Lamisil Twosome Races

PRE-RACE ACTIVITIES

Photo 1: Carsten Strandlod heads towards the starting line, right into the web camera.
Photo 2: Alan Bautista and Lucy White decided to run this race on the day before, and therefore made a significant contribution towards the NYRRC bank account. But it was all worthwhile because they got into a photo opportunity with Stacy Creamer. The greater significance of this picture is that Stacy was Alan's partner last year and Lucy is Alan's partner this year.
Photo 3: Here is the happiest boy in the world: Joey Ruben.
Photo 4: Joey's mom (Gordon Bakoulis) and dad (Alan Ruben) are both in the 10K race, so who's going to look after him? The pre-designated babysitter (Nathan Klejman) is nowhere in sight. No problem! Another new dad, Casey Yamazaki, steps up to the plate, receiving final instructions from mom.
Photo 5: The web camera catches up to Ramon Bermo, who is shaking his head in disbelief. Audrey Kingsley finds it amusing. These two were not racing this day. In Audrey's case, she ran the Boston Marathon five days ago. In Ramon's case, he ran in Boston five days ago. (Please note that the small difference in phrasing is highly significant).

STARTING LINE

Photo 6: Carmine Petracca goes through his warm-up sprints. He has great expectations for this race.
Photo 7: Carmine Petracca insists that the kids (Giuseppe and Marianna) get their photo opportunities too. Hey, Carmine, but they have not paid their membership dues yet (just kidding!).
Photo 8: The husband-and-wife team of Gordon Bakoulis and Alan Ruben are being interviewed for television. The media people must be prescient, because this duo turned out to be the winning twosome, who were also the overall female and male winners respectively.
Photo 9: At the starting line, here are the key players who will dominate the race: Jaime Palacios (2nd overall male), Carmine Petracca (3rd overall male), Alan Ruben (1st overall male) and Gordon Bakoulis (1st overall female).
Photo 10: Ed Coplon and Dan Hamner watch the start of the 10K race.
Photo 41: At the starting line for the 2 Mile race, we have Alan Bautista (in the orange/blue Central Park Track Club uniform) and Lucy White (in dark blue and with sunglasses). Lucy is also known as "Miss Incognito" because she usually runs out of uniform.

2 MILE RACE

Photo 42: Alan Bautista puts together a strong finish. He is trying to run away from his demon, namely his former partner Stacy Creamer, who would finished just seconds behind.
Photo 43: Lucy White ran the first mile in 6:10 and knew immediately that she would be in trouble. Just a couple of weeks ago, she went all out on the track for a 6:09 mile. So her second mile in this race was somewhat hellish.
Photo 44: This photo shows 8-year-old Giuseppe Petracca finishing in just over 13:36, right after former Central Park Track Club president Ed Coplon.
Photo 46: Alan Bautista, Audrey Kingsley, Lucy White and Ramon Bermo are doing the post-mortem race analyses. Audrey says to Lucy, "You look great!" Lucy says incredulously, "Me? Today? Out there?"
Photo 47: Stacy Creamer is complaining vociferously to Ramon Bermo about the little U-turn at near E66th Street to make up for additional distance.
Photo 48: This is a nice photo of Maureen Dooley-Emeleh.
Photo 49: Janice Lyons and Edwin Fajardo stopped in the finish chute for a photo, while the line backs up behind them.

