Long Distance Archives - 2000

(Workout of 12/28/2000)

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION

• Warmup jog eastwards through the 72nd Street transverse, turn north up Cat Hill, turn left to go across the Delacorte Oval to emerge at West Drive by the Delacorte Theater, head south to the Daniel Webster statue to complete the one mile warmup.  First pickup in good sprint form goes from West 72nd Street uphill to Tavern on the Green.  Recover to the 'S' sign and run the Stuart mile at moderate pace to finish at East 72nd Street.  Recover to the boat house.  Run up Cat Hill in good sprint form to reach the top and then some more on the left right by the statue of the King of Poland.  Recover across Delacorte Oval to emerge at West Drive by the Delacorte Theater.  Head south to the Daniel Webster statue at moderate pace to complete the 2.7 mile loop.  Now repeat the same 2.7 mile loop.  The total distance of the workout is 2 x 2.7 miles + 1 mile = 6.4 miles.

FIELD NOTES:

• Twenty degrees, with wind gusts from the northwest (read: Canada).  Nineteen people present at the start.  We got beat in numbers by the temperature.  This is surely the saddest night of the year ... NOT!
• Why do people want to come out and run on this cold night?  Here is one perspective: "I want to see Jerome O'Shaughnessy (or Alan Ruben) in shorts tonight" which would end up in disappointment as the two named persons did not show.  Someone else explained, "It's not cold enough tonight for Jerome."  The historian puts this in perspective, "Ten years ago, on a night like this, Jeff Johnson would have showed up topless ..."
• How do you stay warm if you arrive early?  The easy answer is, "Why show up at all?"  But if you are Rob Zand, you would be running little loops around the statue.  To get the workout going, the group had to form a human blockade to stop him.
• By Cat Hill, our group acquired the late arriving Audrey Kingsley, so at least we tied the temperature.  Why was she late?  Here is one perspective, "You want to get your own personal write-up in the workout description!"  In her defense, since she did not make the final cut for the TOP 10 FAVORITE PHOTOS OF THE YEAR, she probably appreciates any mentions that she can get.
• For those of you who read the Tuesday workout notes, you would know that Stuart Calderwood was going to be the substitute coach tonight.  When Stuart showed up, he looked around and said, "Fewer than ten people!  This is the worst attendance record for the year!"  Not to fear, because we are dealing with a bunch of people who have been conditioned to show up late.  Indeed people kept coming.
• Early on, one suggestion was that the early warning note posted on the website "scared people away because they did not want to be tortured by Stuart."  That is quite unfair, because a Stuart Calderwood workout is always revelatory.  To wit, everybody would hate to think that they were not there as eyewitnesses and have to read the witless description on the website.  Oh, by the way, even if you were AWOL, you can still catch up on the Cultural Lesson of the Day at Famous Saying #1210.
• As a reminder, you better bring a photo for your Armory ID if you have not already done so.  They won't let you in otherwise, and it would be a very sad start for the year to schlepp all the away up there just to be turned away at the door.

(REPORT ON 12/26/2001 WORKOUT)

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• 3 x (200m, 50m jog)

• 8 x (600m, 200m jog)

FIELD NOTES:

• This is Boxing Day, the traditional Canadian holiday (you know, they're always behind ...).  There were only eighteen people at the workout.  It is okay to take some time off, you know.  Really.  Especially given how cold it was on Christmas Day ...

• Is your coach Tony Ruiz training hard to get ready for his Masters debut?  You better believe it.  He said, "I even went out running last night.  With the windchill, it must have been twenty degrees below zero.  And I did not have any headwear.  It was unbelievable."  To which Rob Zand was quite unsympathetic, since it had been even colder in Cleveland ...

• When there are fewer than the normal number, there were in fact just three groups.  Arthur Cooke took a look at the group compositions and opted to run with the slowest group.  Afterwards, he held reception at the end of the hall to talk to all the people who independently told him that he should have been running with the next group.  It would be hard for him not to get the message ...

• Your coach took a look at Isaya Okwiya standing near our group and said, "You are going to be our timer, won't you?  We don't have anyone else."  That is called 'an offer that cannot be refused.'

• Your coach took a look at Stuart Calderwood and said, "There will be a workout on Thursday in the park too.  Stuart, are you going to be there?"  Upon getting an affirmative answer, your coach said, "Stuart is going to be  your coach on Thursday, even though he just found out right at this moment."  That really does give us a lot to look forward to ... what surprise awaits us?

(Workout of 12/21/2000)

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION

• This is an out-and-back tempo run.  The course is north to West 102nd Street, cross the transverse, south down the east side to Cleopatra's Needle and then back.  The 'back' portion should be faster than the 'out' portion --- for those who have never heard of that, this means 'negative split.'  The total distance of the workout is 6.5 miles.

FIELD NOTES:

• Thirty-four people showed up at the workout today.  There was a visitor all the way from Arizona (John Prather), finding us over the Internet.  We apologise that the lighting does not do this park justice at this time of the year.  As a reminder to all our readers (team members and others), our road workouts are open to all comers (especially if they speak French).
• When coach Tony Ruiz did not materialize, Audrey Kingsley was called to the front and made this address: "Your coach isn't here now.  Since I am seventeenth in command, it looks like as if I might have to give the workout.  (aside:  John Kenney had better show up fast.)  Today, we're going to do the hill workout.  (crowd hisses).  So we are going to run north ... oh, Stuart (Calderwood) is here.  He can take over."  Stuart: "Take over what?  Tony has just arrived."  After Tony gives out the real workout, he added, "I was thinking about giving the hill workout, but I thought it was too cold tonight for that."  After Tony said that, Audrey added, "After I gave the hill workout, I thought it may be too cold tonight for that."
• Stacy Creamer continues to ask if anyone has picked up her favorite Nike racing flats left behind at the Armory after the Tuesday workout.  As other owners of these made-for-Japan Nike Air Streak Lite shoes (e.g. Toby Tanser and Roland Soong) will attest, these racing flats are the best shoes ever, and they don't make them anymore.  So please e-mail escream@aol.com if you have any info.
• Charging out in front of the workout were Dave Howard and Steve Eick?  What was the hurry?  Maybe they knew that the strong alpha-male group of Rob Zand, Richie Borrero, Stuart Calderwood and Alan Ruben would be coming up soon.
• New York City track and field athletes and friends are invited to the dinner on Friday, December 22nd, at Kate's Corner, Avenue B & 4th Street (#58).  Call Frank Schiro at (212) 260-3141 for info.
• Next week is the week between Christmas and New Year's Day.  All workouts will take place as usual --- Tuesday at the Armory and Thursday in the park.  Notice that we did not say 'Tuesday at the track' because some of you may show up at East River Park instead!

(REPORT ON 12/19/2000 WORKOUT)

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• 3 x (200m, 50m jog)

• 1 mile, 600m recovery

• 1 mile, 600m, recovery

• 1000m, 400m recovery

• 3 x (300m, 100m recovery)

FIELD NOTES:

• 26 people at the workout today.  First time at the indoor track workout was Rob Zand.

• The first mile of the workout should be done at racing pace for a 4 miler.  The second mile of the workout is the key item, to be done at 5K racing pace.  The next 1000m should be at the same 5K race pace, but it is a lot easier now.  The last 300m's are for your finishing speed (which should not be faster than Michael Johnson).

• Over the weekend, the women's team of Stacy Creamer, Kellie Quinones and Irene Jackson-Schon won the Holiday Classic race in the rain storm in the park.  Please note that the average age of this winning team is 44 years old.  But this is still not the oldest winning team yet, as we definitely remembered that a 50-year-old-average team with Fritz Mueller once won the 20 miler over a 19-year-old-average team from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

• Brian Barry said, "Someone told me last week that world record marathoner Khalid Khannouchi was training in the buildling . I thought that they were joking, but it was true.  Is he here today?"  Sorry, better luck next time.

• The Frenchman from the other team asked, "Why are you wearing a hat?  Is the sun too strong inside the building at night?"  Answer: "This is the anti-photographer device."

• Even though next week is the week between Christmas and New Year's Day, our workouts will continue --- Tuesday at the Armory and Thursday in the park.  It is okay for people to skip the workouts this week.  Really, we mean it ...

(Workout of 12/14/2000)

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION

• The purpose of this workout is to hone your finishing kick.  "What kick?" is undoubtedly your first reaction.  
• Therefore, the first order of business was a set of sprint drills at the the Literary Walk just in front of the Bandshell.  Each set of drills consist of going out and back for about 30 meters, covering the 'butt kick', 'quick little steps', 'high knee lifts', 'bounds', etc.  After doing the individual drills, the big test is 'How do you put all the components together at the same time?'  We are happy to report nobody fell over ...
• The road workout itself began at the corner of East 72nd Street and consists of an out-and-back run to West 102nd Street and back, and then completing the lower loop for a total of 5.7 miles excluding the speed drills.  Within the road workout, there are three one-mile pickups: East 72nd to East 90th, West 102nd to West 90th, East 72nd to Tavern On The Green.  Each of the one-mile pickup is divided into four quarters, with these pace --- easy, moderate, fast and then using your newly acquired kick.

FIELD NOTES:

• Twenty-five people showed up today.  Twenty-four of them were astonished by this workout.  Overheard from a veteran to a newcomer: "I've been with this club for twelve years, and this is the first time something like this has happened.  Please do not regard this as the norm."  By the way, you can blame it all on Stuart Calderwood ...
• Postscript:  After the workout, at least six people went up to Stuart Calderwood and personally thanked him for the drills.  Perhaps we should be doing more of this ... ?

MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE ARMORY

Spotted on the GPS system was Titanium Tanser training with Khalid Khannouchi on Thursday at the Armory.  In 1997 they trained together on the track in Albuquerque.  Running a set of 1000's + 200's Khalid wacked Toby on the longer stuff but Titanium held his own on the 200's.  Khalid explains with a wry smile, "It is Ramadan, I am weak."

(REPORT ON 12/12/2000 WORKOUT)

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• 3 x (200m, 50m jog)

• 1200m, 400m jog

• 800m, 200m jog

• 400m, 200m jog

• 400m, 200m jog

• 800m, 400m jog

• 1200m

FIELD NOTES:

• 25 people at the workout today.  Season debut for David Pullman, Stephanie Gould, Audrey Kingsley and Ana Echeverri, among others.  Ana's parting words today were, "I'll be back!"  And for some of those for whom this was their second time on this track, you're all looking a lot smoother ...

• Whereas there was an artic blast coming through the windows last week, the place was hotter than an oven this week.  Can we settle for something in between?

• In going over the weekend's race results, the coach read off the times: "Audrey Kingsley --- 40:10.  Was that a PR?"  The answer was quickly supplied by Stuart Calderwood: "No!  39:22."  This caused Audrey to say, "Now I know that at least somebody cared ..."  That is, apart from her extended family members who are quite versed in using Google.com to search for her famous sayings.

• In case you weren't there and/or didn't realize, world marathon record holder Khalid Khannouchi was training in the late session.

• This Saturday is the annual club awards party.  If you can do so at all, could you please come down a couple of hours earlier to help decorate the place?  This is an EMERGENCY appeal!!!

(Workout of 12/7/2000)

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION

• This is an out-and-back workout.  Start from the Daniel Webster statue, head north all the way around the northern hills and come back down the east side to E90th Street.  Turn around and re-trace your route.  Where are the pickups?  Whenever you are going uphill, of course.  The total distance of the workout is 7.5 miles.

FIELD NOTES:

• This is just two days before the final scoring race of the year, the Joe Kleinerman 10K.  There were 26 people present at the workout.  
• As for the significance of this race, Stuart Calderwood's analysis indicated that it is highly unlikely that our positions in the various divisions will change.  In the case of our Masters Men, we have an 8 point lead and we need to finish no worse than sixth in order to claim first place.
• This day was the first workout for Shelley Farmer after the New York City Marathon.   She has a piece of good news.  If you recall, she was seventh at the USAT National Age Group Championships earlier this year, and just missed qualifying as a US representative to the World Championships.  Although there will be another race for another six slots, she has just been notified that one of the previous six qualifiers will be in the next age group when the World Championships come and so Shelley is now on the team.  So maybe she can concentrate on Boston now ... ?
• Since there were still cars in the park, the bicyclists were --- it must be shocking to learn --- racing in the bicycle paths.  So please stay to the runner's lane on the inside of the road.  In addition to menaces on wheels, we would also urge you to pay attention to menacing runners.  On this evening, our membership secretary got into a shuffling match with some runner who wouldn't yield the right of way simply because he speaks with a French accent.  We tried calling for police assistance, but they must have been too busy enforcing the public urination ordinance.  This was not the first time that this confrontation occurred, although the last time the other party menaced our membership secretary from a bike.
• The preceding incidence was also witnessed by two non-runners running nearby --- Ross Galitsky and Aubin Sullivan.  When asked if they had signed up for the indoor track season, both gave rather hysterical responses as if this was the funniest thing that they have ever heard.
• Craig Chilton asked, "How come our web page reverted to the page on Thanksgiving  --- you know, the one with John Kenney and Sylvie Kimché on the cover photo?"  How come, indeed?  In fact, we couldn't produce that page for you even if we wanted to since our pages are continuously updated and replaced and the preceding ones are not preserved.   Actually, if we could go back to that day, we would have dumped our World Com stocks ...
• For those who don't know, one of the 'new' faces today was Joe Voyticky who ran with us the mid-1990's, having led our New York City Marathon to a second-place finish in 1994.  That year, our leaders in the marathon were Joe Voyticky (2:34:20 PR), Fred Schuler (2:35:58, moving on to Chicago later), Peter Allen (2:37:49, and then again 2:38:00 in year 2000), Andreas Nolte (2:38:11, moving on to Vermont later), and the 37-year-old Alan Ruben (2:39:11, moving on to become faster).  Today, Joe said, "I am not going to lead the team at the marathon this year."

(REPORT ON 12/5/2000 WORKOUT)

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• 3 x (200m, 50m jog)

• 6 x (800m, 400m jog)

FIELD NOTES:

Tom Phillips

• This was our season debut at the Armory Track, with a turnout of 31 people in our group.  As always, we have a few people who have never been to this facility.  Some of these people are new members, but there was one person who was an old member --- Tom Phillips, our legendary ironhorse who ran every winter race in the late 1980's.  In fact, he was with us so long ago that only Sid Howard, John Kenney, Stuart Calderwood, Tony Ruiz and Roland Soong knew who he was.  But he is still young enough to have just turned 45 and to run the last 800m in 2:28.

• The photo IDs were waiting downstairs for pickup at the sign-in desk.  Just in case you were one of the few people who had trouble, please remember to send an e-mail to John Kenney ( John.Kenney@wcom.com ).

• Since this was the first workout this year, the theme of this workout is 'control.'  This is a banked track that may feel significantly different from either the roads or the outdoor track, and the air circulation inside the building is muy malo.  So everybody was advised to listen to their bodies and to watch their steps carefully.

• Someone told Kim Mannen, "On one hand, we missed not seeing you at the roads for a while.  On the other hand, this meant that you must have been working out hard at the Armory on your true calling as a middle-distance runner."  After her own workout, she was observed timing us, not to call out splits and to see where she would have been ...

Toby Tanser

• Also at the workout was Toby Tanser, who did an early morning workout, a noon workout, our early session workout and also our late session workout.  He must have already gotten his money's worth from the Armory.  After winning twice this past weekend, Toby has chalked up 18 wins this year, still behind the 23 by the rest of the team.  He says, "Wait till next year!  I did not race this January."  Shall we start sending our triathletes out to snowshoe races ... ?

• Where did that canary come from ... ?

(Workout of 11/30/2000)

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION

• Warmup from the Daniel Webster statue up to West 84th Street where we stopped and re-grouped.  The first long set is a two mile run into the northern section of the park at 10 mile race pace (the one mile is right at West 102nd Street and the two mile ends at the traffic light just 0.14 miles before the east side of the 102nd Street transverse.  Recovery is westwards through the transverse and then northwards to the top of Harlem Hill.  The second long set is another two mile run (at 10K race pace) eastwards and then south all the way down to the William Hamilton statue on East 84th Street facing the Metropolitan Museum.  Jog back to the statue from this point.  The total distance is 6.3 miles.

FIELD NOTES:

• There were twenty-nine people at the start of the workout.  Roger Liberman looked around and said, "I just realized that I have been the only French speaker at the post-marathon workouts."  For the record, there were many more Canadians (Craig Chilton, Lauren Eckhart and Alayne Adams, for three) on this day.
• Please bear in mind that the Tuesday workouts will move indoors beginning next week.  Your photo ID's will be waiting for you at the security desk of the Armory at that time.  Don't know how to get there?  Read the Directions to the Armory.  Of course, we meet in Central Park on Thursdays at 7pm, now and forever.
• When we re-grouped at East 84th Street, the coach changed his usual schema by releasing the "A" team first.  This meant that they were fully warmed up and ready to go, and indeed we saw a freight train (Erik Goetze-Michael Rymer-Stuart Calderwood-Craig Chilton) charging out on a breakaway ...
• For the statistic fans, we note that Stuart Calderwood and Stacy Creamer's wins in Philadelphia this weekend make 38 individual road race victories for the team.  Of course, you are surely more interested in this other statistic --- yes, it is true that the rest of the team beat out Toby Tanser in terms of total victories.  But of course he could still take over the lead by winning another six more races in December and we wouldn't count him out yet.

COMPLAINT DEPARTMENT:

• You note the finishing point of the second 2-mile pickup of last Thursday's workout (November 30th) as 'the statue of William Hamilton.'  Your usual frighteningly thorough and accurate reportage gave me pause here: could I have been referring mistakenly to this work for twenty years?  But no; my research shows that the statue just off the East Drive near 83rd Street, sculpted in granite by Carl Conrads in 1880 after having been commissioned by the son of the statue's subject, is indeed a likeness of Alexander Hamilton, immortalized now despite his zero-and-one record in pistol duels.
   
  --Stuart "Freight Train" Calderwood
    
• As always, Stuart Calderwood is meticulously accurate about the facts.  For those with infinitely good memory, this particular statue is a blind spot in the history of the Central Park Track Club.  You have no idea what we mean?  Shame on you!  Check out this page!  

(REPORT ON 11/28/2000 WORKOUT)

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• Three laps around the reservoir.  Upon entering the reservoir path at West 86th Street, warm up by running five lampposts hard, three easy and another five lampposts fast.  The first long pickup is 800m from East 90th Street to the northern pumphouse.  Recover for 400m to West 91st Street.  The second long pickup is 1300m all the way to East 90th Street.  Recover for 800m to the northern pumpouse.  Third pick up is 800m to West 86th Street.  Recover to southern pumphouse.  Fourth and final pick is 1200m to the northern pumphouse.  Recover to West 86th Street.  At this point, you can stand around and chat for a few minutes on this fair night.  Then the real workout begins with an all-out sprint to West 72nd Street (Blair Boyer said, "That was done at my race pace!") ...  Total distance was 6.4 miles.

FIELD NOTES:

• Thirty-one people were present on this last Tuesday night in the park this year.  Next Tuesday, we will be indoors.  For those who have paid the user fee already, you can go and pick up your photo ID at the front desk of the Armory next Tuesday. Theoretically, our allotted time period is between 800pm and 930pm, although they may let us in just after 745pm to get changed and warmed up.  If you had sent in your check without a photo, then you better bring a passport-size photo at that time.  If you are interested but have not signed up yet, please contact John.Kenney@wcom.co.  On this subject, we are happy to report that Audrey Kingsley has signed up again this year, in spite of some initial reservations.  She said, "How can I go through a whole winter without speed work?"  And what about you?

• Overheard on the sideline (by accident, of course) --- Michael Garland said, "I ran my first race in about two years over Thanksgiving.  Believe me, the results for this 5 mile race (the Stuffed Turkey Run in Purchase, NY) are not published on the Internet.  I ran 30:40, but what I am most proud of is the fact that I was only thirty seconds behind Rich Joseph."  After reading the above, Michael added, "Thank you for making me 10 seconds faster than my actual time."

• Also back with a vengeance --- Erik Goetze, running faster than a speeding bullet today ...

•  More than three weeks after the marathon, we are finally seeing some of the marathoners back (excusing those who don't need any recovery time, such as Alan Ruben, Stuart Calderwood and Audrey Kingsley).  Today, coach Tony Ruiz gave special praise to Margaret Angell, not just for her 3:00:16 PR, but for the marvelous accomplishment of actually taking time off since.  Having just missed dipping under 3 hours, Margaret said, "I could think of one or two moments along the race when I could have saved some seconds" and "I've signed up for the London Marathon next year --- it's a completely flat course."  Hearing that, Sid Howard said, "Oh, you can go visit Alan Ruben's father when you are over there.  His name is Sidney Ruben.  He came to watch us at the world indoor championships in Birmingham three years ago."

• On the negative side, coach Tony Ruiz chided Margaret Angell for not wearing the orange color during the marathon which meant that nobody saw her (see Photo of the Margaret Angell-Stephanie Gould duo).  In her own defense, Margaret said, "No, no, no.  The reason that you did not see me was that I was right behind Ramon Bermo.  When you guys saw him carrying the flag of Spain, you all went crazy and completely ignored me."  Is that so?  In the instant replay (see Photo), Margaret Angell is still out of sight and out of mind ...

• Sitting on the wall at the top of the stairs at East 90th Street were two of our favorite hecklers (Shelley Farmer and James Siegel).  Hmm ... Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall ...

• Just so you don't think that you are the only people who can run fast in the park, we saw Raphael Devalle and Devon Sargent flying around the reservoir and down the west side ...  P.S.  When we recently remarked that the legendary Devon Sargent had finally ran a cross-country race for the Central Park Track Club, she said, "You mean, the infamous Devon Sargent?"  Whatever you want to call yourself is fine with us --- we just want you to win, okay?

• You should have received a mailed invitation to the annual club party.  If you are so new that you have not made it on the roster yet, or if you have just committed the cardinal sin of moving without informing the membership secretary, or if you haven't paid your dues yet but believe that moment is imminent, or if you plain just wanna come, Eve Kaplan will be bringing more invitation cards to the Thursday workouts, or you can email her at evedkap@hotmail.com too.

(Workout of 11/23/2000)

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION

• On Thanksgiving evening, Daniel Webster was left by his lonesome self ... 

(REPORT ON 11/21/2000 WORKOUT)

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• Three laps around the reservoir.  On lap #1, the long pick up is the mile from East 90th Street back to the starting point at West 86th Street.  On lap #2, the long pick up is from the southern pumphouse to the northern pumphouse (approximately 1200m), recover to West 90th Street, and sprint 400m to West 86th Street.  On lap #3, there are six sets of (5 lampposts jog (for everyone else other than Sid Howard), 10 lampposts fast).  And don't stand around in the cold afterwards, which of course we all did (except Alan Ruben).

FIELD NOTES:

• Coldest night of the year so far.  Even Canadian Alayne Adams asked after the workout, "Can we run home right now?  I am cold!!!"   Of course, she did not leave and stood around chatting instead.
• The turnout was twenty-one people, matching the lowest total this year.  This count included Stacy Creamer, who showed up and then promptly disappeared.  But the count did not include Michele Tagliati, who was not at the start, but chased down the group after 0.9 miles with these words: "I think I've done my workout already  (huff huff puff puff)."  So this was a fair and accurate count, unlike the one in Palm Beach county, Florida.
• In reviewing the national cross-country championship results, it was pointed out that our fifth Men 40-49 scorer was John Megaw, who made this race his cross-country debut.  This led to comments like, "John, did you wonder where the bike transition area was?"  Our highest placed individual finishers were Stacy Creamer and Alston Brown, both in fourth place in their respective divisions.  Our spotter said that Alston Brown was in fact leading his race after 1-1/2 miles into the race, and then ran out of gas.  Our coach said, "Alston is only fifty-one years old, and he is still learning."  This led to a comment: "The problem is that he is NOT learning!"  It is of course hard for someone who runs a 54 second quarter to run a 6 minute mile to start a race (ask world indoor mile record holder Eammon Coghlan  how he felt when he ran the New York City Marathon in 2:25 (5:30 min/mile pace)).
• Alayne Adams, Ph.D., has ascertained the following facts:  Given the fact that there are two northern pumphouses close to each other, any counter-clockwise set that ends at the 'northern pumphouse' shall terminate at the first pumphouse and any set that begins at the 'northern pumphouse' shall commence at the second pumphouse; in addition, for any set that is based upon counting lampposts, even those lampposts whose light bulbs are malfunctioning at the time shall be duly counted.  This is the law of the land as well as the will of the people.  P.S.  Don't worry about what Fritz Mueller has to say on this subject, because he had no sense of beginning or end of any set within a workout.  Besides, he is retired (unless, of course, he changes his mind).
• The last of the 10 lamppost picks should end about four lampposts before the West 86th entrance.  However, we observed that Margaret Schotte and John Megaw ran together way past West 86th Street before they finished their set.  This is somewhat perplexing because neither intelligence (you know, Margaret is a Harvard graduate) nor cold (you know, Margaret is from Canada) should have been a factor.
• Next Thursday is Thanksgiving Day.  You can come to the workout at the usual time.  We would be really interested in hearing from you about how many turkeys besides yourself was there ...  P.S.  We'll see you at the 60K race too ... NOT!
• Speaking of turkeys, Toby Tanser finished second at the Turkey Classic on Sunday.  This meant he won the advertised turkey prize, which turned out to take the form of a $10 gift certificate for the Food Emporium.  Now he has to decide whether he wants one turkey leg or one turkey breast ...

(Workout of 11/16/2000)

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION

• Four repeats of the lower loop --- the first one at marathon warm-up pace, the next two faster at between half marathon to 10K pace, and the last one back to the pace of the first loop.  The total distance is 4 x 1.7 miles = 6.8 miles.  

FIELD NOTES:

• Open salvo goes from James Siegel to our Complaints Department: "Do you think that maybe there are not enough mentions of Audrey Kingsley on the Tuesday workout?"  Okay, okay, okay, to shield her from media over-exposure, her name will not be mentioned in the rest of the workout description for this day.
• This time of year is just after the big marathon and right before Thanksgiving, so the attendance has been somewhat lackadaisical.  Obviously, it did not help to have a dismal grayish day with drizzle coming down at the end of the workout again.  The attendance count was twenty-nine people.  This count includes Chris Salibello on a bicycle.  It includes Rob Zand, now up to six miles of running so far this week after the marathon.  We can also add James Siegel, who ran two 14-minute-miles yesterday and was thoroughly worn out.  It also includes Bola Awofeso, who said, "I am not running.  I am just practicing walking because I am going to walk the Honolulu Marathon in December.  It is harder than you think."  Following the advice of a female marathoner on our team, we did not include a passerby who stopped by for one moment before heading into the bushes.
• The coach received the cross-country race results from the past Sunday.  He said, "I have to congratulate Stacy Creamer for her second-place finish in the masters race.  My coach always told me not to worry about my time in a cross-country race, because personal bests are unlikely to occur.  Rather, it is your place of finish that counts.  So in cross-country races, you either finish first, second or last.  Stacy finished second."  Ahem ... that means our other twenty finishers in that race all finished last ... ?
• Among the finishers in the cross-country race was Kevin Arlyck, back after a long hiatus.  How do you disappear for what seemed like years and come back to run 18:11 at Van Cortlandt in your first race?  His explanation: "It was an accident."  Excuse us?  What was that, again?  Being away for a long time means (1) you don't know a lot of the new people and conversely (2) the new people don't know who you are.  With the Central Park Track Club, this is much less of an issue because we have a website that documents everything that everyone ever does.  However, you are warned that the Kevin Arlyck that you will find in the photo archives looks quite different from the person today --- specifically, the difference is the absence of a vast amount of facial hair ... 
• While some of the people stood at the 72nd Street after the workout, they saw our husband-and-wife teammates pass by and head up north for their own late workout.  Why is it that the near universal cheering call was, "Put the hurt on him!"?  Are we such sexist pigs?  By the way, there was some ambivalence as to whether it was a good or bad thing not to have the wife runner at our workout today --- it was bad because she is such a good person to run with and it was good because she is such a good runner who strikes terror when she pushes the pace (and, as Lauren Eckhart remarks, "She is getting faster every workout!").
• We have the National Cross Country Championships in Holmdel this weekend.  Our entrants will include Tom Hartshorne, Sid Howard, Alan Ruben, Alston Brown, Victor Osayi, Stuart Calderwood, Stacy Creamer, ...  While today we were commenting on the versatility of Alston Brown, who excels from 60m to the marathon, a female marathoner on our team said, "I think I am going to train for a 800m race."  While she might have hoped to get some strong objections, that did not occur.  You see, we think marathoners can step down to run 800m but we don't always think 800m/1500m runners (especially those with European accents) should step up to marathons.
• Margaret Schotte said, "They cashed my check for the Armory.  So I must be in!  That is why I am saving my legs today."  And the official starting day for the Armory is the first Tuesday in December ...
• There will be no workout on Thanksgiving Thursday.  Listen carefully --- that means you are supposed to be doing something else other than running.  If you don't know what to do, then you are in worse condition that we thought ...

(Workout of 11/14/2000)

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• We do a 1200m warmup through the 72nd Street transverse and north to Cleopatra's needle.  We run 3 times (2 lampposts quick, 2 lampposts recovery) to warm up our speed muscles and regroup at E90th Street.  The core of the workout consisted of 3 repeats of (600m from E90th to E97th, jog 2 lampposts north, turn around and jog 2 lampposts south, 1000m southbound from E97th to E86th, turnaround and jog to E90th).  Run back to the start to finish.

