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Send comments to webmaster@centralparktc.org. Week of February 28, 2006 - March 6, 2006 Nike Sponsorship The Central Park Track Club is very pleased to announce a sponsorship deal with Nike. Corporate Champion There was a time when Frank Handelman had long hair and ran on the roads. He was just as good a runner, though, winning the first ever Corporate Championships. You can read about it here. Best Time
Race Winners Congrats to Chris Solarz and Stacy Creamer for winning the 53-story Stair Climb for Cystic Fibrosis in Philadelphia last Sunday. They were joined there by Stuart Calderwood, who finished third, and Michael Rosenthal who was fifth and won the 40-49 age group.
Award Winners While a number of our members were robbed of well-deserved awards last night, Mary Rosado (F55-59) and Sid Howard (M65-69) both picked up Runner of the Year trophies (actually small glass bowls). And Stuart and Stacy picked up some cool stuff at the silent auction. Then a lot of people danced really badly. Larry Thraen Larry Thraen responds:
So, if any of you have an in with NYRR, please contact Larry at lthraen@yahoo.com. Front Runners Track Meet The Front Runners will be hosting their annual track meet at The Armory on Sunday, March 19, from 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. The events to be raced are:
Awards will be given to the top three runners in the 18-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, and 60+ age groups, and the top men's and women's teams will each get $200. So try not to tire yourselves out too much at the Brooklyn Half the day before, and go up to the Armory adn win some money. The Onion Strikes Again Okay, somebody has to know which writer for The Onion is a local runner. First the paper used the names of some New York Flyers in their articles. Now they continue to offer way too many articles about running to not have at least one regular on their staff. Here's today's offering:
NYC Marathon Registration Registration for the NYC Marathon is now open, and there are several ways to get guaranteed entry this year. There's the nine races, of course, but you can also qualify based on time. And those times are softer this year than last year, with open men needing 2:55 and women, 3:23. Those times were 2:50 and 3:18, respectively, last year, and 2:45 and 3:15 in 2002. The times for masters, veterans and 60+ have also been relaxed by 5 or 10 minutes each. Also, any who won overall or place first in an age group in a NYRR scored qualifying race in 2005 gets in automatically. There's also a guaranteed spot for anyone who has finished the NYC marathon 15 times, which a number of our members have. And, if none of those options will get you in, there's always the lottery. Masters Nationals 2007 Looks like next year's Masters Indoor National Championships won't be in New York after all. On Monday the Armory notified USATF that they can't afford to host the meet. Which makes us wonder where all that money we pay to work out there goes. No word yet on who the new host will be. It's Just LIke When Dad Would Pitch at His LIttle League Games Working with our dad when we were a teenager had its ups and downs, but at least we never feared that he might try to kill us. Koby Clemens (son of Roger Clemens) might not be as confident about that. Running Station Nike has introduced a new running station in Hudson River Park. Details:
When you support the Runners’ Station you support the community. All proceeds go to the Hudson River Park Trust. Adjusted Times The men's times in the Al Gordon Snowflake 4-Miler were all off by three seconds. After The Prez pointed this out, NYRR adjusted the times. We've now fixed them on this site, too. Spam Alert Many of our members received the following message today:
Needless to say, there is no Theodore Bundy on the team. And thanks to Scott Johnson, we've confirmed that the probably-pseudonymous Mr. Bundy has not actually met Larry Thraen, and is certainly not collecting any money on Larry's behalf. And, to our knowledge, Larry is doing just fine, albeit living in Los Angeles. Week of February 21, 2006 - February 27, 2006 Giving Credit Where Credit's Due From Roland's blog:
Ah, but we can claim credit, too. You see, the days when this site has nothing interesting added are actually planned out in advance in consultation with the coaches. Look back and you'll see that all those days match up exactly with all of your hard workouts, while the rest days generally get half-a-dozen posts. However, Roland continues:
