PRE-RACE ACTIVITIES

• Photo 1: Guenter Erich shows up in a vintage singlet, which is so old that you won't even find one in our History of the Club Uniform.  That is why he is buying a new singlet from John Kenney.  For those who don't know, Guenter's name figures prominently in the history of the Metropolitan 50 Miler and he was also a member of that famous winning team at the London-to-Brighton double marathon.

• Photo 2: Karel Matousek does some leg stretching exercise, probably to relieve the cramps from his long plane ride from Prague.  When Monica Bonamego saw him, she said, "Hi, Karel.  I heard that you were in town."  Karel said (in a definite tone of displeasure), "From whom?  Did you read that on the web site!?"  The fact is that we did not mention his presence ... yet.  However, given his tone, we can offer this additional morsel of information --- something wonderful is about to happen to him; if you see him, please make sure to ask him personally. 

• Photo 3: Here is the Columbia University contingent --- Alex Peterhansl and David Birchfield.  David said, "I am more and more impressed by your digital camera."  We clarified with him that he did not mean the photos of himself nor the dreaded annotations, just the camera itself.

• Photo 4: When coach Tony Ruiz saw Bola Awofeso, he said, "Are you racing today?  No?  What's your excuse?  Just because you press a few buttons on your watch at the Tuesday workouts does not get you off, you know."  Well, for the record, Bola is one of our photographers today and he pressed a few buttons on our camera today.

• Photo 5: Juana Bermo found herself in charge of the Allen boys, while their dad and mom raced.

• Photo 6: This is Julie Geisler, who is running for the NYRRC Board of Directors.  When we asked for permission to take her photo, she said, "Let me take off my long sleeve shirt because I don't want to appear to represent only the New York Flyers."  Well, Julie, it is quite okay, as some of our best friends are NYF'ers.  We would like to take this opportunity to remind you to vote for Julie ...

1 MILE MARK

• Photo 11: Leading the race, running in front of the pace car, was none other than our Betty Marolla.  She asked, "You don't think I am in this race, do you?"

• Photo 12: Coming through in the second pack was Jonathan Pillow, with orange singlet and orange(?) hair.

• Photo 13: Stuart Calderwood stays close to teammate Alan Ruben.

• Photo 14: After completing Ironman USA at Lake Placid last Sunday, Ramon Bermo still had energy to wave to the photographer in this race.  Behind him are Brian Marchese (in orange) and Tom Hartshorne.

• Photo 15: Arthur Cooke wears his brand new club singlet today.

• Photo 16: Our digital camera uses an auto focus technology, but the camera is not smart enough to know which one of many runners we are interested in.  It gets worse when there are multiple people that we want in the same shot.  The happy person in the foreground is Eve Kaplan, right behind her is Kim Mannen but the camera has its own mind and keyed on Rhonda Allen (in grey) instead.

• Photo 17: Carol Tyler and Margaret Nolan (in grey)

• Photo 18: David Blackstone, with Lynn Blackstone in the far background

• Photo 19: Lynn Blackstone in an uphill battle.

4.9 MILES

• Photo 51: Jonathan Pillow's race is not over yet, as he would unleash a ferocious kick to nail the guy in front of him (not even in view in this photo).

• Photo 52: Alan Ruben is in the middle of a mass finish, but none of the others is an age group rival.  As usual, Alan was the first Master finisher.  In addition, he set a PR of 26:09.  Last year, in this same race, he set a PR of 26:24.  This year, he thought that he would be 'close' to his PR time.  "However, these days 'close' means one or two seconds," he said.  "I did not expect to break it by 15 seconds."

• Photo 53: Peter Allen and Erik Goetze finished close together.

• Photo 54: Hank Berkowitz goes into overdrive.

• Photo 55: Tony Ruiz said, "All in all, it was a satisfying day.  Late in the race, I suddenly saw Steve Schallenkamp next to me.  I turned to him and said, 'The Black Prince?  Ha!'  And I sprinted to put him away.  Since I was eleventh man on the team, it means that ten more of our guys kicked his butt!  I gotta let him know that."

• Photo 56: Victor Osayi gave an exceptional performance to propel the Masters team to a first place win.  Behind him, Ramon Bermo gave a credible performance, considering that he completed the Ironman USA triathlon last Sunday.

• Photo 57: Was Gordon Streeter drenched in the rain or his sweat?

• Photo 58: Having been away for three months, Alayne Adams was trying to remember what running was.

• Photo 59: Tyronne Culpepper is either cutting across the line or else he has very tall legs (and he does).  Right behind him is the remarkably resilient Stacy Creamer, out of serious running for many weeks due to Achilles tendonitis but setting yet another PR today.  Her recap was, "Around East 90th Street, a tall woman passed me very quickly.  I thought there was no way for me to keep up with her.  Once she passed me, she slowed down.  So I took off after her, passed her and Jeanne Pare as well.  It hurt a lot, but I did it."