FIELD NOTES:

• Although our November Tuesday workouts are designed around the Central Park Reservoir, it was impossible to do so tonight because of the puddles from the rain that fell all day.  So our small crew of 21 people ran up and down East Drive instead.  Rain, rain , go away ...
• Audrey Kingsley told us the following piece of news: "I have something to tell you off the record.  Unfortunately, I can't remember what it is."  Oh, well, whatever it is, you'll never find out ...
• The coach would like to remind people that there is only one more scoring race left in the year --- the Joe Kleinerman 10K.  Are you listening, Alayne Adams?
• When December comes, we will be moving to the indoor track at the Armory.  If you have not signed up yet, you will have to pay an additional late fee of $25.  How do we know that?  Because Tyronne Culpepper said, "Because I have not signed yet, I went to the website and looked it up.  That was what it says."  Good, someone is paying attention, even if it is a bit late ...  Oh, and you better make sure that you have a photo for your ID --- you can always print a copy of one of your photos on the website, since there must be one of you among the thousands of photos on this website.
• For those people who have not run on the indoor track before, this will be a new and interesting experience.  Are you listening, Lauren Eckhart?
• Audrey Kingsley said, "I am so happy to see Kevin Arlyck running so well in the cross country race on Sunday.  I have booked him for the Twenty Miler Relay and the New York City Marathon next year."  Come again?  We can understand that they might want to run the 2x10 mile relay like they did the year before, but the New York City Marathon?  She explained, "Two years ago, he passed me inside the park.  If I did not have a stitch at that moment, I would have gone right with him and we would both have gone sub-3 hours.  So we will be looking for redemption."
• About the long list of people who ran the marathon and then raced again in the cross country on Sunday, coach Tony Ruiz said, "The problem with these people is that they see Alan Ruben doing it and think that they can do that too.  Unfortunately, Alan is a real exception."  Alan Ruben was legendary for setting a 2:29PR in a Boston Marathon and then coming back six five days later to win a Twosome 10K in Central Park, leaving us with this comment "Don't try it in your own home."
• Actually, on this Sunday, we have the National Masters Cross Country 5K Championships in Holmdel, New Jersey.  So all our able-bodied elder statesmen will be out there.
• We don't know how  many times the coach has to repeat this, but you should always stay to the inside lanes because you never know what those motorists and cyclists might do.  And you definitely don't want to count on their intelligence or kindheartedness.  On this particular night, we saw Audrey Kingsley being pushed around several times by a cyclist riding next to her.  In this case, though, we can't entirely blame the guy on wheels as our Audrey seemed to have been affecting a faux French accent ...

(Workout of 11/9/2000)

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION

• Long warmup from the Daniel Webster statue north to West 102nd Street.  The core of the workout is two clockwise loops of the northern hills, with the second one being about 10-15 seconds faster.  Run back at a brisk pace back to the statue.  The total distance of this tempo run is 6.2 miles.

FIELD NOTES:

• Year-low road workout attendance of 21 persons, including three on bikes and one in street clothes.  Two contributing factors --- this is the week after the New York City Marathon.  More importantly, anyone who was watching television when they got home would have seen the doppler radar pictures of the shower line arriving at western New Jersey at 5pm, reaching Staten Island at 6pm, and hitting Central Park by 7pm.  But this rain event was only a nice drizzle, and nothing compared to that memorable deluge in the summer (when the workout began at the record early time of 6:58pm).
• With more than 60 finishers in the marathon, we would hope that they take some time off to rest.  Of course, that was just hope against hope.  For one, we would expect to see Audrey Kingsley (and indeed we would have been quite disappointed not to see her), who promises that she won't run the workout although we suspect that she had already done her running before getting here.  In addition, we also saw James Siegel who said, "I know I ought to rest, but I am not the type to stay home.  Besides, I have a cold so I have to run."  It's called folk medicine (and not, as you might want to believe, because someone had to let the dogs out).  
• Roger Liberman was in street clothes, saying "I know I am not running tonight.  I am just going to have a good meal."  Well, we don't see any food being served at the Daniel Webster statue in the rain.
• Amy Sheeran introduced herself as being new to the city.  Actually, given this city and especially given this club, it is more likely for someone to be an out-of-towner than not.  We are a multi-cultural, multinational club in which newcomers are welcomed.  For example, of the two people she was talking to at that particular moment, one was Roger Liberman who came from Belgium and the other person used to live in Australia before coming here. 
• The only special announcement was made by Audrey Kingsley (perhaps that was the only reason that she came down here?) --- Stacy Creamer won the New York City Marathon All-Comers Race (2.62 miles) in Central Park on marathon morning.  That is the 5th road race victory by master runner Stacy Creamer and the 36th road race victory by a member of the Central Park Track Club this year.
• The issue as to whether our 2000 New York Marathon women's team is our fastest ever is unresolved, since the legendary Yvonne Rosen-Laurie Madson-Wendy Scher team may have been quite close.  The research team (that is to say, someone who is old enough to have been around and kept copies of the newsletters) is actively scouring through the archives.
• As for the men, we note that our fastest team ever was the 1981 New York Marathon team of George Wisniewski, Mike Anderson and Fritz Mueller who averaged 2:24.

(REPORT ON 11/7/2000 WORKOUT)

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• Three counterclockwise loops around the reservoir.  
  Loop 1:  1200m pick up from the southern pumphouse to the northern pumphouse.  
  Loop 2:  1000m pickup from West 86th Street entrance to East 90th Street, and then 800m pickup from northern pumphouse to West 86th Street entrance.  
  Loop 3:  three lampposts on, three lampposts off, for strength, not speed.
  Total distance is 6.4 miles.

FIELD NOTES:

• Two days after the New York City Marathon bagged 20 people on the first Tuesday workout of November in Central Park.  Someone commented, "Why are there more marathoners here tonight than non-marathoners?"  Observed at the scene were Toby Tanser ("I haven't been here for a while and I see this group has really shrunk in size"), Audrey Kingsley  ("I am really not going to run hard today ... really ..." before charging into the lead on the way up to the reservoir), Jerome O'Shaughnessy ("I am really not going to run  today because I am in street clothes" and "All I want to do is eat and sleep"), Stuart Calderwood ("I am really not going to run today because I am perched on my bike"), Olivier Baillet ("I am really not going to run today.  Not only am I perched on my bike, but I have my bike shoes on")  ...
• Toby Tanser pointed out that it was an momentous occasion today --- to wit, Graeme Reid has just turned 40 to join the rank of the masters.  Happy birthday, Graeme!  Now, are you going to get that upgrade demanded by your fellow runners?
• Here is one team record --- it is believed that Toby Tanser's 31st overall place is the highest in the history of the Central Park Track Club.  While it was true that the late Sheldon Karlin won the second New York City Marathon when it was still confined to four loops inside Central Park, he was still a college student at the time and not a member of our club yet.  However, Toby's time of 2:26:27 is not the fastest time by a Central Park Track Club runner.  For one, the current president John Kenney said, "When I ran 2:25, my placing was actually lower ..."  Yeah, yeah, ... whatever ...
• It is also believed that the combined scoring time of the women's team (Shelley Farmer 2:54:31, Margaret Angell 3:00:16, Audrey Kingsley 3:03:44) of 8:58:31 is our fastest time ever.  The previous best known to us was the 1993 team of Rae Baymiller 2:53:53, Erica Merrill 3:04:06 and Laurie Sawyer Jones 3:05:15.  By the way, the 1993 team won the open women's team title, but the 2000 team was second.
• The day after the marathon was obviously the occasion for many things to talk about.  However, our self-appointed timekeeper says that we were still five minutes short of the record (setting out at 732pm).
• Kevin Arlyck said, "I wasn't paying attention to the workout description.  So you can write whatever you want, and I won't nitpick."  All this means is that we got a single day's reprieve.  This is going to be a long year ...

(Workout of 11/2/2000)

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION

• Three days before the New York City Marathon, this is a simple workout consisting of three loops around the reservoir.  On the first loop, just run at half-marathon pace.  On the second loop, alternate between two lampposts fast and two easy.  On the third loop, alternate between one lamppost fast and one lamppost easy.  Total distance is 6.6 miles.

FIELD NOTES:

• Three days before the New York City Marathon.  If you are running that race and you had any smarts, you would have stayed home tonight.  The coach advice is, "You have been probably average fifty to sixty miles per week coming to this point.  For this week, you should bring your miles down to twenty to thirty mile."  Dave Howard asked, "Does that include the marathon itself or not?"  Good question ...
• Sid Howard said, "These marathoners are not supposed to be racing at a workout just three days before the real race.  And that person who wore an Arthur Anderson shirt was running too fast tonight!"
• James Siegel gave us this status report, "Nothing went wrong.  I was able to pick up my number without any hassles."  Well, James, just remember that all your previous problems had to do with what happened AFTER THE RACE!  We'll have to see what happens after the marathon.
• Overhead at the workout:
  Q: "Are you running the marathon on Monday?"
  A: "I am running the marathon but I sure hope that I am not still running on Monday ..."
• If you are a marathoner, the worst part about showing up here tonight is the contradictory advice that you can get from real experts and self-appointed experts.  From the master expert himself, Fritz Mueller (seven marathons at an average time of 2:24 in the 10 months between April 1978 and February 1979) said, "Start fast, and hang on."  Unfortunately, we suspect that Fritz has really no idea about what he is saying since he runs on a single gear --- fast!  From the coach Tony Ruiz, "Hold back on the first 10 miles because you can easily make it up in the next 10 miles.  That is so much better than going out too fast in the first 10 miles and crashing."  From non-marathoner Roland Soong, "Start slow and you will finish slow" and "Don't go high-fiving spectators!  I have seen Kevin Arlyck lose a sub-3:00 marathon for just that reason."
• Desperately looking for a marathon tip tonight was Michele Tagliati, "Where are our web photographers going to be stationed?"  Sorry, we can't tell anyone that beyond that their positions have been carefully scouted and planned out.  So everyone will have to look good all the way ... 

(REPORT ON 10/31/2000 WORKOUT)

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• Oops, your regular website reporter was tied up in a business meeting and missed the workout.  He had volunteered to make up some stories, but we have respectfully turned him down.
• This was the last outdoor track workout for the distance runners.  During the month of November, they will meet on Tuesday and Thursday in Central Park, 7pm by the Daniel Webster statue.  They will move indoors from December on.
• Since we were in wrong age bracket, we were completely unaware that this was Halloween Day.  If only we knew, we would have published something similar to what John Kenney wrote: "Halloween is a very special evening here in NYC.  Unfortunately, from time to time, the danger and fright can be very real. Several years ago, one of our top Marathoners (2:27) was assaulted in Central Park on Halloween, and celebrated the evening in the Mt. Sinai Hospital Emergency Room.  I would strongly encourage all of our runners to forgo our workout on the East RiverTrack this evening and instead enjoy the evening's festivities.  If you must run, I would strongly suggest you run early and excercise the utmost discretion."
• The next workout in two days' time (Thursday) will be the last workout before the marathon.  After the race, you are invited to join coach Tony Ruiz at the Dublin House pub located on West 79th Street just east of Broadway.

FROM Isaya Okwiya:

• Actually, there was a workout on Tuesday.
• About 14 people showed up, including Tony who had Sid Howard and Kiet Vo to assist in timing. The sprinters, mid distance and long distance runners did the same workout ( 3x1mile with 3 minutes rest ). Victor Osayi and JR-Mojica were the sole marathoners present and did a milder workout.
• Craig "The Body" Plummer showed up at the end of the workout to walk the rest of us (in safety) home. 
• It was a pleasant and surprisingly quiet evening at the east river track.
• No incidents to report.

At the end of the 2000 outdoor track season, we keep the list of timers who volunteered their valuable time during the year so that the rest of us can know how fast (or how slow) we were running.

(REPORT ON 10/26/2000 WORKOUT)

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION

• Ten days before the marathon, we get the traditional nine miler --- first three miles up north through the northern hills ending at the 102nd Street marathon entrance into the park at marathon pace; next three miles completing the six mile loop at 15 seconds per mile faster; last three miles back at marathon pace, heading north, taking the 102nd Street transverse and heading south to finish just before before the steps leading up to the southern pump house behind the Metropolitan Museum.

FIELD NOTES:

• Nice warm night for October.  Fifty-three people counted at the start of the workout, including non-runner Aubin Sullivan and cyclist Bola Awofeso, but not counting Mel Washington and Fasil Yilma both of whom were seen running in the wrong direction.
• As a workout, the nine mile distance today is the longest that we have done this year.  Because of the pacing instructions, the groups all started out like rockets.  Or, as your coach would insist, was it because everyone wanted to finish the workout as quickly as possible in order to catch the "final" game of the World Series?
• In describing this long workout, the coach added these modifications, "If you have just ran good half marathons, like Margaret Angell and Stephanie Gould, you can afford to run easy tonight."  Then someone reminded the coach, "Shelley Farmer ran a great half too!"  Then someone else said, "Audrey Kingsley too!"  Okay ... okay ... so let's all run easy tonight ... ?  Okay?  None of you are interested in that baseball game, right ... ?
• The southwest corner of the workout assembly area is evidently the triathlete's corner, as we observe the preponderance of very wide shoulders (Ross Galitsky, Ramon Bermo, John Megaw, Josh Friedman.  The last named said, "I'm relatively skinny and I don't want to be mentioned on the website."  Relative to whom, that is the question.  And getting mentioned on the website is completely independent of what you may or may not have done.
• As the groups went out, Kiet Vo's running partners were given this request, "Please remember his splits because we need them for his personal statistics corner.  But rather than posing the burden on his fellow runners, Kiet Vo reported himself in: "I only did 6 out of the 9 miles tonight but still suffered greatly thanks to the combined efforts of Shelley Farmer , Michele Tagliati, and James Siegel: 19:34 for first 3 miles, 18:46 for second 3 miles."  A simple calculation shows that this makes 38:20 for six miles (or 39:40 for a 10K, close to Shelley's PR!) --- we can't wait to see how fast Shelley will run the Joe Kleinerman 10K in December!
• As a final reminder, you must get your check and ID photo in for the indoor track season at the Armory (see details on our home page).  If you don't have a photo, remember that you can re-use the one in last year's ID.  Failing that, just remember that any photo will do --- Stacy Creamer used a photo of herself as the bridesmaid in a wedding party.  If even David Pullman has sent in his check today, then what are you waiting for!? 
• Next Thursday, after the workout which should be very light for marathoners, the coach Tony Ruiz will listen to confessions at the Dublin House pub, located on West 79th Street just east of Broadway.  Or, according to another version, you can come and listen to James Siegel recount the miracle comeback by the New York Mets ... NOT!
• Yes, we have a confirmation for the post-marathon party at the Parlor, between 2pm and 6pm.  You can check our front page announcement for the location.  The sight of the marathoners attempting to negotiate those steps down to the basement on their very sore quads is worth the price of admission (which is zero, by the way).  

(REPORT ON 10/24/2000 WORKOUT)

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• 3 x (200m, jog across the field)

• 1 mile, 400m recovery

• 8 x (400m, 200m recovery)

• 1000m, warm down

FIELD NOTES:

• Indian summer day --- dry, cool and still.  As good as it will ever get.  So how come only thirty-nine people were there?

• The timing of this workout was a little bit unusual.  It took a little longer for the coach to get on with the workout, because he had to gloat about the 2-0 Yankees' lead in the World Series.  He demanded to know, "Where is that die-hard Mets' fan James Siegel tonight?"  But after the workout, the place emptied quickly as people rushed home to catch game #3.  Good!  Nobody was singing "Who Let The Dogs Out" tonight!  P.S.  Let us not say that our workout reporter does not know anyone famous (other than Toby Tanser) --- one of his colleagues at his office was quoted on the front page of the New York Times for these words --- "Yankee fans are flat-out stupid!"

• The point about this workout is that you are absolutely not supposed to be sprinting in the 400m's.  For this reason, a 1000m was set up so that its looming prospect will force you to hold back.  The pace of the 400m's should be two to three seconds faster than your 5K pace (e.g. if you run 18:37 (6 min/mile) for a 5K, then you should run these 400m's at 88 to 90 seconds each).  It goes without say that nobody ever really listens.  But the absolute time is perhaps not as important as even pacing.  For this reason, we can report that that Audrey Kingsley looked ecstatic in being able to hit 90 seconds on the dot for every set even though she was running near the back of her pack.  It goes without say that the other paragon of even pacing was Alan Ruben.

• The Kiet Vo personal statistics corner: He ran his mile in 5:35, and then the last 1000m in 3:19.  Now that 1000m time of 3:19 projects to a 5,000m time of 16:15, which is slower than the 15:43 projected from his track workout two weeks ago.  As the outdoor track season nears the end, Kiet had this to say, "I'm glad that the Kiet Vo personal statistics corner will be going out of business momentarily, and not a moment too soon, since I don't intend to run indoors this year." 

• The person with the best seat in the house was John Megaw.  You will have to ask him yourself just what he was watching ...

• You know that the middle distance runners workout program calls for them to run the cross country race this weekend.  Well, we were wondering if our Columbia University cross-country hall-of-famer Devon Sargent will be making her cross-country debut for our club after three years.  She said, "Well, you know, funny you should ask but according to the workout description, this is only supposed to be a training run."

• We are still compiling a list of New York City Marathon participants as shown on our home page.  The current roll call includes: Toby Tanser (first time!), Rob Zand (first time!), Rick Shaver (#24 in a row), Peter Allen (#21 in a row), Casey Yamazaki (#13 in a row), Alan Ruben, (#14 in a row), Audrey Kingsley, Shelley Farmer, Stephanie Gould, James Siegel, Margaret Angell, Sarah Gross, John Gleason, Olivier Baillet, Michele Tagliati, Adam Riess, Stuart Calderwood, Kellie Quinones, Jay Borok, Ramon Bermo ("I'll be wrapped in a Spanish flag"), Craig ("Yes, I just set a PR at Twin Cities") Chilton, Colin Frew ("Injured calf but what the hell!"), Mette and Carsten Strandlod, Blair Boyer, Sandra Scibelli, Jerome O'Shaughnessy, Shula Sarner, Roger Liberman, J.R. Mojica, Charlie Stark, Jeff Wilson, ... For the past two years, we have a post-marathon party at The Parlor, but we do not have a confirmation as yet.  Stay tuned ...

(REPORT ON 10/19/2000 WORKOUT)

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION

• Long warmup 1.7 mile run from the Daniel Webster statue to the 102nd Street cutoff.  The first pickup is a 1000m run through the cutoff and turning north to finish near the swimming pool.  Recover through the rest of the northern hill loop.  Next pickup is a 1200m from the east side of the 102nd Street cutoff to East 90th Street.  Recover for 400m to East 86th Street.  Last long pickup is a 1200m down to East 72nd Street.  Recover southwards for 10 lampposts and close off with some (4 lampposts fast, 2 lampposts jog) repeats.
   
  Revision by Eve Kaplan: "Ok, maybe YOU recovered from the swimming pool through the northern hill and 102 transverse last night, but the rest of us recovered from the swimming pool to 110th, and then did the second 1000 pickup from 110, up the northern hill, and back down to 102west..."  Okay, so your web reporter did not run the northern hill portion at all.  Instead, he just stopped at East 102nd, waited, watched that one-man French terrorist gang charge right down the transverse and prayed that there would not be another collision, and was then ordered to (try to) run with Audrey Kingsley when the groups came around ...

FIELD NOTES:

(REPORT ON 10/17/2000 WORKOUT)

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• Marathoners' Workout
  2 miles, 800m recovery
  1.5 miles, 600m recovery
  1 mile, 400m recovery
  800m

• Non-Marathoners' Workout
  1 mile, 800m recovery
  2 x (800m, 400m recovery)
  4 x (400m, 200m recovery)

FIELD NOTES:

• Cold, windy, drizzling day.  Thirty-seven people at the start.  During the workout, the drizzle increased in intensity for a few minutes, but it was all over after the workout.  The track was pitch dark at this time of year, but the floodlights made it possible to run a good workout (in spite of the sporadic blackout in the northeastern corner).

• Our substitute coach today was Stuart Calderwood.  This workout was split into two sub-divisions, in view of the different needs vis-à-vis the upcoming marathon.  For the marathoners, the first two miles should be done at half-marathon pace (note: this means the average pace for your half marathon, not the first two miles that you run in a half marathon --- the distinction can be significant for certain individuals).

• The big race result this weekend was the Staten Island Half Marathon.  The inevitable Toby Tanser won that race, when he was so sick with the flu that he could not run even one lap of the reservoir just the day before.  This leaves just two more scoring races left in the year (the New York City Marathon and the Joe Kleinerman 10K).  From today's workout, we think that we should have a very interesting open women's marathon team of Margaret Angell, Shelley Farmer and Stephanie Gould based upon the way they ran together today, and all three have ran controlled 1:27 half marathons within the past 2 weeks.

• Our guest timer of the day was a friend of Stuart Calderwood and Stacy Creamer.  Joe had come up to New York City today to represent his law school and afterwards found himself standing in the rain trying to read a stopwatch in the darkness and calling out times to people that he doesn't recognize.  Yes, things could have been better if (1) it was brighter (2) people wore color-coded uniforms (3) it didn't rain (4) he had an umbrella (5) he wore white socks (6) people didn't sprint crosstown to accumulate mileage ...  But he did have an interesting dinner.

• Kiet Vo's personal statistics corner (note: this is a continuing feature):  First mile in 5:35 but the last 400m in 70 seconds. 

• Stacy Creamer comments on international rivalry within the club: "I think that the Canadian contingent on this team may be giving the French contingent a serious challenge on this team."  Who are the Canadians?  Craig Chilton, Alayne Adams, Shelley Farmer, Lauren Eckhart, Margaret Schotte,  ...  Will the tricolors stand up and be counted?

• HAT SNATCHER ALERT:  We warn team members to look out for people who dash out to snatch your hat as you run crosstown to go home after the workout ...

10/12/00

The website reporter was in London on this day.  In the absence of a volunteered report, you get a picture of the Parliament.

10/10/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• 8 x 600m with 200m recoveries; 10 x 600m for those training for a marathon who won't be running the Staten Island Half this weekend. The first four are to be run at 4-mile race-pace, the last four (or, presumably, six) are to be run at 5K race-pace.

FIELD NOTES:

10/5/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• Warm-up mile from the Daniel Webster statue up to West 88th Street.  The first pickup is a 1,000m to the west side of the 102nd Street cutoff.  Recovery is through the cutoff.  The second pickup is a 1,2000m south to East 90th Street.  Recovery is another 400m to East 86th Street near the steps up to the reservoir.  The third pickup is a long 1.5 mile out-and-back to East 72nd Street.  Recovery is northwards to East 90th Street.  The fourth pickup is 1,200m north to the east side of the 102nd Street cutoff.  Recover through the cutoff and south to West 97th Street.  Finish the workout with 3 x (3 lampposts fast, 2 lampposts easy).  Total distance of the workout is 7.5 miles (2 four-mile loops minus twice 72nd Street cutoff).

FIELD NOTES:

• Although it felt chilly when you first step out into the street tonight, it actually felt warm due to the high humidity from the impending rain.  During the workout, a very light drizzle came and it actually felt good.
• We are happy to report that the Editors are back.  What Editors?  Stuart Calderwood and Stacy Creamer!   They have been watching the Olympics in Sydney and otherwise posing as Dutch tourists (Hup , Holland!).  Also Stacy has a record for having the longest birthday since she got on the plane back in Sydney at 945pm and arrived in California at 6pm of the same day.  In any case, Stacy is now really 41 after having been so listed by the NYRRC this year due to a quirky computer bug.  (Technical question:  Will she be listed as 42 from now on?)
• A delayed race result is that Toby Tanser won the Terrace Bagels 10K in Prospect Park last Sunday.  This was his 15th road race win this year.
• Alan Ruben made it to the five o'clock news on WNBC (Channel 4) today.  More precisely, his wife Gordon Bakoulis was featured in a running segment and made these remarks.
• Some of you received your New York City Marathon race numbers today.  In theory, the number represents your seed position (lower numbers imply higher ranking), but #177 does not mean that there are 176 people faster than you since they may have set aside some number for last-minute elite entries and there will also be some no-shows.  Here is a quiz:  What was Shelley Farmer's best position ever?  We doubt that many of you know that ...
• This item was posted on our home page before the workout --- SPECIAL REQUEST:  From Rob Zand to Tony Ruiz: "I am pleased to announce that for this week my Thursday evening seminar has been cancelled.  This means that I will be able to join you for the very special, once-a-year, one-month-to-the-NYC-Marathon workout.  In honor of this occasion, I would like to request a real ball-buster of a workout. (I guess the ladies can have an ovary-buster). Anything with lots of hills would be great.  If people complain, you can even blame it on me. Besides, I see there is a soirée afterwards, so everyone can commiserate there.  Looking forward to a good one.  Rob."  Suffice to say that Rob was spotted charging out in front with his partner-in-crime Richie Borrero, even as the two 'old guys' stayed patiently behind them and waited for their imminent demise ...  Post-mortem analysis (from Rob Zand):  "There was no demise ..."

10/3/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• 4 x (1mile, 400m recovery)

FIELD NOTES:

• Forty-four people were at the start of this near-record-setting hot day (80 degrees in the first week of October).  This count includes the fashionably late (but not late enough) Yves-Marc Courtines sweeping into the park on his rollerblades, but not the even later Jennifer Lynch and Shelley Farmer.  Another very, very latecomer was Isaya Okwiya, about whom Devon Sargent said, "I guess we'll have to start without Isaya.  He said that he would come, though."

• For people who are not doing the marathon, the workout is three mile repeats.  For people who are doing the marathon, the workout is four mile repeats.  Virtually, everybody chose to get their money's worth by going for four.  In fact, we spotted Jerome O'Shaughnessy and Blair Boyer doing an extra mile.

• The lone timer blew the splits on the last mile for the leader because he was engaged on a recruitment chat.  Someone wanted to know how fast our guys run, so we pointed to Toby Tanser and said, "There's Toby and he's done a 2:18 marathon.  He's from Iceland and I guess they don't have too much to do over there but to run on the ice."  The person said, "Yes, I'm from Canada and I can appreciate that.  By the way, I noticed that there is another Canadian on your team."  We never got to find out who our Canuck was because we have so many of them --- Craig Chilton, Margaret Schotte, Shelley Farmer, Alayne Adams, ... ?  We would have guessed that the person is Margaret Schotte, spotting a Canadian t-shirt to which Jonathan Kane said, "I was in Canada last week and I was looking to buy a t-shirt just like that but I couldn't find one."

• Still refusing to cash his upgrade pass was Graeme Reid, who continued to lead his group.  He said, "People are just trying to get rid of me, when all I wanted to do is to push them to run faster."

• The timer for the middle-distance runners was Devon Sargent, who led the pack (Kim Mannen, Molly Greig, Sue Krogstad-Hill, Janice Brown, ...) and called the splits for those who finished behind her --- " ... two fifty-one ... (puff) ... two fifty-two ... (puff, puff) ... two fifty-three ... (puff, puff) ..."

• After this Thursday's workout (October 5th), there will be a social gathering at the Dublin House pub, located on the north side of West 79th Street near Broadway.  Helpful hint: bring an oxygen supply mask.

• Craig Chilton tells everyone that there will be a Terry Fox 5K Run in Central Park on October 14th, 2000.  For those who aren't familiar with the name, Terry Fox was a young Canadian who found out that his right leg would need to be amputated as a result of bone cancer. He subsequently decided to run across Canada, a "Marathon of Hope", to raise awareness for cancer research. Starting on April 12, 1980, for the following 143 days he ran the marathon distance of 26 miles per day (with one artificial leg), crossing 3,330 miles until, on September 1, 1980 near Thunder Bay, Ontario - well over half way to British Columbia and the Pacific Coast - Terry was forced to stop. The cancer spread to his lungs. Terry died on June 28, 1981, a month short of his 23rd birthday. But his legacy of hope continues on today with Terry Fox runs in more than 40 countries around the world.  Tony Ruiz endorses this race: "I've got nothing against anyone running a 5K."

9/28/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• Two times the four mile loop in the clockwise direction.  Run the first two miles at marathon race pace.  At the two mile mark (right at the east side of the 102nd Street transverse), run the next four mile loop at half marathon race pace.  Recover back to East 97th Street, and run back at a steady pace.

FIELD NOTES:

• Cool and dry day, but it is getting dark much earlier now.   Fifty-two people were in attendance, including Bola Awofeso on his bicycle, but not Yves-Marc Courtines who showed up fashionably late at 730pm to find that everyone has left.  By the way, this makes a perfect 2 for 2 record for Yves-Marc this week.
• How dark was dark?  We'll show you a photo ---

Did you say that this photo is undiscernible?  Did you say that this could have been a photo of anything?  Well, we'll show you the infra-red version of the same photo ---

Shelley Farmer, Sandra Scibelli, Jerome O'Shaughnessy

• Adam Riess asked, "Are we going to keep running the rest of the year even when it gets pitch dark at 7pm?"  Yes, indeed, regardless of rain, snow, shine, ice, hurricane, blizzard, tornado, ... now and forever.
• Another non-binding vote on the indoor track schedule showed that the sentiments seemed definitely in favor of the late 800pm-930pm session over the early 630pm-800pm session.
• After the workout next week (October 5th), there will be a social gathering at the Dublin House pub, located on the north side of West 79th Street near Broadway.  This will be a nostalgic reprise of a time when our runners had no other lives outside of the club, and therefore wanted to talk even more about running in a smoke-filled place with a pint or two of Guinness after the workouts.  While this generation of runners would have preferred to head home, sit in front of the computer and read about the workout that they just did, there is no harm in spending one night on the town, right?