So we can't claim credit? And here we were looking forward to our new excuse for anytime we're too busy to update this page. The best we can do then, is issue a threat: Run well and we'll refrain from writing about the rules of grammar and the evils of Alessandra Stanley. Start slacking off, and we just may be forced to give you daily updates on the Volvo Ocean Race (formerly the Whitbread Round the World Race). AMB AMRO 1 has won almost every stage so far, so there really isn't much to read about. However, since the race lasts until mid-June, we could inflict a lot of boredom on you guys. Feeling Hot, Hot, Hot The biggest competition of the year is over. No, not that thing in Italy, but rather the ESPN Hottest Athlete contests. Essentially the results are the same as they were on day 1, with Tanith Belbin named the Hottest Female Athlete and Matt Leinart the Hottest Male Athlete. In the end 26,559 people voted for the guys. By contrast, Belbin's margin of victory over early-favorite Maria Sharapova was roughly 31,000 votes (out of 326,110 cast). Belbin's victory will no doubt please Spencer Van Pelt, who when asked at The Parlour if he'd been watching the Olympics confessed, "I have. I got sucked in by the ice dacning." We have mixed feelings about it. After the first three hottest athlete titles went to artificial blonds (Anna Kournikova, Jennie Finch and Heather Mitts), last year the voters rewarded Amanda Beard, who keeps her hair its natural black. Belbin, by contrast, has clearly been hitting the bottle, sometimes to add streaks, other times to turn all her hair blond. Isn't it enough that all TV newscasters seem to feel forced to dye their hair? Do we need to force our athletes to do so as well if they want any attention? If so, it's probably just true for the women — and we're shocked, shocked, to learn about this double standard — since Leinart, despite being in Southern California, has not gone for the blond surfer look. (David Beckham, who won last year, has been known to dye his hair blond, but then he's been known to sport any number of bizarre hairstyles.) We don't have much else to say about Leinart, so we'll just put a link to this awesome billboard. Armory Closed on Tuesday The Armory will be closed tomorrow, February 28, because of a track meet. That meet is called the 69th Eastern States Championships, and not, as would be cooler, the Mardi Gras Meet. Anyway, the middle distance Group will have a light practice on Wednesday instead. The road group will probably meet in Central Park, but check back here later for official details. Blue Ribbon Panel Clearly our women had to run fast to win Saturday's Al Gordon Snowflake 4-Miler. But we didn't realize just how fast they'd run until our timing department pointed out that three of them made the Best 4-Mile list. Katy Masselam now owns the number five spot; Lauren Esposito, number seven; and Kathy King, nine. (Sarah Alaei would have made the old list, but missed out on the updated one by three seconds.) And in case you're some cynic who just assumes this must have been a soft list, keep in mind that the runners they knocked off the list include Kate Irvin and Margaret Schotte. With another 4-Miler in two weeks (the Colon Cancer Challenge ) and a 4-Miler scoring race in six weeks (the Tom Labrecque on April 9) expect to see further upheaval on the list. And more bad puns about the color blue from us until we get the new singlets. Found and Lost Found at the T-shirt pickup site Saturday: A pair of wire-frame glasses, probably men's. Lost: A big pair of polyester ski mittens. Lost the glasses? Found the gloves? If so, email John Affleck at mcflick@att.net. You Look Good In Blue Decked out in new blue singlets, CPTC won both the men's and women's races at yesterday's Al Gordon Snowflake 4-Miler. The men's scoreres were Will Berriel, Thom Little, Joe T., Tom McCarney and Sean Fortune. They, along with Big Jim McQuade, all finished in the top 20. The women did even better, with Katy Masselam (who missed first place by one second), Lauren Esposito, Kathy King and Sarah Alaei all finishing in the top 10. Flo C. was fhe fifth scorer, and Felice Kelly and Kristina Maletz were also in the top 20. On the older side, the masters (now known as 40+) men (The Prez, Stuart and Alston) and women (Stacy, Sue P. and Margot) were both third, and the 50+ men (Alston again, Yasuhiro Makoshi and Rik Shaver) were second. The 50+ women would have been second, but one of them forgot to put CPTC on her registration. For those confused by the sartorial changes, the blue singlets are only temporary, and will be replaced with snazzy orange ones soon. The domination of the points races, of course, is here to stay. National Treasure For the second year in a row, CPTC won the women's DMR at Indoor Nationals. Congrats to Caryn Waterson, Allison McCabe, Natalie Gingerich and How to Stay Out of the Bushes Paul Tergat has some helpful advice on how to avoid the need for pit stops while running. Thanks to Frank Morton for the link. Nationals As part of their annual effort to make life easier for other local teams, USATF has again scheduled Indoor Nationals for the same day as the Al Gordon Snowflake 4-Miler. This year the men's race will have to go off without John Roberts (missing the race named after his grandfather) , Kobie Fuller, Evan Zeisel and Sam MacKenzie, who will all be running the DMR up in Boston. And the women will have to do without Caryn Waterson, Allison McCabe, Natalie Gingerich and Kate Irvin. But there's more to Nationals than just relays, and this year Caryn will be running in the 800m as well. To our knowledge, that's the first time a CPTC runner has competed in an individual event at nationals. Shawangunks Running Camp Andrea Costella fowarded this email, commenting "Now we don't have to wait for Alan and Mike's invitations!" She also noted that Jay Friedman is a friend of our own Tom McCarney.
