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Week of April 26, 2005 - May 2, 2005 Broad Street Run After the last weekend, it looks like CPTC might have to set up a permanent branch in the City of Brotherly Love. Thursday through Saturday belonged to our short distance runners, both at the Penn Relays and in the University City 5K that Mike Trunkes won. Yesterday was the distance crew's turn, at the Broad Street 10-Miler. Stuart Calderwood second place in his age group, and was also fifth master overall. Jim McQuade was third in his age group with a big PR, Stacy Creamer was fourth in her age group, and Andrea Costella also ran a PR. Best Time Filip Jagodzinski's 4:05.47 in the 1500m at Yale yesterday earns him the number 8 spot on the Best Times list. Brooklyn Jonathan Van Meter hates Brooklyn. Because it's not enough like Manhattan. Except for the parts that are too much like Manhattan. Also, he's just way too cool to move out of Manhattan. Or too insecure. One thing is clear at the end of the article: New York Magazine has gotten even more pathetic than we thought. Sex and Sprinting
Steroids Bud Selig, who has always defended every weak anti-doping proposal that Major League Baseball put forth, has proposed a new plan in which players who test positive for sterodis would face a 50-game suspension for the first offences, 100-game suspension the second time, and a ban from baseball for a third strike. Selig would also ban amphetamines, include more testing, and appoint an independent person to run the program. Meanwhile, NFL executives got their turn before Congress last Wednesday, where they received a much friendlier reception than the baseball representatives did. Skip Bayless shows why these hearings are a sham, and how the NFL and MLB can't be trusted to run their own anti-doping programs. Race Winner Mike Trunkes won the University City 5K in Philadelphia this weekend, giving CPTC six wins for the year. Take It to the Bank Back in the good old days when Citibank bestrode the world like a colossus they didn't have to worry much about attracting new customers. These days, thanks to competition from other financial behemoths, they have to put extra work into their advertisements, and it's become clear that they still haven't learned how to do this. First was the "Live Richly" campaign, which suggested that there are more important things in this world than money, which is, as Slate pointed out, "a healthy worldview, perhaps, but not one that's necessarily reassuring coming from an institution whose sole job is to protect your money." Their short-lived follow-up campaign — in which Citibank suggests that saying "Thank You" will make up for being rude or inattentive — was probably worse, as Slate again noted. But the worst may be their new series of print ads covering "Great Inventions in Banking." The gimmick is that all these great inventions did nothing to help any bank's customers, though we are probably meant to think that Citibank's new innovation at the end actually will be helpful. Basically it's the same themes of banks not caring about you or your money that ran through the last two campaigns. Our problem with this is not that the ads are still dumb, but that they've now gotten sloppy, too. Witness this "great invention," the creation of "banking hours":
First of all, it should be "Banker's Hours," not "Banking Hours." When people speak about short work days, they call it "Banker's Hours." Which brings us to the second problem: Banker's Hours are, by definition shorter than 9-5 (or IX - V, as the ad so obnoxiously puts it). We generally think of them as 10-3, although many definitions are not so precise. The Devil's Dictionary X defines Banker's Hours as:
So, not only is Citibank telling us that money isn't important, and that banks have no interest in being helpful to us, they're now showing that they don't actually know anything about banking. Which leaves us wondering how they ever got so big in the first place. By the way, the Devil's Dictionary X is, obviously, an update of Ambrose Bierce's famous Devil's Dictionary (available online here, or buy it here). Despite being a journalist for nearly 50 years and publishing several books, Bierce is known today only for his cynical definitions and for disappearing in Mexico. This puts him ahead of all other journalists of the 19th Century, who are not known today at all. The Devil's Dictionary X picks up where Bierce left off, in a slightly more offensive, and more humorous, vein. It's not something you should look at while at work if you have any job responsibilities to attend to, but we suspect that a need to be productive at the office isn't a problem for most of our readers. When You Run Fast You Only Get to Check Out the Good Ones
Penn Relays 2 We hope all of you got to see Kate Irvin and Allison McCabe run the mile at Penn Relays today (even if the nitwits at NBC sports thought it would be more interesting to show Tiffany McWilliams walking around after the race instead of letting us see the other runners finish), and all three seconds of Alston Brown at the finish of the Masters Men's 4x400m relay. If anyone knows how to put video from a Time Warner Cable DVR box onto the web, please let us know so we can post some of the footage here. In non-TV news, Allison McCabe's time of 5:07.93 in the mile puts her on the Best Times list in ninth place. Penn Relays Andrea Haver kicked off Penn Relays with a 17:11 in the 5k, which got her 8th place in a very competitive field. We'll try to keep you updated throughout the weekend, but you can also watch some of the races for yourself, this Saturday from 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm on NBC (Channel 4 in New York). That should include the women's mile at 4:50 pm (Kate Irvin and Allison McCabe, wearing blue CPTC track outfits) and maybe the M40+ 4x400 (Gladstone Jones, Steve Burgess, Chris Potter, and Alston Brown, with Tony Ruiz and Alan Bautista as alternates, all wearing good-old-fashioned orange) at 5:10 pm. It's probably too much to hope that they'll show any taped coverage of earlier events with CPTC runners, but you never know. Steroids Slate examines how "natural" methods of performance enhancement can be just as harmful as taking steroids. The focus is more on football lineman looking to bulk up (the Congressional hearings focused on the NFL this week), but it's worth considering for all sports. Model Runner If you haven't thrown out the Thursday Styles section from today's Times (and is there really a need for another day of this worthless section?) you might want to check out page G6, where our very own Chris Neuhoff appears in the Paul Stuart ad in the lower right hand corner. If There's Any Justice Left in the World, "G" Is Kirk Semple and His Editor Being Fired
Gear Toby Tanser covers the running gear you need and the gear you want in MetroSports. We were shocked to learn that, while you need running-specific socks, they don't need to have funny designs on them. Complete Games Jim Caple thinks Major League pitchers should throw more complete games. We agree. What, There's Something Wrong With That?