9/26/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• 3 x (200m, 100m recovery)

• 6 x (800m, 400m recovery)

FIELD NOTES:

• This was not a nice day.  There was a northernly storm offshore, which meant that it was windy, cool and wet.  We were simultaneously cold and drenched in sweat.  Quite unpleasant, indeed!

• There were thirty-one people at the start of the workout, without counting the very late arriving Yves-Marc Courtines.  A night like this is the perfect situation to catch le grippe, so you definitely want to dress right.  As we might have figured, the most correctly dressed runner of the night was Shelley Farmer, straight from Edmonton (Alberta, Canada), in long black tights with side stripes in the red-and-white Canadian national colors.

• If the weather was miserable for the runners, it was worst for the stationary timers.  Audrey Kingsley said, "I never want to be a timer again.  I was sent to stand in the darkness of the far corner all by myself."  Yup, we'll see her next week, same time, same place ... or will we?

• This particular workout was designed with the weather conditions in mind.  Thus, there were no 3x300m's at the end, which might have caused some muscle pulls.

• As a timer, Devon Sargent did more than just calling out split times.  When one of the runners bent over to tie his shoelaces, Devon said, "Quit stalling!"  So remember this --- timers are expected to control every aspect of the workout.

• The writer of these notes must confess to not being up to par tonight, because he stayed up to watch the very exciting Olympics women's 5,000m finally shown at 2:05am.  Why does Gaby Szabo make it look so easy?

9/21/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• This workout contains five pickups ranging from 1000m to 1200m.  We head north from the statue.  The first 1000m is from W86th Street to W97th Street.  We recover to the cutoff.  Second 1000m is north over Harlem Hill ending at the Martin Luther King Boulevard park entrance.  Long recovery to the E102nd Street car entrance into the park.  Then we have 1200m from there to E90th Street.  Drink some water at the fountain, if necessary.  We turn around and run northbound to E97th Street.  The next 1000m from there through the northern cutoff to W102nd Street.  Head back south and run the last 1000m from W97th Street to W86th Street.

FIELD NOTES:

• Beautiful day with blue sky and no hint of humidity.  In spite of the proximity to the Fifth Avenue Mile, we drew a season high of 58 people.
• Last week, we saw Avi Ashman back after a few years away.  This week, we saw Frank Morton back after a few years away.  Last week, Sid Howard saw Bob Jen running up Madison Avenue.  This week Bob Jen even came to check out who is left from the good old days.  Who else can we resurrect?
• In reviewing last week's race results, Tony Ruiz noted the string of team-leading races from Stephanie Gould.  He wondered aloud, "What is this?  Is the triathlon season over for her, so that she can concentrate on running now?"  Stephanie clarified, "There is no triathlon season this year."  This year, Stephanie is concentrating on running, so we should expect a great race from her at the New York City Marathon.
• For those people who are running the Fifth Avenue Mile on Saturday, the best advice is just to go up to the reservoir and do some strides on the soft surface.  A hard workout so near the race cannot possibly help.  Even Herbie Medina was found sitting on the bench at East 90th Street after having run 4 miles at 11 min/mile pace.  So is that why Audrey Kingsley didn't run the workout today?
• The Central Park Track Club is a collection of individuals from different walks of life.  Occasionally, to your surprise, you may find to yourself in a subgroup with common characteristics.  Today, after the workout, the three people who left through Columbus Circle were members of the Ph.D. Caucus --- Eric Van Den Eijnden (CIMS-NYU), Alayne Adams (CPMC-Columbia University) and another person who had never been able to obtain an academic appointment because he chose to grub money instead.  However, there were not enough people present to form a quorum.  So can you name the missing Ph.D.'s on the team?
• Update on the winter track workouts at the Armory: we will have a choice between paying extra to attend the earlier 630pm versus paying less for the later 800pm session.  A quick show of hands at today indicates that more people prefer to the 800pm time, although this is not a binding vote at this time.  We will be posting the fee schedule on our home page soon; members of the Central Park Track Club will pay the same fee as other users minus a $25 subsidy from the club.  If you are interested, you will have to submit a check and an ID photo, all before November 2nd.  Anyone who misses the cutoff date will have to pay a late fee ($75!).  By the way, the club is looking for a volunteer to coordinate the fee/photo collection and interface with the Armory.  Anyone?

9/19/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• 3 x (200m, 100m recovery)

• 2000m, 800m recovery

• 2000m

FIELD NOTES:

• The remnants of tropical storm Gordon passed through south of New York City.  There was no much wind, but it was raining hard during the day.

• At 330pm in the afternoon, Kiet Vo inquired: "Will there be a workout tonight?"  The reply message was sent too late for him, and for everyone else: "There will always be a workout no matter what.  Whether you show up or not is totally your decision."  In any case, twenty-three people made the decision to show up, including the aforementioned Kiet Vo.  Even Philadelphia half-marathoners Graeme Reid and Sarah Gross showed up.  

• Looking somewhat displeased was Jim Aneshansley, for he had brought his super-sized umbrella in anticipation for a deluge of rain.  He would have an opportunity soon enough, though.

• As a reminder, our start time for the rest of the outdoor track season is 630pm.  This message may come too late for Michael Rumer (6:59pm arrival time according to the official Central Park Track Club watch) and Brian Barry ...

• Although it was raining hard during the day, the rain came to a stop promptly at 615pm.  So this turned out to be an okay day.  It was humid to the point of saturation and portions of the inside lane were water-logged, but it was perfectly okay for running.  The coach said, "The two 2000m's were designed for heavy raining conditions, but probably not ideal for muggy conditions.  However, once I designed the workout and go out of the door, it will not be changed." 

• And wouldn't you know it, the rain came back at 750pm after the workout!  The only people who were caught probably deserve getting soaked for the high crime of not leaving quickly enough.

9/14/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• We head south and run the Stuart mile beginning with the S near Tavern On The Green and finishing at E72nd Street.  We regroup at the Boathouse.  The core of the workout is simply six times from the Boathouse to Cleopatra's Needle.  The total distance is approximately 7.4 miles.

FIELD NOTES:

• There were forty-eight people at the beginning of the workout.  T'was a nice day in the park, and who but Aubin Sullivan passes by the statue on her way to the store?  She said, "I ran for the first time in five months.  I thought I was going to run five miles, but I had to stop after running 2 miles in about 20 minutes.  I am sore all over my body."  Recently, she has been concentrating on cycling.  The good news for us is that the cycling season will end in a few weeks, so we should see her more often then.  Oh, she must have been very impressed when John Megaw said, "I keep the race bib from all the races that I have ever been in.  It goes back to the Falmouth Road Race in the early 1970's when I started to race.  Just last night I was going through them and I came across the race bib for the Harriman State Park triathlon three years ago.  Aubin, you won that race!"
• Avi Ashman showed up after many years of paternity leave.  He had to ask, "Who are these people?  I have never seen them before."  Yes, but that's also what they must be saying of him.  
• Wandering into the wrong city in the wrong time zone was Charles Allard.  This was certainly not an easy workout for someone who has been training on his own in Tokyo, and definitely something to remember by.
• Later, another veteran Bob Jen was spotted running up Madison Avenue.  In this case, he is currently working up to 60 miles per week after having achilles tendon surgery.  He was also told, "There are still a few people that you know --- Tony Ruiz, John Kenney, but you are going to have to be introduced to all the newcomers.  In particular, you probably don't know any of the women now, except for Mary Rosado."  Well, learning the names of new people may be the easiest part of a comeback ...
• Olivier Baillet reminded us, "I want you to mention the fact that I had a flat as well as a crash at the Survival of the Shawangunks.  Otherwise, I would have been fifteen minutes faster."  When we expressed our regret that we did not have photographic documentation, noting that the visibility was limited due to foggy conditions, he said, "I can show you where my marks are."  Ahem ... Olivier, please remember that Central Park is not a nudist camp!
• This workout is the type of workout that should never be attempted on your own because there is a danger of overdoing it and getting injured.  When you run in a group, you gauge your effort with respect to those around you and you won't overdo it.
• This weekend's team race is the Philadelphia Distance Run, but let's not forget the solo Triple Ironman by Ross Galitsky.  That means 7.2 miles of swimming, followed by 336 miles of biking and finally 78.6 miles of running.  Aubin Sullivan says, "Oh, he should be done in less than 3 days!"  As required by the race regulations, he has a team of four people who take shifts to look after him.  Usually, this means that when he falls over, they would be yelling, "Get up!  Don't let us down!"

9/12/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• 3 x (200m, 100m recovery)

• 2 x (600m, 200m recovery)

• 2 x (1000m, 400m recovery)

• 1 mile (at 5K race pace)

FIELD NOTES:

• Today's workout theoretically should have started at 630pm, but it was not quite on time (surprise!).  At any rate, we will keep the 630pm (for real!) for the remainder of the outdoor track season.  Oh, we did promise you that we will list latecomers --- Erik Goetze was one!  But since he had that great cross-country race on Sunday, we'll just let this one slide.  Better be on time next week!
• That cross-country race was won by Toby Tanser, who has gone 4 for 4 lifetime in Van Cortlandt Park.  This is no time to stop now.  As for that other big race for the tri-geek brotherhood --- the Survival of the Shawangunks --- we'll be posting lots of pictures soon.  Although coach Tony Ruiz was going to give a scripted description of SOS, he was subverted at every step by Stacy Creamer:
  Tony:  "Scott Willett was fifth overall in this race ..."
  Stacy: "Yeah, but what about Julie Denney?"
  Tony: "Ehhh ... I was going to get around to that.  Stefani Jackenthal was fourth female and Julie Denney was fifth female."
  Stacy: "Yeah, but what about Scott AND Julie?"
  Tony: "Ehhh ... I was also going to get around to that ... " (off-color jokes excised from this family-friendly website)
• There were 44 people at the workout today.  At the track last night for the first time was Alayne Adams.  She said, "I am so out of it that I can't even read the letters on your t-shirt ... MAMI ... MIMI ... MIAMI!"  But that is the subject for another restaurant review for another time.  Before the start of the last mile, Alayne said, "Oh, this is going to be a very, very tough mile for me."  Our workout notes read: "Negative splits for Alayne!" with an assist from John ("I went out too fast") Megaw.
• It was emphasized that the last mile should be run at the projected 5K race pace.  Here, we will note that Kiet Vo ran 5:24, which translates to about 16:46 for 5K, good enough for fourth place on the team last Sunday .  We will be watching him closely in future races ...
• Today, we also had some luminaries from other teams running with us (namely, Liam Kinsella (NYH) and Mike Guastella (WS)).  How do we feel about this mingling?  Well, theoretically, our workouts take place on public areas and we cannot bar others from using the track or running in the park.  More to the point, Toby Tanser relates this story --- at one point, the Swedish runners from all the clubs come to run together at one Stockholm track and they became better collectively as a result; today, the Swedish runners run by themselves and there will in fact be no Swedish runners present at the 2000 Olympics.  There you have it.
• Before we know it, the winter indoor season will arrive soon.  Officially, the Armory will be opened on November 6th (Monday).  At this time, we are facing two choices: the 630pm session or the 800pm session (note: 630pm pass holders can come later, but 800pm pass holders cannot enter until 745pm).  The trade-offs are: at the early session, you pay a bit more, you must hurry to get there but you get home earlier; at the late session, you pay less, you will have enough time but you get home late.  We will post more detailed information such as costs and sign-up procedures shortly.  Today, a poll was taken among the distance runners --- eight were for the 630pm session and eight were for the 800pm session.  Yes, it was overwhelmingly undecided at this point.
• You will have noticed that we now have a middle distance group who will be focusing on distances between 800m to 3000m.  This group is focussed on the Fifth Avenue Mile in 11 day's time.  This explains why they are working on speed right now (4x600m, 6 minute rest).  After this key race, they will go back to building base work.  By that time, we will probably have a middle distance runners' workout section on this website.

9/7/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• Jog up to the reservoir and run one loop at half marathon pace.  Jump back on the road and head north.  At W88th Street, run the next mile at 10 mile race pace to the top of Harlem Hill.  Then run the next 2 (strictly speaking, 1.96 miles) miles from there (no recovery) to the east side, take the cutoff to W102nd Street and finishing at W86th Street.  Jog back to the Daniel Webster statue.  The total distance for the workout is 6.4 miles, but the pickups account for 4.5 miles.

FIELD NOTES:

• It was a beautiful day --- temperature in the 60's, no humidity, clear skies.  Forty-four people counted at the workout --- why did Max Schindler run away?
• As you are all aware, the traffic has been quite chaotic this week due to the United Nations meeting of national heads.  Today, you could not get in or out of the park on the East Side around 86th Street.  For this workout, coach Tony Ruiz, "Although I would have liked to take credit for designing a workout that skillfully avoids the East Side today, I'll have to admit that it was sheer coincidence."
• As a thank-you note, coach Tony Ruiz thanked Ramon Bermo for stepping in as acting coach last week, thus allowing him to have some quality fun time with the family in Florida.  However, he said that he wished that his son Anthony could learn to relax a little by putting down his baseball and glove.
• Back at a workout for the first time this year is the wonderful Alayne Adams, looking tanned and well-rested.  She has been out on maternity leave, but the newcomers may have periodically seen in these references to her vastly anticipated return.  Well, she's back!
• Sending the first group out, coach Tony Ruiz said, "Those people who run 10k at 42 minutes or more should go out now ... Hey, Fritz, why are you going with them?"  Fritz Mueller: "I'm over 42 --- in fact, I'm over 60."
• Tennis, anyone?  No need to fear missing out the happenings at the US Open Championships.  Anyone who was running near John Gleason must have gotten a complete recap today ...
• Overheard during the workout --- Harry Morales said, "I wish you were Nathan ..."  Even though the context was unclear, this was still a stunning desire ...
• On the coming weekend, we will have three mega-events --- we have the USATF National Age Group Triathlon Championships, where Shelley Farmer hopes to make the team to represent the USA at the World Championships.  We have the climax of the local triathlon season with the Survival of the Shawangunks.  We understand a couple of people will have to make some significant life-and-death decisions, so we will have two different camera crews up there.  Finally, we have the only scoring cross-country scoring race of the year.  Good luck to everyone!  Our hearts will be with all of you!
• After the workout, six people headed south out of the park.  At 59th Street, three of them headed south while the other three headed east.  One of those heading south, Tony Ruiz, yelled at one of those heading east, John Kenney:"How is it that you get both women?  Look what I've got instead!  Is it because you are the president?"

9/5/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• 3 x (200m, 100m recovery)

• 3 x (1200m, 400m recovery)

• 3 x (300m, 100m recovery)

FIELD NOTES:

• We are now split into three groups --- short distance sprinters, middle distance runners (9 people today --- Jonathan Pillow, Toby Tanser, Erik Goetze, Isaya Okwiya, Craig Plummer, Sue Krogstad-Hill, Kim Mannen and Julia Casals) and long distance runners (34 runners at the start, adding Yves-Marc Courtines later on).
• When the late-arriving Margaret Angell was told that her attendance record left a lot to be desired, she said, "But I had the perfect excuse.  On my way over, I came across someone who had passed out near the footbridge.  I used my telephone to call emergency services on his behalf."  Yes, Margaret, we agree that you are a terrific citizen!
• Sid Howard would have joined the middle-distance runners today, but he said that he had no leg turnover today.  What happened?  An 18:53 5,000m race on the previous day did it to him.  But of course that would not stop him from giving advice from the sideline.  Here are some of his observations on the 4x800m workout (10 minutes rest!) --- "Isaya, you are going out too fast on the first one!  Once you get into oxygen debt, you won't recover, not in 10 minutes, not in 24 hours!  Devon, you're hitting your times exactly on the mark!  Kim, relax those shoulders!  Julia, great work on doing the last one even faster!"
• The middle-distance runners' workouts for the entire week is posted on this website beforehand.  This leads Kim Mannen to wonder, "That is a problem because I have all this time to think about them now that I know what they are."
• The middle distance runners have their own mailing list.  If you want to get on that list, please inform DEVON SARGENT DSARGENT@CRAVATH.COM or ISAYA OKWIYA ISAYA@HOTMAIL.COM .  Today, Max Schindler showed up and said, "How did I end up on that list?  I am not a middle-distance runner.  In fact, I am hardly even a runner."  But as Devon explained, that list is meant to be inclusive, rather than exclusive.
• By the way, in case you have not noticed, we have decided to become good citizens unilaterally by running our recoveries up and down the running lanes instead of traversing the soccer fields.  Yes, we deserve pats on our backs.  By the way, don't forget to bring your baseball bats and bicycle chains next week (... for our softball practice and triathlon training, of course ...).
• Please note that the track workouts for the distance runners coached by Tony Ruiz from now on will begin at 630pm, in view of the fact that it is getting dark earlier now.  Please be assured that we will be publishing the list of names of people who show up at 7pm next week.

8/31/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• This workout is tougher than what we have seen recently.  We begin by going south.  When we hit the 59th Street entrance, we run 3(3 x lampposts fast, 3 x lampposts jog) to warm up.  When we reach East 72nd Street, we run 800m hard up Cat Hill to Cleopatra's Needle, and we turn back and recover back to 72nd Street.  Then we run 800m hard up Cat Hill again, and we turn back and recover to 72nd Street again.  Then we run 1mile hard up to E90th Street.  We take a very long recovery northwards until we hit the traffic stop light by the swimming pool.  The last pickup is a 2 mile run all the way back to 82nd Street (please read the numbers of the lampposts). 

FIELD NOTES:

• As your regular coach is away in Florida, this session was run by Ramon Bermo whose regular coaching job is with the NYU Running Club.  Uh oh, bad news for the latecomers again.  Amazingly, unlike the Tuesday workout, he did not begin speaking until 7:03pm (according to the official Central Park Track Club watch).  The early start plus the fact that the workout headed south instead of north must have caused a lot of people to miss the head count.  Fortunately, by a miracle, we had Kai Michaelsen-Falz and Frank Schneiger showing up (Frank explained, "It was an accident") to pad the count up to 43 persons.  While Frank has been seen in workouts in recent memory, Kai must not have shown up in ... oh, say, five years or some such.
• Although your coach said that he had no idea what the total distance is, it is easy to figure out that the run covered the six mile loop, plus two repeats of (half mile fast, half mile slow).  Therefore, the total distance is 8 miles.  Technical note:  If you absolutely need to nitpick (oh, how we missed Kevin Arlyck!), the distance is just short of 8 miles, but more than 7.9 miles as the distance from East 72nd Street to Cleopatra's Needle is actually short of 800m.
• Harry Morales missed the head count, and ran his own workout consisting of one five-mile loop at 3 lampposts fast and 2 lampposts jog all the way through.  That workout gave the coach pause --- "What is Harry training for?  400m races?"
• If you were at the Thursday workout a couple of weeks ago, you probably remember seeing Dave Howard going by in the Media Corporate Challenge Race.  We can now report that he won that race as well as the most recent race this past Tuesday.  Dave issued this qualification, "This guy (New York Harrier Matt Rossetti) on my team is probably at least a minute faster than me and he let me win."
• In spite of this being a tough workout (4 hard miles, including 3 times up Cat Hill and one long 2 miler on a hot and humid evening), people actually seemed to have appreciated it.  For example, Sandra Scibelli came in looking exhausted and saying "It was a great workout."
• Rob Zand had this comment, "You've gotten a lot of mileage from the four alarm story."  Well, in truth, there is really not much going on around here, so we definitely want to milk every little thing for what it's worth.
• As a reminder to newcomers, you should try not to bring a lot of stuff (such as backpacks) to the workout.  There is simply no place to check it in.  If you have to hide it in the bushes, we would suggest that you should not leave it just behind the bushes around the statue, since this practice is well-known to the local denizens who may come around to sweep your objects up.  Instead, you can try the bushes across the street leading up to Strawberry Field, where there is greater pedestrian traffic so that it becomes unseemly for someone to be seen beating around the bushes.

8/29/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• 4 x (1000m, 400m recovery)

• 3 x (300m, 100m recovery)

FIELD NOTES:

• Our coach today was Ramon Bermo.  Uh oh, that's bad news for the latecomers.  Indeed the workout description was initiated promptly at 7:00pm (according to the official Central Park Track Club watch, which is two minutes slower than his own watch and five minutes later than Audrey Kingsley's watch, but he was persuaded to grant the grace period).  While the workout started with a headcount of forty-three people, we saw Margaret Angell and Alan Ruben coming in late.  The latecomers were also not helped by some enthusiastic timers.  At the end of the workout, Frank Handelman reported, "I got them out of here in 32 minutes."  When told that once up a time that he gave a certain timer credit for getting everyone out in 28 minutes and thereby set a standard of excellence, he said, "But these 1000m's today were long!"  Dear reader, here is an instant quiz:  Who was the aforementioned timer?  Only the true Central Park Track Club history majors will know the answer ... 
• In reviewing the weekend's result, Ramon Bermo congratulated the 26 people who set personal records at the NYC Marathon Tune-up.  Of course, this is premised upon the fact that the race was an 18 miler this time, whereas it was traditionally a 30k (=18.6 miles) and that none of the 26 racers had ever done the new distance before.  He was too modest to mention that the triathlete Ramon Bermo had his best race of the year at the Greater Hartford Triathlon with a 10th place overall finish.
• One reason Ramon Bermo opted to coach instead of running is that he figures that endurance athletes do not need speedwork.  Let us say that we have never seen anyone sprint as hard as he did across the field to call out the 800m and then the 1000m split times.  His words: "You're killing me!"
• After today's workout, there was a meeting of people who are interested in middle-distance running (loosely defined to be anything from 800m to 3000m).  Presently, there is a sufficient number of people on the team who are interested in developing a training program and a competitive schedule specifically for these races and we have a number of people on the team who should do well in these types of distances.  If you missed today's meeting, please contact Devon Sargent at DSARGENT@CRAVATH.COM  or Isaya Okwiya at ISAYA@HOTMAIL.COM for information.  This is open to all those who are interested, even though you don't know this is your true calling yet.

• This is end of August, and it is already getting dark by the end of the workout.  Look at the above photo, and you will recognize that there is no need to fear, as this track is well-lit by floodlights at the four corners.  Gone were the days in the early 1990's when each member was asked to bring a flashlight, and the track was illuminated all around by flashlights on the ground.

8/24/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• This course is very simply a six-mile loop, going counterclockwise.  The first pickup is the "Stuart" mile beginning at the "S" sign on the ground just south of Tavern On The Green and ending at East 72nd Street.  The so-called recovery is up Cat Hill to the William Hamilton statue facing the Metropolitan Museum.  The second long pickup is two miles north to the top of Harlem Hill.  On the way back home, there are some more lamppost pickups to make sure that you don't slow down too much.

FIELD NOTES:

• There were 48 people at the start of the workout.  It was fairly warm and humid tonight, and it was almost dark at the end of the workout.  Still, this is the kind of weather that made people hang around afterwards to chat and to feed the West Nile virus-carrying mosquitoes who know what's good for them.  Ouch!
• For a running community, the sad part is the inevitable leave-taking as people move on with their lives.  On this day, Paul Stuart-Smith announced that he is moving out of New York City for family reasons.   Coach Tony Ruiz rued, "Just when we got Paul to run a personal best of 26:44 at the Club Championships, he's leaving us."  Parting advice number one: "Pace yourself better in races!"  Paul himself would acknowledge, "I've been running for twenty-seven years, and it is only now that I think I am getting a handle on how to pace myself."  Parting advice number two:  "Don't overtrain --- or, don't follow the example of the guy who is standing next to you right now, Richie Borrero."  When the workout got on the way, our spotter at East 72nd Street saw everything unfold according to script --- Paul Stuart-Smith in the lead, Richie Borrero in the chase, the rest of the pack tight and together.  The positions were the same at the end of the workout.  For this last workout, Paul figured that he might have set a personal course record.

• The Central Park Track Club will not be only people in this town to miss Paul Stuart-Smith.  He has been involved with the New York Road Runners Club Running Foundation, so the kids there will miss him.  The Foundation is looking for runners to coach the kids.  As Paul will tell you, it has been a most satisfying experience for him.  If you are interested, you can go to the NYRRC website.  David Pullman, are you reading this?  The time for talking is over, it is time for action ...
• Coach Tony Ruiz described the Central Park Triathlon results as "Five of our six men were first in their age groups."  Well, we have to make sure that we don't shortchange that sixth man, Scott Willett.  You see, the top three finishers receive awards as FIRST, SECOND (for Scott) and THIRD, and then the remaining people are given age-group awards.  Thus, the fourth overall finisher Ross Galitsky received the first place M35-39 award while his age-group competitor Scott Willett received the second overall place award (and a bigger trophy).
• Both Scott Willett and Julie Denney showed up today, but on their bikes.  Scott is starting a new job as the Fitness Director at Chelsea Sport Piers; he is really excited at the prospect of being able to look up the attendance and fitness records of another Central Park Track Club member who is best known for digging up other people's records.  He is perhaps forgetting that this other person can now drop in anytime on Scott in his office to take photos ...  Meanwhile, Julie Denney said, "How come we didn't see the photographer out there on Sunday?  We all thought that he may be sick."  Well, it had something to do with four alarm clocks ...
• Another person on a bike today was James Siegel, who was the revelation as a ballplayer at the annual club softball game.  He had just finished playing softball in the park today, "We got killed today too.  Mercifully, the five run rule was invoked to stop the game."
• Weekend races --- Greater Hartford Triathlon will see Scott Willett, Julie Denney, Ramon Bermo, ...  Meanwhile, the Central Park 18 miler will see any number of our people, many of them just running long and easy ...

8/22/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• 3 x (200m, 100m recovery)

• 400m, 200m recovery

• 800m, 400m recovery

• 1200m, 400m recovery

• 1200m, 400m recovery

• 800m, 400m recovery

• 400m recovery

FIELD NOTES:

• Three days after the Club Championships, there were forty-four people present at the workout.  The big buzz was obviously about the team's performance at the Saturday race.  The bottomline team scores were: 3rd open men, 1st master men, 2nd serior master men, 4th open women, 3rd master women, 1st senior master women.  More significantly, these scores were achieved with breadth across the board (to wit, 11 runners under 27 minutes for the men) that was our best in quite a while.
• The Senior Masters (50+)  Men were beat out by four points.  This led our president John Kenney to say this to our third and last scorer Sid Howard: "Sid, for the second time this month, you let us down again."  You can read about the first time at Famous Saying #1051.  But, lest you think that this is serious, you should know that when the team and Sid have won so many championships in the past, this is really quite alright.
• When the Club Championships took place on Saturday, Guillermo Rojas was charging up Mount Washington on his bike.  He finished about 17 minutes behind the legendary Jeannie Longo, which is nothing to be ashamed of as only the top two men finished ahead of her.  G'mo later wrote:  "I ran in Tarrytown on Sunday. I started running by myself, then with a guy from the Westchester Track club and then another guy from the Prospect Park Track Club; both were very impressed with the way our team ran on Saturday."
• It should be noted that the Central Park Track Club is also a major triathlete club, as Ramon Bermo reminded us today.  This past Sunday on our home turf in Central Park, Scott Willett was second overall in the triathlon, while Julie Denney and Stacy Creamer finished 1-2 women; our other guys Ross Galitsky, Olivier Baillet, Randy Ehrlich and John Megaw each finished first in their respective age group and Margaret Nolan was third F40-44.  In all, we took seven of the top fifteen spots (2-4-6-8-11-14-15).  And, as our orator reminded us, this dominating performance was achieved even without our other elite triathletes such as Shelley Farmer, Stephanie Gould, Stefani Jackenthal, Richard Kixmiller and ... of course ... Ramon Bermo!
• When the celebration stopped, the coach said, "That was then, this is now.  Let's get back to work again."  As a reminder, there are four scoring races left for the year: the Harry Murphy XC 5K, the Staten Island Half Marathon, the New York City Marathon and the Joe Kleinerman 10K.  Please mark your very busy social calendar accordingly.
• While there is not necessarily a prescribed pace for these sets, the general idea is that you should be running at a sustainable pace.  You will have missed the point if you went out too fast at the beginning and became unable to continue or finish.  But holding something back in reserve leads to the temptation to let it all loose in the final 400m.  In the case of the "D" group, they were explicitly warned not to break out and to focus on form, but they still dropped their time from 90 seconds to 75 seconds.  Bad!  Very bad!

8/17/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• For those who are racing on Saturday (and that should be everybody, right?), the idea is to just jog one or two loops around the reservoir.  If you are not racing and want a real workout, then the idea is to jog up to the reservoir and do a tempo run of two loops.

FIELD NOTES:

• It's 36 hours before the Club Championships, why would anyone want to do a workout?  The forty people there today will have to answer that question.  When the group was polled for anyone NOT in the race, the only hands that went up belong to first-timers.  For those people, we apologise for the unusual circumstances today.  The Club Championships happen only once a year.
• After the coach finished telling the racers to take it easy today, Audrey Kingsley raised her hand and asked, "So what do you recommend us do on Friday."  The coach said, "Given that I have told you to take it easy today ... (trailing off ...)."
• Over the weekend, Megumi Fukami won the Bronx 50K.  She was not here today, but third-place finisher Ross Galitsky was present today.  Our veteran Fritz Mueller was actually quite surprised that someone on the club still do ultra-races.  Ross was very humble in making this clarification, "Let me make it very clear that I merely ran while Fritz raced."
• Michele Tagliati showed up today, blithely unaware of the following item on the website: "Ladies, don't forget to give Michele Tagliati a birthday kiss after the race on Saturday ..."  Well, he could find it overwhelming at that time ...