Race Winner Craig Chilton won the Race for the Whales 5K in Wailea, Maui two weeks ago. We wish we were racing in Hawaii. New Singlets We will be distributing complimentary Nike CPTC singlets to our RACERS in the Al Gordon/Snowflake 4-miler on Saturday from 7:30 am - 9:30 am at 97th Street on the East Drive. Hottest Athletes Ah, February, when Page 2 replaces their usual frivolous articles with an in-depth examination of a truly important question: "Who is the hottest female athlete?" As you probabaly remember from our intense coverage, last year's poll was a three-round competition that start with 24 women. This year there's just one round of voting, and only 10 choices:
First off, what's with all the Americans? There's a whole world of athletes out there, but ESPN can only find two non-Americans — though Belbin is originally Canadian — one of whom (Sharapova) lives in Florida? (Maybe they should have checked out this NBC slideshow of some current Olympic hotties.) And half the choices are the stars of the current Winter Olympics. Will we still think they're hot six months from now? Given how few votes Belbin and Bleiler got last year — 9.8% and 3.0% in the first round, respectively, though Bleiler did win her round two years ago — we suspect not, though Leskinen did get 30.9% in the first round while losing to triathlete Lokelani McMichael. Cash got 5.8% in the first round last year, and Gulbis won her grouping, before losing to McMichael in the semifinals, though in 2004 she got a mere 4.7% in the first round. So how'd the new folks get on? Flowers became the first black athlete to win a gold medal in the Winter Olympics four years ago, then, like almost every other winter athlete, was ignored by the rest of the world until the Turin games opened. Jacobellis appeared in lots of ads leading up to Torino, and is now infamous for losing out on a sure gold medal in the snowboard cross by falling after needlessly grabbing her board on the penultimate jump. Patrick finished fourth in the Indy 500, which actually got people to pay attention to IndyCar racing. Sandolo is a decent golfer on the Ladies European Tour, but is only known on this side of the pond because of her nude calendar. And Sharapova turned 18 last year, making it okay for the geeks who write for sports websites to ogle her. Given Sharapova's popularity — both with the public and the Page 2 staff — and the fact that she's basically Anna Kournikova with talent, we wondered if they would even bother with a poll this year, or if Maria would just be declared the winner. To our surprise, not only is voting going on, but Sharapova is not even winning. So far she's grabbed 28.2% of the vote, but that trails Belbin's 32.6%. Leskinen (13.6%) and Gulbis (10.4%) follow, with no one else getting even 5%. Interestingly, Cash and Flowers — the only two non-white athletes in the poll — are in last, with under 2% of the vote combined. Of the four leaders we'd have to go with Leskinen. Belbin reminds us too much of Mischa Barton, who just may be the worst actress of our time, and Sharapova blends in too much with all the other blond Eastern European tennis stars. But at least all 10 women on the list (with the possible exception of Sandolo) are at the top of their sport, unlike the benchwarmers and also-rans who used to be included in some of the old polls. Meanwhile, almost unnoticed on the same site is the Hottest Male Athlete poll. While the women have so far received over 235,000 votes, the men have just 3,428. That means that current leader Matt Leinhart has received fewer votes than Vonetta Flowers, the last place woman. Clearly no one cares about this poll, but it is refreshing to see some diversity in both the sports and the races represented. Though Apolo Anton Ono should really be kicked off until he shaves that soul patch. The rest of the field consists of Shaun Alexander, Jeremy Bloom, Laird Hamilton, LeBron James, Vincent Lecavalier, Carlos Moya, Dwyane Wade and Dan Wheldon. The top three right now are Leinart (27.3%), Bloom (21.0%) and Wade (14.7%). There's roughly 430 votes separating Leinart and Wade, so things could change if anyone bothers to participate. Central Park Story I don't pretend to be really in shape, but I don't think I am a couch potato either. Yesterday morning I was biking to work up Harlem Hill where a woman in an orange hat was schooling me. I biked my heart out so I could see who she was AND at least draft off her; I'd show her on the downhill, I thought. The mighty athlete was none other than the great Margaret Angell who smiled and, without skipping a beat or breath, asked how I was doing. I responded, "Did I ask you any questions on the hill?" Let's just say it's a lucky thing for everyone that she's not racing!
