pop up again.  Our friends at the United States Olympic Committee had been relatively quiet lately, as public strife had given way to backroom negotiations and talk of blue-ribbon panels to reform the committee.  Then, on Tuesday, USOC executive committee member Herb Perez made a motion to fire CEO Lloyd Ward.  Ward kept his job (the motion was not voted upon, since Tuesday's conference call was not an official meeting), but things don't look good for him.  First he lost his $184,800 performance bonus for violating the USOC's ethics code.  Now he is under new scrutiny over $115,464 in travel costs that he and his wife billed to the committee in 2002, and $35,000 in relocation costs (on top of the $50,000 relocation bonus she had already been granted) that he approved for a former staff member who never actually relocated to the USOC's headquarters in Colorado.

    Ward has said that he will step down if asked, but refused when he actually was asked to quit by acting USOC President William Martin.  Martin and Vice President Bill Stapleton were part of the pro-Ward group that tried to oust former president Marty Mankamyer last month (Mankamyer resigned when her out ethical lapses came to light), but now they are both trying to get rid of their former ally.  Even by the USOC's low standards, Ward stands out as an embarrassment, but he seems determined to cling to his office, despite his claim that "This isn't a job.  This is in service to athletes."  If he really cared about being of service to athletes, he would have resigned long ago.

  • FAIR WEATHER FRIENDS [2/27/2003]  It is a well-established rule of the Central Park Track Club, laid down by Sid Howard, that the only weather unsuitable for running is a rainstorm that includes lightning.  Fifty-four of our members raced in Saturday's pouring rain, and our workouts, even in the snow or in temperatures so low that Alan Ruben and Jerome O'Shaugnessy wear tights instead of shorts, usually draw at least half that number.  Most public officials, alas, are less hardy.  On Tuesday Murray Bergtraum High School dedicated their newly-renovated track, but school officials decided it was too cold for an outdoor ribbon-cutting.  Instead, using a photograph of the field with a red bow tied around it as a substitute, they held the ceremony in the school's auditorium, to the disappointment of the Education Department's head of strategic partnerships, Caroline Kennedy, who wore her running shoes in hopes of trying out the new track.

  • CLUBBING [2/26/2003]  One of the purposes of the NYRR Club Night was to give recognition to individual runners for their performances in the past year.  Equally important is the fact that this is the night when all the local clubs party together. 
     
    In today's Runners World, Allan Steinfeld wrote about the NYRR Club Night:  "The rivalries among local clubs are perhaps even stronger. They're seen most vividly at the annual 5-mile Club Championships race, for which teams bring out their top runners, all in prime shape.  In 2002, 15 men broke 26 minutes on a sweltering August morning. More significant than the caliber of the front runners, though, is the opportunity for any runner, no matter what his or her fitness level and aspirations, to wear a club singlet and be part of a well-organized, meaningful, and incredibly vibrant competitive system.  We work hard to maintain the scale and organization of our club system.  We believe it's important to give individual runners and running clubs the opportunity to compete over the course of a year outside of a school setting.  The program represents a lot of hard work on the part of our Club Council, made up of NYRR board members and club representatives.  It also shows great commitment on the part of both the clubs and the individual runners who support our races."
     
    If you don't belong to a club, you are probably missing a major aspect of running.  In this city, there are many running clubs that serve various speeds, distances, sizes, geographical locations, genders, age groups, nationalities, ethnicities, etc.  You can probably find a club to your liking in the NYRR club directory.

  • WORLD CUP UPDATE [2/26/2003]  Ooops!  England ran into a hitherto unknown Indian seam bowler who notched the third all-time World Cup best result of 6-23.  This match was always going to be unpredictable, as it takes place in Durban.  The cricket ground there has these characteristics: "Of all the venues hosting matches during this tournament, Kingsmead is perhaps the hardest. This will be a day/night match, so you will almost certainly win the game as darkness closes and the ball loses its sense of decorum and begins to act as erratically as a late-night reveller on the sauce.  The pitch looked a good one on the day before the match, hard and with a good grass covering due to be cut back this morning. There will be the bounce much loved here by pace bowlers, and movement in the air too.  The tide is said to have an effect, with Kingsmead resting on sand and the water table only a few feet below the surface. When the tide is in, it is said, the pitch greens up and the ball moves.  Then there is the wind. Three years ago, when England last played a Test here, Andy Caddick produced a remarkable bowling spell at a time when the wind was coming from the south-west, only for the wind to shift to the north-east for the remainder of a game in which scarcely a ball got past the bat. It can be humid all day, or not at all. Maybe, in the end, it will prove to be a toss well worth losing."  
     
    Today, India won the toss and, to no surprise, elected to bat first.  Their final score was 9-250, with the last four wickets falling in four consecutive balls including a hat trick for Andy Caddick.  This was certainly not an impossible target to catch.  Instead, the fast-medium seam bowler Ashish Nehra found pace and, most crucially, movement that, for the most part, had eluded England's bowlers before the daylight went and the pitch greened up in the evening air.  The most impressive part of this performance is that Nehra was bowling on a heavily-taped sprained ankle and was in such physical discomfort that he threw up on the pitch for the whole world to watch.  This defeat means that England will have to beat Australia in their final match on March 2nd in order to advance to the Super Six round.  The Australians have won their last 13 ODIs (one day internationals) against England, and they are also not known to be kind.  What are the odds?
     