8/15/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• 3 x (200m, 100m recovery)

• 1 x (1 mile at 5 mile race pace, 600m recovery)

• 4 x (300m, 100m recovery)

FIELD NOTES:

"Don't panic, coach! I'm alright.  I am just resting today. I'll be running on Saturday."

"I won't be able to run the race because I have to save myself for the softball game."

"My non-matching shoes will make me that much faster for the race"

• The past weekend was a cool, dull washout.  Today, the heat came back with a vengeance at the workout.  It was enough to attract 56 people to come down for the workout.  For our track runners, this day is the last of the MAC Mini Meets up at CCNY, but still we saw Noah Perlis, Sue Krogstad-Hill and Frank Handelman down at the East River Park track.

• It is getting dangerous out there, especially at the 200m mark which is right by the goal for the mini-soccer game.  Last week, our timer got his cap knocked off by a misdirected ball.  This week, Eve Kaplan got hit in the leg by a shot on goal.  But the soccer players were nowhere as dangerous as the 'mule' on the track which nearly wiped out Kim Mannen.  This was enough to cause Kim to say, "I knew I should have gone to a softball game instead.  (pause for reflection).  Maybe not ... because who knows what might have happened there."

• This workout is relatively short in total distance compared to other workouts.  The importance is not to do it fast, but to do it right.  First of all, that means running the one mile at your projected race pace and not faster just because you can do it.  The final 300m's are meant to be done at the finishing speed in a race, and not a full sprint.  So, to all those people in the "D" group who ran the mile in 6:10 and the 300m's in under 60 seconds, Bola Awofeso had this to say, "I'll be watching you on the course.  If you don't run faster than 31 minutes on Saturday, I'll gonna whip you with a stick.  And I have the list of all eight of you."  P.S.  Kiet Vo was timed at 5:34 for the mile, so his projected 5 mile race time is 27:50 --- we'll be looking out for him!

• When Frank Handelman was asked if he was going to run the Club Championships, he said, "I have not run a road race in a long time.  But I would like to run this race, because I know that my picture won't be taken unless I am in the race."  Spoken like a true champion ...  

• Eden Weiss asked one of our photographers, "Where will you be on Saturday?" and received the obvious answer, "I can't tell you that, so you'll have to look good the whole time."  Eden also said, "Sarah Gross just told me that there is a photo of my daughter on the website's home page.  I have not seen it yet.  I've got to check it out when I get home tonight."  Well, even our representative in the Czech Republic --- the incorrigible Karel Matousek --- had seen it.

• The program for the Club Championships day can be found on a separate page.  The coach said, "I can't run because I've got to keep an eye on everybody."  Yadee, yadee ...

• Not everybody will be at the Club Championships, as Jerome O'Shaughnessy writes: "Unfortunately I will be missing the race as I will be arriving in Australia a few hours before you run. I will send positive vibes from 'down under' and will be checking the web for reports of great victories, both on the road and on the soft ball diamond."

• As a footnote, no one has stepped forward to make the claim for visitor # 100,000 as yet.

8/10/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• This workout consists of three counterclockwise laps around the reservoir, beginning and ending at the West 86th Street entry point (it is nice to have park benches and a water fountain there nowadays).  On the first lap, the ~1200m pickup is from the southern pumphouse to the the northern pumphouse.  On the second lap, the first 1200m pickup is from West 86th Street to Engineer's Gate (East 90th Street) and the second 800m pickup is from the northern pumphouse to West 86th Street.  On the last lap, the ~1200M pickup is again from the southern pumphouse to the northern pumphouse.

FIELD NOTES:

• Hot!  Hot enough for everybody!  Hot enough for the forty-seven people who showed up.  
• Question:  Why do the triathletes like to hover in the back close to the roadway?  Answer #1:  To identify and say hello to the cyclists (some of whom may be their significant others).  Answer #2: To update each other (and the website) about their race schedules --- e.g. G'mo Rojas at the Mount Washington Bike Race, Ramon Bermo at the Great Floridian Triathlon, Ross Galitsky in a Triple Ironman in six weeks' time but also in the 50K with Dan Sack this weekend, ...
• Although this may come too late for some of you (especially Richie Borrero), G'mo Rojas came to apologise for the late arrival of the portosans at the Manhattan Half Marathon this past saturday.  Still, what has Richie got to complain about for his fastest time ever (1:14:59) on this course?  But, of course, as our coach continues to say, Richie may be running very good times but he could always be faster if only he would ... blah blah blah ... (Technical note:  On the couple of weeks that the coach was absent, Richie professes to miss this part of the speech).  In this case, Richie could have gone even faster if he could have been lighter ...
• The total distance for this workout was advertised as 6.4 miles.  This has been a subject of some debate as to whether it is 6.4 miles or 6.5 miles.  The 6.4 mile distance is calculated as 3 x 1.6 miles on the reservoir and 2 x 0.8 miles to and from the reservoir.  But the reservoir is really 1.577 miles and the distance between the Daniel Webster statue is more than 0.8 miles but less than 0.9 miles.  So, there you have it.  As Graeme Reid pointed out, we runners are not obsessive-compulsive --- no, NEVER!  In the meantime, Graeme will put down 6.5 miles in his logbook.
• We may have hit a hitch with respect to the Fila team uniforms as their inventory is exhausted, although they have a new line of black-orange uniform for the fall season due to come out.  In the meantime, we still have about 40 of the orange singles still available (you know, the ones showcased on the top of the current photo gallery).  Today, John Kenney brought some of those singlets for new members --- we will have to say that they (Shelley Farmer, Graeme Reid, ...) look terrific in them.  It is fairly important to wear these orange singlets in races --- for example, our photographers completely missed Graeme Reid wearing dark blue for the entire Manhattan Half Marathon.  So please contact John Kenney if you need one of those singlets.

8/8/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• 12 x (400m, 200m recovery)

FIELD NOTES:

• There were forty-eight people at the workout.  Most of our sprinters were either up at the Mac Mini-meet or getting ready for the Masters National Championships this weekend in Eugene, Oregon.  This meant that the only two sprinters Noah Perlis and Ray Prybylski ended up running with us (and, most importantly, included in our headcount).  Thankfully for them, quartermiles are still within their endurance limit, although the fact that they were not given nap time in between must have been a totally new experience. 

• The weather forecast yesterday was for all sorts of heat alerts and warnings for a 90 degree plus day in high humidity.  It did not turn out that bad, as the humidity was quite tolerable.

• The 400m's are divided conceptually into three sets of fours.  In the first four, you run them at your 5K race pace.  This should be very easy to do.  In the next four, you bring the time down three seconds.  Then in the last four, you go back up to the original 5K race pace.  Since these quartermiles are done at controlled pace, pack running is essential to maintain a fair pace.  At least, that is the principle although there are some deviations in practice --- e.g. the "D" group leaders went through the first four quartermiles in 1:37, 1:24, 1:30, 1:30, indicating that it took a while for them to locate that target pace.  If you feel that you are straining for whatever reason, you are advised to do just 10 and skip the last 2 as this is not an endurance builder.

• Over the weekend, Toby Tanser won the Manhattan Half Marathon.  We also had a number of close seconds --- Shelley Farmer at the Greenwich Cup Triathon and Stacy Creamer at the Highland Triathlon.  Scott Willett swam to work and claimed fourth place at the Great Hudson River Swim.

• We seem to be getting the same two timers every week, and people seemed to have resigned to accept the routine.  Bola Awofeso gets the "C" group, who all profess to hate him because he rules with the iron fist.  As for the "D" group, they continue to be stuck with someone who couldn't make up his mind whether he is taking picture or reading out split times --- what is one-twenty-seven?  is that the time for the quarter?  or the picture number that he just took ... ?

• For those of you who didn't realize, the new guy running with us in the NYPD singlet today is Jonathan Cane, a top cyclist in the New York City area.  Running a speed workout is actually a new experience for him, although he seemed to have found that all he had to do was to follow the women, who seemed to be able run at sensible, steady pace.  (No, he has not met David Pullman yet ...).  In case you don't recognize that name, let it said that he is a co-author of  The Complete Idiot's Guide to Weight Training, just in case you are seriously contemplating bulking up (note: Craig ("The Body") Plummer does not need to apply).

• As a reminder, it is getting dark sooner and sooner ...

8:20pm, August 8, 2000
East 6th Street westwards

8/3/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• This workout consisted of one counterclockwise four mile loop and one counterclockwise lower 1.7 mile loop for a total of 5.7 miles.  There are three one-mile pickups within the workout.  The first one is from East 90th Street through the transverse to West 102nd Street.  The second one is from the grating at West 88th Street down to West 72nd Street.  The last one is from the "S" mark on the road south of Tavern On The Green to East 72nd Street.

FIELD NOTES:

• This was a very humid evening (we could not say "very, very humid" because that description was just used for yesterday's race in Prospect Park and that one was declared to be even more humid).  There were 44 people at the start of the workout.  But, as Audrey Kingsley points out, we are scrupulously honest in providing qualified statements about anyone not running in the workout.

• So for the record, the first person not running in the workout today was the cyclist Stacy Creamer, wearing the maillot jaune of the U.S. Postal Service team leader.  In this photo, her bike is barely visible; after all, as the saying goes, It's Not About the Bike.  Stacy was the winner of the Brooklyn Biathlon last Saturday, while still being officially out with a case of plantar fasciitis.  Coach Tony Ruiz said, "First I hear that she couldn't walk.  Next I hear she won a biathlon.  So I hope that she can come and run the Club Championships in 30 minutes using a cane."  Stacy promises to be at that race.

• The second person not running in the workout today was Richard Kixmiller, wearing a Hawaiian shirt and thongs.  He had just completed Ironman USA on Sunday, and qualified for Ironman Hawaii later this year.  That is why he needs to start practicing how to wear a Hawaiian shirt ...

• About the triathletic feats on the past weekend, Tony Ruiz said, "I don't understand too much about what it is that they do ..." leading to someone to come up with an assist, "... the other two events are swimming and biking!"  Kidding aside, the first of those two events would come in handy later this evening ...

• Another weekend winner was Megumi Fukami at the six hour run in Kissena Park on Saturday, thus qualifying for the national championships.  She covered more than forty miles during the time.  Tony Ruiz said, "I'll have to go home and use my calculator to figure out what it means."

• At 7:24pm, someone murmured, "The coach is going for the all-time record."  Not to worry, because that record (7:35pm) was never seriously threatened as everyone was on the way by 7:31pm.  An alternate interpretation is that the coach just wanted to make sure that we get absolutely drenched by the rainstorm rolling in from the west.  Indeed, depending on how fast you ran this workout and how far away you live, you may have stepped into the shower long before you got back to your apartment.  In fact, you could have been toasted by the lightning bolts ...

8/1/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• 3 x (200m, 100m recovery)

• 4 x (1000m, 400m recovery)

• 4 x (200m, 100m recovery)

FIELD NOTES:

• This turned into a very humid evening, although it was not excessively hot.  In other words, good sprinting conditions.  As the evening moved along, it got darker and threatened to rain.  Could it be that Pokémon effect again?  Fortunately, the heavy rains arrived a bit after we had left safe and sound.
• The headcount at the beginning of the workout was 42 persons.  This is a slightly lower number than in the past few weeks, but this is actually a good sign that people are either running at the track meet at CCNY tonight (note: there was a 5000m track race) or the Prospect Park 5K tomorrow.
• Over the weekend, Stacy Creamer won the Brooklyn Biathlon and Toby Tanser won the Dash & Splash 5 Miler in the park.  For Toby, the month of July has been very good with three wins.  Also, Julie Denney finished the Ironman USA triathlon in 10:48 as 2nd female 30-34 and 5th amateur female, thus qualifying for the big event in Kona, Hawaii.  Update:  Julie Denney was promoted to 1st female 30-34 after the person in front was unmasked as a pro.  She has declined the invitation to participate in Ironman Hawaii (perhaps to save herself for the big event at the Shawangunks ...).
• The first three 200m's are meant to be warm-ups (and by that, we don't mean walking!).  The first two 1000m's are done at 4 mile race pace and the last two 1000m's are done at 5K race pace.  The half marathoners for this Saturday should skip the last 1000m.  The last 200m's are done for 'form'; that is to say, you are supposed to look good .  In the case of Kim Mannen, she looked good as well as ran fast in 34 seconds (to the exclamation from the "A" team --- 'This is a half miler, not a marathoner!').
• We are happy to report that after first hearing the name of Steve Sipe at the post- marathon party for the 1998 New York City Marathon, we have finally had the pleasure of meeting the real person today.  In the interim, we had been wondering if we will ever meet him in person.  We hope to see him more often in the future (assuming he survives the trip on the Sid Howard disco van).
• Eden Weiss ran his own workout, which was a 4 mile run (16 laps).  Eden, is it really necessary to do it on a track?  Are you sure that you want to listen to more wisecracks about your body tilt?
• Victor Osayi will be racing tomorrow, so he was not running in the workout.  Extra bodies (and disabled bodies) are always recruited to be timers, but of course Victor found himself sprinting across the field to call the splits for the 1000m's and 200m's.  Also, he did not have a watch and had to borrow one and receive instant instructions to use it as well.
• We were visited by an illuminary today --- NYRRC webmaster Peter Krebs.  Fortunately, our crew seemed to be on their best behavior, so he did not observe any of the following: fistfights with soccer players, elbowing one's teammates, depositing body fluids on the track, destroying the quality of life behind the dumpster, public nudity (yes, there was one scene but that was after he left), etc.  
• Perhaps we are getting scrutinised by the NYRRC because of the highly inflammatory Famous Sayings #1018.  Already Guillermo Rojas has written:  "I read #1018 --- a challenge!"  Of course, we have no real stake in the matter, but what we would really like to see is Harry Morales arriving at 745am to find everyone long gone.  Now that would be the occasion for a memorable quote (but most likely unprintable, if Harry stays true to form).  To tilt the odds against him, we publish this announcement:

  The NYRRC has extended registration hours, for the Manhattan Half Marathon to the following:

       Thursday, August 3, noon-7:30pm
       Friday, August 4, 11am-8:00pm

  This has been a public service announcement from your favorite webiste.

7/27/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• The warm up is a long 1.7 miles from the Daniel Webster statue to West 102nd Street.  The lone pickup item is 2.8 miles consisting of two northern hill loops.  Recovery then is back south to West 90th street, with three times 4 lampposts at finishing pace.  The total distance is 6.2 miles (=10K).

FIELD NOTES:

• There were forty-five people at the start of the workout.  Ross Galitsky was quick to point out, "That cyclist in green who just went by  is Aubin Sullivan.  And this one in black is big J.P."  It has certainly come to the attention of many that people who are not in the workout get many more lines than those in the workout ...
• This is the middle of summer, but the weather was just in the seventies because of a slight rain drizzle.  The coach had to warn everyone to be mindful of the slippery ground, as well as watching for slipping bicycles.  He said, "I don't want to see anyone running in the middle of the road just to save a few steps.  I'm going to be yelling at you if I see that."
• For this workout, the goal is to run the second northern hill loop at about 10 to 15 seconds faster than the first one.  The success of this workout is measured strictly in these terms and not the total time for this 10K run.  If you miss the goal by being either too fast or too slow on any loop, you will have misestimated your level of fitness.  As for those lamppost sprints at the end, they are intended for those people not at the track workouts as these permit them to polish their finishing kick.  As a reminder, those should not be all-out sprints that could lead to hamstring pulls.  The coach says, "Remember those two guys in the 200m final at the Olympic trials?  That's what you get for going faster than your means allow."  But Noel Comess offered a dissenting opinion, "Their problem was not related to their hamstrings.  It was their jaw muscles."
• After this workout, there was a meeting of the women on the team.  Before sending people out on the workout, the coach Tony Ruiz reminded them, "After the workout, I WANT MY WOMEN here."  (Technical note:  The bold-underlined-capital lettering was done at the specific request of Margaret Angell, in spite of the coach's ineffective explanation that he didn't own them and that he didn't really 'want' them in that sense ...)  As for the proceedings of this meeting, that is privileged information not available to this male reporter ...
• A couple weeks ago, there was a meeting of the men on the team.  The coach regarded that one as a success under this criterion, "Ever since that meeting, Jonathan Pillow has been coming to the workouts."  In fact, the coach held Jonathan as a paragon of virtue for --- his 'orange hair'.

The above photo of Jonathan Pillow was in fact not taken on this evening, but was retrieved from our archives.  It was previously scheduled for publication as one of front page covers, but we thought that this descripion item would have been difficult for those not present tonight to appreciate without a photo.  Have no fear, though, because the archive is bulging with many other candidates (including yourself, of course ...).  Stay tuned and be sure to check in every Saturday (yes, we schedule the photo update on our least trafficked day of the week) ...

As a technical note, we should point out that the coach's hair is even more 'orange' than Jonathan's, so if you think that you want a shot, there is in fact a higher standard to aim for ...

• This weekend is the big Ironman USA event that many of our triathletes have prepared all year for.  This event has live internet updates, so we can pick up their intermediate splits during the race.  Please, we don't want any more DNF's or medical tent trips like last year, because we don't want to be up all night checking (and praying) for you to show up!!!  Please finish strong with dignity, just for our sakes!!!

• It has come to our attention that for the past several weeks, we have been getting over a hundred visits per night to this page on Tuesday and Thursday evenings after 11pm.  We know one of these people must be Yves-Marc Courtines, but who are the others?  Are these workout descriptions really so interesting?  In the good days, we would run ten miles before the workout, run all out during the workout and jog three miles home, where we eat a wholesome, hearty meal, go to bed early and wake up early for the 6am morning run.  These days, people show up late and chat before the workout, jog and chat for 6 miles, stand around and chat after the workout, nibble on exotic vegetarian good and chat in some wayward restaurant, go home and click on the website to pick up the gossip, go to bed at 2am and wake up late in the morning.  We don't get it ... and they don't get it either ...

7/25/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• 3 x (200m, jog across the field)

• 3 x (1200m, 400m recovery)

• 3 x (300m, 100m recovery)

FIELD NOTES:

• Fifty-two people were present at the start, not counting the three sprinters who did not go up the mini-track meet at CCNY and Devon Sargent doing strides.  Jose Lasalle made it to his first track workout of the year, thanks to a switch in his work schedule.  He said, "I have to make my membership dues work for me somehow."  Next week, he'll be back in the coal mine (sorry, we mean 'MTA subway train') again.  He can wave to us when his L-train crosses the Williamsburg Bridge ...
• This was yet another uncommonly un-summer-like day in July.  Where did the summer go?  We want to suffer!  As a reminder of how far we have gone in the outdoor track season, look at the photo below.  We've past the summer solstice over a month ago, and the sun is about to set at the end of our workout already.  

Bientôt nous plongerons dans les froides ténêbres, 
Adieu vive clarté de nos étés trop courts!

• The workout today is intended to set up a race this weekend as a setup for the Club Championships.  The 1200m's are longer than ordinary and the 400m rests are shorter than ordinary.  The proper strategy is to run these at your 5K race pace.  If you go out too fast, you would have trouble recovering sufficiently to run the next set.  The final 300's are meant to be done at 'finishing kick' pace (and that definitely doesn't mean 47 seconds for the "C" group!).
• There were not many race results to report over this weekend.  A belated race result was Toby Tanser winning the Tavern on the Green six-mile race last Wednesday.  That was a fun run which we had only just read about in the Daily News.  That win is the 21st road race won by our team members this year and the ninth of the year for Toby.  The problem of not having more race results is that it is difficult to assess what condition people are in.  But the coach did say, "I am happy to see Audrey Kingsley run a 19:56 5K this weekend." 

• And who is that solitary orange-clad person doing his own track workout?  That would be Eden Weiss, shown in the above photo, currently on a workout schedule based upon long intervals.
• The big news about Central Park was the West Nile virus scare.  Evidently they found some mosquitos trapped in the park carried the virus, so the park was shut down last night (cancelling the music concert as well as the baseball games) for spraying.  To assuage Margaret Angell's concern,  our subject expert Bola Awofeso has this to say, "I grew up in West Africa.  The hysterical reaction here about this sort of thing is simply laughable."  Still, there is no harm in wearing long sleeves and long pants and spray yourself all over.  Right?  After all, summer has not appeared yet ...

7/20/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• Jog eastwards across the 72nd Street transverse and run south until you see the 880 yd mark on the road (equal to lamppost number 6601).  Run the next half mile at marathon race pace until you reach the "S" mark just south of Tavern On The Green.  Jog back to West 72nd Street.  Run the next full mile at half marathon race pace until you reach the grille by the roadside at West 88th Street.  Jog to West 102nd Street.  Run the next 1000m at 10 mile race pace to the top of the Harlem Hill and down to the Martin Luther King Boulevard entrance into the park.  Jog to East 90th Street.  Run the next mile at 10K race pace downhill to East 72nd Street.  Go across the transverse back to the Daniel Webster statue.  The total distance of the workout is 6.6 miles (=1.7 mile lower loop + 4.9 mile upper 5 mile loop).

FIELD NOTES:

• Your guest coach of the evening was Ramon ("my friends call me Raqui") Bermo.  He does have a reputation to protect.  So he promptly asked for everyone's attention at 7:00pm (according to the official club watch).  First he asked, "Any announcement?  None?  Good, let's go right into the workout."  The workout description was repeated once for the latecomers.  At 7:09pm, the first group set out, the second at 7:10pm, the third at 7:11pm and the fourth at 7:12pm.   No nonsense whatsoever.
• There would have been one announcement but Alan Ruben came too late to take that opportunity.  This is what the message would have been: "The Philadelphia Distance Run is a flat half-marathon which takes place this year on Sunday, September 17th.  Our club has entered teams in this race for more than 10 years now.  This half-marathon is ideal for anyone planning a fall marathon or for someone who wants to target a fast half-marathon.  If you wish to run the Central Park Track Club in this race, you MUST send a completed application form together with a check for $27 payable to "Philadelphia Distance Run" to Alan Ruben, 801 West End Avenue, Apt. 5E, New York, NY  10025 to be received by Thursday, August 10th.  Forms will be available at the workouts.  DO NOT apply online or individually or else you will not count for the team.  Accommodation is currently available at the Wyndham Franklin Plaza Hotel (race headquarters) for $130 (215-448-2000) but will fill up quickly."
• There were 61 persons present at the workout today.  The actual counts when the groups came by after the first loop were 17 people in the first group, 16 people in the second group, 14 people in the third group and 10 people in the fourth group.  If you've learned your arithmetic well in elementary school, you would have realized immediately that the group counts add up to only a total of 57 persons.  The other four persons were 
  (1) Shelley Farmer on her bicycle and clad in a cycling shirt emblazoned with the word "Australia".  Go, 'roos!  
  (2) Scott Willett, who has not stopped saying "I'm not a runner" ever since he joined our club years ago
  (3) Sid Howard who came to listen to the workout and then went to meet with Frank Handelman for some sprints on the reservoir
  (4) the self-appointed historian of these workouts with a counter in one hand and a stopwatch in the other.
• We note that Charlie Stark arrived at the workout at 7:14pm, looking totally outraged and complaining to the person manning the Central Park Track Club information booth,  "What you mean, 'they've all left already'!?"  He was directed to head south in the other direction to meet up with the group.
• Next week, there will be a women's team meeting after the Thursday workout.  Be there if you can.

7/18/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• 600m, 200m recovery

• 400m, 200m recovery

• 1000m, 400m recovery

• 600m, 200m recovery

• 400m, 200m recovery

• 1000m, 400m recovery

• 3 x (300m, 100m recovery)

FIELD NOTES:

• There were 53 people at the start of the workout.  It was a hot and very dry evening, so it was important to get proper hydration.  It was as if your mouth and throat would go desperately dry after each set in the workout.  As those two kids on the front cover of the website this week say, "Our mom and dad tell us to drink plenty of water in the summer!"

• In terms of the sequence of arrival, David Pullman arrived way early before the start, Audrey Kingsley materialized at 7:33pm and Margaret Angell waltzed in at 8:09pm.  This means that we can no longer use the arrival of specific individuals as surrogates for clock time.  Audrey was able to jump in for a 400m in 83 seconds, which must be her fastest quartermile in over a year; then she rested as she has a race tomorrow morning.  We would like everybody to send in reports about her at the Tavern on the Green Breakfast Run, whether you are there or not --- this is one of the greatest traditions on this club (see 1999 race report) ... 

• In reviewing the race results over the weekend, the star was obviously Skipper Clark, who competed in eight different events at the USATF Eastern Regional Masters Track & Field Championships and came away with 6 firsts and 2 seconds. 

• On this day, there was supposed to be a women's team meeting after the race.  In hindsight, this was not a good day for attendance.  So instead, the meeting will be deferred until next Thursday (9 days from today), as more women can make the Thursday workout inside the park.  Please attend if you can (meaning you, Kim Mannen).

• This is a VO2 MAX workout.  The total time for the 600m and 400m should be close to the 1000m.  Mentally, you run a 600m and then a 400m separately, and then you attempt to put the two together without pausing.  If you go too fast on the shorter items, then you have missed the point.  The coach would like to remind everyone that they are not Michael Johnson, in spite of what they may have seen recently on the television screen late at night.  After the workout, the coach was actually quite impressed at the ability of people to hold themselves back from running all-out sprints (well, maybe with the exception of Shula Sarner in the end ...).

• Ramon Bermo was reading off the split times on his watch and making live commentary: "75 second lap.  69 second lap.  Now I know for sure that I want to be an endurance athlete and stay off the track."

• If you are a longtime reader of the timers' roster below (and you are, right?), you will no doubt notice that the ordering has just been reversed to most recent date on top.  What happened?  From Yves-Marc Courtines came this request: "It might be better to invert the table with the latest date at the top and the oldest one lower down.  This would reduce the requirement to scroll down through older stuff after completing a reading of the latest fantastic weekly commentary."  Yes, that is why runners of this generation are slower than their forebears --- they just want to take shortcuts whenever they can.  We know that if it were Fritz Mueller, he would have found an excuse to jog extra distance to get to the bottom of the list ...

7/13/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• The workout heads south to the "S" marker just south of the Tavern On The Green.  The first pickup is the one mile run to East 72nd Street.  Jog up to Cleopatra's Needle, whence the next pickup is the half mile to East 90th Street.  Jog up to the east side of the 102nd Street transverse.  Run through the transverse in simulation of a midrace surge (if you have any).  Recover from the west side of the 102nd Street transverse to West 97th Street (where the traffic tunnels under West Drive) and run three quick lampposts.  The final 1.7 mile pickup goes from West 84th Street through the 72nd Street transverse and ends at Cleopatra's Needle.  The total distance is about 5.85 miles.

FIELD NOTES:

• There were 53 people when we stepped away from the statue towards the road.  After that, we saw the usual latecomers Harry Morales and Yves-Marc Courtines.  Those two would have been in trouble today if they came a little bit later since the workout headed south, and Harry comes down from the north and Yves-Marc from the east.  Even later than them was Noel Comess with a new hairdo (specifically, no hair).
• The 56 people that we spotted today makes this the largest workout turnout of the year.  Everything was right today --- the weather was hot but dry, it was bright outside and there were no major races this weekend.
• Before sending the people out, the coach asked "Is anyone racing this Saturday or Sunday?"  When some voice in the crowd said, "Yes, Saturday AND Sunday", the coach said, "In that case, I REALLY need to talk to you!"  Did someone once called that the Dan Sack emergency room syndrome?
• About the last 1.7 mile pickup, coach Tony Ruiz said, "This is gonna hurt!"
• Oh, this is definitely not the first time that we saw Nathan Klejman at a team workout this year.  His assertion that he attends only one workout per year is now shown to be false.
• In view of the recent robberies inside Central Park, the place was saturated with police today.  They were even beating around the bushes, so we urge all you bush-leaguers to be alert.  You can consult Richie Borrero about the current amount for a summons ticket.
• When we looked at our photo gallery, we realized that we have never had a photo session for a Central Park road workout.  So we hired a photographer today to record the proceedings on a bright summer evening.  Unfortunately, the photographer has insisted that he be paid first before he will hand over the photos, as our credit record has not been sparkling clean.  So just hang on ... it shouldn't be too long before our check is cleared ... Postscript (7/16/00): It's here!
• On next Tuesday, there will be a women's team meeting after the workout to talk about setting individual and team goals.  Please be there if you can. 

7/11/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• 4 x (400m, 200m recovery), steady pace

• 2 x (800m, 400m recovery), at 5K race pace

• 4 x (400m, 200m recovery), progressively faster by 1 second apiece

FIELD NOTES:

• There were forty-four people at the start of the workout.  As usual, we saw some latecomers such as Ramon Bermo saying "I don't need speed because I want to be a slow endurance multisport athlete."  Incidentally, he is well on his way to accomplish that goal with his 1:30:19 half marathon time on Sunday.  Now that time may still not be slow enough for Ironman USA, because he ran this half marathon not in the Bronx, but at the end of the Hudson Valley Half Ironman Triathlon on a hot and humid day over a hilly course to finish fifth place in the run.  He's gotta train more to get even slower ...

• Although this is the middle of July, we were happy to report that this was absolutely the most beautiful day of the year.  The temperature was hot, but there was nary a trace of humidity in the air under a brilliant blue sky.  Sid Howard said after the workout, "I am not even sweating."  On a nice day like this, the workout becomes much nicer, our teammates act much nicer and we didn't even mind the dust kicked up by the rugby players.  Oh, if only this could last forever and a day!

