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Club Champs Photos
August 25, 2006

We're still working on our photos — honest; we've copied them onto the computer and started editing them and all — but luckily some other folks are faster. Specifically, Patrick Cowden, who posted photos on his own site and Alan Ruben, who posted his at PhotoWorks (registration required, or login as 'photos@centralparktc.org' and use the password 'cptc').

We've been too busy to post a race recap, but we figure by now you've all checked the results and the updated points tables (no change in CPTC's standings). But the important news, of course, is that we won our fourth softball game in a row, taking down the Flyers by the score of 7-5. At least, we think that was the final score (we weren't really paying that close attention). But we definitely won, which is all that matters.

Last Video Update
August 25, 2006

One more CPTCer in that silly New York Half video — Aileen Conolon ("No cars") appears right after Michael Rennock and reappears just before the logo ("This is where I run."). Thanks to Stuart Alexander and Sean Fortune for catching that. We would've recognized her on our own, but we were thrown by the pigtails. We've gotten an ID of one other runner: the first woman shown ("I'm running in Central Park") is New York Flyer Vicky Tiase.

Almost Race Winner
August 25, 2006

The following is shamelessly stolen from The Running Log, since we know that there are some of you who still don't read the message boards there.

At the Central Park Triathlon, Stacy Creamer — twice the overall winner of the event — led out of the water; then, putting her Neil-Brenner-designed virtual-Tour-de-France-stages to use, she built a 30-second lead in the first half of the bike ride — at which point her back tire flatted. With no way to go on, Stacy walked back to the race start, but where many might have thrown a helmet or kicked a wheel, she not only cheered for all the triathletes riding and then running past her; she told them what places they were in, how far they had to go, and whether they were gaining on anyone. Afterward, the top placers had more respect for her than they would have even if she'd gone on to win; she'd given everyone there an example of another kind of world-class performance. (Then she went for a 10-mile run. Watch out next time.)

Final Club Champs Instructions
August 18, 2006

We will be meeting prior to Saturday's all-important Club Championships race near the East 97th Street underpass on the Park Drive. The Men will be meeting at 7:00 am and the Women will be meeting at 8:00 am for a pre-race warm-up.

If you are a new member or haven't yet picked up your complimentary blue Nike singlet, limited supplies will be available at this meeting point.

Also, don't forget the post-race softball game from 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm, field #9, North Meadow. Please bring any gloves, bats and balls that you may have. Soft drinks and chips will be provided.

Video Update
August 18, 2006

Since our original source on the Half-Marathon video only told us about Nicole Sin Quee's appearance, we didn't pay much attention to the other people in the ad. Which is how we missed the star turns of Joseph Kennedy ("I'm taking down the pros") and Michael Rennock ("Thousands of runners"). Thanks to Margot Sheehan for spotting the oversight. We're not going to name the aforementioned original source, lest Joe and Michael beat him up for not giving them props for their work. (Yes, we just revealed that it was a guy, but did any of you doubt that it was a guy who recognized the woman in a tank top and ignored the men in t-shirts?)

We've reviewed the clip a few more times now and don't recognize anyone else, but we don't know everyone on the team. So if there's anyone else on the video we should know about — or even if you recognize a non-CPTC runner in the ad — send us an email.

Notice
August 17, 2006

We are saddened to report that Duane Green's mother passed away this week. Duane is a long time member of CPTC. Anyone wishing to contact Duane, may send him an email at js_green@bellsouth.net.

Talking Softball
August 17, 2006

Remember, our annual softball game will take place this Saturday, August 19th, from 1:00 pm - 4:00 pm at field #9, North Meadow, against the New York Flyers. This is the ideal cooldown after you take part in the biggest team race of the year — the NYRR Club Championships — earlier that day. So bring your friends, your competitive spirit and your lucky baseball caps. Also, please bring any gloves, bats and balls you may have. Soft drinks and chips will be provided.

You Oughta Be In Pictures
August 17, 2006

Our own Nicole Sin Quee is featured in the televsion ad for the NYC Half-Marathon. In a sign of blantant anti-CPTC discrimination, she is only featured for two seconds, and gets to say just six words. On the plus side, those six words do not include either of the bland slogans the ad geniuses have slapped into this — "Watch me run," and "This is where I run." If your wondering why there is a television ad for this race and not for any of the other half-marathons, it's becasue the NYC Half will be shown on WABC-7, for those who, like us, don't feel like dragging their butts out of bed that early on a Sunday.