Thomas G. Labrecque Classic A reader asked why we didn't point out the strong showings of several track runners at Sunday's race. It's simple: we don't distinguish between trackies and roadies. Sure, Sean Fortune, Glen Carnes and John Affleck (among others who raced Sunday) usually work out with Devon's group, but we like to think of the Central Park Track Club as one big team, in which people aren't divided by the distances they run. Besides, too many of our runners will race a half-marathon one weekend and a half-mile the next. On a related note, we shamelessly stole this photo of Lauren Esposito, Amy Russell, Andrea Costella and Susan Strazza (with Tom McCarney off on the right, and possibly Sid Howard standing on the blue platform in the rear left) from the New York Road Runners site.
Icahn Stadium The Times reports that the snack bar at Icahn Stadium on Randall's Island will only be serving healthy food, including pizzas made on whole-wheat pita bread; low-fat organic parfaits of fruit and yogurt; and wraps, grilled sandwiches and panini made with mozzarella, tomato and basil. We just hope they'll have the concession stands open for all the track meets. Rankings We've been looking over Alexa.com for a little while now, and we still can't figure out eactly what all their graphs mean. But after checking out the "Traffic Detail" for this site, we decided to compare the CPTC site to some other websites devoted to running in New York City. We were pleasantly shocked to learn that we are more popular than the New York Road Runners. Don't belive us? Here's the info from Alexa:
You can clearly see that we had more page views than NYRR for one day in late March and several days at the end of February. We have no idea why this site was so popular at those times. Especially the end of January, since we were out of town then, and didn't update the site for four days. But maybe that's the secret. Perhaps you like things better when we don't add any new content. If that's the case, we'll gladly take the next week or two off and watch our view count soar until we start competing with sites like Runner's World. Best Time With her amazing team-leading minute-and-a-half personal best of 23:40 at the Thomas Labrecque 4-Miler on Sunday, Amy Russell moved to sixth — sixth! — on the team's all-time list for four miles, eclipsing of a lot of all-out efforts at a lot of Snowflakes, and ahead of such luminaries as Rachel King, Catherine Stone-Borkowski, Margaret Schotte, Claudia Malley and Kate Irvin. This positively Haverian breakthrough leaves Amy floating right in the middle of the vast and deep CPTC women's talent pool. What might she run next? Kenyan Running Scott Douglas has an interesting series at Slate this week about Kenyan training camps in Iten ("If you see an SUV here, count on the driver being able to outrun you"). Week of April 19, 2005 - April 25, 2005 The Talk of the Town Our favorite site for personal ads is Spring Street Personals network, because it inlcudes interesting topics for discussion like "Last great book I read," "The five items I can't live without," and "In my bedroom, you'll find." And we've noticed that a ridiculously high percentage of users include the New Yorker magazine as one of the items to be found in their bedrooms. These ads aren't all the same; some people save copies after reading them, others just refuse to throw out any issue they haven't finished, no matter how old it may be. But everyone saves the New Yorker. Which made us feel good, since we have a nice pile of unfinished New Yorkers on our shelf. And then not so good, since we also have a stack of unfinished copies of Esquire and Men's Journal, and noboby else seems to hold on to those. (We do throw out the Economist and Sports Illustrated after a few weeks, whether we've finished them or not.) But maybe people do save other magazines, too, and only admit to hoarding the New Yorker. Alan Olifson started with just the New Yorker, but now saves every magazine he receives [Link via The Orange Girl] :
But it's still the New Yorker that he — like us, like everybody else — focuses upon:
We used to have that problem, too, until we realized that there's no good way of finding old articles in the New Yorker. And if someone with as great a genetic predisposition to ever getting rid of anything can learn to throw things out, then there's hope for the rest of you. Boston Marathon Photos The lure of the Boston Marathon is so great that even ordinarily sensible runners will ignore serious injuries to run it. So it came as no surprise that Chris Solarz was toeing the line in Hopkinton last Monday, even though he's still recovering from an injury. But we were shocked to see than the man who ran 40 races last year had the sense to take this one easy. And what better way to force yourself to go slower, than to carry a camera with you ant take photographs throught the race? You can see those photos at Snapfish (free registration required). See Chris with Grete Waitz! See Chris with Charles Barkley! See Chris with Ozzy Osbourne! See Chris with lots of Wellesley women! You can even see Chris and Brad Weiss with their shirts off (an image we're trying desparately to erase from our memory). Bike Month May is Bike Month! Actually, April 30 - June 5, but "Bike 5-Week Period" doesn't have the same ring to it. There are movies, rides, races, the bike show (May 20-22), the Blessing of the Bikes (April 30), and something called Bicycle Fetish Day (May 28). Team Name at Out of Town Races It turns out we were wrong to accuse some of our teammates of forgetting