• Not everybody was as happy as we were, because sad-eyed Michele Tagliati said that he has not stopped crying since Italy lost to France on a tying extra time goal and a winning golden goal in the Euro Cup.  At least, the French contingent present today did not rub it in ...

• Given the fact that there were only three timers for four groups, the coach Tony Ruiz took charge of the two faster groups.  In the fastest group, we found Steve Eick on his second track workout of the year.  Of course, he was the guy who wanted to find out the workout times just to make sure that he was missing them.  His summation of his first workout of the year was, "Devon (Sargent) killed me!" and thus passing through one of the club rituals along with many other equally illustrious guys.

• The group timed by Bola Awofeso had three women: Margaret Angell, Shelley Farmer and Steve Eick's friend Lauren, and a bunch of guys.  One of the men in this group said, "I want to be the timer the next time that Bola runs in the workout himself.  I want to take revenge because he is so mean."  However, we observed that his group peeled off progressively faster times without overresting, all under the iron rule of their timekeeper.  At the end of the last 400m, Margaret Angell proudly announced, "We ran the last 400m in 74 seconds, one second faster than Craig Chilton."  She was slightly disappointed to learn that our standard of excellence (namely, that Craig Chilton) in fact had a 10 second handicap, so his real time was 65 seconds.  Oh, well, who's complaining on a nice day like today ...?

• The last group was timed by someone with a watch in one hand and a camera in the other.  The good news and the bad news are the same --- there will be lots of candid photos popping up all over this website before too long ...  For this group, the standard of excellence was --- Did you get beat by Hector the Parrot or not?  If you don't know what that means, all we can say is, "You gotta be there!" (or you will have to wait for the photo to appear ...)

• There was a short meeting of the men's team after the workout today.  Over the weekend, the team finished third place at the Bronx Half Marathon, led by the inevitable Toby Tanser and with an unexpected assist from new member Rob Zand.  In fact, Rob was running topless and most of our guys did not even realize he was running under the CPTC name.  This meeting was about focusing our team and personal goals on the upcoming Club Championships.

• Next week, following the workout, there will be a similar short meeting of the women's team.  Over the weekend, the team finished first at the Bronx Half Marathon, led by Shelley Farmer (coincidentally also appearing on our website's front cover).  Her time of 1:27:11 was not a personal record, but her best times are surely still ahead.  She was followed by another triathlete, Stephanie Gould and then the inevitable Audrey Kingsley.  The purpose of the team meeting next week (which Kim Mannen will have to miss through no fault of her own) will be about focusing our team and personal goals too.

7/06/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• Common workout:  Jog south en masse south from the Daniel Webster statue to just past the Tavern On The Green to the "S" marking on the roadway.  As the club legends goes, the "S" does not stand for "Start", but instead it stands for "Stuart" in honor of our coach of the evening.  The first pickup is one mile at half-marathon pace to the "1 mi" mark just before the East 72nd intersection.  Recovery is up Cat Hill (right, some recovery!) to the obelisk (aka Cleopatra's Needle).  The next pickup is a half mile to East 90th Street.  At that point, the workout diverges.
• Workout for the Bronx Half Marathon racers:  Hop on the reservoir and head northbound.  Look for the 440 yd mark and pick up for a quartermile to the 880  yd mark.  Recover for another 440 yds to the 1320 yd mark.  Finish with another 440 yrd fast to finish at the mile mark.  Get back on the road and jog north to meet the other people and then head back to the statue.
• Workout for the non-racers.  Continue north on the road to East 102nd Street right.  Pick up from the garbage can through the cutoff and head south to finish one full mile at the grate on West 88th Street.  Head back south to the statue.

FIELD NOTES:

• Taking over the coaching duties on very short notice (more precisely, less than 2 hours) was Stuart Calderwood.  As usual, his workout description was sprinkled with odd factoids, such as the coloring schemes and symbols for the distance markers on the reservoir path.  At least, he didn't get into the story of the orange dots (cf. Coach Mindy Solkin).
• Showing up for the first time in a long while not on a bike was G'mo Rojas.  Although he was the race director for the Tommy Run series, he was nowhere to be seen in Central Park on July 4th.  What happened?  He was at the Portland race instead.
• Showing up in a bronzed tan was Michael Trunkes.  After checking out the race schedule, he figured that he can be at the Club Championships!  Whoopee!  Unfortunately, he won't be running the half marathon this weekend.  That is a shame because we remember watching him run the first half of the NYC Marathon in 1:09 only to be nailed by Liz McColgan on Central Park South.
• Several announcements about the Bronx Half Marathon:
  (1)  Toby Tanser has offered the unclaimed prize (Ray Bans X5-ray sport shades) from his last quiz as mercenary bounty to our fifth male scorer on the team.  Presentation will be made after the race.  Please note that you have to be on the scoring team and not just finish fifth, which means that you must put your team name down on your application form or else your name is Liam Kinsella.
  (2) Among other people, Toby Tanser and Julia Casals plan to have an excursion to the Bronx Zoo after the race.  If you are a true New Yorker like us, you have probably never been there (nor, for that matter, to the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty (except on the way to the Staten Island Half Marathon), ...), so this will offer you an excuse for a first.
  (3) Speaking of Toby Tanser, you can read his preview of the race at the NYRRC website.  Unsnipped quote (name withheld) about his write-up: "You call this writing?"
  (4) We are leading by a couple of points in the Master Men's division.  We appear to be short-handed in this race, with Alan Ruben being out of town this time while Stuart Calderwood is "not in shape."  So, in the words of Toby Tanser, "Let us instead try to dig deep and push the team harder for their absence."  In other words, we will need all the 40 year+ old bodies that we can find.
  (5)  In response to Suso Montero question, "Are you going to the Bronx this weekend?", the answer was "No, it's too faraway.  The Bronx is a foreign country."  Charlie Stark helped to pinpoint the location by stating, "It's north of 96th Street."  For those of you who must go, here are the instructions from Toby Tanser, "Take the #4 train to Bedford Park Av, thereafter it is a short walk.  START TIME IS AN EARLY 8 AM!"
  (6) There will be no more announcements from Toby Tanser at this time.  P.S.  You may have gotten the impression that this whole workout consisted of Toby Tanser talking non-stop.  But in spite of dominating the share of voice in this write-up, Toby wasn't even present today!
• On next Tuesday, the coach will hold a short Open Men's team meeting for 15 minutes after the workout.  We will take this opportunity to set our goals and focus for the rest of the year.  On the Tuesday after next, the coach will hold a similar meeting with the Open Women's team. 

7/04/00

July 4th, 2000 East River fireworks

The Tuesday workout at East River Park was canceled because the park was overran by people waiting to watch the fireworks show.  Our photographer had a much easier time --- all he had to do was to look out the window and it's all happening right outside.  For those of you who missed the show, he has provided some photos and assures you that you haven't miss much.  Now, are you ready for 6 x (800m, 400 recovery)?

6/29/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• This workout is very simple --- one six mile loop done as a tempo run, with the middle four miles run at half-marathon pace.  For those who don't know the park geography (and this will come too late for you), the milestones are: mile 1 at the grill by West 88th Street, mile 2 at the top of Harlem Hill, mile 3 at the 102nd Street NYC Marathon entrance into the park, mile 4 at the West 86th steps up to the reservoir, mile 5 at the carousel and mile 6 just 20 meters short of the start (yes, the loop is actually 6.0273 miles). 

FIELD NOTES:

• There were 41 people present at the start.  Unfortunately, we'll have to confess that this includes a number of excludable people: (1) Richard Kixmiller wearing thongs (2) Kevin Arlyck on his way to a park concert (3) Ramon Bermo and G'mo Rojas on their very expensive-looking high-tech triathlon bikes.
• Let it be said that Tony Ruiz showed up today in orange hair.  So, let's ask yourself, would you ... ?  His own explanation was, "It goes to show you that I'm serious about the softball game."
• Michele Tagliati showed up not in orange today, because Italy was playing Holland in the semi-finals of Euro Cup 2000.  Since this is mid-summer, he did not wear the dark blue national color, but instead wore the home white with a number 6 on his back.  Who is number 6?  The now-retired legendary Franco Baresi, famous for missing that penalty kick once upon a time ...  This afternoon, Italy beat Holland on penalty kicks to advance to meet France.  Of course, the Italians on ours team are very much outnumbered by the Frenchmen.  However, Michele makes up for numerical inferiority with his individual enthusiasm (evidence: he even wrote to La Repubblica to discuss Italian Serie A teams!)  At any rate, all this football (please, this sport is called 'football', never 'soccer') talk has Julia Casals saying, "I thought I left all that football stuff behind when I left Europe!"
• Ramon Bermo had this announcement to make, "Folks, you know that there is a race in the park on July 4th.  The TOMMY RUN will be a great race because your teammate G'mo Rojas is the race director.  It will be a lot of fun and, most importantly for the triathletes (editor: ... and Toby Tanser), there will be a lot of food.  There will also be a Joan Jett concert afterwards."  G'mo Rojas said afterwards, "No, in spite of what you all think, I did not pay this guy to say this."  The coach says, "It's fine to run this race, but you cannot use this as an excuse to back out of the Bronx Half!"
• As we noted, Kevin Arlyck dropped by on his way to a park concert.  He said that he should be back in the running by the end of summer.  Perrfect timing, because he can share the pace pushing duties with Alayne Adams ...
• About the weekend runs up at the Shawangunks.  Eve Kaplan has been trying to rent a van for the ten or so people who have indicated interest in going.  Since this is a very long weekend, Eve has found it hard to rent anything inside the city.  So this is an iffy proposition at the  moment, but she will get back to everybody.  There are still some other options to explore (e.g. Julia Casals suggested getting a MTA bus but we need someone who is licensed to drive a bus, Ramon Bermo suggested renting a car from Newark International Airport, etc).  If you are one of those well-connected people who can pull strings, please let her know at evedkap@hotmail.com.
• About next Tuesday --- the workout is effectively cancelled since East River Park will be crowded with rowdy people waiting for the fireworks show later that evening.
• Oh, about this workout, there was another six mile tempo run exactly four weeks ago.  So one good point of comparison is about how you did then and now.  Well, that previous one was memorable for the number of people who crashed and burned.  It looked much  more controlled and balanced today.  A good sign. 

6/27/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• 1200m, 400m jog
• 1000m, 400m jog
• 800m, 400m jog
• 600m, 400m jog
• 4 x (300m, 100m jog)

FIELD NOTES:

• It was hot and muggy in the morning, but a quick shower in the middle of the day cooled the weather somewhat.  There were 48 people at the start of the workout, including the much missed Connie Kim, who said afterwards that the workout certainly made her realize that she had been away for a long time but it still felt good.  
• John Kenney informs us that the club has received 65 orders for the new uniforms (see the home page photo of Elijah Largat winning the Boston Marathon in the same Fila uniform).  If you are interested in placing an order, please let John Kenney know ASAP:  John.Kenney@wcom.com or call him at 212-519-4380
• Also seen today was Steve Eick, the same person who was previously inquiring about our track workout location and start time because he "wanted to make sure that he misses it."  Simply irresistible ...
• Back on the track was Craig Chilton, whom everybody believed to have gone to the beach last week.  He issued this clarification, "If you can call being in Canada as on the beach, then so be it."
• The first four items of the workout should be run at 5K race pace.  Since it gets progressively shorter, it should get easier if you didn't blow the first set.  For those finishing 300m's, Sid Howard said, "I don't want to see any speed records now.  The workout is over already.  The work is done already.  So let us stay together and maintain good running form."
• This workout seems to have lasted for a long time.  The total distance was probably shorter than the typical workout, but there was probably a lot more talking before, during and after.  This led Coach Brian Denman to comment to Sid Howard, "If you were running with my group, you would have been done already."
• Last week, the track workout was recorded in a PHOTO ALBUM, to the howls of protest from all of the supposedly camera-shy people.  This week, there was no camera present, to the howls of protest from many of the same people.  There were many requests for (1) a photo of Eric Harvey, who won a gold medal at the MAC Outdoor Track Championships after a night of partying; (2) a photo of someone who came to the track in a skirt and took it off right in front of the grandstand; (3) a photo of a photo of someone in distress at a recent race; (4) a photo of the beautiful red/blue sunset.
• A very happy person today was Victor Osayi.  He will be running in the Peach Tree 10K in Atlanta on July 4th.  Previously, he was relegated to the back of this 60,000+ person race.  He has now persuaded the organizers to upgrade him to #513.  Good luck with that 110 degree weather down in Atlanta!
• One person whom we haven't been seeing at the workouts was Lynn Blackstone, who wrote us: "Rhya Gwendolyn was born to Alayne Adams and Tim Evans on June 7, 2000.  Rhya joins her brother Theo, 5 and her sister Charlotte, 3.  The handsome family was in the office (the Rockefeller Foundation, where Tim works) last week for a visit and baby Rhya seems to be a lovely addition.  Of course, most important to us CPTCers, especially the women, is that Alayne will get back to training in September.  I wonder when she'll have time ..."
• As a reminder, Alan Ruben is organizing a trail run at the Shawangunks.  We know that Eve Kaplan is thinking about renting a van; so if you don't have a ride, please email evedkap@hotmail.com as soon as possible. 

6/22/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• This workout is the 10K route consisting of the out-and-back to West 102nd Street plus two loops around the northern hills.

FIELD NOTES:

• There will be a scoring race on Saturday morning, which explains why there were only thirty-one persons at the workout today.  This count does not include G'mo Rojas who dropped by on his bicycle.  He said, "What scoring race?  I'm with the New York Road Runners Club and I have no idea!"   He is the race director of the July 4th Tommy Run in the park and promises to be back in the running immediately after the race.
• Much missed are those two traveling masters Stacy Creamer and Stuart Calderwood.  Today, Stuart came by and said, "I've been injured.  Since I knew that this was not going to be a tough workout right before the race, I thought I would come by today dressed in thick black t-shirt and long black pants just to see how much sweat I can generate ... NOT!"  (The preceding reference may only be appreciated by those present --- sorry, but you gotta be there!)  Meanwhile, we understand that while in France, Stacy won a cross-country 10K race, received a large trophy and a bouquet of roses, and then had to deliver a thank-you speech in French.   Oui, all those French language lessons during the workouts came in quite handy, merci!
• PHOTOPLAY:  Concerning this past Tuesday's workout, for which we have a PHOTO ALBUM, Shula Sarner said, "You must have gotten me in every photo."  Please read Shula's comments on this subject at the workout of 6/13/00.  Meanwhile, David Birchfield was quite oblivious as yet to the fact that he had supplied the empirical proof that one can fall asleep during a workout.  Also coming today was Kim Mannen, whose e-mailbox has been flooded by 'elbow' jokes following her very serious-looking front page photo on our website with the caption: "I don't understand why people keep running into my elbow ..."  In case you missed the point, Kim is the person who is most often associated with elbowing incidences (see, for example, Famous Saying #398), including charges of assaulting a man twice her size.  We will continue to publicize her feats to strike terror amongst rival teams (men and women) ...

6/20/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• 8 x (600m, 200m recovery), sets 1-5 at 5K race pace and sets 6-8 at 3 seconds faster

FIELD NOTES:

• There were forty-three people at the workout.  For the first time this year, the coach thought that he may have NO timers for the day until Craig Chilton offered his services.  Thanks Craig for saving our streak!  Oh, by the way, as with his running, Craig has beautiful form in holding up his watch and reading off it ...
• Yes, you must have been shocked to come back that evening and again during the next day to find ... NO WORKOUT DESCRIPTION!  Waaaaaaah!  Did you go into cold turkey withdrawal?  Did you think that this was punishment for some unknown crime that you have committed?  Perhaps you even sent in inquiries: "If you are bedridden and need some of Toby's famous chicken soup, please email ..."  Well, it would seem that your regular reporter was 'tied up' with some other business and wounded up sleeping underneath his cubicle at the office that night, but that was another story for another website ...
• The good news is that this particular workout actually got its own PHOTO ALBUM!!!

6/15/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• We head off north to the hills.  The first pick up is a one mile run beginning West 102nd Street through the northern hills to the traffic light near the swimming pool.  We turn south to East 90th Street and we hop on the reservoir path.  The next pickup is a one mile run all the way through to West 86th Street.  We recover around the reservoir to East 90th Street, and the third pickup is a one mile run consisting of three quick lampposts and three not-as-quick lampposts.  We go back to the statue for a total of 6.7 miles.

FIELD NOTES:

• There were forty-five people at the beginning of the workout.  In this count, we included Aubin Sullivan on her commuter bike out here to check out the happening, and what is more we included our retired coach George Wisniewski who was out there to inspect the troops (yes, he used to call the first group to set out as the F troop).  George came over to inspect the troops, and came up with this verdict: "This is the ugliest A group that I have ever seen."  Thanks for the egoboo, George --- they needed that!  To give this demoralized crew a moral lift, Tony Ruiz said, "Back then, we were ugly but we were also BAAAAAD!"  So we need our guys to show us how BAAAAAD they can be too ...
• For a while, George stood on the other side of the road talking to Sid Howard and not wanting to disrupt the workout.  Of course, he was quickly spotted by our Global Surveillance System (TM) and had to come over to say hello.  Sid said to the professional spy, "Somehow, I knew that you would be the one to spot him."  But then it was the guy's job to keep the headcount at workouts and every extra body helps (technical note:  being a 24-year member of the American Statistical Association means that he has to uphold the highest standard of the profession --- no number-fudging is admissible, and any extraordinary procedure must be annotated).
• In the workout description from last week, we reported that a neutral referee proclaimed that Ramon Bermo must have tennis balls in his calves.  Today, he said, "No, those are not tennis balls.  They are soccer balls."  Alright ... whatever ...
• Once more, at the wrong time in the wrong city, came Charles Allard shaking hands and bowing politely to his friends, who would go on to punish him on the road.
• We have had some crazy weather recently --- the weekend races were in ninety degree humidity, but the Tuesday workout was in fifty-degree weather.  But this is supposed to be summer and hot outside.  So we remind you to hydrate appropriately, so that you won't have to discuss your dinner from the previous night with the medical technician ...
• For this weekend, the race to watch is the Mount Washington Road Race, a straight 7.6 mile uphill run.  The entry lottery list shows the names of Scott Willett and Julie Denney, fresh from their straight 8 mile uphill run up Whiteface Mountain last weekend.  Hmm ... have they climbed every mountain yet?

6/13/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• 2 x (400m, 100m recovery)
• 800m, 400m recovery
• 2 x (1200m, 600m recovery)
• 800m, 400m recovery
• 2 x (400m, 100m recovery)

FIELD NOTES:

• While the Women's Mini-Marathon 10K had 85 degree weather on Saturday morning and the Litchfield Hill Road Race started at a brutal 92 degrees in the middle of the day on Sunday, we had temperature in the fifties today with a brisk southeasterly wind.  What is going on?  Please make up your mind!
• A shocking sight at the track was Ramon Bermo, who has been saying for some time that he is now a triathlete, which means that he has (or, more correctly, should have) no speed.  What was he doing here tonight?  Well, it turns out that he had just finished a 17 mile run and was about to do his cycling now.  We asked him what was his pace for those 17 miles, and he said it was somewhere like 7 minutes plus.  Hey, he must be the first person that we know who trains at a pace that is faster than his marathon goal pace (8 minute mile) ... he just needs much more practice in running slower.
• There were thirty-five people at the workout today.  One stranger was Charles Allard, who must have wandered into the wrong city at the wrong time.  Actually, he is here for one week.  For the past few months, he has been based in Tokyo and running our workouts following these descriptions on a time-delayed basis.  He figured that the time-zone differences must have caused him to be out-of-sync with the schedule --- is he running Tuesday's workout on Thursday or something like that ... ?  As for this workout, he said that it was hard because this is the first time he has stepped on the track in months, and he thinks that he will have an even harder time on Thursday, for his first group workout in months.
• Where was Craig Chilton?  Paul Stuart-Smith brought your third-place overall trophy from the 5K race for you!
• Shula Sarner had looked at our photos for the Mini-Marathon 10K and proudly declared, "The website photographer missed me again!"  Well, as far as this goes, we can say that it is not a good idea to fan the flames ... After all, even if she can hide in a race, she is open target at the workouts!
• Coach Tony Ruiz presented Jackie Cortes as, "Jackie is an old-time runner."  While this is an improvement over the "Jackie is an old runner" statement several weeks ago, this line still needs more polishing ...
• Tony Ruiz also congratulated Larry King on his 19:01 5K this weekend, causing the latter to say, "How do you know that?"  We think that Tony takes tremendous pleasure when he can surprise people that way.  Larry is a long-time member (Tony, please pay attention to this phrasing) who was away for sometime before coming back recently, and is probably not completely up to what this website is currently providing in terms of information content.

6/08/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• This is the dreaded hill workout.  We head north from the statue to West 90th Street and run a 2000m.  The first 1000m ends at West 102nd Street, and the second 1000m involves going through the 102nd Street transverse and turning north to stop three lampposts past the overhanging traffic light right next to the swimming pool.  The 'meat' of the workout are three times uphill runs from Martin Luther King Boulevard to the top of Harlem Hill, and another three times uphill runs from West 102nd Street to the top of Harlem Hill.  Then we head back to the statue.  The total distance is 7.8 miles.

FIELD NOTES:

• There were thirty-five people at the start of the workout.  Since the 10K scoring race was just a day and a half away, our female racers really should not be out here tonight.  So they were all sent jogging on the reservoir.
• As a preface to this workout, the coach explained, "Ramon Bermo does not show up often, except each time he shows up, the team gets the hill workout.  So you'all can blame him for it."
• Ross Galitksy observed, "Fritz Mueller came by from West 72nd Street, cupped his ears to listen to the workout description, shook his head and left immediately."
• Of course, you will recall that the last time we did this workout, Craig Chilton was wiped out by that one-man terrorist gang.  So on this warm night when all the bikers and rollerbladers are out in the park, the coach warned us to be extra careful.  We are glad that there is no casualty report tonight.
• Our social director Julia Casals tells us that the softball game after the Club Championships race this year will be a challenge match with the New York Harriers.  This leads to John Scherrer to declare, "I'm going to call my mom and tell her to fish out my glove and mail it to me."  Of course, we have the ultimate secret weapon --- Tony Ruiz's son, who is currently tearing up his little league with his hitting.  Anthony may be all of 10 years old, but he can hit a ton!  And, by the way, does anyone have the number for Richard Kixmiller's sisten-in-law?
• As a reminder, we have a social outing for next Monday to see the movie Grease at the Bryant Park Film Festival.  Please check our home page for details.
• After the workout, there was a competition between Ross Galitsky and Ramon Bermo.  Here are the final results --- Ramon Bermo has the widest shoulders, Ross Galitsky has the widest hips ("I inherited them from my mom"), and obviously Ramon Bermo has the biggest calves (the referee marvelled, "He must have tennis balls in them!").

6/06/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• 3 x 200m to warmup
• 2000m
• 800m recovery
• 2000m

FIELD NOTES:

• Here we are in June, enjoying the summer heat ... NOT!  Tonight's temperature was in the 50's, the wind was blowing in every direction and the rain was coming down continuously.  Cold, wet and raw.  Ughhhh!
• Whenever the weather is bad, the interest shifts from the workout itself to the attendance roster.  We counted fourteen people at the workout.  Three of them (Eden Weiss, Victor Osayi and Kiet Vo) arrived early, did their own run (five miles for Victor and 3.5 miles for Kiet) and left before the others got started.  Those who actually ran in the prescribed workout were Margaret Angell, Sarah Gross, John Kenney, John Scherrer, Bill Dunlap, Tyronne Culpepper, J.R. Mojica, Yves-Marc Courtines.  The officials were coach Tony Ruiz and timer Jim Aneshansley.  If you can do arithmetic well, you would realize that there were only thirteen names up there.  And if you have been really sharp in reading these workout descriptions, you will recognize that there is one person who never gets named, especially on bad weather days.  But this count of fourteen is irrelevant, because the only number that matters is how many people were left at the end --- five!  The rest had fled for their lives ...
• Coach Tony Ruiz said, "On my way over, I thought about what I can reasonably give under these conditions.  This was about as much as we can do. "   The first 2000m should be run at 4 mile race pace, and the last 2000m should be at 5K race pace.  Mind you, the pace should not be based upon your expected time under ideal conditions, but rather on the subjective effort under these conditions.
• Margaret Angell asked, "Where is that camera?  We could use it right now."  If we had a water-proof digital camera, we would have brought it along, and one precious shot would have been John Scherrer doing his warm-up lap while carrying an umbrella in hand.
• The discovery of the day was made by Sarah Gross: "The orange team jacket is really not water-proof."  Well, we think that it depends largely on the intensity of the rainfall.  At the rate the rain was falling this evening, nothing is water-proof.
• Our sprinters must have a better information network (or perhaps they are all wimps who made the identical decisions), because we didn't see any one of them show up.
• Question:  "Should we move our gear onto the long jump pit?"  Answer # 1:  "If someone was really desperate enough to come out in this weather to steal old clothes, then they need it more than we do."  Answer # 2: "Yes, but only if you find the long jump pit under the water."  The rational thought was to leave it under the grandstand (Tyronne Culpepper was thoughtful enough to bring a plastic bag).
• Why did Jim Aneshanley decide to be a timer today?  First of all, he said that he will racing in Prospect Park tomorrow night, which means that he should not be running hard tonight.  Besides, he ran this morning already and he found that it was extremely wet.  But most of all, it was probably because he had the biggest umbrella among all those present tonight.  Unfortunately, that umbrella was a handicap in the strong winds.

6/01/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• The course description is simple: one single six-mile in the clockwise direction.  The pace description is simple:  one two-mile pickup from the top of Harlem Hill to the William Hamilton statue.  So this is a straightforward tempo run.  Before you start out, you should decide on a particular pace and the test is to see if you can achieve this pace.  This sounds easy until you consider that this is the first hot, humid day in a long while.  Now, all of a sudden, it isn't so easy anymore ...

FIELD NOTES:

• At the start of the workout, there were forty-one people present.  We counted Julie Denney on her bicycle.  She said, "Oh, what happened?  I thought I had Scott with me.  I must have lost him."  Yes, Central Park is such a vast place that one can get lost very easily.  For your information, the triathletes (... you know ... the usual suspects ... ) are doubling this weekend:  the sprint triathlon up at Pawling (NY) on Saturday, a five-hour drive to Maryland for the Eagleman-Blackwater Triathlon in Maryland on Sunday and back.  Such dedication!  We also counted Kurtis Edwards on his bicycle.  He said, "I gotta lose some weight first before I try to run."  We did not count G'mo Rojas, who was observed doing the wrong kind of workout on two wheels.
• Before the start of the workout, John Kenney and the Kenney twins exhibited samples of the Fila equipment, and got people to sign up.  Incidentally, all you people who signed up on Tuesday at the track need to re-sign again, because that piece of paper was misplaced somehow.
• Odd picture: As the coach explained the workout, two little old ladies pushing shopping carts stopped to listen.  We know that many of our top runners seem to be in the geriatric set, but this is getting too far ...
• Help wanted:  As much as we all like to hang around after the workout, some people have places to go and things to do.  Paul Stuart-Smith said, "I think that I better head on home.  For all I know, my wife may be in labour."  They are expecting a girl, with no name chosen yet, and would welcome any suggestions.  Dare we say Kari Ann?
• Readers of this page may not be frequent readers of the sprinters' workout page.  That page is maintained separately by Phil Carpenter Lee, in his own distinctive style.  Whereas this page tends to be verbose and digressive, Phil's page is subtly short.  Recall the first ninety plus degree day at the track in early May?  Phil's weather report was: "It's Still Kinda Cold Outside!!!  Well, maybe not."  Just like us, you gotta be there to appreciate it.