In the Swim of Things
August 16, 2006

Since we're already on the subject of multisport events, we're taking this opportunity to remind all of you about this Sunday's Aquathlon: Stars & Stripes, as well as all the other upcoming swim events. For those not familiar with the term, an aquathlon is a multisport event involving running and swimming. Think triathlon, but better since you don't need to worry about getting a flat tire during the bike leg. The remaining events this summer are:

The Brooklyn Bridge Swim is sold out, but there are still spaces available in the other three events. We recommend you check out the aquathlon, since CPTC did rather well at the swim/run event last month, and because, unlike the other events, it involves running. Yes, it's the day after Club Champs, but we're sure many of you can do both without a problem.

If you don't want to compete, though, please volunteer. We need volunteers for all four races for jobs including checking-in swimmers, helping swimmers out of the water, distributing food and goody bags, and serving as course marshals during the run leg of the aquathlon.

This is a great opportunity to support your fellow runners and triathletes, and then to hang out with them at the post-race festivities.

If you have any questions about volunteering, please email Volunteer Coordinator Marilyn Shaw at mshaw@nycswim.org.

And remember, the more of you who help with these events, the more time that leaves us to work on this site.

Multisport Carnival
August 16, 2006

All you triathletes, biathletes, cross-trainers, and just plain bored folks out there may want to check out tonight's Multisport Carnival, hosted by the New York Flyers, the Triathlon Association of New York City and the Asphalt Green Triathlon Club. Unlike normal carnivals there won't be any freak shows or rigged games. But there will be demonstrations and a raffle (non-rigged, natch). And we'll be there, manning the Manhattan Island Foundation booth, so you can come by and complain about how we used to be funnier. Details:

When: Wednesday, August 16, 7:00 - 10:00 pm.
Where: RFK School (PS 169) - 110 East 88th Street (Between Park Avenue and Lexington Avenue)
Cost: $2.00

Club Champs, Team Photo and Annual Softball Game
August 14, 2006

Our annual softball game will take place this Saturday (August 19th) 1pm-4pm at field #9, North Meadow, against the New York Flyers. This is the ideal cooldown after all your exertions in the biggest team race of the year — the NYRR Club Championships — earlier that day. As always we are encouraging as large a turnout as possible for these two key events in our competitive calendar. And if you can't run or play softball, you should still show up to cheer on your teammates. And be in the annual team photo, which will be taken after the race.

Remember, this race is worth double points, so it's a great opportunity to catch up to the teams ahead of us, or to put some distance between us and our nearest challengers. Current standings are:

Men Open
Place Team Points
1 West Side Runners 97
2 CPTC 79
3 Greater New York 65

Women Open
Place Team Points
1 CPTC 95
2 Greater New York 72
3 Moving Comfort NY 68

Men 40+
Place Team Points
1 West Side Runners 99
2 Taconic RR 73
3 Warren Street 68
4 CPTC 57
5 Polish Runners Club 42

Women 40+
Place Team Points
1 Moving Comfort NY 91
2 Greater New York 58
3 Taconic RR 57
4 West Side Runners 46
5 CPTC 36
6 New York Flyers 32

Men 50+
Place Team Points
1 Taconic RR 105
2 Greater New York 80
3 CPTC 54
4 Front Runners NY 47

Another Training Run
August 14, 2006

There's nother Nike training run tomorrow, when all of you will be at the CPTC workout. Right?. Well, in case some of you decide not to go up to the Columbia track, details are in the graphic below. Are we the only one to notice that splitting people training for the NYC Half-Marathon into uptown, midtown and downtown runners leaves out quite a larger percentage of New Yorkers training for the race? Let's see some love for the other boros here!

Not Everybody Loves A Parade
August 11, 2006

We suspect you've all heard about the New York City Police Department's proposed changes to the parade permit rules that would potentially require everyone on the street to have a parade permit. More precisely:

  • Any group of two or more cyclists or pedestrians traveling down a public street, who violate any traffic law, rule or regulation can be arrested for parading without a permit;
  • Every group of 20 or more cyclists must obtain a permit and approved route from the NYPD
  • Every group of 35 of more pedestrians must obtain a permit and approved route from the NYPD.