Notice We are saddened to report the death of Tracy Howell, on February 8, after complications from pneumonia that led to Toxic Shock Syndrome. She was 42 years old. Tracy is survived by her husband, Michele Tagliati, a long-time CPTC member, and two children, Isabella, 8 years old and Luca, 4 years old. In lieu of flowers, remembrances may be made to:
Cross Country Updates We've updated the paces for last weekend's Van Cortlandt Park Community Runs. Thanks to Margot Sheehan for pointing out that NYRR had decided that 4K is the same as 2.4 miles. Now they've accepted that it's actually 2.485 miles, and updated the paces accordingly. We also missed the results for Joey and Sammy Ruben, as neither one put down CPTC on his registration. Or maybe it was dad who forgot to include their affiliation? Armory Discount As of February 21, 2006, you may join the Armory's late night session for $150 ($100 off the full season fee). The Armory will be open for workouts through April 14, although Tony's distance group usually moves outdoors at the beginning of April. A comparable discount for the early session probably applies, but I'm not sure of the exact reduced fee.
Best Times Katy Masselam moved up one spot to fifth on the Best 3K List with a 10:00.92 at Sunday's USATF-New England Indoor Championships. And speaking of Best Times, Stuart Calderwood has complied the top 2-mile times for the men, so there are no more converted times on the 3K list. This has obviously caused some changes to the 3K list. Stuart's reviewing the old records to see if anyone times are missing, but if you notice that your name belongs on the list and isn't there, please email us. Week of February 14, 2006 - February 20, 2006 Memorial Service Memorial services for Ralph Balsamo will be held on Monday, February 27, 2006, at 5:30 PM at "The Riverside" on 76th Street and Amsterdam Avenue. Cross-Country Championships A nice showing by the orange up in Van Cortlandt this weekend. The masters men were fourth, the masters women were second, and Kristina Maletz won the community race on Sunday. Sue Pearsall has photos from most of the events. Love Is Strange We can't decide if this is a touching story or a horrifying one, but here's a profile of a couple who met through the Let's Run forums. It was a bit of shock to learn that 90% of the Let's Run posters are lifelong bachelors. We thought the number was much higher. Housework Orange Looking over the latest orders at our Amazon affilates page, we noticed that one member ordered this awesome
Tommy Hilfiger Horizon Orange Shower Curtain. We don't know who ordered that, but we hope he or she will send us a photo of the curtain in place once it arrives. Of course, there's more to decorating than just shower curtains. And while we wouldn't suggest that any but the most die-hard members paint their entire apartment orange, there are lots of other orange housewares available: sheets, towels, comforters — even duvet covers and decorative pillows! Al Gordon Snowflake 4M Race and Party The Central Park Track Club will be having it's usual party after the kick-off race in the 2006 NYRR scoring race series. It will be held downstairs at The Parlour (86th between Broadway and West End Ave) from 12pm to 4pm, Saturday, February 25th. Week of February 7, 2006 - February 13, 2006 No; Ethically, Obnoxious Twits Like You Should Never Have Any Children, And Also Should Be Barred From Ever Writing Letters Again From yesterday's Ethicist (New York Times Magazine):