5/30/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• 3 x 200m to warmup
• 4 x (1000m, 400m recovery)
• 3 x (300m, 100m recovery)

FIELD NOTES:

• This is a little bit odd, because it was bright and sunny and it should have been warm, but it was in fact cool in the wind if you were just standing around.  At the start of the workout, there were 48 people present for the distance runners' workout.  By itself, this is not a problem --- as long as you stay alert about what goes on around the track.
• Over the weekend, Stephanie Gould won the Long Beach 10 Miler.  She was not here today, but Roger Liberman was in the same race and said, "I passed a woman in the last mile, but I had no idea that she was my teammate."  Roger set a PR of 3 minutes, for which the coach had told him, "I know that you haven't done track before.  But believe me that it will help you to improve your times quickly."
• When Jackie Cortes arrived, she was asked immediately, "Any secret races over the weekend?"  Absolutely not, she swore.  This game is better known as 'show and tell.'
• A short presentation was made by Toby Tanser to Eve Kaplan, who received the Tanziania Fila jacket on behalf of Stéphane Bois for solving Toby's Quiz # 4.  Here is a quick quiz --- Toby called this a quizzling.  Why?  (Norwegians need not apply)
• Julia Casals said, "I had my sex changed for the Ridgewood 5K, but the website still picked up the result."  Yes, we have Julia on our special watch list.  P.S.  Julia is supposed to have her own website with a picture of herself.  We are paying a bounty for any information leading to the identification of that particular page/picture --- just name your terms ...
• We are sure that there will be a lot of interest in how the "A" team's workout will be written up.  Indeed, it was very interesting. We won't name any names, but an observer made this comment, "I don't know if these guys were in the same workout.  There seems to be a different leader on each set, ahead by a wide gap."  You gotta be there, but what is for certain is that those guys must be having a lot of fun ...
• John Sargent was here today to do the distance runners' workout.  Just a couple of weeks ago, he showed up and found, to his own amazement, that he can actually run as far as 1000m.  So this should be easy for him, right?  "Unfortunately, this is not just one 1000m.  This workout has four of them."  He found out tonight that he can actually run four 1000m's.  Yes, running is self-discovery ...
• Victor Osayi posed a technical problem --- he was accepted for the Peachtree 10K, except they did not accept his listed 10K time and put him in the back of the pack instead.  Since this is a 60,000 person race, this was obviously problematic.  So how do you PROVE that you have a fast 10K time?  It is not enough to just write down a race and your time, because they are not about to check it (think: 60,000 people to check).  You can't attach a computer listing, because that can be faked easily.  John Sargent said, "Well, I won't have that problem.  I've done one 10K race in my life and that is enough."  If you remember that story, it was at the Crescent Classic 10K where he had the same problem of proving that he had a fast time --- he had never raced as far as 10K before, but he knew that he was running sub-40-minute 10K's at the club workouts.  So he ran that race in 39 minutes and finished as the second overall unseeded runner.
• A question after the workout, "Are we going to have a group picture of the cover girls?"  in reference to the latest series of our weekly covers.  Well, you ain't seen nothing yet --- wait till you see who comes up in the next four weeks!  They'll knock you right over!
• Race note:  Eve Kaplan will be doing the flat, fast North County News 5K.  If you are going up and want company/ride, please email her.
• Sightings:  In case anyone else was wondering, the famous Jennifer Lynch was present at the workout.  She wore a baseball cap to disguise herself.

5/25/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• Tonight, we head north for a long two mile warmup to the top of Harlem Hill.  The first long pickup begins there and ends two miles later on East 84th Street in front of the William Hamilton statue.  We recover to Cleopatra's needle and backtrack to Engineer's Gate.  The second long pickup begins there and ends one mile later through the cutoff at West 102nd Street.  We run home from there on.  The total distance is 7.3 miles.

FIELD NOTES:

• Tonight, our coach was none other than Alan Ruben.  In addition, he wore the new Fila singlet and shorts to the workout.  For those who saw the gear, please bear in mind that where you saw green, it will be orange and where you saw black, it will be deep blue.  If you are interested in placing an order, please let John Kenney know ASAP:  John.Kenney@wcom.com or call him at 212-519-4380.
• The head count tonight was thirty-five people, not including Fasil Yilma patiently waiting for our arrival at West 85 Street.
• By the time the initial leader reached the swimming pool, he was passed by Paul Stuart-Smith.  Trailing behind and sucking air were John Scherrer and Isaya Okwiya, with the former muttering "Madness!"  Those two miles were reportedly done in 11:15, supposedly at  'half-marathon pace.'  Since John and Isaya have done a grand total of one half-marathon between the two of them, they may not have the proper measure of their pace.  Indeed, John was soon spotted walking on the dirt path around 97th Street.  Miraculously, though, John would pop out of the bushes to meet the others at the finish, saying "Isaya was complaining that I talked too much.  So I ended up running with Stéphane (Bois), who didn't mind me talking because he couldn't understand my midwestern accent anyway."
• Overheard after the workout:
  Steve Eick:  "Do we have track workouts on Tuesdays?"
  Craig Chilton: "Yes.  Do you plan to come down?"
  Steve Eick: "No."
  Craig Chilton: "Ah, I see.  You just want to be sure that you are missing them."
• Extracurricular activity report:  Somewhere around midnight on Wednesday, we were running the Stuyvesant loop when we were stopped by a cyclist.  It was Gerry McCarthy, unrecognizable underneath his helmet and without his parrot Hector.  When he heard that the club was still working out at East River Park, "I've got to get out there some time.  Hector is going stir crazy inside the apartment."  Gerry and Hector are not necessarily missed at our workouts, because nobody wants to be beaten by a bird perched on someone's shoulder!  More importantly, he asked if Fritz Mueller was still running.  "Well," we said, "Fritz is not necessarily racing competitively these days, but he makes frequent appearances at the road workouts, perhaps just to smirk at how soft this generation of runners has become!"  So we hope to see Gerry and Hector soon.  As for your inevitable questions of "Why were you running at midnight?" and "Are you afraid of being seen?", they will go unanswered ...
• Now back to this workout --- who but Fritz Mueller showed up and asked what the workout was?  After having heard the description, he said, "No, this is too much.  I'm really not in shape for this."  When we told him that we met Gerry McCarthy, whose biggest question about the club was "Is Fritz Mueller still running?", even Fritz had to chuckle, and was sufficiently encouraged to run with us until he said, "I think I'll go on the reservoir instead."  And do seven loops at progressively quicker pace?
• We cannot help but note that every time we say that we missed someone, they would show up the next time.  Apart from Fritz Mueller, the names Kim Mannen and Ana Echeverri were invoked on Tuesday and sure enough they showed up tonight.  So we are going to close our eyes now and think really hard ... Claudia Malley and Roane Carey!  We should be seeing them next week!

5/23/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• 3 x 200m to warmup
• 6 x (800m, 400m recovery)

FIELD NOTES:

• The weather was just cool and overcast at the start of the workout, but then it started to drizzle and then it was persistent rain thereafter.  But while it was unpleasant, it was not enough to wipe out the workout.  All in all, it makes you pine for the hot days of summer.  Still, this was nothing compared to last Thursday's deluge.

Singin' in the Rain
(l to r) Stephanie Gould, Paul Sommerfeld, Mark Gombiner, Tivon Jacobson, Audrey Kingsley, 
Victor Osayi, Margaret Angell, Larry King, John Gleason and Eve Kaplan

• There were forty-five people at the workout tonight.  As with these workouts, people come and go all the time.  Coming tonight were Carol Tyler, much missed by many after an absence.
• Running his own workout before everyone else was Eden Weiss.  He is currently focussing on long intervals.  Today, according to him, he did a workout that everyone else would hate --- two times 1.75 miles, with a four minute recovery in between.
• During the pre-workout meeting, there were samples of the Fila equipment available for inspection courtesy of Toby Tanser.  The whole set consisting of the singlet, shorts, track jacket and track pants is marked at $79, which has been heavily discounted from street retail price.  See our supermodel Sarah Gross wearing the LARGE size track jacket today.  We want to do this as a single large batch order, so there can be no wavering --- you are either in or out.  If you are interested in placing an order, please let John Kenney know ASAP:  John.Kenney@wcom.com or call him at 212-519-4380.
• Bola Awofeso decided to run today, which obviously left a big opening.  As Bola said, "Victor (Osayi) seems to think that I have the job as the official timekeeper on this club!"  Fortunately, Eve Kaplan volunteered to fill in his shoes today.  But what will we do next week?
• The race winner over the weekend was Stacy Creamer at the Queens Biathlon.  She did not come to the workout today, because she is cooling her heels in France (sorry, we just could not resist that metaphor! and if you don't get it, please read the race report).
• As for the cover photo of the week, Noah Perlis commented, "This must be a training exercise to get people to put their mouse cursor on top of the photo in order to read the name of the so-called unnamed Central Park Track Club team member."  Yes, that trick is apparently not known to everybody, as someone wrote in to complain, "You can't just post a question and leave it unanswered.  It is so unfair!"
• Of course, different people have different means of coping with the elements.  You can read about one solution in Famous Saying #924, accompanied by a great piece of photographic evidence in the best tradition of this website.

5/18/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• Tonight, the workout was for a six mile loop around the park.  Proceed north from the Daniel Webster statue.  The first pickup is a 1000m from West 86th Street (the entry point to the reservoir) to West 97th Street (you know, where the cross-town traffic comes under the road).  The second pickup is a 1000m from West 102nd Street over Harlem Hill to the park entrance from Martin Luther King Boulevard.  The third pickup is a 1000m from the NYC Marathon park entrance at East 102nd Street to East 90th Street.  Upon getting to the bottom of the park, there were some lamppost pickups to finish.

FIELD NOTES:

• All you wimps who contemplated going to the workout but stayed home instead must be wondering if there really was a workout.  You probably checked the weather report --- severe thunderstorm warning, wind gusts of 50 to 60 mph, heavy rains of as much as one to two inches per hour, hail, even tornadoes, ...  but so what?  Those guys have been wrong before, haven't they?  Remember the invisible six inches of predicted snowfall ("The commute will be hellish tomorrow morning").  Then you stick your head out the window to assess the situation with your own eyes, and the scene looked just like when Hell opened its gates on top of a Central Park West building in the finale of The Ghostbusters ... yeah, but so what?  We are REAL RUNNERS, aren't we?  Yes, the workout was on, now and forever, and don't you forget it!
• One of the oldtimers on the team took a look at the dark skies and said, "Good!  It's been a long time since I've been drenched."  
• Julia Casals asked, "Can I go home now?"  Answer:  No!  Given that we were standing at the Daniel Webster statue and that she lives on the upper east side, she was going to get soaked anyway and she might as well as do the workout. 
• For the record, before the group jumped onto the road, there were 16 people present.  The coach Tony Ruiz was there, since that was his job, even if it was to chase people home.  Among the other intrepid souls were Eve Kaplan, Kiet Vo, Victor Osayi, John Megaw, Jarl Berntzen, Roger Liberman, Jim Aneshansley, Julia Casals and her friend Erica, ...  but, more importantly, where were YOU?  
• Oh, there was a 5K race to raise money for the Boy Scouts of America at the same time --- pity those poor souls!  There was also a firemen's race this morning --- Toby Tanser, you didn't race that, did you?  You don't look like you can carry two hundred pounds up two flights of stairs ... but if you can, you ought to offer to help Eve Kaplan move her furniture ...
• For the record, the group jumped out on the road and started running at 6:58pm.  This is an all-time record, faster than anything that Ramon Bermo could ever concoct.  This meant that the attendance roll call missed all those habitually late comers and fashionably late comers (redundant technical note: we are sure that you understand that they are not necessarily the same).  We would ordinarily expect to see Audrey Kingsley (coming from the east), Margaret Angell (coming from the south), Harry Morales (coming from the north) and Sid Howard (coming in from the bushes in the south).  But tonight, we knew for sure that Sid would not be here, because he is off to see the Princesses (What is this cryptic reference?  Well, you know what they say, you don't understand it but there must be something interesting going on.  Stay tuned and find out on the best ongoing soap opera in this town ...)
• The next day, John Scherrer wrote in: "Are you sure the workout wasn't to run straight home?  I was walking home from work and was passed by a very damp Erik Goetze.  I asked him what he was doing in the West Village and why he wasn't doing the road workout.  He responded that he was doing the workout."  John, you gotta be there to know for certain ...

5/16/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• 3x200m to warmup
• 2 x (800m, 400m recovery)
• 1 mile, 800m recovery
• 4 x (400m, 200m recovery)

FIELD NOTES:

• This workout mob is starting to get larger, especially given this nice and comfortable weather.  At the start, there were 48 people in the distance runners' section of the workout.  With three timers, there were in fact four groups running at the same time.  With this crowd density, it is important to pay attention to what is happening, especially since our sprinters were flying around the track at full speed doing baton passes.
• John Scherrer said, "I really hate to arrive late, because I don't want to be rushed."  'Rush' is also the word for that 64 second final quarter of his.
• Showing up for the first time down at the track this reason was Michael Trunkes.  He just finished third in the Carl Hart Duathlon on Sunday, saying that he felt that he didn't have the leg speed.  Is it time to panic already?  Well, there is nothing that couldn't be fixed with a couple of 800m duels with Isaya Okwiya.
• Overheard on the sideline:
  "Look at Devon Sargent run.  She is right behind Isaya Okiwaya, and he is an African.!"
  "Isaya is not just an African --- he is a Kenyan!"
• On the way back, a group of eight people piled into Super Sid's delivery van.  On this day (and every day), Sid Howard was offering rides to subway stations along 14th Street.  This was also the first time Sid Howard met Dave Howard --- Sid said, "I meet a lot of Howards."  That does not mean Howard Stern, by the way.  On this occasion, David Pullman said, "After fourteen years on the team, I have finally achieved the honor of sitting in the front seat of Sid's van."  So let it be duly noted.
• After the workout, Frank Handelman was heard to say to David Pullman, "You ran that last 400m better than in a very long time."  In turn, John Sargent told Frank, "That was a nifty 5:30  mile that you did there."  Yes, it all about padding each other on the back ... after all, it doesn't cost anything, does it?
• Conditioning --- this is what running is about.  Well, in looking over our web activity log, we seemed to have clearly conditioned our visitors to come to this website on Tuesdays and Thursdays after 10pm (sometimes over 100 persons per night) because they can expect to read these workout descriptions.  So ... was there something about you tonight?  We have this sneaky suspicion that people come here not just to read about the workout, but to pick up some delicious gossip.  So here's one special treat --- after the workout tonight, an accidental question revealed that a prominent member of the team had in fact never even sent in a membership application.  O, what scandal ... !
• Shula Sarner was running in the Women's Sports & Fitness Half Marathon on Sunday and was completely missed by our photographer.  Today, she said, "I was running incognito that day."  Oh, really?  She can run and hide only some of the time, but not all of the time.  So here is a picture of her taken today while she was blissfully oblivious.

• Oops, someone had to remind us that we forgot the obligatory Toby Tanser mention.  In fact, there was no Toby item on last Thursday either, as both Toby and Julia went missing through the whole weekend.  The silence was deafening!  Today, Julia Casals said with a smile, "I can't tell you where we were."  That wall of silence lasted about three seconds before it crumbled when David Pullman strode up and said, "So did you guys do what I suggested for you to do in Chicago?"  We gathered that Chicago was cold this time of year, which was not good for Toby who got pushed violently into the swimming pool ...

5/11/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• We head out north at a brisk pace until we reach the W102nd Street cutoff.  We begin with a one mile pick up which ends at the traffic light on top of the swimming pool.  We jog through the cutoff until we reach W102n Street again, when we do another one mile pick at five seconds faster.  We jog through the cutoff and we head south until we reach W97th Street, when we begin a 1000m pickup up to W86th Street (the entrance to the reservoir).  We jog back to the Daniel Webster statue.  The total distance of the workout is 10km (6.2 miles = 1.7 miles + 2 x 1.4 mile northern loop + 1.7 miles).

FIELD NOTES:

• There were forty-one people at the start of the workout, which was increased by three (Gordon Streeter and Randy Ehrlich showing up late, and then Fasil Yilma standing at West 81st Street waiting for the group to meet him) as we headed out.  Fasil Yilma has been a true mystery, as he missed running for over a year while only rollerblading, ran the Boston Marathon in 3:06 on that basis and today had trouble running the final two meters to finish the last mile pickup.
• We were probably made to feel much safer by the bicycle patrol mounted by Bola Awofeso.  Meanwhile, Stacy Creamer was also spotted on one of those two-wheeled mechanical devices.
• Today, we observed an unusual demographic shift in the gender composition.  More than one-third of those present were female, including many of the spring marathoners (where are you, Kim Mannen?).  
• The scoring race of the weekend is the Women's Half Marathon starting at 8am on Sunday.  Of course, the guys can always come out to cheer.  Last year's race was made memorable by the presence of Alan Ruben calling out the splits at the three/nine mile mark.  Special message to the Audrey watch:  Audrey Kingsley showed up today with a preview of her new hairdo; so if you are out on the course on Sunday, do not look for the hair tied with the orange elastic band.  P.S.  She said that she has not made up her mind if she is going to wear her famous white shirt.
• Also of great interest this weekend will be the Spring Couples Relay, where those big shoulders of Randy Ehrlich have always proven effective in the rowing portion.
• Overheard after the workout: Harry Morales to Ramon Bermo: "Triathletes are all driven somehow.  So what is your demon?"  We don't know what the response was, as that group (including Ross Galitsky) suddenly fell into a hushed silence when they saw who was in their vicinity.  Harry did add ... "And don't tell me it's your wife!"
• The coach commented that this workout seemed to have been meekly accepted without comments when in fact it was fairly challenging with two one-mile pickups through the northern hills.  Are we getting tough or what?
• Somewhere as the runners stream past the end of the mile mark, we saw Connie Kim in the pack.  Where did she go?  Where did she come from?
• The last person to reach the finishing point was John Sargent.  Strictly speaking, he was not in the workout since he arrived home at 740pm and went immediately to the park to run his own workout.  When he heard that the official workout had two one-mile pickups through the northern hills, he said, "For once, I am glad I was late."

5/9/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• 3x200m to warmup
• 300m, 100m jog
• 600m, 400m jog
• 300m, 100m jog
• 400m, 200m jog
• 800m, 400m jog
• 400m, 200m jog
• 300m, 100m jog
• 600m, 400m jog
• 300m, 100m jog

FIELD NOTES:

• Four weeks ago, it was cold, windy and raining.  Three weeks ago it was cold, windy and overcast.  Two weeks ago, it was cool, steady and overcast.  One week ago, it was warm and sunny with a light breeze.  Today, it was sizzling hot!  The combined  number of  our sprinters and distance runners was more than 60.
• This red hot summer day was also our first bad air-quality day.  This was visibly obvious from the dust that the rugby and soccer players were kicking up in the infield.  More significant were the invisible pollen and weeds that must be floating through the air.  We can literally feel our noses running, our throats tickling, our eyes teary and hearing nothing but the sound of people sucking air big time.  Quick quiz:  How many times did Julia Casals sneeze after the workout?  You don't know?  You gotta be there (actually, even if you were there, you would have lost count ...).
• In consideration of these conditions, the workout contained no items longer than 800m.  Just as well.  In any case, we would suggest to people that they should not be too disturbed that their times today seem to be much slower than they ought to be able to do.  Those times will come down dramatically if you keep coming to the workouts.
• There were a couple of photos being floated around.  First, John Scherrer was found in the full-page ad for the Corporate Challenge in the Monday edition of the New York Times.  When Stuart Calderwood showed it to him, he said, "I'm glad that I don't see Craig Chilton in this photo."  Then, Bola Awofeso received a copy of his photo from his 20 miler in U.K., with the comment, "The women in your office will love it!"
• We were amazed that David Pullman showed up at 7:05pm.  We were even more amazed to realize that the workout description had already begun several minutes earlier!  Does the light really have that kind of effect on people?  And we thought that it would be the other way around.
• The scoring race is weekend is the Women's Half Marathon.  When the coach asked for a show of hand for racers, J.R. Mojica raised his hand.  Hey, this is a women-only race!  In any case, the men can still come out and cheer the women on (please check the early start time!).
• At the workout, Toby Tanser asked, "Where is Julia (Casals)?  She has disappeared."  Someone made the suggestion, "She must be around.  Just look for the neon green running shoes."  Toby said, "Oh, I should have brought a Geiger counter."  P.S.  This item was inserted to fulfill the technical requirement of mentioning the name of Toby Tanser.  We also had the option of mentioning Isaya Okwiya punishing Toby in the 800m and Jonathan Pillow doing the same in the last 600m.

5/4/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• The workout was very straightforward:  two times the clockwise four mile loop for a total of 8 miles.  In each loop, the fast piece is a two-mile pickup from the eastern end of the 102nd Street transverse to the Daniel Webster statue.  The second loop is done faster than the first one.

FIELD NOTES:

• The attendance count was 30 persons at the beginning of the workout.  This count includes Bola Awofeso on his bicycle but did not include Tyronne Culpepper who arrived about ... oh, say, one hour late.
• The coach Tony Ruiz had to travel today, but he still came down to give the workout.  This means that the workout description was delivered right on time!  In the coach's absence, Ramon Bermo was designated THE MAN, meaning that he was our den mother.
• The workout today included some of the people who ran the big Spring marathons.  When Rich Hollander asked Bola Awofeso if he has recovered, the response was, "I wouldn't know because I haven't tried running yet."
• In reviewing the results over the weekend, the top dog was obviously Toby Tanser winning Central Park races two weeks in a row.  The coach said, "But we had a good men's team that had guys in first, third, fifth, twelfth and something like that.  Alan Ruben, Erik Goetze, Paul Smith, Jesus Montero were also there."  This led Paul Stuart-Smith to say, "On one hand, I was fifth and I got mentioned.  It was Erik who was in the fourth place.  On the other hand, I thought that my last name was Stuart-Smith."
• Dan Sack wants to warn all of you who are in the habit of hiding your belonging in the bushes around the Daniel Webster statue.  Somebody was apparently seen beating around the bushes.  So don't leave your valuables (in terms of financial and emotional investments) there!  Once upon a time, they even took Max Schindler's twenty-something-year-old multi-holed (but sentimental favorite) t-shirt.
• Ramon Bermo just ran the Boston Marathon three weeks ago and he has also entered the Canon Long Island Marathon this Sunday.  When we asked him if he is going to run that marathon, he said, "If you have nothing to write and you want to have that as an item, I will run it for you."  What a guy!  But it's your physical well-being that is important to us!
• After the workout, Sid Howard said, "This is my longest workout in a long time.  I was waiting for me to die any minute near the end of the workout."  Unfortunately, we are somehow not convinced that Sid really knows the experience of death.
• Before Yves-Marc Courtines left, he had these words, "I am going to check the website at 10pm, and the workout description had better be up there already."  Unfortunately for him, the workout description will not be posted until after 1030pm on this night, even though the write-up had been completed already.  Why?  Because we want to make him regret missing the following items, which the rest of the world gets to see first: (1) Somewhere around 88th Street, this same Yves-Marc was running in a pack and imploring a teammate, "Will you tell these people to ease up?"  Well, we didn't think that is how your teammates should be doing to help your running.  (2)  When he arrived at the office this morning, Yves-Marc found eight of those "ILOVEYOU" virus e-messages in his inbox.  He said, "I know that I am popular*, but I didn't think that I could get eight love notes in one morning."  Alyse, are you reading this?
  * According to the witness Audrey Kingsley, that was not the p-word that Yves-Marc actually used.

5/2/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• 3 x 200m to warmup
• 2 x (1000m, 400m recovery)
• 3 x (600m, 200m recovery)
• 3 x (300m, 100m recovery)

FIELD NOTES:

• Three weeks ago, it was cold, windy and raining.  Two weeks ago ago, it was cold, windy and overcast.  One week ago, it was cool, steady and overcast.  Today, finally it was warm and sunny with a light breeze.  Yes, the outdoor track season has finally arrived.  On this day, we saw about 20 people doing the sprinters' workout, and about 45 people doing the distance runners' workout on the same track.  This is just the start of the season, and we will eventually hit 80 or more people at our workouts.  Just watch!
• Because this was the first truly nice day of the season (and it will undoubtedly get even better), we have a bunch of people coming down for the first time, only to discover that they have no endurance (i.e. can't run as far as 1000m) and no speed (i.e. can't even run 100m fast).  They can be seen sitting in the grandstand with total vacant looks after the workout.  There is no need to name names at this time, because we are sure that they will get a lot better as time passes.
• The best race result last week was Toby Tanser winning for the second week in a row, this time at the L'Oréal Twosome.  The men's team also finished a strong 1-3-4-5-12 in that race.  Not published yet at the time of the workout were the results from the Bronx Biathlon, which is the tune-up for that all-important Spring Couples Relay coming in a couple of weeks.
• Our timer John Scherrer makes this observation, "I feel completely cheated!  I do more running as a timer than I would if I actually ran!"  We will leave it up to you to track down what the very famous Audrey Kingsley has to say on this subject once upon a time.
• John Sargent arrived just a couple of seconds after the sprinters started their workout.  So he ended up running with the distance runners instead.  To his own surprise, he found that he can actually run 1000m's.  Then he said, "Now all I have to do is cut twenty seconds off my time, and I will be able to keep up with my wife (Devon Sargent)."  Devon was not there today, and therefore much missed.  As Julia Casals said about Devon last week, "It is great to see a woman running the guys into the ground!  I love it!"

4/27/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• The workout begins with a counterclockwise four-mile loop.  We warm up by heading east through the 72nd Street transverse and then north to E90th Street.  We run one mile at 10K race pace to W102nd Street.  We recover for next mile at one minute per mile slower than 10K race pace.  We run another mile at 10K race pace to finish at E72nd Street.  We recover northwards to the southern pump house on the reservoir.  We run the next 1200m pickup on the reservoir from the southern pump house to the northern pump house.  Then we jog back to the Daniel Webster statue.  The total distance is 7.05 miles.

FIELD NOTES:

• The attendance count was 32 persons during the workout.  This count included Bola Awofeso on his bike.  We were fortunate to start late again, because we would have lost Harry Morales coming late down the west side as usual.
• While there was no gang-related activity to report, there was an UFO sighting.  Upon coming up Cat Hill the second time, our lead runners were surprised when the cat got up and roared.  P.S.  The name of the cat is not Toby the Cat --- the cat is female.  If you don't understand this item, just remember "you gotta be there."
• Our new member Dave Howard showed up with a Boston Marathon horror story.  He said that he laced his key with the shoelace, but the key wore down the lace.  As Tony Ruiz said, "Even I could have told you where not to put your key."
• A couple of other previously identified persons showed up after extended absences.  John Megaw is coming back from plantar fasciitis, which Toby Tanser believes is almost surely due to the shoes.  Kiet Vo also re-surfaced, after we have practically given him up --- you remember, he was the one with progressively slower times during the cross-country season after he started running with us!   Phil Vasquez also showed up tonight, with the comment that he needed to get ready for the Corporate Challenge Race in a couple of weeks.  Is it that time already?
• The big race this week is the L'Oréal Twosome, hitherto and forever after known as the Trevira Twosome.  Question:  Will Alan Ruben be running the race with Gordon Bakoulis (see 1998 race)?  If so, will Nathan Klejman be able to take care of both Joey and Sammy?  Stay tuned for the next episode ...
• The big races next weekend are the two unknown races that Toby Tanser will be running.  Toby Tanser has issued this challenge to us, "Next week I shall be flying the Central Park Track Club ORANGE abroad in two races. If you find both races, I will eat my running shoes."  We are looking for information from anyone and everyone (his travel agent, his doorman, his postman, the passport control department, the Icelandic consulate, the webmaster at www.hlaup.is, etc) to help us identify those two races.  This is your chance to get even with all those unsolvable quizzes of his.  We promise that the eating will be a public affair.  P.S.  Note that he failed to specify the exact quantity, but we can still hold him to two at a minimum.

4/25/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• 3x200m to warmup
• 4 x (800m, 400m recovery)
• 4 x (400m, 200m recovery)

FIELD NOTES:

• Two weeks ago, it was cold, windy and raining.  One week ago, it was cold, windy and overcast, and the timer was thanked with, "Thanks for coming out to day and freezing your butt!".  Today, it was cool, steady and overcast.  Yes, everything points to a trend.  If we had 34 people (not including Margaret Nolan's two kids) today, including a surfeit of timers, how many more will we have soon?  In the infield, there were two soccer games and one rugby game going on at the same time.  Seems like old times again.
• Tonight, our start time was moved to 700pm.  At 630pm, David Pullman was already stretching at the track, to the astonishment of those who are aware of his tardy reputation.  Our first question was, "So, David, did you forget to check the website before you came tonight?  The workout is supposed to start at 7pm, not 630pm.  And even for 630pm you are right on time!"  His answer: "Oh, I thought the workout would start at 530pm."
• The message from your team rep is:  "Please send in those club dues!"
• This is one week after the two major spring marathons, and already we have some people back in the running (Adam Newman, Eve Kaplan, Craig Chilton, Bob & Julie Francis, etc).  But Jerome O'Shaughnessy said, "I'm not doing any running for two weeks."
• The big news this weekend was that Toby Tanser won the Run For The Rainforest 5K and collected a bundle of goodies.  Upon information and belief, the only items that he got to enjoy were the donuts because the rest went to someone else ...  Apart from the results for this one road race, we were forced to report on the New York State Masters Swim Championships ... oh, what desperation! ... thank God that we will have the Bronx Biathlon coming up this weekend to fill in the space ...
• After the workout, twenty-three bodies proceeded to dine at Two Boots, whereupon they created a noisy racket at the rear of the restaurant.  The most amazing thing is that the honor system of payment ended up with a surplus.  Has that ever happened before?

4/20/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• This workout consists of one six-mile loop, nothing more, nothing less.  Within the workout, we begin with the warm-up jog of one mile to the grill on West 88th Street.  To get going, you run three times 3 lampposts fast, 3 lampposts rest.  Then you get into a farlek-type of lampposts (4 on, 2 off, 6 on, 3 off, 8 on, 4 off, 10 on, 5 off, 8 on, 4 off, 6 on, 3 off, 4 on, 2 off).  The 'on' pieces should not be sprints, the 'off' pieces should not be walks.  Roughly speaking, lampposts are about 80 meters apart on the average, which means that the longest piece was about 800m.  The total distance is just a bit over 6 miles.