This appears to be part of the two-year-old fued between the police and the monthly Critical Mass ride, and while we think both sides are to blame for the increasingly chilish nature of that spat, these proposed rules are certainly an overreaction. They will also lead to either the cops arresting member of a group ride, team run, class trip or busload of annoying tourists taking up the entire block as we try to go to lunch, not to mention any couple that jaywalks; or, more likely, the cops arresting the members of Critical Mass rides any other similar groups, while ignoring everyone else, leading to a series of costly lawsuits about discrimination and harrassment.

Not surprisingly, various groups are trying to change the NYPD's mind. In the forefront, as usual, is Transportation Alternatives, who have a nice summary page that includes the text of the proposed changes and various people you can contact to complain. There will also be a rally at 6:00 pm on August 23 at 1 Police Plaza, which will conincide with the NYPD's public hearing regarding the new rules. For information on the rally, email Mark.Taylor@brooklaw.edu or DavidBRankin@gmail.com.

Updates
August 11, 2006

Updated results for the Masters Outdoor Track & Field Championships have been posted.

Tri-Out
August 11, 2006

Tomorrow's planned "underground" Iron-race has been canceled. The unofficial race was shut down after race-organizer Christophe Vandaele received a complaint from the organizers of the real Ironman triathlon. Vandaele was pushing his luck, since he apparently was planning to use the Ironman logo on t-shirts and trophies, but the company's response was a bit excessive:

"There's no question that they were trying to associate their event with the Ironman good will," said Frank Jakes, a lawyer with Johnson Pope Bokor Ruppel & Burns L.L.P. in Tampa, Fla., who represents the triathlon corporation. "Anybody can run and swim and bike any distance they want, but they cannot associate their race with our races, good will and brand. Just like you can have a 500-mile auto race, but you can't call it the Indy 500."

On Wednesday, Jakes sent Vandaele a cease-and-desist order, demanding that he not use "Iron race" or "Iron-distance" in his materials. (There are 40 Iron-branded races worldwide.) The order also demanded that he not hold the event or talk with members of the news media about the situation, and threatened to bar him from competing in triathlons staged by the World Triathlon Corporation.

So, to be clear, anybody can run and swim and bike any distance they want, unless that distance is the same as the Ironman. And while we're not experts on trademark law — or any kind of law for that matter — iron-distance appears to be the standard way of indicating a 2.4M-Swim/112M bike/26.2M run event that is not an officially licensed Ironman. Iron race, on the other hand, appears to be shorthand for an Ironman that is occasionally used by journalists, but never by any race oragnizers, licensed or not.

Regardless of the law, blocking the underground race is a dumb idea. Nobody would confuse this event with a real race, nobody is making any money off of it, and anyone who would participate in it is also going to spend a lot of money on WTC events for years to come. If the folks at the WTC were smart, they would have blocked the use of their logo and then given their blessing to the event. But instead of promoting the sport and showing some of that "Ironman good will" they brag about, they chose to be petty.

UPDATE: Chrisophe Vandaele writes: "I have never said or have made t-shirts and trophies with the Ironman logo. As an 8-time Ironman finisher, I would know better.

Training Run
August 9, 2006

There's a Nike training run tonight to prepare for the NYC Half-Marathon. Details in the image below, since we don't feel like retyping it all.

Poetry Reading
August 9, 2006

Harry Lichtenstein will be reciting his poetry as a featured poet at The Back Fence (Bleeker Street at the corner of Thompson Street) this Sunday, August 13, at 3:00 pm.

Best Times
August 9, 2006

We have lots of updates to the Best Times list coming, but we wanted to get this one out of the way first. When the Best 3000m/2-Mile list was split into two separate lists, Toby Tanser's second-place time of 8:27.4 (converted from 9:08.1 2-mile time) was rightly moved onto the 2-Mile list. However, a month before he ran that 2-mile race, Toby ran 8:35.0 for 3000m, which is still good for second on the 3000m list. That time is now back on the list.

Photos
August 8, 2006

Our new photo tool works, so we've posted some photos. These are from the Mini-Marathon, and were all taken by Stuart Alexander. We'll start working on the rest of our backlog as soon as we can.

Class Notes
August 8, 2006

Tyronne Culpepper writes:

I guess you can meet CPTCers anywhere. I met Jon Weilbaker, who just moved to Saratoga about a month ago. He stopped running with the club a year after I joined.