  • MISCELLANEOUS COMMENTS [2/26/2003]  In less than one week's time, we expect to exceed the 400,000 mark for home page visitors.  During this time, we have fielded thousands of inquiries from people (note: our Outlook folder has 6,800+ items related to the Central Park Track Club).  Here are some examples:
     
    Question:  Can you tell me about where to run in Central Park?
    Answer:  You can buy a detailed aerial photo of Central Park from http://store.yahoo.com/centralparkposters/index.html.  But if all you need are the routes, we have a park map with distances marked down to 1/10,000-th of a mile.
     
    Question: Is there any chance of you changing the background to some color that is not orange?  Here at the office, everyone who walks by knows that I am not working because they know that orange website ...
    Answer:  ... yes, but then what happens to our identity and our essence?
     
    Question:  Is there any place to leave my belongings during the Thursday workouts?
    Answer: Unfortunately, there is no real place to leave belongings.  Quite a few people live in the immediate neighborhood, so this is not a problem for them. The others will simply show up 'ready to run'.  There are some who would leave their belongings in the bushes, but this is not a good idea as the local denizens are aware of our pattern and will come around to beat around the bushes.  So we suggest that you come 'ready to run' too.
     
    Question:  Why is there an asterisk behind my name in the race results?
    Answer:  Because you forgot to put down 'Central Park Track Club' in your application!
      

  • SOY POWER [2/25/2003]  From Etsuko Kizawa:

SOY just celebrated his first birthday.

It's been a great healthy year for him.  He's had so much fun meeting all kinds of people!   Now he just began to walk.. Watch him grow!
 
Now through the end of this month, mention this email and get a free croquette or cookie with your dinner purchase.
 
For those of you who still haven't, enter the SOY sweepstake at our website:  www.soynyc.com

  • MIKE HAS FRIENDS [2/25/2003]  For the NYRR Club Night photos, we originally published one with the caption, "... and who are they?"  Since then, we have a number of people identifying the man as Mike Sarnoff of the New York Harriers.  We should probably think about offering a service for people to find out how well-known they are ...

  • DUMB AND DUMBER [2/25/2003]  Australian spin bowler Shane Warne was sent home after diuretics were found in his system.  These are his words during a television interview: "In early December I was doing a lot of wine promotions... and I'd had a few couple too many bottles of wine and had a few late nights and I took a fluid tablet then ... when Mum told me. It was the first time she gave it to me ... it was to get rid of the double chin."  So was he guilty of stupidity?  "Stupid's a harsh word, I don't consider myself stupid. I consider myself probably very silly, should have checked ..."  When asked if he had attended various Australian Cricket Board seminars on drug education, Warne said: "You're told about drugs."  "Didn't you listen?" asked the interviewer. "No, I didn't. The same as when I was at school. I was always seeing the headmaster every week and he was practising his golf swing on my behind.  Whether, rightly or wrongly, mate, whether you hate me, you like me, you love the way I play or whatever, the facts of the matter are that I don't read much, I don't take a lot of interest in the outside world ... I just play cricket ."  Warne conceded the drug ban would cost him between $2 million and $3 million.  But he revealed he had been offered a cameo role in a movie.
     
    Yes, this is the sort of thing that gives dumb jocks a bad reputation ...

  • (EXACT) RACE PACE [2/25/2003]  Steven Paddock explains his half marathon time: "In the interest of fair and accurate reporting, the actual time was 1.18.35 (5.59.933333333 min/mile) as I missed the start due to a bathroom line.  This is a PR and much more enjoyable than the Brooklyn Half last year.  But don't panic because the half marathon next week will be the last one this year."

  • MONDAY TRACK WORKOUT REPORT AND SKELETON KEY TO LAST TUESDAY'S REPORT [2/25/2003]  OK, we've heard some complaints about last week's report, centering mainly around its alleged nonexistence.  Philistines.  Look, we didn't think we'd have to explain this, but:  last week's report was embedded symbolically in different parts of the website.  So, for example, the number of people at said workout (38) could be found in the binary encryption of the one of the famous sayings from the previous week.  And the fact that the workout was 6x600, 3x300 was symbolized, in the first place, by the prescience of six races in the Results sections, and in the second place, by taking half of that number.  Really, we've all read the Bible Code, haven't we?  If you just invent your code system after you've already decided on the relayed message, then really anything can me made to symbolizes anything else, the universe in a nutshell, as it were.  Do we really have to spoonfeed such a truism to you lot?  Rest assured the rest of said report is still somewhere within the website, with the decryption left as an exercise to the reader.

    This week also involved a bit of symbolism, namely a Monday that stood in for the role of a Tuesday, due to the scholastic track meet that has usurped our normal track day.  Still 32 flexible souls suffered the change in routine and showed up for the workout, which began, after a bit of delay, at 8:20.  The usual groups were a bit fractured this time, owing to the two different workouts, 4x1200 for "non-racers" and 3x800 for "racers."  As a result, we got the odd sight of Zebulon Nelessen stalking the A group racers, which judging by recent results, may be where he's headed permanently.  Some things remained consistent, though:  the phrase "43 seconds," when uttered by Margaret Schotte, means, clear as day, "between 41 and 42 seconds."