Race Winner Nate Horne picked up the first road win of the year for CPTC, though he had to go all the way to New Zealand —for the Dash 'N Splash 500m swim / 5k run — to do it. Critical Mistakes We were in a forgiving mood on Friday, so we decided give Alessandra Stanley a pass for this criminally bad opening:
We were even going to let her get away with calling Arrested Development "the funniest show that nobody watched," even though everyone knows that "Sports Night" is the real funniest show that nobody watched. But then we read Gawker, and discovered that once again Stanley didn't even pay attention to the show she was reviewing. We've long suspected that Stanley only keeps her job by blackmailing her bosses. But the Times doesn't have to fire her, they can stop publishing her reviews. Her reviews have shown that she has little knowledge — and less interest — about what's going on in the world or any real interest in finding out, which means she probably doesn't read the Times anyway. And if she does happen to pick up a copy, her indifference to detail makes it unlikely that she'll even notice that the television reviews all have other writers' by-lines. Best Times Kathy King ran 11:27.2 for the 2-mile race at last week's Thursday Night at the Races, giving her the number three spot on the Best 2 Mile list. At the same meet, Tom McCarney ran 9:40.5 which translates into ninth on the Best 3K/2M list (which will be split into separate lists very soon). The math in that conversion is easier that following the changes on the Women's Best Mile list. Katy Masselam got the number six spot with 5:02.8 on Thursday, but never got to see it in writing, because Allison McCabe ran 5:00.16 on Friday — before we had the Thursday results — to regain the number six spot and push Katy to seventh. The Running Log A reader emailed us this question recently:
Of course we know it. It's The Running Log, maintained by our own Larry King. We log on there almost every day to read the message boards. We were even using it to track our running, until we got horrified at how pathetic the numbers were. But assuming your training is going better than our's — and if you're reading this page, it is — you won't find a better website for recording your own workouts and tracking your friends' progress. Sunday's Track Meet Postponed The February 12th USATF-NJ Open & Masters Track & Field Championship at the Jersey City Armory has been postponed due to the approaching snow storm. A new date or information will be posted on the USATF-NJ website as soon as possible. Volunteers Needed for USA XC Championships Volunteers are needed for the USA XC Championships (Saturday, February 18, and Sunday, February 19). Here's a chance for Central Park Track Club members to give something back to the sport while experiencing the top American runners (Alan Webb, Dathan Ritzenhein, Abdi Abdirahman, Adam Goucher, Jorge Torres, Katie McGregor, Lauren Fleshman and Colleen De Reuck) running in our own backyard of Van Cortlandt Park. As if this isn't enough there will also be a strong CPTC Masters team running in the USATF Masters 8K Championship, prior to the main event. Marion Jones Settles Lawsuit Marion Jones has settled the defamation lawsuit she brought against Victor Conte. The terms are confidential, but it's unlikely that Jones got any money, since Conte has none. It's pure speculation to say that she settled just because Conte's lawyer planned to take depositions of Jones and others to back up Conte's claim that Jones took steroids, but it certainly looks like that was her reason. The fact that she sued Conte — who, remember, is broke and in jail — over remarks he made on ABC, but not ABC — which has lots of money to pay damages with, but also lots of money to spend on lawyers — made the lawsuit look more like a PR stunt that a real attempt to restore her reputation. The settlement only reinforces that view. Boston Marathon Advice Wanted For all you Boston vets out there:
Happy Centennial Henry Roth, author of Call It Sleep, was born this day in 1906. If you've never heard of Roth or his work, then the American educational system is even more deficient that we thought. You Can Always Count on the Times to Answer the Truly Important Questions
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