to include their team name for the Boston Marathon, since the team registration for that race is handled separately from the individual runner registrations. But in most races that's not the case, so we still encourage you to remember to put CPTC down as your team, no matter where the race is. You never know when you might win team awards. Best Time It's a sign of just how deep our team is that the women won today's race in such commanding fashion even as Coach Devon keeps convincing more of our members to forsake the roads for the track. Members like Andrea Haver, who missed today's race because she ran the 5000m at Princeton's Larry Ellis Inivtational on Friday evening. And, as with almost every other race she runs, we have to update the Best Times lists as a result. Of course, we knew Dre could improve on her 5K time, since her split from the Randall's Island 8K was faster than her 5K PR last year. But 16:56? That puts her in first place on the 5K list by 25 seconds! For those scoring at home, Dre also tops the 3000m and mile lists, and appears on most of the others. Upcoming Races From Connor O'Driscoll:
And, from Adam Lazaro:
Thomas G. Labrecque Classic Recap Huge congrats to the CPTC women, who won today's Thomas G. Labrecque Classic. Amy Russell led the team with a fourth place finish, followed by Katy Masselam, Lauren Esposito, Andrea Costella (a day after running the 1500m at Princeton) and Celene Menschel, in her CPTC debut. The men (Tom McCarney, Joe Tumbarello, Sean Fortune, Toby Tanser and Dan Hart) had a strong fourth place showing, with the masters men in eighth and senior masters in fourth (masters women were sixth). Assuming nothing changes in these results, the CPTC men stay in third place, while the women move into a three-way tie for second. In fact, the women's standings should look like this:
Next up, the Queens Half-Marathon on May 14. Saving the World Is Nice, But Their Mothers All Wanted Them To Be Doctors Really, what seder wouldn't be improved by including action figures of Jewish superheroes? [Link via Rick's Cafe.] This got us thinking again about how few good Jewish superheroes there are, even though most of them were created by Jewish writers and artists, and many of the characters display strong Jewish influences. Even Superman has an origin based on the story of Moses, and his Kryptonian name, Kal-El, is Hebrew for "Voice of God." The Jewish backgrounds of superheroes became even more noticeable with the Marvel characters of the 1960s. It's often been noted that the X-Men (and mutants in general) are none-too-subtle stand-ins for Jews — a subtlety that is completely dispensed with in stories like the 1982 graphic novel "God Loves, Man Kills" and the two movies. Early X-Men-writer Chris Claremont, even said that he envisioned Professor X and Magneto as "echoes of David Ben-Gurion and Menachem Begin." So with all that, can't we do a little better than The Thing and Kitty Pryde (who's we were disappointed to discover is really not as cool as we thought back when we were 12, although maybe that's chanced in the new Astonishing X-Men)? And anyone who tries to suggest that this counts will be mocked on this page every day for the next six months. TV Or Not TV Steven Johnson says in the Times Magazine (and in his new book) that TV makes you smarter. A Word A Day says "TV doesn't kill just time. It promotes a sedentary lifestyle leading to obesity and early cancellation of our very own reality show." They both have their points, although we think Johnson is overstating both the mental benefits of watching television and the overall quality of today's shows. We'll let all of you decide for yourselves, since TV Turnoff Week starts tomorrow. We plan to leave the TV off all week. Except when the Mets are playing. And, of course, the Daily Show. Especially since Floyd Abrams is on this week promoting his new book Speaking Freely, and we're a big First Amendment geek. Thursday Night Uptown On the raw, windy night of April 21, 2005 six CPTC runners ventured into the bowels of Columbia’s Wien Stadium for an interval workout. They were never seen again. Months later a tattered logbook was discovered under a pile of clothing abandoned near the ten-yard line. The logbook’s title page revealed that the doomed runners were John A., Leon B., Joe B., Frank H., Chris P., and Victor O. Entries from the log provide a glimpse into their agonizing slow dance with hypothermia. Dusk – John A. returns to our sweatpant tent after 400 meters occupied in 66 and three-fifths seconds. He reports he is no warmer for his effort. He rejoins our huddled group muttering, “Damn you Devon.” “Why did she not join us?” someone cries. “Because,” another replies, “her cable package includes the Weather Channel.” Night – It has been many hours since we last saw Victor O. O Victor, where art thou? He stumbled from the tent to stride through 100 meters. We begged him not to go as we had recently seen a polar bear in the area. Morning – At dawn we discovered a skillet abandoned by Admiral Peary’s expedition. We conclude we are above the 215th parallel. Why didn’t we heed the leader of the Millrose Track Club who pleaded with us to turn back? We pressed on, reasoning we had greater numbers than Millrose. What folly. What hubris. Our hunger increases. Mid-Morning – Chris P. regales us with stories about the wonders of psychotropic pharmaceuticals. For a time we are transported far from our misery. Noon – We experience a faint ray of hope as we espy fellow CPTCer Harry Lichtenstein running by our tent. We beg him to lead us home. He shouts that our travails are merely a matter of “perspective” and disappears into the gloaming. Later we conclude we are victims of a mass hallucination. Dusk – Our good morale is beginning to weaken. This afternoon someone observed that Frank H. looks “pleasingly plump” after a winter of inactivity. A terrible hush enveloped the tent. We eyed each other warily. Gradually the tension faded as we pushed forbidden thoughts from our minds. 