    Providing a bit of comic relief was the pole vault pole, which did its best to grievously injure several runners and timers.  Poor Stuart Calderwood, sitting by the vault mat, was made to suffer several dreadful puns relating to the pole.  For that the club issues an apology.    As always, the main action was on the train ride home.  First, Audrey Kingsley made an early foray into the race for Least Helpful Transit Employee of the Year by informing everyone in sight that "there's no 1/9 service now" and then "there's no A service now."  For some reason we believe her every time.  Finally, coach Tony Ruiz gave Margaret Angell a free Spanish lesson.  He also did some delightful impressions.  That's really all we can say.  We can't report just any piece of idle gossip; we're hardly the New York Post.

    [Editor's Note:  Our intrepid report somehow failed to mention last Tuesday's train ride home, in which the two Margarets started a conversation at 168th Street regarding the upcoming Snowflake race, boarded separate trains at separate times (Angell on the express, Schotte on the local), arrived at 125th Street at the same time, and continued their conversation across the platform until both trains closed their doors.]

  • MONDAY TRACK WORKOUT REPORT [2/25/2003]  We regret to report that last Tuesday's track workout report is still nowhere in sight.  So we decided to employ the Armory panopticon to look for our reporter.  We regret to have to say that we did not seem to find him there; more precisely, we did not see anyone who puts his hands on his head after each set.  Meanwhile, we did recognize many others – Margaret Schotte, Alayne Adams, Harry Lichtenstein, etc.  The overall attendance count seems to be lower than usual.  For example, the alpha males seemed to consist solely of Kevin Arlyck chasing Alan Ruben, and the betas have Chis Price chasing Joe Tumbarello and Margaret Angell.
     
    Having the workout shifted from Tuesday to Monday is a good thing, as it gives enough time to recover for the track meet on Thursday.  By the way, there will be an additional event (4x800m) added to the program on Thursday, supposedly because a certain club would like to have a shot at some records.  Do you know about that?
     

  • CLUB NIGHT PHOTO ALBUM  [2/25/2003]  The club night photos were taken by Bola Awofeso, who paid $70 for the right and the pleasure to do just that.  We could not publish all of the photos taken, as some had that dreaded red-eye effect from the indoor flashbulb.  Not all our runners attended the party to be photographed for the awards.  For the record, we will remind everyone of our scorers during the year (note: the number in brackets are the number of races in which they scored).
     
    Open Men, 3rd place: Alan Ruben (11) Kevan Huston (7) Craig Chilton (7) Erik Goetze (6) Toby Tanser (4) Kevin Arlyck (4) Armando Olivera (3) Josh Feldman (3) Steve Paddock (3) Isaya Okwiya (3) Peter Allen (3) Richie Borrero (2) Jonathan Pillow (1) John Prather (1) Graeme Reid (1) Adam Manewell (1) Michael Rymer (1) Eric Boucher (1) Andy Merrifield (1)
     
    Masters Men, 1st place: Alan Ruben (11) Graeme Reid (7) Peter Allen (6) Tom Phillips (3) Victor Osayi (3) Stuart Calderwood (2) Ricardo Granados (2) John Prather (1) Andy Merrifield (1) Jerome O'Shaughnessy (1) Paul Stuart-Smith (1)
     
    Open Women, 1st place: Alayne Adams (9) Margaret Angell (6) Ali Rosenthal (6) Stephanie Gould (4) Lauren Eckhart (4) Margaret Schotte (2) Kate Crowley (2) Yumi Ogita (1) Sonja Ellmann (1) Audrey Kingsley (1) Stefani Jackenthal (1).
     
    And before Stacy Creamer writes to complain, we will dutifully point out that our success is also due to the numerous other runners who show up in force and push the runners from other teams further down the placing.
     
    Speaking of number one teams, we are of course the undisputed number one running club website.  Looking at the visitor counter, we are projecting that we will surpass the 400,000 visitor mark in less than a week's time.
     

  • TRACK RESULT UPDATES [2/25/2003]  A couple of additions here.  The official results for the last Thursday At The Races (2/13) have been published.  Thus, we have added results for the final event of that evening (2 miler), plus the previously unlisted Naomi Reynolds and Ardian Krasniqi (56.0 in the 400m).  Then we also have Ardian Krasniqi in 54.93 in the 400m at the MAC Last Chance Meet.
     

  • WORLD CUP UPDATE [2/25/2003]  In a shocker, Kenya upended favorite Sri Lanka in an upset that is begin slotted into the top 10 all-time upsets in World Cup history.  On a slow pitch that provided no help to the bowlers, Kenya mustered only 210 runs.  That should have been an easy target for a top team like Sri Lanka.  Instead, the Sri Lankan batsmen self-destructed by giving easy outs to a modest Kenyan bowling attack.  The Kenyan spin bowler Collins Obuya, previously a total unknown, ended up with a 5-24 that is among the top ten all-time best World Cup performances.  This brings us to the amazing situation in which Kenya is at the top of the group table with two matches left --- against West Indies and Bangladesh.  Their strategy?  Win the Bangladesh game against the most disappointing team in the tournament so far.  If not, they better pray for rain against the Windies.
     

    Kenyan bowler Collins Obuya being presented the
    Man Of The Match gold watch by track legend Kip Keino
    (note: photo was forwarded by our own Kenyan Isaya Okwiya)
     
    By the way, Australia won their fourth game straight.  Of course.  The opponent this time was Zimbabwe and the location was Harare, where England declined to go to.  According to the Australian captain Rick Ponting, the subject of security never even came up for them.