FIELD NOTES:

• This was a slow post-marathon night.  There were 28 people at the start of the workout.  We have tried our very best to boost that number as high as we can, even including Aubin Sullivan standing in civilian clothes on the other side of the street.
• Stuart Calderwood stood in as coach tonight.  Since there were many races this past weekend, he covered the results, with special mentions for those who came to the workout (Jerome O'Shaughnessy, Sandra Scibelli, Olivier Baillet, Robert Francis, Julie Francis, Julie Denney, etc).
• Fasil Yilma showed up today after his 3:08 in Boston Marathon.  He may have set either a good or bad example --- a good example because he showed that you can run a marathon by training on rollerblades, and a bad example because he showed that you can run a marathon by training on rollerblades.
• Although Olivier Baillet wrote earlier, "I will certainly not come to the next Thursday workout, so when you see the coach, tell him that I bonked with dignity."  He did actually show up --- on a bike!  Now that the spring marathons are over, it is time to focus on the Tour de France?
• Sid Howard showed up and told us that Alston Brown, our 52-year-old sprinter (54:26 400m for second place at the indoor national championship) ran 2:54.  No, that was not his time for the 1000m race --- it was his time at the Boston Marathon.
• Footnote:  Michael Trunkes broke his string of three workouts in a row.  Audrey Kingsley had her much longer string snapped too.

4/18/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• 3x200m to warmup
• 800m, 400m recovery
• 1200m, 600m recovery
• 1600m, 800m recovery
• 800m

FIELD NOTES:

• Cold, rainy and windy last week.  Just cold and windy this week.  The wind was a chilly northeasterly coming right over the waterbody.  Brrrrrr!  Brian Marchese noted, "This is late November weather!"  But unless you go through this, you'll never appreciate the weather in August.  Believe us, folks, when we say that things will get a lot better.
• Twenty-three people at the workout, all were frozen to the bones, perhaps none worse than the coach and the timer.  Under these conditions, you are better off running than standing around.
• Given the conditions, this workout was planned with only fairly long items (800m and up).  This will reduce the temptation for people to break speed records.  For the record, the person who led the workout was someone who wore a blue Iceland Air t-shirt ...

• Given the conditions, it was unfortunate that there were seven races over the past weekend to report upon, including some major marathons in Boston and London.  Locally, the Queens Half Marathon was the men's scoring race.  Our first finisher in that race was Paul Stuart-Smith in 1:15:18, about which the coach said, "Paul scared the shit out of me!"  What a description!  Also noteworthy was Isaya Okwiya's 1:16:57, which was a debut PR, being the longest distance he ever raced in.
• Jonathan Pillow made an announcement that Tivon Jacobson has just passed his thesis proposal examination, where he was quizzed about stuff like measure theory, Weierstrass theorems, Korteweg-deVries equation, Riemann condition, conservation laws, compressible fluids, vorticity, and so on.  In the long run, in the words of Audrey Kingsley, he'll never have to take another exam again (except for the defense of his thesis when he completes it).  In the short run, he'll be taking a vacation!!!  Meanwhile, Jonathan looked like he was hurting big-time  in the workout today, having been away for some time.
• On the way back across town, Brian Barry commented, "Look at those people jog!  This is my 5K race pace!"  Look, we are all just trying to keep warm ...

4/13/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• The workout begins with a mass movement towards the reservoir.  The warm up is three times "three lampposts on-three lamposts off".  At East 90th Street, we run one mile to West 86th Street at 10K race pace.  We jump back on the road and head north until West 102nd Street.  The next pickup is a 1200m up, down and up the 102nd Street transverse.  We then head south down East Drive until E90th Street, where the last pickup is a 800m to Cleopatra's Needle.  We head back to finish at the statue.  The total distance is about 6.1 miles.

FIELD NOTES:

• This was a cool, clear night.  There are several major spring races this weekend --- the Queens Half Marathon on Saturday, the London Marathon on Sunday and the Boston Marathon on Monday.  All the people who have been training for the marathons are (or should be) absent today.  The count at the start was twenty-two people, including Julia Casals on her bike and John Megaw in civilian clothes.  Best of luck to our runners!
• A Boston marathoner who came to the workout was Eve Kaplan.  When asked if she felt she was bouncing off the wall, she said, "Yeah, I am very grouchy."
• Somewhere around the Reservoir, the late arriving Mike Trunkes caught up with the workout group.  We heard this conversation between two teammates ---
  "Three in a row for Mike!"
  "Three in a row what?  Three in a row late?"
  "No!"
  "Three in a row at a workout?"
  "YES!"
• We were asked to arbitrate in a major dispute about this question, "If I ran two miles from my apartment to meet someone for a workout and I ran two miles back home afterwards, should I be able to enter those four miles into my log book?"  Why is this even a question?  If those four miles do not count as running, you would have taken the bus.  For legal precedent from an eminent authority, see Famous Saying # 486; see also the answer to Question 5 in Trivia Quiz # 9.
• Gang activity report:  In the finish area, Audrey Kingsley was suddenly grabbed from behind and held in an arm chokehold by that one-man terrorist gang who was cruising the park.  In this case, she might have provoked the attack as she was affecting a French accent just a moment ago ...
• Theological questions: "Is there a God?  Does God reward the good and punish the bad?"  Why ask?  Someone bailed out of the workout, arrived home early and got stuck in the elevator for 45 minutes ...
• As a reminder, the Tuesday track workout next week will be at East River Park at 630pm.

4/11/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• For marathoners, 1 mile run, 2 mile warm-down
• For non-marathoners, 3000m hard on straightways and easy around the bends

FIELD NOTES:

• Cold, rainy and windy --- this is not what you want to see at the first outdoor workout of the season.  Shall we say that the weather dampened our enthusiasm?
• Given that this weather was in the forecast, we are sure that people kept checking the website for a cancellation notice.  Let us state that, as a rule (but not a policy), workouts are never ever cancelled.  Last year (9/16/99) when Hurricane Floyd was in town, we had four people at the workout.  So what is a little freezing rain?  Therefore, we got twenty-two people out there tonight.  This was also a good night to be wearing the highly visible orange.

• On occasions such as these, the interest is obviously in the list of attendees.  This is the chance for people to be named in the hall of fame.  Now, you would be quite disappointed if you didn't see the names of Audrey Kingsley, Stacy Creamer, Stuart Calderwood, Brian Marchese, Rick Shaver, John Gleason, Tyronne Culpepper, John Kenney, Isaya Okwiya, Erik Goetze, Craig Chilton and Alan Ruben.  Indeed, they were there.  And if David Diviney hadn't moved to Portland (where it rains all the time), he would have been here.  But Max Schindler --- isn't he supposed to be a sensible citizen?
• Of the people who came tonight, Stacy Creamer and Stuart Calderwood just returned from a century (that is, 100 miles) bike ride (The Ride for the Roses) in Texas.  As Scott Willett would point out, just add a 2.4 mile swim beforehand and a marathon run afterwards, that would make an Ironman Triathlon.  It was rumored that Bill Dunlop was also in that bike ride.
• Sid Howard came just long enough to say, "I can't believe that I am here.  I should be back home in New Jersey."  But he ended up running the laps.
• Before the workout got started, the coach wondered aloud, "I don't know if we want to bring our baggage by the long jump pit.  Maybe there are fewer people around tonight that we can actually get away with leaving them in the grandstand ... "  Rick Shaver noted, "There aren't fewer people around --- there's just nobody else around!"
• Technically, there were twenty people at the start of the workout (John Gleason made the cutoff just in time).  Somewhere around 7pm, Jonathan Pillow and Tivon Jacobson were seen flying towards the track along East 6th Street.  At Avenue C, they saw two teammates walking west and they asked, "Is there a workout?  Is it cancelled?  Is it over?"  Answer: "There is a workout --- it's just that we're wimps tonight.  And considering how fast they were going, there is going to be plenty of workout left when you get there."

• Who were the two other persons in the preceding conversation?  Boston-bound Tyronne Culpepper came tonight to be a timer, but when this became an untimed workout, he decided to leave because there is no way that standing around in the freezing rain is going to help him run any faster next Monday.  The other person just shrugged and said, "I came down to take photos of these crazy people.  As soon as I got my quota, I left.  After all, this job does not include medical and health insurance ..."

4/6/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• The workout consisted one full six-mile loop and one lower loop, for a total distance of 7.7 miles.  This is broken up into three sections:  the first three miles ending at the NYC Marathon entrance to the park at 102nd Street, the second three miles ending at the Daniel Webster statue and the last lower loop.  Strategically, this is approached as slow, moderate and fast pace (see Ten-Ten-Ten Approach for detailed explanation).

FIELD NOTES:

• The first outdoor workout after the spring clock change brought us a warm and bright evening.  Although this morning was wet, windy and cold, the weather had turned much nicer when we got together.  There were forty-eight people present at the workout (technical note: we cheated by including Aubin Sullivan who came on her 'commuter' bike.  Technical note to this technical note:  a real cyclist has a different bike for each occasion).
• For the second week in a row, Michael Trunkes showed up just in time.  We complimented him for his nice photo from the Du North Duathlon over the weekend.  His race summary was, "We were up drinking over at Green Point till three a.m. the night before.  Understandably, perhaps, it was not a very good performance for me (note: fifth place overall, first place M35-39).  Ordinarily, I don't compete seriously until the weather gets warmer.  In this case, my friend Steve Tarpinian organized the first edition of this race and I promised that I would show."
• This workout should be the last hard one for those people bound for either Boston or London.  There will be a sizeable Central Park Track Club contingent in both of these marathons.
• There will be a women's scoring race this Sunday and a men's scoring race next Saturday.  In both races, a quick head count shows that we are a bit thin right now, so we are definitely looking for bodies.  But let's put this in perspective.  Under no circumstance do we 'require' anyone to run these races.  If you are committed to run one of the marathons, you should not be running these races.  There is one or more scoring race each month, and it would be wrong for someone to attempt to run all of them, year in and year out, for the glory of the team.  The team would rather you exercise some good judgement and have a long, healthy and rewarding running career.  For example, if you read Toby Tanser's book Train Hard, Win Easy: The Kenyan Way, you will find that top Kenyan runners will take three months off during the year with NO running whatsoever (not even slow jogging!).
• Tonight, we ran along the main loops which are well-lit, well-populated and well-policed, so there were no gang activities to report again.  Somewhere along the way, we saw that if we had opted to run along the dirt path parallel to the road, we would have run into that one-person terrorist gang again.  The victim of the last gang attack, Craig Chilton, issued this stern warning, "The problem is that we have too many nice French people on our team, which had caused me to believe that all French people are nice.  That was why I let my guard down that time when I saw this Frenchman not on our team approaching.  Before I knew it, I was lying flat on the ground."
• Leading the charge tonight was Toby Tanser, with an initial chase pack of Alan Ruben, Isaya Okwiya, Ramon Bermo, Erik Goetze, Craig Chilton and Stuart Calderwood.  Was Toby feeling good tonight?  Not totally.  He was originally scheduled to run the World Trade Center Stair Climb, but he had not yet recovered from his Backswards Mile on Saturday.  Although he could not run (or even walk) up stairs, he could still run fast horizontally.
• Although spring is here, the water fountains in the park were not turned on yet.  After this workout, rehydration was an obvious problem.  So it was that we found Audrey Kingsley squeezing her sweat-soaked famous white shirt, saying, "I'm trying to squeeze some liquid out."
• As a reminder, the Tuesday track workout next week will be at East River Park at 630pm.

4/4/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

3 x (200m, 100m recovery)
3 x (600m, 300m recovery)
3 x (800m, 400m recovery)
3 x (300m, 100m recovery)

FIELD NOTES:

• Twenty-six people were present at the workout tonight.  Now that spring has come, most other teams have moved outdoors.  So the Armory was eerily quiet tonight, except for our big group.  Even that voice over the public announcement system was not as zealous as usual, for there was no point telling a group of people who were halfway to the door by 9:10pm that everyone should be off the track at 9:30pm promptly.
• The fastest group (Isaya Okwiya, Erik Goetze, Stuart Calderwood and Craig Chilton) found themselves on alternate sets with company from the late-arriving sprinters John and Devon Sargent and the early-arriving sprinters Raphael Devalle and Phil Carpenter Lee.  In fact, John Sargent wanted to do the workout so badly that he came directly from Penn Station with his travel gear in tow.  Meanwhile, those two 'early-arriving' sprinters were on their second workout session of the evening.
• The saga of David Pullman continues, as tonight's episode has coach Tony Ruiz saying, "I'm sorry you couldn't last the entire workout again tonight.  Let's work some more on this, as one of these days it will all come together."  How?  We don't know.  It's a mystery.
• Noah Perlis was really upset when he found out that the web camera was not present tonight at the Armory.  He wanted desperately to get a photo taken with Kevin Young, the champion 400m intermediate hurdler who was training there tonight.  Well, we need to send Sid Howard along to recruit him for the team ...
• There were supposed to be four people available to time three groups of runners.  Guess what?  One of them just conveniently disappeared just when the workout started.   His rationale --- the others needed more practice than he does ...
• This being the final workout of the season, John Kenney and Eden Weiss led a group that retired to Coogan's Restaurant for late dinner tonight.
• A little bird on the wire told us that the sprinters were originally scheduled to go to East River Park this evening.  But a system-wide telephone alert about possible rain moved them indoors instead.  The weather at 630pm was just beautiful.  So, evidently, "rain, shine and snow" is the motto only for the road runners?
• The workout for the road runners (coached by Tony Ruiz) on next Tuesday will be at East River Park at 630pm.  The 630pm start time will hold for the first two sessions, and will move to 7pm thereafter.

For the record, we acknowlege the efforts of the following volunteer timers during the 1999-2000 indoor workout season.

3/30/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• This is a comparatively long workout, consisting of 5 reservoir loops.  Each of these reservoir loops should be 10 seconds or so faster than the preceding one.  The purpose is to see how well you can control your pace with ease.  The total distance is approximately 9.6 miles.

FIELD NOTES:

• Thirty-seven people did the workout.  The last person to arrive (and just in time) was Michael Trunkes, to whom Ramon Bermo prostrated himself while saying, "We are not worthy, we are not worthy."  This count does not include Carol Tyler and Lynn Blackstone, who materialized just as we stepped on the reservoir.
• This workout will help those who are running the Boston and London marathons.  We will be registering five-person teams for the Boston Marathon.  If you are running, please let Eve Kaplan (evedkap@hotmail.com) (for females) and Ramon Bermo (Ramon.Bermo@donovandata.com) (for males) know as soon as possible so that they can compile and submit a team roster.  It would be a shame if you ran the race without registering for the team.  After all, this is one of the very few times that the Central Park Track Club compete against teams known simply as 'Kenya' or 'Ethiopia.'
• As soon as the coach say that this workout will be a tempo run of five reservoir loops at increasing pace, we heard Alan Ruben saying, "yes, Yes, YES!"  Of course, this is the same Alan Ruben who ran the 4 five-loops in last Sunday's race at fast, faster, more faster and fastest pace.  The coach commented, "If you were Fritz Mueller, you would already be plotting on how you want to step up the pace."  Already, Alan Ruben was saying, "Each loop one minute faster ..."
• There was also a quick ceremony in which the coach Tony Ruiz presented Olivier Baillet with his first team award medal from the Lucky Reversible Seven Miler.  Olivier was the all-important fifth scorer in that first-place open men's team.
• TRICOLOR WATCH: Olivier Baillet wrote: "I want to warn you that I keep inviting Frenchies to come and train with CPTC.  I tried to convince a bunch of them yesterday after the Powerbar Race and they may come next Thursday.  So be prepared ... I guess your prediction, that any non-French speaker may feel as a foreigner in CPTC, is about to turn out to be true.  But we don't have too much prejudice against foreigners, so please don't feel embarrassed.  If, for some reason, they don't show up on Thursday, don't worry, I'll find some others...  Note: I suggest we change the club color to adopt blue, white and red, definitely more adequate. A bientôt.  Olivier, l'envahisseur."  We don't know exactly how many French people showed up today, but we definitely saw one person wearing a Paris St. Germain cap.  Addendum:  Our cultural attaché informs us that Australians use the word 'Frenchie' to denote the object which the English call the 'French letter' and which the French call 'la capote anglaise.'  This has been a multi-cultural lesson brought to you by your favorite website.
• Public safety watch:  Since we ran tonight on the well-populated, well-lit and well-policed reservoir, we are happy to have no gang-related activities to report.
• As a reminder, the Tuesday track workout next week will be at the Armory for the last time this season.

3/28/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

3 x (200m, 100m recovery)
8 x (400m, 200m recovery)
8 x (200m, 100m recovery)

FIELD NOTES:

• Twenty-one people were present at the workout.  They were split into three groups.   Since there were only two timers (yes, where is Bola Awofeso when you need him?), the blue group was placed on auto-timing service.
• Multiple multi-sport events took place this weekend --- bicycle, biathlon, indoor track & field and running race and relay.  We had some great performances in all the events (e.g. double 800m/mile gold Sid Howard and 400m gold by Archie Glaspy at the national indoor championships, first-place 20 mile relay finishes by the Borreros, fourth place overall by Alan Ruben in the twenty miler, first place master Stuart Calderwood and third place overall female/first female master by Stacy Creamer in the biathlon, third and fourth places overall by Scott Willett and Ross Galitsky in the 'fat tire' division (check out their waistlines!) of the same biathlon and so on).
• The workout today was a bunch of short intervals with short recoveries geared towards strength building.  So the sets are not meant to be sprints.  For example, if you typically run quarters at 70 seconds, then these quarters should be done around 78 seconds, which would be very easy to accomplish.  The sets of 200m's should be progressively faster: the first two at the same pace of the last 400m, then the next two at one second faster, the next two at another second faster and the last two at another second faster.
• David Pullman showed up early and said, "I checked the website before I got up here.  I would have been really angry if there was no workout today."
• In our workouts, the first three 200's are usually just warm-ups without regard for time.  The true gauge would come in the first set.  Well, after the first set, everybody learned that they should follow their own pulse rate as opposed to following David Pullman.
• One of our team members was wondering if Stéphane Bois was really attacked by a gang in the park last Thursday.  Well, according to another version, he mounted a solo assault on an innocent bunch of runners in orange jackets who were just standing around and waiting for their workout to start.  With this in mind, you can go back and re-read Famous Saying # 852.  We understand Craig Chilton may be seriously contemplating the filing of assault charges against that one-man wrecking crew ...  On a more serious note, the most unseemly part was that this collision occurred on a night when the coach warned us not to block the whole roadway and to look out for other people using the park.
• In case you are wondering, the workout for the road runners (coached by Tony Ruiz) on next Tuesday will be at the Armory.  Please check back here to see where we will be for the week after that (for both time and location).

3/23/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• These were the dreaded hill repeats.  Head north from the Daniel Webster statue.  From the grill on West 88th Street, run 2000m to West 102nd Street, through the transverse, left turn northbound and finish three lampposts from the second stop light by the swimming pool.  Regroup at the Martin Luther King Boulevard entrance to the park.  Three repeats up from there to the top of Harlem Hill.  Recover to West 102nd Street.  Three repeats up from there to the top of Harlem Hill from the other direction.  Return to the statue afterwards.  Total distance is 7.8 miles.

FIELD NOTES:

• Could this be the warmest night of the year yet?  It sure felt like that.  Forty-one people were present at the start.  Pretty soon, it will be the mob scene  of 60 plus people when it gets warm and light again.  Right before the group set out, the Coach warned people to look out for people on wheels: "When the weather gets warm, this park is full of cyclists and rollerbladers.  Some of them have probably never rode a bicycle before.  You have nothing to gain and everything to lose in a collision.  All that training for the Boston Marathon would be wasted if you land in a hospital."  This warning would become painfully realized later in the workout.
• This workout is a staple in our club tradition.  Thankfully, it is given only about once every three months.  For all those people who came out with us tonight for the first time, please be assured that this is not the typical routine.
• Perhaps it is the change in weather, there were some unusual sights tonight.  First of all, the dedicated non-runner Scott Willett came out to lead the "C" group in runaway fashion while insisting that he is injured and/or out of shape.  Is he sharpening up for the Winter Biathlon on Sunday?  Secondly, Fritz Mueller was even seen doing the hill repeats, and checking the roster of the 60+ year olds on the team (Sid Howard, Jim Olson, Jim Aneshansley, George Hirsch, Guenter Erich).  Thirdly, for the first time in over a year, Fasil Yilma was flying out in front and NOT on rollerblades.
• Not every one finished the workout, as Eric Forestier left after a couple of hill sprints saying "I've got a soccer game at ten o'clock."  Who's playing?  Paris St. Germain?
• Craig Chilton got to the workout by emerging out of the bushes à la Sid Howard.  He explained, "You have to watch your steps in the dark as there is a ledge back there."  During the workout, Craig was sent sprawling on the ground by some maniac.  Ordinarily, you would have expected the perp to be someone on wheels, but this one was on foot and going as fast as a French rocket.  Afterwards, Coach Tony Ruiz said to Craig, "Show me your cherry (sic)!" while trying to peek underneath his shorts.  Postscript:  Of course, there are always two sides to a story and you can read about the other side in Famous Saying # 852.
• Audrey Kingsley said, "I have not read last week's workout description.  Please don't erase it."  Well, it's going to be an all-out sprint after the workout to see if she can beat our reporter ...

3/21/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

3 x (200m, 100m recovery)
3 x (1200m, 400m recovery)
3 x (300m, 100m recovery)

FIELD NOTES:

• We started late tonight, but we never got more than twenty people.  All the usual suspects were missing: Stuart Calderwood, Stacy Creamer, Brian Marchese, Craig Chilton, Kim Mannen, Eve Kaplan, Ira Gold and so on were missing in action.  (We didn't expect to see David Pullman, who was reportedly in  Los Angeles)  Someone asked, "Where is everybody?" and was promptly rebuked by the coach, who said, "We are everybody tonight and we had a good workout!"  The low attendance was not restricted to our club, as there were fewer other people around as well.  By the time the voice on the Public Announcement System came on at 9pm to say that there was only one-half hour left for the session, everybody had already left the track.  Muß einer denken?  Wird er nicht vermißt?
• The major race result of the weekend was the American record of 1:33:09 (average of 23:27 per person) set by our masters 4x200m team at the USATF Eastern Regional Masters Indoor Championships held at the Armory.  For the record, Archie Glaspy, Tony Fulton, Brady Crain and Val Barnwell.  When our coach mentioned Archie's name, he happened to jog around the curve just in time to receive our applause.
• For the workout itself, the core was obviously the three 3/4 miles.  The first two should be done with ease (such as 5 mile race pace), being a test of your ability to hold back in a longer distance race.  The last 1200m is where you let it all out.  As always, the theme of the final 300m's is form, not speed.
• Amazingly, for the first time, there were more timers than groups available tonight.  Bola Awofeso was just as happy to sit on the bench and watch the proceedings.  The coach commented, "Obviously, when I need you for next week, you probably won't be here."
• Marty from the Front Runners New York Club was handing out fliers for the Second Annual Front Runners Indoor Track Meet on April 1 at the Armory.  This is a nice, friendly and low-keyed meet that some of us did last year (including Stuart Calderwood's mile that was listed among the top masters times in the world!).

3/16/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION (per Alan Ruben):

• About 35 people present at the workout.  Rain threatening (arrived during workout but not too bad) and warm.
• This workout is serious workout for those planning Boston or London marathons or Queens half. Warm up (like before a race) up the west side past 102nd street to the top of the 'short' hill.  Then start 2 mile pickup (10K pace) round northern hills and down the East side to 100 yards past the bottom of the reservoir (Hamilton's statue).  Recover to the needle, turn around continue recovery to 90th street, then 6 lamposts on, 3 off, 6 on.  Then recover through 102nd street cut-off, down west side to traffic light at 97th street. 1K pickup (5K pace) to traffic light at bottom of reservoir (86th street). Then back to statue. Total distance 7.3 miles.

FIELD NOTES:

• "Tony was in rare form" was a cryptic field report that we received.  What are we supposed to think?
• Our regular workout reporter was out on business in Miami, right by the beach, where it was 85 degrees and sunny.  When he got back to New York, it was 31 degrees, windy, dark, dank and cold, with dirty snow on the ground.  He had to be wondering, "What am I doing here ...?" as he thought about what he was going to write ...
• Fortunately, John Scherrer steps in to the rescue with a field report.  Since he has some strong feelings about how his previous masterpieces were supposedly butchered by the editor, we are printing his original text with our annotations on the side.

Dear Reader, would you not agree that our annotations have made this a more enjoyable reading experience?  Ironically, John Scherrer gets the last say, "Kudos on the last workout description, although it's an unfair advantage that you have the final say on what appears."

3/14/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

3 x (200m, 100m recovery)
8 x (600m, 300m recovery)
3 x (300m, 100m recovery)

FIELD NOTES:

• Finally, back in the Armory again after being booted out for two weeks in a row.  Total known victim count for the unscheduled lockout last week goes up to four: David Pullman, Rich Hollander, Eden Weiss and Tivon Jacobson.
• Being back in this warm and snug environment meant that there was absolutely no urgency to get started.  By the time the coach got around to describing the workout, who but David Pullman saunters in?  It was then, and only then, that everybody realized how late that we started tonight.  The final body count was twenty-seven.
• As far as the workout goes, the first set of 200m's is for warming up and by that we don't mean walking!  The 600m's are divided into four sets of two each.  Each of these four sets should be faster than the preceding one by two seconds (e.g. 2:00, 1:58, 1:56 and 1:54).  On the last set of 300m's, the emphasis is on form, not speed.
• Open salvo from the spokesperson for the "A" group: "We have collectively decided that we are all pretty tired.  So we're going to take it easy."  But, as Einstein says, everything is relative ...
• The coach had compliments for Devon Sargent, now preparing for her first track meet in three years at the USATF Eastern Regionals this weekend.  His comments were not about her obvious speed, but "Wow!  Look at her swinging her elbows in there!"
• Despite the edict of running the last set of 300m's with emphasis on form as opposed to speed, many people did the opposite.  First of all, there were people like Kim Mannen (49 seconds in the last 300m) who broke the sound barrier.  More significantly, the coach noted at least three people who broke good form on that first 300m by reaching for their stopwatch at the finish.  What a telltale sign for someone more concerned about their time than their form!
• After the workout, post-half marathon runner Stacy Creamer was surprised that it was possible for her to run a good workout tonight.  Someone on the sideline quipped, "Just as long as you don't follow David Pullman."
• In chatting about where people have been, we are aware that four people were over in the United Kingdom recently: Bola Awofeso, Paul Stuart-Smith, Erik Goetze and Jerome O'Shaughnessy.  Can someone explain what is so good about that place?  Erik even hooked up with Chris Taylor, who was with us last year.  Postscript:  We can add Audrey Kingsley to the list too.
• The USATF Eastern Regional Indoor Championships will be held at the Armory this coming Saturday.  The printed schedule contains a list of events with no specific times given, other than stating that this meet is supposed to go from 9am to 5pm.  This is as bad as going to work ...

3/09/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• For those people who are not running the Brooklyn Half Marathon, the workout consisted of one clockwise six-mile loop in which they work hard on all the uphills.  Where are these hills?  Do you really need us to list them?  Well, it would seem fairly easy to tell, wouldn't it?
• For those people who are running the Brooklyn Half Marathon, the workout consisted of two lower loops for 3.4 miles in total.  Within each loop, they ran 800m and 400m at half marathon race pace (repeat: not just any race pace, but the pace that you intend to run the half marathon).

FIELD NOTES:

• This was a warm (70+ degrees) night, and good enough for Julie Denney to say, "I was looking for any reason not to come, but it was just too nice not to be running.  In fact, I could use the fact that I'm running the Brooklyn Half as an excuse, but I'm still here."  When we started out, we had 25 people which was not bad considering that there will be a scoring race in 36 hours' time.  Since there were two parallel workouts covering all parts of the park, the group size grew over time as we picked people running around late or on their own.  At 755pm, Tyronne Culpepper sauntered up in time to talk to all those people who have finished already, thus bringing the count up to 30.  Thanks, Tyronne, we couldn't have gotten to the magical  big 30 without you ...
• Our coach tonight was Stuart Calderwood.  Since he was also going to Alan Ruben's birthday celebration tonight, he had to leave immediately.  In his place, then, Brian Marchese was given the honor of mop-up duty.  What mop-up duty?  Like persuading people to go home eventually after the workout, instead of hanging out indefinitely on this nice night ... 
• So what do runners talk about?  The standard litany covers these topics: race times, training miles, running injuries and running shoes.  What was the hot topic tonight?  For Paul Stuart-Smith, Craig Chilton and Noel Comess, it was running shoes.  So Paul was reading the tiny letters printed inside his shoe, Craig was lamenting that his inventory is down to the last two pairs of his favorite 1996-model shoes, and Noel explains how he alternates shoes from one day to the next.  Why doesn't anyone talk about Arthur Rimbaud instead?  Ross Galitsky made a gallant attempt to discuss the contributions of Russians (you know, bistros, Napoleon and everything else) to French culture, but drew no response.
• So far we have found out that David Pullman and Rich Hollander went up to the Armory on Tuesday only to find the facility closed.  Neither one had checked the website beforehand.  To accommodate such odd behavior, we will be reviving our mailing list momentarily so that people can be notified directly (but only if they elect the option) about these types of news.
• Sid Howard came out of the bushes ("I said hello to the guys in there") to join the workout, but he only went up to the reservoir to meet Frank Handelman for their sprinters' workout.  When Sid got there, Frank had not arrived yet.  So Sid actually got to speak at length with that French mec from the other team (no, the conversation was in English, not French).  For the record, we saw two more new French speakers at our workout today.  Les français sont bien sympas!  On our way up to the workout, we saw New York Flyer Francine Alfandary (yet another French speaker) taking a walk home through the park on this nice night.  Then we were told that Kevin Arlyck (yes, you guessed it by now, another French speaker ...) will be watching the Brooklyn Half Marathon from his backyard.  Before you know it, this page will have a tricolor background and a La Marseillaise music background.
• Alex Peterhansl and David Birchfield showed up after what seems to be a long absence.  We told them that we thought that they had transferred to another school or some such.  They said, "We wish, because we wouldn't have to come out here and suffer!"
• The discussion about the Brooklyn Half Marathon inevitably turned to how early you have to get up for this 8am start on the Coney Island boardwalk.  As a point of information, the NYRRC bus leaves at 545am!  Eeeek!  There was some discussion about which is the best subway train to take (B or D), whereupon everybody seemed to defer to Ross Galitksy, who finally had to say, "Just because I am Russian doesn't mean that I know my way around Coney Island."
• On his way home, Yves-Marc Courtines asked himself, "Shall I have healthy food tonight?  Or shall I have pizza?"  Final decision: "Pizza!"  Why does our workout description cover his choice of dinner?  What relevance does this have for anything?  First of all, Yves-Marc is a club VIP these days because he speaks French and, as you know, this skill is assuming an increasingly important role in our club's recruitment and retention tactics.  More importantly, he admits to not having visited this website for some time --- so we are laying down many, many tracks for him to cover and make him regret that he was the last one to find out about these things.
  ERRATUM: According to an affidavit filed by Yves-Marc Courtines, he actually had burritos, not pizza.  We apologize for any inconvenience that we may have caused our readers as a result.