Masters Championships
August 7, 2006

Results from the Masters Outdoor Track & Field Championships have been posted. Here are the highlights, courtesy of Frank Morton:

The big news is that Sid again won the 800 and 1500. If you look at the results you'll see that Sid beat the second place runner by one one hundredth of a second. In the 1500 he had a more comfortable margin of 3.7 seconds. This was the fifth straight year that Sid has won the outdoor 1500 and the fourth straight year that he has won the 800.

Also, new member Darnell Gatling was going for the world record in the 400 hurdles (M45) but he fell after the last hurdle. He still got up and won the race.

Volunteers Needed for NYC Half Marathon and Chance to Win a Complimentary Guarenteed Entry to 2006 NYC Marathon
August 7, 2006

NYRR is looking for a large number of volunteers for it's inaugral New York City Half Marathon presented by NIKE on Sunday, August 27th.

For the first 15 volunteers from CPTC (or friends of CPTC), we will receive one complimentary guarenteed entry to this year's ING New York City Marathon. For each subsequent 10 volunteers we will receive an additional entry.

This is an excellent chance to give back to the sport of running as well as to help one (or more) of your teammates who wants to run the ING New York City Marathon.

Requirements for volunteers - Must be 18 years or older and report when and where NYRR determines. Volunteers cannot pre-pick the time, task, or placement on the course. Volunteers must arrive on time as scheduled and stay until dismissed. All tasks are on race day: Sunday, August 27th. The race starts at 7:00 AM, so volunteers may be required to show up as early as 5:00 AM (depending on the assignment). There is a strictly enforced three-hour time limit for the race, which means most tasks will be finished by noon. There is no guarantee that all of the CPTC's volunteers will be staffed at the same location or performing the same task.

If you are interested in volunteering please email Alan Ruben at aruben@montran.com by this Friday (August 11th).

Marathon slots will be determined by drawing lots. If you want to be included in the drawing for a complimentary guarenteed entry to the ING New York City Marathon you MUST volunteer for the NYC Half Marathon. You can increase your chances in the drawing by recruiting friends, relatives and other CPTC members to volunteer also.

Photos
August 4, 2006

Patrick Cowden has posted photos from the Run for Central Park on his website. Doesn't look like anybody got photos from the Run to Home Plate, so here's one we stole from the NYRR site, featuring representatives of two great teams that both wear orange and blue.

More Results
August 4, 2006

Results from the USATF National Club Track & Field Championships are now posted. Thanks again to Frank Morton for the incredibly detailed results.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes
August 1, 2006

You may have noticed some slight changes to the results page over the last few days. This is the first part of our long-awaited upgrade. For now, none of the changes we're making will affect how you view this site, though eventually we will be making a major upgrade that will make the site much more powerful. So why make these little changes? Because they make things a lot easier on our end, which means we can post the results more quickly.

Even better, it means that other people can help us post the results, and we're please to annouce Frank Morton as the first of those other people. Starting this week — with results from Tuesday Night at the Races #3 (6/28) and the New England Outdoor Track & Field Championships — and continuing, we hope, for a long time, Frank will be posting all the track results. Rather than flood his email, though, you can continue sending track results to us.

Next on the list — making it possible for other people to contribute to the journal, so y'all can have something to read during those days weeks where we're too swamped at work to post anything. And after that, maybe a photo tool. And one of these days we'll even change the design of the site. Or we'll spend endless hours trying to track down some minor error in our code that causes everything to malfunction until we finally snap and lock ourselves in our apartment watching Ice Station Zebra on a continuous loop. Either way, it should be interesting.

Mary V. Rosado Campaign Update
August 1, 2006

Mary V. Rosado is on the ballot on Democratic line for Civil Court Judge in the NYC primary to be held on September 12, 2006. She was also selected as one of three judicial candidates as "most highly qualified" by the New York County Democratic Party Independent Judicial Screening Panel on July 11, 2006.

Bruce Mandelbaum Acupunture
August 1, 2006

Training for the New York marathon or some other Fall race? Bruce Mandelbaum L.Ac., LMT, licensed acupuncturist and CPTC club member is available to help you to run better or heal an injury.

Acupuncture and/or Acupressure can help with:

Hamstring and Quad injury and pain
Achilles Tendinitis and Plantar Fasciitis
Runners Knee
Patella Tendinitis
ITB Syndrome
Peroneal Tendinitis
Low Back and Neck pain
Hip pain
Pre-race tune-up and post-race/workout muscle soreness.

Ideal time for pre-race tune-up? Around four days before a race.

Call 212-769-4295 for an appointment or any questions you may have.
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