WEEK OF FEBRUARY 18, 2003 - FEBRUARY 24, 2003

  • NO HIGH JUMP [2/24/2003]  Steven Paddock reports from the great town of Swindon (UK):

    My 3000m time was faster than the required 9:20.4 but only just so --- 9:15 which is about as useless as a hole in a bucket after numerous sub 9's in training, but I suppose that's competition for you.  I was so terrified before the race with a crowd of 1500+ and numerous Olympians/World Record holders warming up around me that I just went out too slow and then remained that way.  Always a next time.

    'The next time' was in fact the next morning, when Steven ran a half marathon in order to prepare for another half marathon next week.  When our coach Tony Ruiz reads this, he will undoubtely be shaking his head in dismay and muttering, "Kids!  They're out of control ..."  By the way, Steven did not tell us about the half marathon.  Rather, the information came from a (formerly?) trusted friend, who was truly a high jumper ...

  • CLUB NIGHT 2 [2/24/2003]  We imagine that the morning's Snowflake 4M and the afternoon's team party at The Parlour left most of our members too tired to attend Saturday's NYRRC Club Night.  Those who did attend more than made up for their teammates' absence, dancing and carousing into the wee hours of the morning.  Among the attendees was Bola Awofeso, serving as official CPTC photographer.  Unfortunately, we haven't received his photos yet, which means we've been scooped by a rival website, which posted this picture featuring a CPTC member who seems to show up more often on other sites than on this one.
     

  • HIGH JUMPERS [2/23/2002]  We still have no news if Steven Paddock managed to complete his 3000m race in under 9:20.4 or else to take up the high jump in his next career.  Actually, we will confess to having a great fondness in our hearts for high jumpers (example 1 and example 2).  So all will be fine, Steven, one way or the other ...

  • WORLD CUP UPDATE [2/23/2003]  Canada was beaten by West Indies, as expected.  But the remarkable event of that match was when Canadian-born Australian citizen spin bowler John Davidson went to compile the fastest century in World Cup history.  All he needed was 67 balls.  Davidson scored 111 runs for Canada, and the rest of the team scored 91 runs.  In reply, the West Indies comfortably scored 206-3 to win by seven wickets.  Whereas Davidson took 30 balls to reach 50 runs, the West Indians Wavell Hinds took only 24 balls and Brian Lara took 23 balls to reach the same mark.  Davidson said, "I was thinking the air is pretty thin there if the ball is travelling so far."  Another record was set when Pakistan's Shoaib Akhtar delivered a 100.2 mph ball against England, the first time that a 100+ ball was officially recorded.
     
    Whereas England forfeited their game against Zimbabwe on grounds of security, New Zealand forfeited their game against Kenya also on the same grounds.  Whereas England had cited the immediate death threat that the team had received, New Zealand's claim was that Kenya was unsafe due to the terrorist bombing of a tourist hotel in Mombasa last year.  Be as it may, New Zealand got a black eye when their team players was involved in a brawl in a Durban nightclub after the players were asked to leave because of 'loud behavior.'  Yes, they did have four of their own security guards to shepherd them to safety.
     
    There are still a few more games left in the preliminary round.  At the end, three teams from of the two groups will move on to the Super Six round.  Right now, it looks like Australia, England and India in Group A and  Sri Lanka and West Indies and either South Africa or New Zealand in Group B.  If India or South Africa do not make the cut, there will be riots.

  • NYRR CLUB NIGHT AWARDS [2/23/2003]

    Alan Ruben was the M45-49 Runner of the Year and Sylvie Kimché was the F55-59 Runner of the Year.

    Teamwise, the Central Park Track Club received awards for 3rd open men, 1st masters men (for the fourth year in a row) and 1st open women.  We are the only team with two first place awards this year.  Great job!

    Our other individual nominees were:
     
    Tom Phillips, M45-49
    Alston Brown, M50-54
    Sid Howard, M60-64
     
    Margaret Angell, F20-29
    Alayne Adams, F40-44
    Yumi Ogita, F40-44
    Irene Jackson-Schon, F55-59

  • SNOWFLAKE WRAP-UP REPORT [2/23/2003]  Completely miserable weather.  Last week, it was 20 inches of snow.  Somehow, we think that we could handle that.  Today, it was just a heavy cold rain, so everyone and everything was extremely wet and cold.  Getting warmed up properly?  Forget it.  It was no fun running, it was no fun watching the race, it was no fun taking photos.  It was no fun.
     
    For this first scoring race of the year, the team results are open men 3rd, masters men 1st, senior masters men 4th, open women 2nd, masters women 1st, senior masters women 6th.  Our results are perhaps less than ideal, due to a host of things – a strep throat, a track meet on the same weekend, a case of bronchitis, a stress fracture, a delayed subway train, etc. But there are still eleven more races to go in the season.
     
    Individually, the men were led by Alan Ruben, who had a most satisfactory result of being first among all masters.  On the women side, Margaret Angell won the race by reducing the race to a mile race at the end, which is good practice for the USATF National Championships.  On the NYRR results, the winner was initially listed as someone else, but the race number switcheroo will be corrected momentarily.

  • MAC 'LAST CHANCE' MEET [2/22/2003]  Armando Oliveira (4:08.24) and Kira Morser (4:52.4) moved into 8th all-time bests on the men and women lists.  Of course, when someone moves into the list, someone else gets displaced out of the list.  On the endangered list is Lauren Eckhart, who is in 10th place at 800m, 1500m and mile.  Time to get some insurance buffer, Lauren?
     