10K RACE

Photo 45 (Subtitle: "Two Men and a Baby"): While mom and dad are tearing up the roads, Joey Ruben is in good hands with Nathan Klejman and Casey Yamazaki near the finish line. Joey shows no hint of any separation anxiety whatsoever. When the leaders reached the half-way mark, the Master of Ceremony announced over the PA system that the leaders were "Jaime Palacios and Alan Ruben, 40 plus." Alan was also said to have "just ran the Boston Marathon five days ago in 2 hours 27 minutes." Alan's time was actually 2:29:54, but Alan said 2:27 was close enough --- especially since the error occurred in the right direction.
Photo 51: With less than 100m to go, the race leader is Alan Ruben, with no one else in sight behind him. Upon information and belief, this is Alan Ruben's first win inside Central Park (note: we know that he won a 50K in Central Park once before but, as Tony Ruiz said, that belongs to another realm of human experience), although he certainly did not plan it this way. Prior to the race, he said: "I would not recommend this for anyone, just five days after running a marathon. DO NOT TRY THIS IN YOUR OWN HOME!" However, as Audrey Kingsley said, "I would have been disappointed if Alan Ruben were not here today." He did this twosome race to be with his wife, and he went out at his normal pace. Two-thirds of the way into the race, when spectator teammate Mel Washington shouted to him that he had a 100 meter lead, Alan was flabbergasted. The rest was history. To repeat his admonition, "DO NOT TRY THIS IN YOUR OWN HOME!"
Photo 52: Carmine Petracca heads for the finish for third place overall, while Ramon Bermo cheers him on. Forza, Carmine!
Photo 53: Gordon Bakoulis finishes as the first woman overall (in a time of 35:25!). There were only six men ahead of her. Could Alan Ruben-Gordon Bakoulis be the first combined husband-and-wife winning team?
Photo 54: Jeff Johnson compliments Stacy Creamer about her blue (read: not orange) outfit. Our team representative Stacy got terribly defensive about being out of team uniform, and proceeded to explain the circumstances. At the end of her long explanation, Jeff quipped, "Stacy, it's okay. I only wanted to say that you look great in it! Really!"
Photo 55: Yes, there were two people on the team who could beat Jack Brennan on this day. Phew! Our dignity has been preserved for once.
Photo 56: Carsten Strandlod could not believe his eyes at the sight the cheering section screaming for him. He wants to tell everybody that he set a PR (39:00) today.
Photo 57: Here is a Central Park Track Club legend: Rae Baymiller! She jogged an easy 39:21, at age 54.
Photo 58: Here is the Central Park Track Club cheering squad. Are we talking about focussed intensity? channeling of collective energy? or what?
Photo 59: Here are spectators Ramon Bermo and Audrey Kingsley. Audrey ran the Boston Marathon five days ago, but then so did the overall male finisher of this race, Alan Ruben (40+) as well as the third place female finisher, Gillian Horowitz (another 40+). So someone on the team was ragging Audrey about her laziness, to the point that Audrey said, "All this pressure! Hey, I think I am going to join the New York Flyers instead!" Listen, Audrey, the guy who was hassling you went to school in Australia and is therefore incapable of rational thinking --- so just ignore him and stick to the program!

POST-RACE ACTIVITIES

Photo 61: Parenting class: Yumi Ogita with Erika Maple-Ogita Yamazaki and Casey Yamazaki with Joey Ruben.
Photo 62: Doug Kabbash describes himself as "the guy who does not show up at workouts." He promises to reform, though, as his companion smiles. Show me, I am from Missouri. (Postscript: On the ensuing Tuesday, Doug made his season debut at the outdoor track. A man of his word! Unfortunately, we have not seen him since ... )
Photo 63: Carmine Petracca has a dour look because this was one of his worst 10K efforts. We are not sympathetic about his plight, because we know that many people (e.g. Luca Trovato) would kill to be able to run anywhere near that kind of time (34:58).
Photo 64: Carmine Petracca is explaining to his friend Luca Trovato (not shown in photo) just what went wrong, while the kids Giuseppe and Marianna listen. Luca's own incisive analysis was, "Not enough pasta last night, huh?"
Photo 65: Aubin Sullivan is hoping that Alan Ruben would reveal the magic secret to his success. Let us guess ... could it be "Practice! Practice! Practice!"?
Photo 66: Dan Hamner and Casey Yamazaki are engaged in deep conversation.
Photo 67: Is Rae Baymiller giving Yumi Ogita parenting advice?
Photo 68: This was a beautiful spring day in the park, and not everybody is paying attention to the race. Here are two who definitely were not: Janice Lyons and Edwin Fajardo.
Photo 69: Just in case you could not tell what Janice and Edwin were doing, here is a close-up. When Edwin previewed this photo, he said, "You little sneak!" The web site guy had the pleasure for meeting Janice for the first time. He was at a disadvantage, though, because she said, "I have heard about you, even though I did not know what you look like!"
Photo 70: For the grand finale, we have the obligatory picture of a couple of people caught taking their clothes off in flagrante.

RACE COVERAGE ON "RUNNING & RACING", ESPN

Photo 80: The TV producer must be prescient because Gordon Bakoulis and Alan Ruben were interviewed before the race. We are so glad that Alan did not wear his other club singlet with the tattered letters.
Photo 81: At the starting line were Jaime Palacios, Carmine Petracca, Gordon Bakoulis and Alan Ruben.
Photo 82: Leading the charge was Alan Ruben. Actually, he started out the race fairly consevatively, and the initial race leader was in fact ...
Photo 83: ... Carmine Petracca! Encouraged by the television camera, he started out fast and paid for it later. It was all worthwhile as he got major air time, and even had his name on a tv banner. Please also note how he threw a body block between the camera and Jaime Palacios.
Photo 84: Somewhere way, way back lurked Alan Ruben.
Photo 85: Inexorably, Alan Ruben passed Carmine Petracca first around the halfway mark.
Photo 86: Inexorably, Alan Ruben passed Jaime Palacios next. The amazing thing is that Alan looked like he was just jogging.
Photo 89: By East 90th Street, Alan Ruben was ahead all by himself.
Photo 87: Alan Ruben raised his arms in triumph.
Photo 88: Gordon Bakoulis lowered her arms in triumph.