9:15 p.m. – Our number has dwindled to four as Leon B. has left us. He ran from the tent muttering something about “an apparition.” Or, “an audition.” The howling wind makes hearing difficult. Midnight – Frank H. is gone. All gone. If ever I make it back I will nominate him for Athlete of The Year. No runner ever gave more for his teammates. 2:30 a.m. – We jog 400 meter laps in a vain effort to remain warm. Even as our mental powers diminish we remember to stay in Lane Two. Noon – The sun is high overhead but, sadly, our light fades. Damn you Devon! It's Deja Vu All Over Again A few months ago we were looking over last year's journal entries and noticed that we had three entries titled "Hey, Hey Paula" (April 17, September 16 and October 25, for those who care), all of which concerned Paula Radcliffe, and not the 1963 hit by Paul and Paula. We reused the headline because we never checked out the old stories, and because we refused to believe that we were a big enough hack to have ever used it before. But maybe there's something about Paula that makes people recycle their old headlines. That might explain why Sports Illustrated wrote this about Radcliffe in this week's issue (article not online):
Well, it's nice to see that the woman who already held the world record in the marathon (a fact that SI forgot to mention this week) has finally been redeemed. Of course, we thought she might have earned her redemption when she won the New York City Marathon back in November. And, lo and behold, Sports Illustrated thought so too, calling the article on that race "Redemption," and even writing "this was a race of redemption, not records" for anyone who might have missed the headline. We hope Paula has finally redeemed herself in the eyes of Sports Illustrated, because if the world's best marathoner has to win three races to atone for one bad day, how will we ever make up for our own disapointing results? Boston Marathon There are still no official team results on the Boston Marathon website, but we've learned that CPTC was 7th on the men's side, while the women were 27th. If our math is correct, the women would have been 20th had marked their team affiliation on their applications. Remember, even when you're racing out of town, it's still a good idea to put down your team name. Age-Grading and Weight-Grading Over at his own site, Toby Tanser writes:
It's possible that the age-grade tables need to be adjusted. Or, readjusted, since we understand they've been updated at least once in the past. For more info on all the numbers, see here. But what about weight-grading? Thanks to Noah Perlis, who brought this all up in the first place, we know now that it can be partly quantified:
The article focuses on marathoners, but it looks like the numbers should be the same for all distances. Unfortunately for Noah — and luckliy for us, since we don't want to do any more math than we have to — we have no way of knowing what any member's optimal body weight is, nor of figuring out how much each person exceeds that optimal level for each race. Also, the whole point of age-grading is to give older runners a way to compare their current times to the times they ran in their prime, since age is one of the things people can't change. But people can change their weights, so there's no point to weight-grading since a runner could eliminate the need for it by losing a few pounds. Athletic Etiquette We're sure that you're all readers are paragons of politeness when they train and race, but just in case, you might want to check out Jon Cane's article "Don't Drive Other Athletes Away: Athletic Etiquette" over at Active.com. Cars Out of Central Park From Transporation Alternatives:
Circus Correction We were given the wrong times for Sunday's shows. They are actually at 11:00 am and 4:30pm. PR
Week of April 12, 2005 - April 18, 2005 Race Winner Congratulations to Stacy Creamer, who won her second race of the month (and a pair of roundtrip tickets on JetBlue) at today's JFK Rotary Club 5K. Also on the podium (although not receiving any additional prizes) were Felice Kelly and Stuart Calderwood, who each took second. Best Time Yuri Nosenko added his name to another Best Time list yesterday. This time is the 400m list, where his PR of 49.65 is good for seventh place. The Circus The circus is in town! No, not this one, which just left. Or this one, either. But there will be acircus up at the Armory this week, although we don't know anyting about it other than the schedule:
Age-Grading Noah Perlis writes:
