1998 Central Park Track Club Annual Awards Dinner/Party

SOCIAL MIXER

  • Photo 1:  This party took place at the Universalist Church at the corner of Central Park West and 76th Street.  It wouldn't be appropriate to have religious icons towering over a scene of debauchery, so the wall was draped in retro-psychedelic style.  When Peter Allen saw this, he said, "So ... where are the drugs?"  We have cautioned people over and over again that our functions are typically attended by various law enforcement agents and such jokes are no laughing matter. 
  • Photo 2:  There is a lot of hard work involved in setting up the scene.  On each table, there are candles and decorations.  If you think this is trivial, just visualize how long it takes to light 100 candles.  Audrey Kingsley and John Gleason are among those whom you should thank.
  • Photo 3: Ellen Wallop is at the reception desk, checking in everybody.  In the good old days, Ellen was famous as a party animal.  Now she is in charge of the set-up team because she needs to get home early to relieve the babysitter.
  • Photo 4: Now, the question is: Did Erika Maple-Ogita Yamazaki pay full fare, or are there infant discounts?  Frank Handelman, Casey Yamazaki and Yumi Ogita offered no comments.
  • Photo 5: Here is the triathlete caucus on the sideline: Ramon Bermo, Ross Galitsky and Stephanie Gould.
  • Photo 6: John and Devon Sargent probably had no idea that they were being photographed.  Surprise!

DINNER

  • Photo 11: Stuart Calderwood is absolutely stunned at seeing Sid Howard, who has already accumulated half a dozen empty plates in his hand.  Apparently, the ability to consume massive amounts is not limited only to triathletes.  (note: We were just joking.  Sid was on the clean-up crew and he was just mopping up after others.  Now, where else in the world are you going to have a national/world champion/record holder clean up after you?)
  • Photo 12: This year, there was actually food left over.  Why?  Triathlete Scott Willett was out of town attending some trigeek coaches' conference, while triathlete J.P. Cheuvront was running (and winning) the Delaware Marathon the next day.  That was why everyone else has a chance.
  • Photo 13: What kind of cake is this?   Shall we guess from the appearance ... carrot cake?

AWARDS CEREMONY

  • Photo 21: John Kenney delivered the Presidential Address.  He gave a piece of good advice on how to balance running and family/career --- give it your best shot when you are still young; it is too late when you have three kids.
  • Photo 22: Here are a couple of attentive audience members: Eve Kaplan and Mary Beth Mulholland.
  • Photo 23: Tony Ruiz was appointed the road-running coach at the beginning of the year.  He selected the award winners among the road runners.  Tony has been a runner with the club for many years, so he told some jokes related to skin pigmentation from the early days.
  • Photo 24: Alan Ruben won the Best Male 40-49 award.  Whilst Alan did dominate the team (both Masters and Open), the even more remarkable accomplishments are his list of PR's (including going sub-2:30 at the Boston Marathon)..
  • Photo 25: Sarah Gross won the Best Female 40-49 award.  As Tony went through the list of accomplishments of the as-yet-unamed-athlete, Sarah still had no idea he was talking about her.  While Sarah probably did not think she had a great year, consideration must surely be given to her courage (that is, not having the word DNF in her reportoire, no matter the circumstances).
  • Photo 26: Alayne Adams was a co-winner in the Open Female Woman category.  Alayne would later also win the Female Rookie of the Year award, which was a genuine surprise to her since she has been running for many years.
  • Photo 27: Audrey Kingsley was the other co-winner of the Best Open Female category.  In Tony's words, "She was not a good runner when she first joined the club", but what impressed him was her continuous (and seemingly unstoppable) progress towards elite status.
  • Photo 28: Carol Tyler was the Most Improved Female Runner, with a list of race times that showed a remarkably consistent improvement this year.  Carol probably still has a lot left to move up, and she can look to Victor Osayi (not in picture), who was the Most Improved Male Runner for the second year in a row (although Tony would not recommend the 200m-400m-1 mile-5000m one-day meets).
  • Photo 29: Sid Howard, Rae Baymiller, Tony Ruiz and Alan Ruben
  • Photo 30: Sidney Howard and Brian Denman made the presentations and accolades for the track runners and sprinters.
  • Photo 31: Charlie Stark was the winner of the Sixth Man Award.  Even though only five people score for the team, the sixth and seventh men can make the whole team significantly better.  As Tony made a list of this as-yet-unnamed person's race performances this year, Charlie had no idea that he was the winner.  Then Tony said that this person ran 2:48 in the New York City Marathon.  "Wait, I ran that time and there was no one around me.   So he is talking about me!"
  • Photo 32: Jack Brennan was the Male Comeback Runner of The Year.  At 49 years old and almost totally written off by his buddies, he even led the team in races this year.  (When Tony cited that Jack had run a 1:26 half-marathon this year, a heckler in the rear (namely, Jack's buddy Fritz Mueller) yelled that it was a short course.)  Of course, Jack would not simply graciously accept the award and had to grab the microphone to make a speech, specifically about the skin pigmentation issue. 
  • Photo 33: A club tradition is for the coach to nominate his own team of the toughest competitors.  This year, the team consisted of Stacy Creamer, Peter Allen, Tom Hartshorne and Sal Allah (not in picture).
  • Photo 34: The Overall Most Valuable Person for the club this year is Rae Baymiller.  Her world record for Females 55-59 set at the Chicago Marathon and her other American records establishes her as a global power.  According to insider information, Rae has also won an USATF award just the day before.
  • Photo 35: The final award of the night was the Founders' Award, being the sixth one ever given out in the twenty-six year history of the club.  The award was not running-related, and was announced by Stacy Creamer.  From her mischievous smile in this photo, it is clear  that she considered this to be a major coup.
  • Photo 36: The Founders' Award was accepted by Roland Soong for the Central Park Track Club web site, in recognition of its contribution to internal communication as well as external presentation. The smiles on these three people (Roland Soong, Stacy Creamer and Sid Howard) are frozen stiff, because they are all waiting for the photographer Audrey Kingsley to work her magic.  When the award recepient was interviewed afterwards, he said that he could not claim full credit for the web site because he had lots of help from many others.  Then he added, "I had no idea that this was going to happen.  This was obviously a conspiracy against me on a grand scale.  These people will be sorry that they ever did this to me.   I will make them feel the full force of the Global Surveillance System (TM)!"

