August 1997 Diary

Tuesday (8/5/97) This was the first day that you went leaderless. Your coach is off to the Shawangunks and your shrink is off to the Hamptons. What are you going to do?

• Old habits die hard. Some people still went to the East 6th Street track.
• The more mathematically-inclined uptown yuppies met in Central Park to count lampposts as the alternative to a track workout.
• The social butterflies (including Rachel Latessa, Alan Ruben, Jud Santos and Luca Trovato) made the long trek to the Riverside Park track on 145th Street in order to congregate with the Moving Comfort women. Their hopes of having a fun time were quickly dashed by the strict iron hand of taskmaster Gordon Bakoulis.
• The smart one saw the hail storm around 630pm and did his workout in an air-conditioned indoor track. He had a good 4 mile workout, chasing someone equipped with basketball shoes, a walkman and a punk hairdo.
• ... and the really smart ones stayed home, ate TV dinners, consumed massive quantities of budweisers, stared at the boob tube and fell asleep just before the World Track & Field Championships came on, dreaming that they could keep pace with Manuel ("tuna fish") Caneva ...

O yes, folks, this is America --- land of the free, home of the brave.

Tuesday (8/20/97) This is the third week without that man ... what is his name? ... you know, the guy with the Black Death t-shirt ...

• The following CPTC illuminaries showed up at the seedy East 6th Street track near Alphabet City: Jim A., Ramon Bermo, Sid Howard, Brian Marchese, Karel Matousek (after promising to meet Stacy Creamer at Riverside Park), Chip Olsen, Mary Rosado, Chris Sicaras, Roland Soong. They did a half-hearted workout as the winos watched from the stands. Afterwards, they joined the winos in the stands to watch Brian Clas strut his stuff. Smoooooth. Kari Bertrand was there too.

• The following CPTC illuminaries showed up at the Riverside Park track on 145th Street: Stacy Creamer, Larry Glazer and Jud Santos, to run with the Front Runners, the Moving Comfort team, the New York Harriers and other assorted folks. They would like you to believe that this facility is a "SPARKLING CLEAN, PERFECTLY SAFE, PROFESSIONAL ATHLETE, WINO-FREE, ASTROTURFED UNLIKE-THE-MANGY-6TH-STREET-DUSTBIN" track, but they neglect to tell you that it is located on top of the infamous sewerage plant which stinks up that neighborhood. We suppose that you can improve your ability to handle oxygen debt if you have to run while holding your breath ...
  
  Jud counters with the following: "Larry and I were stretching last night on the ultra-clean astroturf infield, noting how truly CLEAN and FRESH the air was in spite of the fact that the facility was built on top of a sewage plant. We also noted later that the stink seems to be relegated to the east side of the Henry Hudson Parkway, while the track, located west of the highway, remains virtually stink-free - almost suburban-like. The idea that the 145th Street track smells bad is only a MYTH perpetuated by passersby on the parkway." Well, go tell it to the residents of that neighborhood! They have been complaining about the stench for years, but the City officials stonewalled them with the same 'denial' tactic!

Tuesday (8/27/97) Finally, this is the last week that we would run around like headless chickens.

• Uptown at the Riverside Park, there were Central Park Track Club people. But in the absence of the dominant personality, the group fractured into sectarianism:
  - Sarah Gross, Rachel Latessa, Larry Glazer, Mike Garland & Jud Santos ran 8x800m with 200m recoveries. The 800's were run at a relatively "tame" 5K to 10K pace; the hard part was really in keeping the recoveries short and sweet (around 70 seconds, or 9.5-minute pace, for the guys).
  - Luca Trovato and Tyronne Culpepper meanwhile ran 10x400 quite fast (sub-75 seconds), but with the normal, much-more-than-adequate, "El Wimpo" brand of walk-and-jog recoveries (400 meters).
  - And as Moving Comfort coaches Jennifer Latham and Gordon Bakoulis with little-hardcore-track-fan Joey Demos looked on, Alan Ruben ran with the Moving Comfort gals, wowing them with his championship form and grace.
  - The legendary Phil Vasquez ran some kind of mean-looking workout solo, and Fasil Yilma ran fast with a motley crew of degenerate young men from the outer boroughs.

  Jud Santos continues to expound the virtues of uptown running as follows: "The air was pristene and smog-free, as usual. But at one point I found myself missing the smell of urine one can only get from the 6th Street track, the smell which for many years forced my heaving lungs to adapt to lower levels of oxygen and thus effectively simulated altitude training. I also missed the hill training I usually manage to get in at the beginning of the back straight." Oh, by the way, Jud has forgotten to mention the smell from the garbage barges heading down East River towards the Arthur Kill dump.

• Meanwhile, attendance downtown at the East 6th Street track was sparse and spiritless, but we had the people who counted the most: - Sylvie Kimché, Mary Rosado and Karel Matousek. Also hanging around the scene were Jim A., Ramon Bermo, Chip Olsen, Tim Robinson, Max Schindler, Chris Sicaras, Roland Soong, ... a group of people most of whom were known for their remarkable lack of speed, but all of whom were greatly entertained and otherwise harassed by the aforementioned trio, unintentionally or otherwise.