We knew including age-gradings might be a bad idea, but we weren't aware of just how slippery a slope we'd desecended upon. However, while there are various rules of thumb regarding the effects of temperature on a runner's time, we don't know of any even quasi-scientific tables we could use to come up with consistent heat-grading. The same goes for everything else on the above list. But we'll consider including any sorts of modifiers if someone can convince the handicappers at our New Year's Day race to consider our lack of sleep and the fact that we are hungover (or sometimes still drunk) while racing, and not just base our start time on how fast we might run a 5K under optimal conditions. Tuesday and Thursday Workout Reports - "Discord and Rhyme" We were hoping not to have to write these, as the old webmaster is in town this week (at least accoring to his blog). But he never seems to make it to the workouts when he's back in town, possibly because he doesn't want to be stuck writing a workout report. We can't say we blame him, since it's hard to run, eavesdrop on every conversation, and then make up something good to compensate for the lack of anything interesting actually happening at the workout. Take Tuesday's workout, for example, since we need to cover it anyway. Twenty-eight people showed up at Columbia track, and started the workout at 7:28 — a coincidence even more meaningless than most. It was a little bit cold, and the workout was a killer, so everyone ran and then quickly headed for the subway. Frank Morton and Stacy Creamer — who had already finished her own workout — timed the group, and Kieran Calderwood ran around a lot and played with the cones that the ultimate frisbee players had set up as a goal line. Yes, once in a while we have to share the uptown track with frisbee players, but they're nowhere near as dangerous as the downtown soccer players. After a Tuesday workout so uneventful that even the Daily News wouldn't cover it, a trip to Central Park on Thursday was bound to lead to a better story. The presence of 43 runners there certainly helped. Esepcially as this number included two new women, Annie and Katie, the latter being a friend of the Angell family. We didn't have time to learn anything more about them, though, as this workout was being run by Stuart Calderwood, who has a stronger sense of punctuality than Coach Tony. Although it was still after 7:10 when Stuart started the announcements — which consisted entirely of "don't run hard tonight if you're racing this weekend" and "follow Kate Irvin for the party after the workout" — and 7:23 by the time he'd finished them and shown us where the finish to the workout was. Yes, the workout was that complicated to explain. (See here for proof, and also the funniest workout description you're ever likely to read.) Even more complicated was the the timing and manuevering required to ensure that either Stuart or Stacy Creamer was always in the right place to mark the start or end of each pick-up other than the last one. We're still confused by it a day later, but it looks like everyone managed to finish the workout successfully. And then it was on to the Westside Brewery for the aforementioned party in honor of Frank Handelman's 60th birthday. Obviously we can't report too much on what took place there, but we did learn that Chris Price parties with celebrities. Well, if by celebrities you mean Jessica Cutler, aka Wasingtonienne, the Senate intern who was fired last year for blogging about her sex life instead of working, and then got a spread in Playboy and a book deal out of it. Presumably this was not the type of person Sarah Rivlin was referring to when she said "We need more chicks on the team." We're not sure if that's true mathematically, but we have no objection. Well, as long as they know a little bit more about modern music than our three female stars who had never heard of Duran Duran. (We won't name them here, but two of them keep getting their names on fhe Best Times lists and all three of them have appeared in the front page photos this year). This caused great consternation to Coach Devon, who will now have to teach these ladies about music in addition to running; Brad Weiss, who was at the Duran Duran concert on Wednesday; and ourself. Although we got over it by having another beer and realizing that they probably missed out on Hall & Oates, too, which makes things even. The Founding and Naming of the Central Park Track Club Hi Fellow CPTC Friends I founded CPTC in the second week of September 1972 at a meeting at our (Lynn Terreri Blackstone and my) apartment that overlooks high above Central Park. Present at the founding meeting were Bob Urie, a 2:50 marathoner at age 51; Judge Arnold Frieman, a 2:50 marathoner at age 50, Lynn Terreri Blackstone, a Foundation administrator and a winner of the Yonkers Marathon, Ben Gershman, a Manhattan prosecutor and 2:32 marathoner, myself(criminal defense attorney) and a 2:40 marathoner, Larry Langer, a 2:45 marathoner,now living in Denver, and finally, Fred Lebow and Walter Nathan. I served as the Club's President for eight years and basically ran it. Lynn served as the club's Secretary. I recruited other "founding members" Frank Handelman and his NYU Law classmate and running buddy, the late Jack Brennan about two or three months after the club was born. The club's name was my devising. I ran around the reservoir often since the late 1960's and gazed at it frequently from my new apartment window before the club was formed.It looked like a huge old cinder running track positioned in the middle of Central Park, perhaps the most famous city park in the world. I envisioned that some day our new club would become a major track and field power. So I decided to give it the name The Central Park Track Club. Frank, Jack, Fritz Mueller, and Kevin McDonald subsequently became our first star runners.
George Wisniewski Photo of CPTC's former coach George Wisniewski (1981-1997) and his wife Wendy Wisniewski taken this past weekend in Kerhonkson, New York. They are now first-time house-buyers having completed closing two weeks ago. They send their best wishes to the club and asked about Tony Ruiz and Sid Howard.