DANCING

  • Photo 41: The first people to hit the dance floor were Stuart Calderwood and Stacy Creamer.   We would have been surprised if anyone else could beat them to it.
  • Photo 42: Gordon Bakoulis and Alan Ruben can do a dance number too.
  • Photo 43: Tyronne Culpepper, Stuart Calderwood, Alayne Adams, Margaret Nolan, Frank Handelman ...
  • Missing photo: Tony Ruiz getting down on the dance floor ... that animal!  And our battery was dead right at that moment!

OUR WORST NIGHTMARE

  • Photo 51: When our cameraman looked into his camera, he saw another cameraperson, Mary Ellen Howe ... EEK!

Technical note: This event took place inside a dimly lit hall.  Our digital camera offered us two choices (that is, after all, the definition of digital): (1) use the flashbulb so that everyone shows up as albinos with red eyes, or (2) use the existing lighting and adjust for brightness/contrast afterwards.  We chose the second option, because we were sure that no one wants to look like 'albinos with red eyes.'

LIST OF AWARD WINNERS

  • Overall Road MVP: Rae Baymiller
  • Overall Track MVP: Ray Blackwell
  • Best Open Male Runner: Carmine Petracca
  • Best Open Female Runners: Alayne Adams, Audrey Kingsley
  • Best 40-49 Male Road Runner: Alan Ruben
  • Best 40-49 Female Road Runner: Sarah Gross
  • Best 40-49 Male Track Runner: Val Barnwell
  • Best 50+ Male Runner: Alan Turner
  • Best 50+ Female Runner: Irene Jackson
  • Male Rookie of the Year: Eric Aldrich
  • Female Rookie of the Year: Alayne Adams
  • Most Improved Male Runner: Victor Osayi
  • Most Improved Female Runner: Carol Tyler
  • Comeback Male Runner: Jack Brennan
  • Comeback Female Runner: Yumi Ogita
  • Sixth Man Award: Charlie Stark
  • The Coach's Pick of the Toughest Competitors (= C.P.T.C.): Stacy Creamer, Peter Allen, Tom Hartshorne, Sal Allah
  • Outstanding performances of the year
    - Alan Ruben, 2:29:54PR at the Boston Marathon
    - Frank Schiro, Penn Relays 4x400m
    - Rae Baymiller, 2:52:14 WR at the Chicago Marathon
  • The Founders' Award: The Central Park Track Club web site

Note: The awards were created by Harry Nasse.

The entire event would not have been possible without the posses of volunteers.   We don't have the entire list, but we would especially like to point out that Mary Rosado flew in earlier in the day from an out-of-town trip just so she can come to work in the clean-up crew.  That is 'above and beyond' anything and everything.

SPATIOTEMPORAL DISLOCATION

Some of us have gone to races at the wrong time and/or wrong locations (and we won't name names).  But, as Albert Einstein said, everything is relative, generally speaking, and when you hear about this special case, you won't feel too bad about yourself:

A certain individual was responsible for designing the invitation to the Annual Awards Dinner.  On the card, he relocated the Universalist Church from 76th Street to 72nd Street.

The same individual managed to show up at the right place initially.   Unfortunately, he came on Friday instead of Saturday.  Obviously, there was not a CPTC soul anywhere inside the church.

We are happy to report that there was a happy ending.  This individual was able to recognize the warp in the four-dimensional space-time manifold, and redirected himself to the correct coordinates.

  Walrus Internet