    All published results so far are reported directly to us by the individuals and coaches.  Since this is a MAC meet, we may never see the official results posted.  If you have times, please tell us.

  • ARMORY SCHEDULE REMINDER [2/21/2003]  As a reminder, the Eastern States High School Championships will take place on Tuesday.  This means our regular Tuesday workout has been bumped to Monday instead!  Of course, you can still show up on Tuesday, but you will only get to watch.

  • NEW YORK CITY TRIATHLON [2/21/2003]  Premier Event Management, organizers of world-class triathlons, and the New York City Sports Commission, today announced that registration has opened for the 3rd Annual New York City Triathlon, to be held Sunday, August 10th. The course will consist of a 1.5-kilometer swim in the Hudson River, a 40-kilometer bike ride along the Henry Hudson Parkway and a 10-kilometer run in Central Park - the same as in previous years. Non-elite participants can register by visiting www.nyctri.com. The cost for registering is $125 per individual.

  • WORLD CUP PICS [2/21/2003]
     
    England vs. Holland: Who's got the nicer uniforms?

     
    Some Dutch guy whose first name is Roland lands on his back against Australia!

  • SNOWFLAKE ADMIN DETAILS [2/20/2003]
     
    Number pick-up
    Numbers, chips, and special NIKE race souvenirs may be picked up prior to the race at NIKETOWN, 6 East 57th Street, between Madison and Fifth Avenues, NYC, on:
    Thursday, February 20, noon-7:00 p.m.
    Friday, February 21, noon-7:00 p.m.
    On race day, Saturday, February 22, numbers, NIKE race souvenirs,and chips can be picked up from 7:00 to 9:00 a.m. at New York Road Runners.
     
    Race day
    Day: Saturday, February 22, 2003
    Time: 830am for men, 930am for women
    Start/end: East 99th Street/East Drive, Central Park, NYC

  • THURSDAY ROAD WORKOUT REPORT [2/20/2003]  Ahem ... this is 36 hours before a road race that everyone is supposed to be running, so why is anyone even here?  In this case, 'everyone' refers to thirty-three people (not including Yves-Marc Courtines, Frank Schneiger and Carol Tyler).   So this was the case of people who showed up wanting to be told to go home, were told to go home and then went home.  We love these predictable and obedient kids (of course, there is always that one bad apple ...).
     
    For those who made up excuse not to run the Snowflake race, they got the same workout as last week: once around the lower loop and once aruond the four mile loop.  Amazingly, even though there was 20 inches of snow falling on Monday, it was not cold at all tonight in spite of the piles of white stuff still sitting around.  Indeed, this may be the warmest Thursday of the year so far.
     
    Complaint Department, Log Entry #1: Frank Schneiger: "Yes, someone took a photo of me that is better than any that you have ever taken.  This one was taken from my right side, and it even shows that one of my feet is off the ground ..."
     
    Complaint Department, Log Entry #2: Unnamed runner that you all know: "Suppose that you have raced flat out for one whole mile on a track, you cross the finish line, you put your hands on your hips and you bend over ... what do you think is going on?  Do you even have to ask?"
     
    Complaint Department, Log Entry #3:  "Will this past Tuesday's track report ever appear?"  Sorry, we didn't know you cared ...
     
    Free Advice Department, Log Entry #1: Zeb Nelessen: "If you want to go home early, I think you better head north to intercept them and get them to run back fast.  Otherwise, they may be yakking forever on their way down ..."  Speaking from experience, no doubt?
     
    Free Advice Department, Log Entry #2: Suso Montero and Harry Morales ... well, never mind, you really don't want or need to know ... (hint: about whether a certain medical/religious procedure is essential ...)
     
    Free Advice Department, Log Entry #3: Mel Washington: "If you want to take photos on Saturday, please bring a large umbrella.  It will be raining hard!"

  • ORANGE ALERT [2/20/2003]  Stacy Creamer: "With the Snowflake Four Miler coming up this Saturday, it's perhaps fitting that orange is the color on everyone's mind. For evidence, just check the latest issue of New York magazine. I discovered three mentions of our hallmark color in less than a minute of perusing. "We're on orange alert, so I expect we'll be seeing a lot of orange," Jimmy Fallon is quoted as having told Marc Jacobs in a write-up on Fashion Week. The model featured is sporting a bright orange and blue outfit that would make superb if unaffordable apres-Snowflake wear--if only for CPTCers. Then there's a piece titled Agents Orange." While its subject could be the CPTC masters women who are planning to dazzle in 2003, it's actually about the mundane subject of police issuing more traffic tickets than usual. Finally, and a bit bafflingly, there is an ad for Benetton featuring a man in a red sweater with the words "sunset orange" emblazoned on it. What can this mean? The color red is green with envy, a mere orange wannabe? Homeland Security Czar Tom Ridge may have officially demoted our national alert status to GNY yellow, but orange clearly remains the color of the day. But of course the proof will be up to us this Saturday."