Rye Derby In today's mail:
More Age-Grading The anonymous woman — who we will henceforth refer to as "L.D.," based on the initals of her pseudonym — writes in again:
We don't really understand why the age-grade should change. Shouldn't all the old times just be graded on the new scale? Why Doesn't Anyone Write an Article About Our Obscure References? Is it possible that the reason we hate Alessandra Stanley's television reviews in the Times is because they include references that are too obscure for us? Um, no. It's because they're bad. Boston Marathon Also look for Audrey Kingsley and Steve Monte. Healthy Kidney 10K NYRR is offering free admission to the first 500 registrants for the Healthy Kidney 10K on May 22. Also, according to the website, "Entrants will be given a technical shirt, and finishers will receive a water bottle, making this an event you won’t want to miss." Week of April 5, 2005 - April 11, 2005 Frank Handelman Frank Handelman — the only original member of CPTC who's still at the track every Tuesday and Thursday — turned 60 today. If you didn't wish him a happy birthday, you can make up for it by joining him, and the rest of your CPTC friends, at the Westside Brewery (corner of Amsterdam Avenue and West 76th Street) after Thursday's workout. Since Frank will be coming from the Columbia workout, figure on meeting there at about 8:30 pm. We found this old quote from George Wisniewski: "I truly think the only reason it was called the Central Park Track Club was because everyone voted it down when Frank suggested it be called the Central Park Handelman Club." So, just this once, we've renamed the site in honor of Frank. Age Grading Inspired by Anonyomous, we're now including age-grade rankings with the results. If you want to figure out your own age-grade performance for other events, there's a good calculator here. Boston Marathon The Outdoor Life Network will televise the Boston Marathon live on April 18, starting at 11:30 am. If you have to work during the day, and don't have a VCR or Tivo, you can watch the repeat at 8:00 pm, and highlights at 11:00 pm and midnight. While you're watching keep an eye out for Neil Brenner, Bill Capune, Lauren Esposito, Sam Frank, Miwa Fujiwara, Anna Fyodorova, Roger Liberman, Brian Maiolo, Russell Pfeffer, Michael Rennock, Chris Solarz, and Brad Weiss. Are we missing anybody? Best Times We're slowly working on a new, much more advanced version of this sit, in which a lot of tasks will be performed automatically by the computer, thereby saving us a lot of time. And the improvement that will save us the most time will be automated Best Times lists, since we seem to be updating these every weekend. This time it's Allison McCabe, who grabs 7th place on the 1500m list with 4:44.89. MAC Meets If you felt the 100m on the track at the end of the Randall's Island 5K wasn't enough, you need to head back to Icann Stadium for some track races this summer. So far on the list are three Sunday MAC meets, on May 15, June 5 and June 26. If you prefer the track up at Van Cortlandt Park, check out the NY Pioneer Club' s meet this Sunday, April 17, at 11:00 am. The meet starts with a 5K (partly on the cross-country course), followed by 4x100m, 800m, 200m, 1500m and 4x400m. Tuesday Night Uptown Track Workout Yes, it's very late. And even better, it's very short, as all the best material from the workout ended up in the Famous Quotes page, specifically, quotes 1530, 1531, 1532 and 1533. Other than that we can only report that the Columbia track is so much nicer than the wind-swept Riverbank track we were at last week, and that there were 21 people at this workout, including Frank Morton as a timer and Sue Pearsall as photographer. Anita and Kim, our new attendees last week, couldn't make it, but Alberta was back, and Doug made his first appearance. Thirteen of these 21 ended up on the 1 train together going downtown, where their conversation was interrupted by a homeless man asking for spare change or food, although he rejected the sandwich offered by one runner. Apparently runners are less picky about what they eat than homeless people. Membership Dues - Update If you are using Paypal to pay your membership dues, you must use the Personal PayPal to PayPal feature. The CPTC account cannot accept credit card payments. Membership Dues Dues notices for 2005 were mailed out a month ago. If you have not yet paid your CPTC dues for 2005, please do so as soon as possible.
Mail checks payable to
OR by PayPal to CPTCdues@courtines.net. Type "CPTC 2005 Dues" and your name in the Note field. Thank you. Don't Worry, C Is Still For Cookie, Not Cauliflower To fight childhood obesity, "Sesame Street" is introducing a new theme called Healthy Habits for Life. As part of this, Cookie Monster will eat more vegetables and fewer cookies. Meanwhile, Elmo — who's dangerously thin already — will learn the joys of new exercises. No word on which characters will tell the kids to stop watching TV and go play outside more. Outdoor Track The votes are in and, just like in 98% of Congressional elections, the incumbent won. Which means that Coach Tony's outdoor track workouts will continue to take place at the East 6th Street track starting this Tuesday, April 12th, at 6:30pm. Watch out for those soccer balls! The Most Important Television Show Ever You don't care about it, and we still don't understand it, but Jon Stewart won the Page 2 Invitational Tournament. The Daily Show also won a Peabody award for its "satire that deflates pomposity on an equal opportunity basis." Just Don't Try Them All at the Same Time From Reuters:
[Link via New York Flyers] Updated Age-Graded Times Kevin Arlyck writes:
Well, nobody's perfect (we also made a typo on one runner's age, but we've fixed it now). John Roberts did indeed run 4:22.2, which puts him in 14th place on this list. We wonder what sort of times our members might run over the upcoming outdoor season, now that they know this list exists. We won't impose upon Ms. Anonymous for future lists, so if any of you would like to help keep track, please let us know.
Age-Graded Times Two days ago we received the following email from an unfamiliar source:
We thought for a second about the amount of work that must have gone into creating such a list, figured that checking for any mistakes would take at least as much time, and decided that any verification should be handled by our timer-in-chief, Stuart Calderwood, who responded:
Alas, the identity of the researcher must remain unknown, at her request (the researcher's nom de plum is female, though that proves nothing). We did everything we could to discover our correspondent's identity, even going so far as asking her, but got only this response:
So, anonymous she shall remain. But even without a name she deserves all the credit for the list below. And for those of you wondering about Noah Perlis, it turns out he's 57, so his age-graded performance is 81.81 and his "open" equiavelent is 52.92. He'll just have to try a little harder (63.5 or so) to make the list for the outdoor season. CPTC Top Twenty Age Grade Performers 2005 Indoor Season
Andrea Haver Three weeks ago Andrea Haver was interviewing elite runners. Now she's the subject of the interviews; in this case Peter Gambiccini's latest Brief Chat on Runner's World Online. Frank Morton points out: "Andrea is in elite company. The two main headlines of the day on the RW home page are for stories on Haile Gebreslassie and Andrea Haver!!" We suspect it won't be long before Dre is grabbing the top headlines.