• Photo 61: This picture of Alex Peterhansl shows that the ground was pretty wet from the drizzling rain.  Rain is not to everyone's taste, but Alan ("I'm from the U.K., where it rains all of the time") Ruben and Stacy ("I've been doing deep water running and I'm going to do the Central Park Triathlon tomorrow") Creamer set PRs today.

• Photo 62: David Birchfield in a mob finish.

• Photo 63: Sarah Gross was our first master woman.

• Photo 64: Kim Mannen in front, Max Schindler right behind.  Max had no idea that he finished first in his age group, and he found out only after someone told him at the ensuing Tuesday workout.  Yes, Max, you are faster than you want to believe ...

• Photo 65: Terri Sonenclar, first time racing after maternity leave.

• Photo 66: Frank Schneiger has that sprinter's gait.

POST-RACE ACTIVITIES

• Photo 71: One week after the Ironman USA ordeal, Julie Denney can finally smile about it to Bola Awofeso.  The verdict for her at that time was 'withdrawn upon medical advice.'

• Photo 72: Joey Ruben has to be buckled in this seat, since his dad is known to go very fast.

• Photo 73: This is the legendary Sheldon Karlin, otherwise known as the most obscure of the New York City Marathon winners.  He ran 28:52 today; as Frank Handelman once said, this man is THE NATURAL.

• Photo 74: The highlight was the team photo session.  With this big mob, it was necessary to organize them into different rows.  Someone yelled, "Will all the beautiful people step up front, and all the ugly people go to the back, please!?"  How rude!  When Margaret Nolan was asked to step up front, she said that she did not have the orange color on.  Our gentleman Bola Awofeso immediately took his top off and offered it to her, giving him a chance to showcase his awesome body to collective whistling.

• Photo 75: Obviously, multiple photos should be taken for insurance.  Sure enough, on the first shot, people are looking at one photographer or the other.  Look also at how Thomas Pennell prefers to stand apart from everyone else.

• Photo 76: So now we move photographer Bola Awofeso into the photo and Thomas Pennell into the fold, and we are almost in business.

• Photo 77: To complete the picture (sorry for the bad metaphor), we threw the remaining photographer into the photo and conscripted Juana Bermo to take the photo.  For posterity, we ought to identify the individuals present on this occasion.  As best as we can tell, here is the line-up (please send additions and corrections to rolandsoong@centralparktc.org ):

Top Row: Hank Berkowitz, Thomas Pennell, Paul Stuart-Smith, Theo Spilka, John Kenney, Erik Goetze, Arthur Cooke, Charles Allard, Craig Chilton, Stacy Creamer, Paul Sommerstein, Stuart Calderwood, Mark Gumbiner, Alayne Adams, Richie Stewart, Aubin Sullivan, Ramon Bermo, Odin Townley, Karel Matousek, Lynn Blackstone, David Birchfield, ?, Carole Tyler, Ross Galitsky, Alex Peterhansl

Middle row: (left) Victor Osayi, Gordon Streeter, Rhonda Allen, Peter Allen; (right) David Blackstone, ?

Bottom row: Tom Hartshorne, Sandra Olivo, Sylvie Kimché, Mary Messite, Eve Kaplan, Tyronne Culpepper, Kim Mannen, J.R. Mojica, Margaret Nolan, Julie Denney, Sarah Gross, Tony Ruiz, Roland Soong, Bola Awofeso

NEW YORK RUNNER (November/December 1999)

• Photo 95:  After the race, the NYRRC has a photographer roaming around to do group photos.  But we were gone before he got around.  So instead three representatives were drafted: Eve Kaplan, Kim Mannen and Tyronne Culpepper.  Somewhere among these three are a professional model, an actress, a Texan, a teacher, an advertising agency flack, a firefighter, an ultramarathoner, a half-miler, a roller hockey player, a singer and a boxer.  What a representative sample of our members!

RUNNING NEW  YORK

From this television program shown periodically on the cable channel MSG, we captured these screens.

• Movie 81: Victor Osayi was selected as the model for the Central Park Track Club uniform.

• Movie 82: Here is the pained look of Eve Kaplan in the finishing chute.

POSTSCRIPT

Normally, we do not get sopped with sentimentality.  On the Monday after the race, we had over 200 visitors to our web site for an all-time high, which we believe to comprise mainly of those present, their friends, their relatives and others.  This has everything to do with the fact that this race was one of our best days ever, even though the softball game afterwards  had to be cancelled due to the rain.  Our team spirit was fantastic.  We had runners whom we have not seen for a long time, or ever met.  This is what it is all about ...