  • WORLD CUP UPDATE [2/19/2003]  The subject of today's discourse is the Duckworth-Lewis method.  Test cricket is played over five days, which is pure joy for aficionadoes and absolute tedium for the rest of the world.  For the World Cup now going on in southern Africa, the games are shorted to a series of ODI's (One Day Internationals) played over 44 days among 14 nations.  For each match, each team gets to bat for fifty overs and the highest score wins for ten wickets (or less).  Over the course of the tournament, there will be days when play is shortened due to rain.  The Duckworth-Lewis method is a mathematical method of projecting one team's incomplete innings to a final score.  The formula includes consideration of the run rate so far and the strength of the remaining batsmen.  For further details, please see Duckworth, FC & Lewis, AJ "A fair method of resetting the target in interrupted one-day cricket matches" Journal of the Operational Research Society, (Mar 1988) Volume 49, No. 3 pp 220-227.
     
    So far there has been one major Duckworth-Lewis upset.  In their game against New Zealand, South Africa compiled a comfortable 306-6 in their innings.  This would seem enough, but Kiwi Stephen Fleming played the game of his life and carried his team to 229-1 in 36.5 overs before the rains came.   That run rate with nine wickets in hand was sufficient to win the match by the Duckworth-Lewis method.
     
    England won its second match, beating the amateurs from Namibia.   But not before it faced another Duckworth-Lewis scare.  England had soared to 272 in their first inning, which is seemingly unreachable.  England did win when Namibia compiled only 217-9 in their innings.  But somewhere between the 25th and 31st overs, a human resource management student named Jan Berry Burger brought the run rate up for Namibia to win if the Duckworth-Lewis method were operational.  Fortunately for England, the rains never came and the run rate fell off after Burger was dismissed.
     
    As for Canada, they ran into the first strong team of the tournament and set a new world record low by scoring only 36 runnings in their innings.  Sri Lanka took 4 overs to surpass that total, and the whole game was over in less than 2 hours.  The previous lowest ODI record was also held by Canada, for 45 against England in Old Trafford, 1979.
     
    On a brighter note, after India's disastrous loss to Australia, the country goes into mourning.  In captain Sourav Ganguly's home city of Calcutta, fans took out a mock Hindu funeral procession to mark what they said was the death of Indian cricket.  An effigy symbolising India's national obsession was wrapped in white cloth and carried by mock pall bearers, who later consigned the "body" to flames amid Hindu religious chants.  All of this is tolerable, except there is now a national boycott campaign through SMS (Short Messaging Service) against all products that are endorsed by India's crickets.  Ouch!  Now that is really going to hurt ...

  • KIDS STUFF [2/19/2003]  A correspondent points out that Dr. Jordan Metzl will be a panelist discussing how to keep perspective in kids sport on Thursday night.  There is also a detailed article in Newsday about this event.
     
    Event: Keeping Perspective on Youth Athletics
    Location: 92 Street Y, 92nd Street at Lexington Avenue
    Date & Time: Thursday, February 20th, 2003, 8:15pm
    Moderator: Rick Wolff
    Panelists: Calvin Hill, Ken Holtzman, Jordan Metzl, Robin Wagner
     
    Our correspondent obviously knows Dr. Metzl.  She has heard of Sarah Hughes, the Olympic gold medalling high schooler who is coached by Robin Wagner.  But she professes ignorance about the other two illuminaries on the panel.  Well, Calvin Hill was a running back at Yale University, the alma mater of Stacy Creamer.  Calvin had the distinction of being the number one draft pick of America's team --- the Dallas Cowboys.  His greater legacy to sports may be his son, Grant Hill, a Duke University all-American, a number one NBA draft pick and an NBA all-star.  Here is one of Calvin's famous sayings: "I always thought it was important to be civil and not to embarrass your opponent."  And another one: "At the time, Yale was undergoing a tremendous social upheaval. There was the war in Vietnam, and there was civil rights, urban unrest, and the question of whether to admit women. And yet, no matter where you were on these issues, everyone could set them aside for a while and rally around the football team."  As for Ken Holtzman, he was a baseball pitcher most famously associated with the champion teams of the Oakland A's and New York Yankees.  The miracle was how someone with so little apparent talent can accomplish results as good as his more flamboyant teammates such as Catfish Hunter, Ferguson Jenkins, Blue Moon Odom, Vida Blue, Ron Guidry, Don Gullett, Rollie Fingers and Goose Gossage (for you youngsters, these are real baseball players!). 
     
    Our correspondent adds a social note: "By the way, you mentioned Jeremy Bentham some time last week.  I attended University College London, which was founded by Jeremy Bentham.  According to the legend, he had one proviso --- that his body be preserved and that he attend the annual general meeting every year following his death.  So his preserved body sits at one end of the cloisters, the main campus building, and once a year he gets wheeled into the meeting.  Unfortunately, legend has it that a few years ago, the UCL students stole the Kings College (our nearest rivals, and known to the UCL students as "Strand Polytechnic") mascot, and before it was returned, the Kings students retaliated by stealing poor old Jeremy's head and playing soccer with it.  So, apparently now Jeremy sits in his glass case in the cloisters with a wax head, the remains of his own head in a box somewhere.  Of course, this could all be UCL myth, but it is a fact that there is a fine pub called The Jeremy Bentham in which I passed many an hour when I should have been studying."  And in spite of mssing her studies, our correspondent still somehow collected a Doctor of Philosophy degree in between.

  • KISS 'EM TO THE FINISH [2/19/2003]  That 1-2 finish down in Florida is in fact Ana Echeverri's first road race win.  Congratulations!

  • BE ALERT [2/19/2002]  From today's Daily News:

    Park jogger robbed

    A woman jogging in Central Park was robbed at gunpoint last night, police said.  The 41-year-old victim was running near W. 103rd St. and the West Drive when three teenage thugs confronted her at 6:30 p.m., cops said.