TV Opportunity for Female Runners
No Eat 'Til Brooklyn April 11 though 20 is Dine In Brooklyn, where some of the borough's top restaurants offer three-course meals for $19.55 (in honor of the Brooklyn Dodgers' 1955 World Series victory). Which is awsome, since didn't feel like cooking for the next few weeks. Science vs. Journalism From Scientific American:
The good news is that this editorial (which is worth reading in full) was an April Fool's joke. The bad news is that far too many publications could print the above paragraph and mean it seriously. [Link via The Orange Girl] Lies, Damned Lies, Etc. The Times rails against the "statistical claptrap" we'll hear from "blathering broadcasters" during baseball games this year, and even provides the missing context with which to evaluate these stats. We're holding on to a copy of this to refer back to when the Times starts spewing some of this same context-free statistical claptrap, which will probably be next week. Champions of Tournament Many of you have already forgotten about our March Madness pool, and the rest of you probably never cared to begin with, but we did promise to mention the winner on this page, and that winner is Alan Ruben. The final standings:
Week of March 29, 2005 - April 4, 2005 More Photos Photos from the Intrasquad Relay are now posted. We couldn't remember the name of one runner in this picture, but if you know who it is — or if you spot any other unidentified people — please let us know. The same goes for all those Club Night photos. Meanwhile we're still working on the roughly 750 photos we have from the last four track races (about half of those are from Sue Pearsall) . They won't all make it up here, but a lot of them will, and it will take a little more time. Attack of the Robots They're not taking over yet, but Slate explains how robots may soon beat human at sports. Margaret Schotte Usually when our members win something we can count on them to tell us about it. But there are a few people on the team who refrain from any immodest self-promotion. Like Margaret Schotte, who for some reason didn't trumpet the fact that she earned All American honors and was ranked first duathlete F25-29 by USA Triathlon, and was named Triathlon Canada's Female Age-Group Duathlete of the Year. Maybe it's a Canadian thing. Of Course, To Really Impress the Ladies, You Need a Six-Pack We've always been a fan of two-fisted drinking, but we tend to limit ourself to one drink per hand. Toby Tansershows us a better way to do it, over at the Westchester Track Club site. As if Microsoft Doesn't Cause Enough Misery Already "Getting rid of Office wasn't an option. You can't run a war without PowerPoint."
[Link via The Volokh Conspiracy] Photos Okay, so we totally thought we would get these done tonight, but then we remembered that we had to do our fantasy baseball draft after the game, and by the time that was done it was too late to finish the photos. We'll definitely post some on Tuesday, and we might even get them up tomorrow if we don't get stuck at work. Street Shoes for Africa One of my non-running activities is to organize photography exhibitions at the Open Society Institute (Soros Foundation). One of the photographers whose work we are currently exhibiting, Stephen Shames began a foundation to help AIDS orphans, street kids, working children, and other vulnerable youngsters in Africa where he visits regularly. He told me that when he asked the kids what they needed most for him to bring them, they replied, "Shoes." Immediately, I thought of Toby Tanser's terrific Shoe4Africa project and told him we can probably help. His foundation is called Outside the Dream and they pay school fees for the kids and food, books, pens, paper and medical care but they need decent street shoes as well. They don't have to be new. If you want to learn more see: www.outsidethedream.org The children are between the ages of 9 and 19 so a variety of sizes would be suitable. If you want to help, please send shoes to:
Call or email Mike to let him know the shoes are coming. Money to purchase shoes should be sent to Stephen. (He is going there in May):
Make checks to: Outside the Dream Foundation. Thanks,
Urban Environmental Challenge From our correspondent on the spot:
Teaser Photos We're working on lots of photos here, and we've put up the smallet set — pictures from Club Night — to hold you until we post the rest. We should finish a few more sets during the commercials of tonight's baseball game. Scotland Run A loyal reader suggested on Friday that we remind you all to set your clocks ahead last night. And we would have, but we didn't have time to get to the website. We're glad to see that enough of you remembered on your own for the women to win the race and the men to take second. And we're pretty psyched to see Stacia Schlosser's name in the results for the first time in a while. Hokey Spokes We can't decide if these iluminated light blades for bike wheels are the dorkiest (hokiest?) thing ever, or if they might actually be cool. The dorky side is easy to see just by looking at the website (especially the demo videos). The potentially cool part? Your bike wheels could constantly flash a message like "CPTC RULES" or "I'M BEATING YOU," and even do it in orange. Supposedly these are for safety and increased visibility while riding at night, but we wonder if drivers wouldn't be more likely to run over someone whose wheels are flashing some of these patterns. [Link via Gizmodo] Fooled Again We doubt anyone was actually fooled by this, but the site for new Google Gulp Beta energy drinks is a great parody of Google, energy drinks, the new economy, viral marketing, etc. Nice to see the folks at Google can still laugh at themselves. Won't Get Fooled Again So, usually we do something silly with the site on April Fool's Day, like rename it the Canadian Pacific Track Club, or the South Park Track Club. But, thanks to various events this week, we didn't have the time to make up a new logo, or even to write any fake posts (we were thinking of claiming to be on the New York Press' 50 Most Loathsome New Yorkers list, but realized that too many people might actually believe it). But you can still get your fill of April Foolery over at Westchester Track Club and MetroTri.com. Even the Times gets into the spirit of the day, albeit from a distance, as they examine the history of Sidd Finch, whome George Plimpton created as an April Fool's hoax for Sports Illustrated 20 years ago. Heck, even the Weather Channel is making stuff up, and claiming that it will be in the high 50s today. Wait, that's real? Forget this site, we're going outside to play! Club Night Congratulations to Alan Ruben, Alston Brown and Sid Howard, who all won awards at Club Night. We Try Our Best, But No Matter How Shrewdly We Pick Our Examples, the Times' Arts Writers Still Look Like Idiots
We'll just briefly note that the examples here are pathetic. Actors of all colors have been appearing in classic plays for decades now without it being an issue. Hell, Denzel's been doing Shakespeare for almost 20 years now without anyone commenting on his skin color. And, while the characters on "Friends" may not have mentioned that Aisha Tyler was black, we're pretty sure the people who still watched the show at that point noticed, as Tyler was the first major black character in the show's 10-year run. But what really got us in this article was that Caryn James admits in the first sentence that the "trend" she's writing about doesn't really exist, but rather is the result of using only selective examples. We've always felt these articles were based on flimsy evidence, but we never thought we'd see the Times admit it. So why do we keep reading these articles if they annoy us so much? Well, because the crossword puzzle is in the Arts section, so we can't avoid it. And we'd stop reading the Times altogether, but as Gawker points out, the other options are even worse. Outdoor Track Workouts From April to October the Tuesday night CPTC workouts for Tony's
distance group are held on an outdoor track. We have used the East 6th Street
track by the East River for the past 15+ years but we are now
considering using the Columbia University track at 218th Street. Travel options
ADVANTAGES OF EAST 6TH STREET TRACK
ADVANTAGES OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY TRACK
The results of this survey will affect our decision. Please email your personal preference by this Friday, April 1st to alan@montran.com as follows:
*** Only use STONGLY PREFER if you would not attend the workouts (or most of them) at the other venue. *** Feel free to add any comments. He's Not a Doctor, But He Plays One at Congressional Hearings Okay, so that's an exaggeration. Elliot J. Pellman is a doctor. He's also the team doctor for the Jets and the Islanders, and a medical advisor to Major League Baseball who testified at the Congressional hearings two weeks ago. But Dr. Pellman's been doing some exaggerating of his own, and it's on his resume. Just little things, like where he got his Medical Degree, what his rank is at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and what honors he's received from the American College of Physicians. And it's not like he's been lying for two decades or anything. Well, except for his claim to have an MD from SUNY Stony Brook — it's actually from the NY state education department, and most of his schooling was in Guadalajara — which dates back to the late 1980s. But he's only been wrongly claiming to be a Fellow of the American College of Physicians for six years. And his claim to being an Associate Clinical Professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine — he's actually an Assistant Clinical Professor, which is just an honorary position — dates back just a few months. And he's got an explanation for everything. The MD? Blame the Jets, who made the made the mistake when they wrote a bio of him around 1988, and which Pellman either didn't notice or, in his own words, "trivialized the importance of." He also never bothered to correct it, even though the team updates his bio every year. That rank of Associate? Well, it's pending, which Pellman now notes on his resume. Just not the resume he submitted to Congress, for which he blames his secretary. And that rank of fellow? He did have it, until he stopped paying his membership dues six years go, and he never bothered with the rule that fellows can only use their title if their membership is current. There's no evidence that Pellman is in any way a bad doctor, or unqualified to offer medical advice to Major League Baseball. But that doesn't matter much right now. Baseball's biggest problem when it comes to steroids is not the weak policies the owners and players keep coming up with, but the fact that few people believe that either side is serious about stopping steroid use. The already-shaky credibility of the game's executives was further battered in the Congressional hearings when it turned out they had misrepresented the penalties included in the new testing policy, and when people like Commissioner Bud Selig claimed to have barely heard of steroids — let alone suspected they might be used in baseball — before 1998. Rob Manfred, baseball's executive vice president, said, "I don't see why it should impact his credibility, I really don't." It's that kind of cluelessness that has gotten baseball into this mess. If Selig and Co. ever want us to believe they're serious about combating steroids, then baseball's doctor, like Caesar's wife, but be above suspicion. Elliot Pellman should resign, and if he won't, baseball has to fire him. Lost and Found Anyone leave a pair of white-and-red Brooks Racer STs, men's size 11, at the Armory last night? No? Nevertheless, I have them. Going to Africa...going...going...
Andrea Haver You know you're having a good weekend when you run the second fastest 8K/5M time in club history and it isn't even the most exciting thing that happens. Such was the case for Andrea Haver, who writes:
For those wondering, that Nebraskan's name is Scott Bowen. Congratulations to both of them. Photos Photos from the Randall's Island 5K are now posted. Our big thanks to Katie Golden of the Westchester Track Club for taking all but one of the photos. Final Four No, not the NCAA basketball pool again (for the record, we're somehow in first right now, but with almost no chance of actually winning), but Page 2's Invitational Tournament. We still have absolutely no idea what we're supposed to be voting for here, but the final matchups pit Anna Benson (wife of Mets pitcher Kris Benson) against Elin Nordegren (wife of Tiger Woods) and Jon Stewart (host of The Daily Show, and voice of a generation) against Paris Hilton (general leech upon society, and possible sign of the apocalypse). We don't really care about the first match-up, but please, everyone, go vote for Jon Stewart in the second one. The fate of the world depends on it. Fund Raiser
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