    One bandit shoved the woman to the ground, whipped out a handgun and stole her MetroCard and $20, police said.  The woman was not injured.

    Crime in Central Park (and New York City in general) remains at very low levels, but we remind all our readers to be careful while running in the park, especially after dark.

  • LAY YOUR HANDS ON ME [2/19/2003]  Eve Bois writes:  "I'm looking for a massage therapist who does specifically "cross-friction" massage – the kind of massage one gets 3-4 times per week for 10-20 minutes per session.  I don't need a sport massage therapist, a physical therapist, a doctor, or a sports internist, or anything else.  Simply someone who specializes in cross-friction treatment.  Any referrals appreciated!  Email me at evbois@netscape.net."

  • LOST & FOUND [2/19/2002]  Jonathan Cane writes:  "I found a pair of women's Asics 2070, size 8.5 at the track tonight.  They are in my possession, and the owner can call me at 646-621-4495 or write to jonathan@citycoach.org"  This has been a public service announcment from your favorite website ...

  • FREE MARATHON LECTURE [2/19/2003]  On Wednesday (2/19), at the Robert Wagner Middle School, 220 East 76th Street (between Second and Third Avenues, there will be a free lecture on getting started to run the New York City Marathon.  The three featured speakers are:
    . Gordon Bakoulis, running coach, 5-time Olympic Marathon Trials qualifier, and author of How to Train for and Run Your Best Marathon
    . Toby Tanser, running coach, personal trainer, elite marathon runner, and author of Train Hard, Win Easy: The Kenyan Way
    . Lauren Wallack, MS, RD, registered dietitian, nutritional advisor to the New York City Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's Team in Training and Columbia University's swim team, ACE personal trainer, Ironman triathlete, and experienced marathon runner

  • TEACH FOR AMERICA [2/18/2003]  Central Park Track Club members Shula Sarner, Larry Thraen, Stacia Schlosser, Jerome O'Shaughnessy and Sandra Scibelli are involved in fundraising for the Teach For America project.  They are the key drivers to form Teach For America's first marathon team, named Team TFA (of course).  Shula and Larry are the coaches, Jerome is leading long runs, Stacia is on the steering committee that organized the team and Sandra is one of the founders of the team and is helping in all capacities.  
     
    At the Snowflake Party at the Parlour on Saturday, they will be addressing the team about their volunteer efforts and how the rest of us can support their efforts (checks and credit cards accepted).

  • NEW YORK FOUNDATION RUNNING BUDDIES [2/18/2003]  Sandra Scibelli is working on another project, this one is to get members of our team involved in the running buddies program that the NYRRC offers. They don't have applications on line but she will be bringing some hard copies for interested members to The Parlour as well as some literature from their website. The email link for somebody to have a hardcopy of the application mailed to their home is foundation@nyrrc.org .
     
    In the past, people as diverse as David Pullman and Paul Stuart-Smith have been running buddies.  How about you?

  • THIS WEEK'S EVENTS [2/18/2003]
     
    Friday Evening: MAC "Last Chance" Meet
    For those who are not inclined to travel far, this Armory meet has 200m, 1500m, 400m, 800m events.  This is the last MAC meet before the MAC championships on March 9th.
     
    Saturday morning: Snowflake Run in the park.
    This is our traditional club race of the winter.  What this means is that every fit or semi-fit or even unfit person should be out there running in the race (unless you have an excuse such as having to take photos).  So we hear that Frank McConville will be making his club race debut.  Ah, that's interesting because we have no idea what to predict for him.  By reputation, he is the man who has won Corporate Challenges on zero training.  We have great expectations for him --- namely, regardless of his race time, Frank is expected to enjoy a good time out there.  Insofar as the scoring is concerned, this is the first race of the series this year.  Our women are the defending champions, and this year the scoring will be based upon the first four runners.  Our masters men will be looking for a 5-peat. 
     
    Saturday afternoon: The Parlour
    The Parlour, West 86th Street between Broadway and West End Avenue, from 12pm to 4pm, basement.
    This is our traditional winter party.
     
    Saturday evening: NYRR Club Night
    Apart from the partying, we have 9 nominees up for awards: Tom Phillips, Alan Ruben, Alston Brown, Sid Howard, Margaret Angell, Alayne Adams, Yumi Ogita, Irene Jackson-Schon and Sylvie Kimché.
     
    Sunday, USATF-NE Championships, Harvard University, Boston, MA
    We will have a large contingent traveling up for this meet.  Now is the time to tune up those DMR teams!

  • OBED MUTANYA UPDATE [2/18/2003]  Obed Mutanya had his first outing in a Central Arizona College vest on Saturday.  He won a 'very' low-key local 10,000 in 30:51.50. Second place was 35:57.60!  These early meets are nothing more than training sessions and he is likely to do a 1,500 next week.  Training is going well though, and he may do more 10,000s further down the line. The JUCO record of 28:35.00, held by Britain's Mark Roberts from 1987 and who also attended CAC, could be under threat in April or May.  
    Academically, he has settled into his studies very well and is mainly concentrating on a variety of English classes this semester.  Because of his studies, Obed may not go to the World Cross this year. The decision still has to be made but rather than take a week out of classes to go to Lausanne, at a crucial stage in his first semester and after being out of school for a year, he may stay in Arizona.  The targets this spring are good performances on the track in April and May.

WEEK OF FEBRUARY 11, 2003 - FEBRUARY 17, 2003

  • SNOW DAY [2/17/2003]  Oh the weather outside is frightful but the fire is so delightful and since we've no place to go ...  Ah, but we did have a place to go this morning, and that place was the office.  Yes, the banks were closed.  And the post office.  And pretty much every office in the city.  Even our own office was technically closed, but there's always a minimum level of staffing, and we usually volunteer to help make up that minimum.  We don't do this out of any love for our job (we have none).  Rather, we like the fact that there is usually nothing to do all day, and we can earn an easy paycheck.  Plus, we prefer to take our vacation days at our own convenience, so we work on Presidents' Day, but take off, say, the third Monday in April, or a Friday in June so that we can participate in a race.

    After a weekend spent carrying boxes from the old place to the car and from the car to the temporary place (to be repeated in a few weeks when we move everything from the temporary place to the new place), we looked forward even more than usual to a day where we could take a nap at our desk and nobody would even notice.  And then, last night, the snow started.  Having failed to pay attention to We got up early to shovel the sidewalk, but didn't plan for the inevitable subway delays, and spent an extra hour as a guest of the MTA.  We were still the first – and only – person in our department to arrive, but for some reason there was a lot of work to do. 

    Instead of a relaxing day watching the snow fall outside our window, we spent the whole day staring at a computer screen.  Only occasionally did we get the chance to look out at Central Park, a quarter of a mile and an entire world away.  Who was out there?  Were any of the orangers brave enough to run today?  Might they instead be skiing or sledding or having snowball fights?  Alas, we may never find out.

  • REMEMBERING JACK [2/17/2003]  One year ago, Jack Brennan, a founder of the Central Park Track Club, passed away.  
     
    What did Jack miss during these past 12 months?  Above all, Jack missed the 30th Annual Awards Party for the team that he founded with Dave Blackstone and Frank Handelman.  While it is true that Jack had watched the progress of the team over the years, that party was the formal occasion when everybody paused and took stock of the accomplishments in the historical context.  And what a history!  On that occasion, Jack was indicted into the Central Park Track Club Hall Of Fame.  Surely, he must have missed the honor conferred on him, but we suspect that had Jack been there, he would have grabbed the microphone and launched into a long discussion about how Frank Handelman was also inducted into the Hall Of Fame without ever being able to break 2:30 for the marathon.
     
    And how did we miss Jack?  That surely must depend on the individual, as some of us know him very well and, given the flux in membership, others hardly or not at all.  Regardless of our individual responses, the spirit of Jack Brennan is alive and well.  At the end of the year 2002, the Central Park Track Club women won the NYRR championships, and the masters men team (of which Jack was a part) won the NYRR championships for the fourth year in a row.  Our collective reaction is the legacy of Jack Brennan --- strive for excellence, fierce competitiveness, absence of vanity and a sense of humor.  And may we keep this in mind, now and forever ... 
     
    And a note from Peggy Brennan Bermel, the sister of Jack Brennan:

    On Monday February 17th it will be one year since Jack suddenly left us. When you run on Monday, think of Jack, and if that causes you to run just a little faster, then you know he is running along with you. For Jack, running was not just about running, but more importantly about the runners. He just loved the camaraderie. The "loneliness of the long distance runner" was a myth. He always knew what was important in life, and one aspect of his life that he valued tremendously was running and talking with his friends. He loved the CPTC, and was proud of the accomplishments of the team--his friends. There is a simple Irish blessing "May you live every day of your life". Jack lived every day of his life fully, and it was our blessing that he shared his days with us. 
     
    Best regards, 
    Peggy 

  • FRANKLY SPEAKING [2/17/2003]  From Noah Perlis:
    In your write-up of the results of Thursday Night, Jan 30, you missed the following observation :
     
    Giving credit where credit is due:
     
    Frank Handelman, 2:16.9
     
    1. Frank is now 57 and his time represents am improvement from his 7th place at last year's Indoor Nationals of almost 9 seconds!  The winning time in that race was 2:19.75, so Frank is in great position with almost 2 months to go before the Nationals.
     
    2. His age-graded performance is a 90.42, which means it is the equivalent to an open age runner doing a 1:52.5!
     
    3. For all of 2002, Frank's time is approximately 1 second from the best time in the U.S. rankings in the 55-59 age group, including outdoors!
     
    4. 2002 represented a comeback year for Frank after foot surgery, and he is now getting to a prime, without any speed training yet that we have observed.  His pre-race statement last Tuesday "was that he was just going to go out and see what he can do and what shape he is in" - this was his first race of the indoor season!  Goes to show, how much you can trust an attorney to understate!
     
    Way to go Frank!!!!!!
  • WESTERN COMFORT [2/17/2003]  Sympathetic note about the snowstorm from John Prather, our teammate in Arizona: "I have not needed to wear a shirt the entire winter while running in Arizona. Although not a pretty picture, it's quite comfortable!"
     

                                            ... wish you were here ...
      
  • SNOWFLAKE HISTORY [2/17/2003]  Since there is a foot of snow out there with more snowflakes fluttering around, we know that y'all are snowbound inside your homes with nothing to do except surf the web.  This is therefore the time when we dump a large amount of content for your diversion.  For this coming Saturday, there will be the Snowflake Run to be held in Central Park, hopefully under better weather conditions than now.  This race is important b