3/07/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

From the Daniel Webster statue, we jog up to the reservoir.  There we run three loops.  In the first loop, the pickup begins three lampposts after we hopped on the reservoir path and continues half a mile at East 90th Street; the second pickup begins at the second northern pumphouse and continues half a mile to West 86th Street.  In the second loop, the long 1200m pickup begins at the southern pumphouse and ends at the northern pumphouse.  In the third loop, there are just four repeats of (10 lampposts fast, 5 lampposts recover).  The total distance would be about 6.6 miles.

FIELD NOTES:

• The temperature was in the mid 60's during the day.  So on this balmy day, most people showed up in shorts.  Could it be spring already?  The total number of people at the workout was 25, on a night when the group was assembled hastily in the park after being booted out of the Armory once again.  Next week, we'll definitely be back in the Armory!  As a result of our being displaced, we ended up getting Sue Krogstad-Hill, Mary Rosado, Frank Handelman, Sid Howard and associates with us tonight.  We gathered that the other sprinters worked out in the darkness of East 6th Street.
• On a warm night like this, there was absolutely no whining about getting started as soon as possible.  In fact, the speeches dragged on long enough for Audrey Kingsley to arrive 'early' even though the watch read 7:21pm.
• In reviewing the race results over the weekend, it was pointed out the organizer of Cranberry Festival Two Miler entered his first bicycle race in Central Park this weekend as a member of Team Union Square, and won his division!  Zut alors!  Are we going to lose Thomas Pennell to a bunch of guys on wheels?  Already, we understand that Pennell Long-Term Capital Investments Inc is investing heavily in cycling equipment ...
• Over the weekend, Stacy Creamer was second open woman and first masters at the Coogan's 5K, thus winning $300 and two belt buckles.  She was not here today, but coach Tony Ruiz said, "Someone should remind her that she owes me a dollar." 
• A special announcement tonight was that Alan Ruben's birthday will be on this Thursday.  Since he will not be here on Thursday, people were advised to give him his birthday kiss tonight.  Kim Mannen announced that her birthday is coming up too.  We'll bet that her reception line would be much longer than Alan's.
• Bob Francis showed up for his first workout with the team.  So Sid Howard gave him a simple assignment --- "Just keep your sights on Margaret Angell!"  Unfortunately, Margaret had to leave after two loops, so Bob ended up running with Olivier Baillet.  When Sid saw those two at the finish, he wondered if Bob knew that Olivier was French.  At which point, Bob started with a stream of comments in fluent French.  At this rate, the official club language will be French before too long.  Final comment: "À la prochaine!"
• An unresolved linguistic mystery is whether Tony Ruiz speaks French too.  When Stéphane Bois ran past us going the other direction, we swore that we heard Tony say, "Allô!"  Could he have read the writing on the wall and realized that his job security will depend on his rapid mastery of French?
• Suso Montero says that he missed the web photographer at the Coogan's 5K race this weekend.  Answer: "Well, if I could just walk down there like you do, I would have gone."
• Our two runners at the rear found that someone just ate a bagel at 6:30.  (Technical note: A big inside joke is involved here.  No further explanation will be provided --- as we said, you gotta be there)
• There is a scoring race this weekend in Brooklyn.  A quick head count shows that we will be having quite a few absentees, with very legitimate reasons (like being out of the country at the moment!).  So if you can make it, please do!

3/02/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• The workout tonight was simple to describe --- two times four-mile loops, the second time being 15 seconds per mile faster.  Total distance is 8.0878 miles.

FIELD NOTES:

•  Although it was damp and foggy during the day, there was a strong breeze this night, bringing in a bit of windchill.  There were thirty-one people present at the start.  This count did not include the Swoosh man coming down the west side.
• Craig Buckbee showed up for the first time in a while.  He said, "I have been running by myself a bit, so I figure I should try some real running."
• The coach Tony Ruiz started the workout by saying, "Let's get started now because Eve (Kaplan) said so."  What gave Eve the authority?  Well, she was the first person to arrive tonight, a dubious honor to which she said, "You would think that I should know better by now not to arrive on time."
• This is eleven days before the Brooklyn Half Marathon.  This workout is not meant to be a race; instead, this is a test of discipline.  For both loops, the pace should be slower than half-marathon, but at a sustained, controlled fashion.  If you are coughing blood after the first loop, you've obviously got it wrong.  For illustrative purposes, coach Tony Ruiz said, "Suppose you are Alan Ruben.  Your half marathon pace is 5:45.  This means that you should run the first loop at 6:30 min/mile pace and the second one at 6:15 min/mile."  A correction was immediately issued by the named individual, in his deadpan fashion, "5:45 is just my marathon race pace."  Indeed, at the 1999 Brooklyn Half, Alan Ruben ran 1:11:58 (5:29 min/mile); the slowest recorded half-marathon time on this website for him was  1:17:49 (5:56 min/mile) at the 1997 Staten Island Half Marathon, when the ferry boat arrived six minutes late.  His marathon PR is 2:29:54 (5:43 min/mile) at the 1998 Boston Marathon.
• On our home page, this story appeared: "HOW FAR CAN YOU RUN IN ONE SECOND?  If you look at the NYRRC photo page for the Snowflake 4 Miler, there is a finish-line photo of Stuart Calderwood (21:44) ahead of Craig Chilton (21:45).  To finish only one second behind, Craig must have a finishing stride that is about ... say, 50 feet long?  Ever thought about doing the long jump instead (like Luca Trovato, our reigning MAC champion)?"  Tonight, Craig Chilton revealed his secret --- he continued sprinting after he passed under the clock until he reached the second mat whereas Stuart Calderwood probably slowed down between the two mats.  So this is another empirical confirmation of the 'second mat' theory.  This item has been deliberately buried in the midst of a lot of verbiage (yes,  we had to write all those things before and after for camouflaging purposes) on our workout page so that only true Central Park Track Club road runners will learn about this secret weapon for future races.  Dear Reader, we ask that you (and we mean you, Stéphane!) to not divulge this secret to anyone who doesn't have an orange handshake.
• When a large bike pack came by around West 92nd, every head in the group turned to scan for orange jackets in the pack for deserters from us.  So maybe we couldn't detect anyone in that pack, but soon a couple of female cyclists came by and one of them said, "Hi, guys!"  It was impossible to tell who was under those cycling helmets, but Audrey Kingsley said, affecting a particular intonation, "The person who says 'Hi, guys!' has to be Aubin (Sullivan).  So she's left us for a bunch of people on wheels."  Could this be the story of our lives --- in Eric Aldrich's words, "they always do that to you."  Well, have no fear, Alayne Adams assures us that our married non-running runners always run extra-hard vicariously through their running spouses.  Right, Ross? and he should not forget to get the best return-on-investment from their dual Armory membership ...
  Late breaking news: it was reported that someone threw tacks on the road, thus causing a lot of flats and that was why we saw many of the cyclists fixing flats by the roadside.  Aubin Sullivan was in fact a victim.  Fortunately, there are too many triathletes in our group to make us suspects.
• There are different kinds of inter-group competition going on all the time.  David Blackstone asked someone, "Did you do those three one-mile pick-ups on Tuesday?  I managed to do only one."  Response: "I managed to do none of them.  While you guys headed north from the statue to the reservoir, I headed south to the subway station."  So maybe this isn't exactly Alan Ruben and Stuart Calderwood pounding each other into the ground, but it should count for something.  Not sure what, though.
• Tonight, by consensus, there were no headbanging in the lead pack.  At the suggestion of Alan Ruben, the group of Alan, Stuart Calderwood, Eric Aldrich, Craig Chilton, Erik Goetze and our new friend Dave Howard made a pact to run together for the entire workout.  According to the camera from our Global Surveillance System (TM) located at the two mile mark, they were running nice and tight together, with Alan not even in his usual "one-half second ahead of the leader" position but contentedly following the others and ... here was a sight! ... Tony Ruiz right up there with them.  The coach was in fact with them for six miles, with miles of  6:12, 5:50, 6:22, 6:15, 5:49, and 5:46 respectively for a 6:02 average.  Is "Baby Death" back again? 
• There is a strong likelihood that we will be shut out of the Armory again next week.  In that event, we will run the Tuesday workout at 7pm in Central Park.  Please check the website home page for information.

• David Diviney wrote: "Greetings from the Pac Nor'west! Slimy running in the moist hills of Forest Park. I twisted my ankle pretty badly, got over it and proceeded to do it again about a mile later. All walking and swelling from there. Snowboarding today, easy on the ankles. My new address is daviddiviney@yahoo.com . I haven't raced yet. I think the first event will be the Shamrock Run in 2 weeks. If anyone is coming out, have them contact me for a run."

2/29/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

From the Daniel Webster statue, we jog up to the reservoir.  There we run three loops, with one mile pickups from East 90th Street to West 86th Street each time.  The total distance would be about 6.6 miles.

FIELD NOTES:

• On this night, there was a high school track meet at The Armory, so we were relocated to Central Park.  A total of thirty-one people either listened to the past announcements or read the website notices to show up at the workout.  Fritz Mueller did neither, so we couldn't continue our lecture on Icelandic Edda and their symbolic relationships with das Nibelungenlied with him tonight, but we are not bothered because we have until Götterdämmerung to do this (of course, someone was just quoted in the news as saying that this may happen just as soon as John McCain gains access to the red button ... sorry, we got carried away ... no more politics from now on ... )
• In reviewing the results of the Snowflake race, the coach pointed out that we were tied in number of points for both the men's and women's masters team.  The tiebreaker rule is based upon the relative positions of the third (and final) scorer.  So we won one and lost one.  The moral of the lesson can be summarized as follows:
   
  At the end of the race, 
  --- If you see someone not in orange, pass them!  Even if you are not on our scoring team, you can push down their places!
  --- If you see someone in orange, pass them!  They may be stupid enough not to write down the team name!
   
  In other words, IT IS ALWAYS AN EMERGENCY SITUATION OUT THERE!
   
• One of the subjects of discussion tonight was the high school track meet.  Squeezed in the middle is a NYRRC-sponsored race for Regina Jacobs to break the indoor 1500m record, with pace-setting by 800m specialist Michelle Ave and cheering by thousands of high schoolers.  Originally, the prize was $10,000.  This afternoon, it was doubled.  It was not that the NYRRC was going to put up another $10,000 in straight cash --- rather, they went to Lloyd's of London and paid $3,000 to cover.  So the bookies in London are setting odds of 10:3.  Postscript: The bad guys won here.
• When Eden Weiss arrived, he tapped the ground and said, "How come this does not feel like an indoor track?"  Then he said, "A friend called me up and said that I have to look at our home page --- something has happened about me.  So I have to go and check it out."  The only clue he got from the crowd was, "Practice your singing in the shower!"  See below for what appeared on the home page that day ---

"I sing the national anthem 
at each indoor track workout."

• Ramon Bermo was seen running with a mob across the 72nd Street transverse before dashing over to join us.  When he heard the workout description, he said, "But that was exactly what I just did!  Tony is stealing my workout!"  That is of course incorrect, since Ramon's personalized workout tonight is really 'six times one-mile repeats.'
• One of the fashion-conscious attendees wishes us to provide a descripton of John Kenney's attire tonight.  Sorry, but it just defies description ...
• At the Salsa Blues and Shamrocks 5K race this coming Sunday, there will be a prize of $500 for the team with the most number of entries.  As Stacy Creamer says, the team coffers need some infusion of cash.  We are not suggesting that everyone should show up there just one week after the big Snowflake race.  We just want to remind you to make sure that, if you do go there, please make sure that you write down your team name.  As Audrey Kingsley reminds us all the time, "Don't let your talents go to waste!" 
• Right before we start out, Toby Tanser jumped in to make a presentation to the winner of his first quiz.  The prize of a Fila t-shirt with Paul Tergat's personal signature went to ... the webmaster by default since no one could solve it.  This reaffirms your belief that contests and raffles are always fixed by insiders.  We can only hope that this prize will encourage its winner to actually do some running in the future and then give Geb a run for the 10K record?   By the way, the solution to that quiz will be posted momentarily just as soon as those insiders can solve a few technical glitches (like --- let's figure out what the correct answers are supposed to be first!).  In the meantime, you can entertain yourselves with Toby's most recent quiz in Running Times magazine.

2/24/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• This was a light workout just before the Snowflake Four Miler on Saturday.  Very simply, run from the Daniel Webster statue to the reservoir, do two loops and then go back.  The only major long pickup is a 800m on the reservoir at your projected race pace just to feel what it is like.

FIELD NOTES:

• There were twenty-nine persons at the start of the workout.  We counted Fritz Mueller, who bailed out at 77th Street.  There were a couple of people that we hadn't seen in a few months: Toby Tanser and Stephanie Gould ("No Ironman this year!").  John Gleason showed up with an aerodynamically streamlined haircut.
• The new race result announced today was that Ramon Bermo finished ninth overall in the Empire State Building Run-Up in his first try on the strength of those specially licensed calves and quads.  It must be those long training sessions in the one step/two step routine.  Stacy Creamer improved to fourth place female overall (and first master) this year.  Stuart Calderwood violated his own edict by not sprinting to pass someone just a second or so ahead of him, only to find out later that it was the first-place master runner.  Evidently, there are different degrees of emergency and he didn't think that one was a five alarm fire.  Also present were Scott Willett (NYU!?), Julie Denney and G'mo Rojas ("I'm working that day, so I won't be able to run").
• Our regular coach Tony Ruiz was away tonight, leaving Stuart Calderwood to take over.  One immediate consequence was that the workout started expeditiously, almost stranding Yves-Marc Courtines and actually stranding Margaret Angell.
• Seen running by himself was Ross Galitsky, sporting a Year 2000 Metropolitan 50 Mile race shirt.  What 50 Mile race!?  There was no 50 Mile race!  He turned up early last Saturday morning, all set to put in his 50 miles.  Instead, he was told that the race was canceled due to icy conditions.  So all he got was a lousy long-sleeve shirt that he could show off to people.  Gee, if we knew that was going to happen, we would have entered the race too!  Ross said that he was not disappointed --- he ran twenty something miles the next day and felt absolutely terrible.  Should we believe him!?  Naaaaaah.
• Also seen on the road outside of the workout was Fasil Yilma, no longer saddled with that stress fracture but, according to him, "also sixteen pounds heavier."  So he was working up a good sweat running in the opposite direction.
• On the way up to the reservoir, Harry Morales said, "You better give Fritz Mueller a briefing on this 13:40 5K runner on the club.  I think that it has been a long time that Fritz has been so impressed.  And he also wants to know why this guy is with our club."  Yes, all that and more had to be explained on the run between 72nd Street and 77th Street --- so we are afraid that Fritz did not get past our initial discourse on Icelandic vulcanology before he had to exit.  The lecture will continue next week about the Icelandic Edda, and will continue until the end of time (Götterdämmerung).

2/22/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

3 x (200m, 100m recovery)
1200m, 600m recovery
6 x (400m, 200m recovery)
1000m

FIELD NOTES:

• Twenty-seven people showed up for this workout, just a few days before the Snowflake race.  We were obviously missing those intrepid souls waiting to run up the Empire State Building tomorrow morning --- good luck to them!  We have to confess that we included the coach's son Anthony in the count, so subtract one if you must ...
• Our track coach Brian Denman came around to tell us about the results from MAC Championships last Friday.  This being MAC, it will be weeks before the results are published on their website.  In brief, our 4x200m relay team consisting of Brady Crain, Val Barnwell, Alston Brown and Archie Glaspy set an American record (but that turned out not to be completely correct because the record in the books was slower than the one at last year's MAC championships), the Central Park Track Club won both the men's and women's team titles and Alston Brown astonished everyone by running six events on the same day (60m, 200m, 400m, 800m, mile, 4x200m relay) with some frighteningly fast times too.  As we said, more details to come later, when (and if) MAC finally publishes their top-secret results.
• As for the workout today, the point was not to run yourself into a heap.  After, you're all supposed to be racing on Saturday, right?  The first 1200m should be targeted at exactly your planned pace for the four mile race.  The 400's should be 2 seconds per lap faster than the planned race pace.  The last 1000m is again back at the planned race pace.
• There were some consternation with our "A" team when they discovered that there was a 1000m after the six 400m's.  How come the folks in the "C" group had no trouble figuring that out?  What does that say?

2/17/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• The course was the famous horseshoe loop.  We started from 72nd street, of course, heading north on the west side.  At West 84th Street, we started the first of the two-mile pickups from there through the 102nd cutoff and south to East 90th Street.  This was supposed to be done at 5 seconds quicker than half-marathon pace.  The recovery was a full-mile all the way down to East 72nd Street.  We turned around and did the second (and last!) two-mile pickup all the way to the west side of the 102nd Street transverse, this time at 15 seconds per mile faster than before.  The total distance for the workout was 7.5 miles.

FIELD NOTES:

• Today, our regular coach Tony Ruiz was up at the Armory for the Thursday Night at the Armory Series.  This leaves NYU Running Club coach Ramon Bermo in charge at the park.
• At precisely seven o'clock, there were three people, including El Jefe Ramon Bermo, present at the Daniel Webster statue.  El Jefe allowed exactly four minutes for those whose watches are synchronized with Coach Tony Ruiz's to show up.  At 7:04pm, Ramon went through the usual announcements by saying: "There are no announcements."  Total duration: 3 seconds (note: the ensuing giggling probably lasted longer).  This was immediately followed by the workout description, which took a very long four minutes to complete.  Its extraordinarily long length was due to the fact that he had to repeat it a couple of times for those who were continuously arriving according to the customary standards.
• The workout started out on the road at exactly 7:09pm, which was four minutes behind the timeline on the masterplan.  When the workout started out from 72nd Street, there were 10 people.  Of course, they picked up Harry Morales on the way up (ça va sans dire!).  For the record, here is the roster of die-hard road runners: Olympic Marathon Trials qualifier Gordon Bakoulis looking sharp as always and making it look easy, Rich Shaver, Audrey Kingsley (of course), Gordon Streeter, Sharon Boles*, Sandra Olivo, Chip Olsen, Rich Hollander*, Harry Morales, and la Margaret qui n'est pas en France aujourd'hui (note: the asterisks were awarded for being on time at 7:00pm).
• On the way back, you should recognize that the first mile included Cat Hill and the second mile is mostly downhill.  So your coach of the day offered the advice to not try to make up the whole 30 seconds in the second mile --- just try to have a nice strong first mile and let the downhill take you through that second mile.
• El Jefe offered this evaluation: "I've got to say that all present graduated with honors!" and he added "We missed the other guys!"
• Other sightings: Sarah Gross was seen running in the opposite direction (could she have been operating on the regular schedule and ended up being ... LATE?).  Aubin Sullivan, wife of the famous triathlete Ross Galitsky, riding with her female teammates.  Ross Galitsky, the famous triathlete, running by himself in serious fashion, steeling himself for the 50 mile race this weekend.  Finally, Michael Trunkes dropped by to say hello on his Speedlite (= serious $$$!) bike --- he told Ramon and Audrey that he might show up at the Snowflake race!

2/15/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

3 x (200m, 100m recovery)
3 x (1000m, 400m recovery)
3 x (300m, 100m recovery)

FIELD NOTES:

• Twenty-five people present at the start of the workout.  The turnout was slightly lower than usual since the coach was encouraging people to run in the Thursday Night at the Armory races in a couple of days.  Of course, people always have the option of hanging out with Ramon Bermo in the park at the regular time or ... even just stay home?  Naaaah ...
• While waiting for the workout to start, Sandra Olivo was dispensing free personal health and medicine advice.  She has already put Tony Ruiz on three garlic pills per day --- "You don't have to chew them, you can just put it in your mouth and let them dissolve."  For Eve Kaplan's ear blockage, she said, "Human milk!  Find a new mother and get some human milk to put in your ears!  It is the best natural dissolvent."   You have been forewarned ...
• Coach Tony Ruiz waved the race result sheets from this weekend and said, "I thought I was going to be able to talk about the races.  It turns out that there were three pages of results.  So I can't talk about everything.  Now I am sure that you all know that 'John Scherrer stunk' ..."  Unfortunately, John was not there tonight to receive the accolades in person.
• After the first two 1000m's, Tony Ruiz and Sid Howard were watching Tivon Johnson, "He went out and ran the first 1000m with John Kenney in about 3:15.  I think he was way over his head!  I am going to have to give him the hook."  One reason was that the coach wanted to save Tivon for the Thursday Night at the Races.
• Sometimes, it is good just to sit back and see people run, like the completely different forms of Sandra Olivo and Sandra Scibelli sprinting the 300m's.  Those two can motor!
• Devon Sargent, in her trying-to-get-back-in-shape mode, ran the last 300m in 48 seconds.  That is a peculiar notion of being out of shape.  She said of this effort, "I blame it all on Sid Howard."  Huh?
• You know that you never know whom you end up with on the downtown train going back.  Thus it was tonight that Ira Gold first encountered the hurricane by the name of Frank Schiro.
• At last week's workout, Raphael Devalle wore dark blue top and bright yellow tights (see Famous Saying #783).  Tonight, he did a total inversion --- bright yellow top and dark blue tights.  So ... will we finally see him in bright yellow top and bright yellow tights next week?  Or will he surprise us with an all-blue outfit instead?  Stay tune for the next episode ...
• Sorry, in case you are looking, there are no French lessons today ...

2/10/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

•  This workout is an exercise in simulation and visualization for the Snowflake four miler.  We head east through the 72nd street transverse up to East 90th Street.  We run the first down hill mile to West 102nd street at a pace that is 30 seconds slower than four mile race pace, and then we pick up a little bit up to West 88th Street.  We recover to West 72nd Street, and we run the last 1-1/4 mile of the race course hard to simulate a good, strong finish.  We turn around back to the statue or go home directly if so desire.

FIELD NOTES

• There were thirty-three people present at the start of the workout, minus the transients Fritz Mueller, Betty Marolla and Frank Schneiger.  This count was audited independently by Stuart Calderwood, who even checked the bushes.
• Although this is in the middle of winter (and we had snow last week), it was actually warm tonight.  To be more precise, it was mightily warm for people who overdressed in expectation of another winter's night.  Audrey Kingsley, who was dressed in shorts and her famous white long-sleeve white shirt (Pop quiz: Why is this shirt famous?  Shame on you if you don't know the answer immediately because you are clearly not paying attention) was freezing, whereas Jerome O'Shaughnessy looked perfectly at ease in shorts and short-sleeve t-shirt.
• Perhaps because it was a warm night, the takeoff time on the auditor's watch was 7:32pm.  We are just minutes off the all-time record of 7:35pm.  More importantly, 32 minutes is longer than even the time it took Luca Trovato to fix a flat tire on this bike (28 minutes).
• The French contingent present tonight said that they enjoyed the French translation exercise for the description of this Tuesday's workout.  For the record, the webmaster can write much better French than this (really!) --- his role here is merely to copy/paste the text into the Systran translation engine, request a translation and then copy/paste the oeuvre back.  This wildly hilarious experience is not limited to French only --- he once 'translated' a New York Times article about Gloria Estefan's fans into Spanish and back and got a description about the singer's thousands of electrical ventilation machines at the Orange Bowl.
• Upon information and belief, we have discovered that this year's Empire State Building Run-Up entry list contains the usual suspects --- Ramon Bermo, Julie Denney, Scott Willett, G'mo Rojas, Stuart Calderwood and Stacy Creamer.  But where are Ross Galitsky and Aubin Sullivan?  This race occurs just three days before Snowflake.  But, as Alan Ruben once said, this is just a quartermile run and should be no problem for them.  Right?
• For the road workout next week (February 17th), the coach Tony Ruiz will be at the Armory instead.  He is encouraging people to race in the Thursday Night At The Armory series (you have a choice of 400m, 800m, 2 mile and the relay).  These are low-keyed, low-pressure races in a very friendly atmosphere.
• There will still be a road workout next Thursday at the same time and place.  So far, people like David Newcomb and Audrey Kingsley (and the world was waiting for her track debut!) have raised their hands to indicate that they will attend.  Who is going to be in charge?  Ramon Bermo got the glorious assignment, being an accredited coach of the New York University Running Club but in particular for arriving early at our workouts and then proceeding to give out instructions before the real coach arrives.  So next week he will move from off-Broadway onto Broadway itself.  How long will his show last?  It's either one day or one week, depending on how you count.  Warning:  We recommend that you show up on time, because Ramon may just be wacky enough to start on schedule!  This has been a Public Service Announcement from your favorite website.

REPORT FROM CENTRAL PARK NORTH

This note came from David Diviney:

2/08/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

3 x (200m, 100m recovery)
8 x (600m, 300m recovery)

FIELD NOTES:

• Twenty-nine people were present at the start.
• The objective of this workout is to run each set 2 seconds faster than the preceding one.  That means the last one should be 14 seconds faster than the first one, which is tall order if you went out too fast in the beginning.
• We started so late that David Pullman even made it to the start.  That is not a good sign since the man has some unconventional ideas about pacing.  So he starts off his first 600m in 1:58, runs the second one in 2:15 and asks the coach, "Should I take the next one off?  I don't think I have another 1:58 in me just now."  Hmmmm ... that's why we love him ... NOT!  P.S. Heard from the sideline, David Diviney to John Kenney, "John, please don't follow David Pullman!"
• Mark Birkey made it to his first track workout ever.  He missed the workout last week because he thought that the Armory was located at 68th Street and Lexington Avenue.  So he ended up with a one-year subscription to Modern Antiques instead.  The coach said to him, "It is perhaps unfortunate that this should be the first track you ever stepped on.  If you ran a few times on some beaten-up wooden track somewhere before, you would really appreciate that this place is heaven."
• You are reminded that February 17th has been designated by the coach Tony Ruiz as a day for the road runners to do the Thursday Night At The Armory series (you have a choice of 400m, 800m, 2 mile and the relay).  These are low-keyed, low-pressure races in a very friendly atmosphere --- you won't believe how loud your teammates can get inside a building!

"Bienvenu, mes amis!  
Nous nous parlons français ici."

READER SERVICE

Those of you who have been monitoring our site cannot help but notice that we have been experiencing a massive influx of French people.  We now have people with first names like Yves-Marc, Olivier, Noë, Sylvie, Roger (pronounced with the soft 'g') and even Roland on our team (P.S. What do you think J.P. stands for?).  France is also the country which gave the most number of international visits to our website in January, ahead of the United Kingdom, Canada and the Czech Republic (we know which new dad that was!).  For the benefit of the francophones, we have translated the above workout description into French using the Systran translation engine on the Altavista portal:

• Les personnes de Twenty-nine étaient présentes au début. 
• L'objectif de cette séance d'entraînement est d'exécuter chaque positionnement 2 secondes plus rapidement que précédantes. Cela signifie que dernier devrait être 14 secondes plus rapidement que le premier, qui est commande grande si vous sortiez trop rapide dans le début. 
• Nous avons commencé tellement tard que David Pullman l'a même fait au début. Ce n'est pas un bon signe puisque l'homme a quelques idées peu usuelles au sujet d'arpenter. Ainsi il commence ses 600m premiers dans 1:58, exécute le second dans 2:15 et demande à l'entraîneur, est-ce que " je devrais enlever le prochain? Je ne pense pas que j'ai encore 1:58 dans moi en ce moment. " Hmmmm... qui est pourquoi nous l'aimons... PAS! P.S. Entendu du sideline, David Diviney à John Kenney, " John, s'il vous plaît ne suivent pas David Pullman! "
• Marquez Birkey fait lui à sa première séance d'entraînement de piste jamais. Il a manqué la séance d'entraînement la semaine dernière parce qu'il a pensé que l'arsenal a été situé à la soixante-huitième rue et à l'avenue de Lexington. Ainsi il a terminé vers le haut avec un abonnement d'une année aux antiquités modernes à la place. L'entraîneur dit à lui, " il est peut-être malheureux que ceci devrait être la première piste que vous jamais avez faite un pas en fonction. Si vous exécutiez plusieurs fois sur une certaine piste en bois battue-vers le haut quelque part avant, alors vous apprécieriez vraiment que cet endroit est ciel." 
• On vous rappelle à que le 17 février a été indiqué en l'entraîneur Tony Ruiz comme jour pour que les coureurs de route fassent jeudi nuit à la série d'arsenal (vous avez un choix de 400m, 800m, 2 milles et du relais). Ceux-ci bas-sont introduits, les unités de feuillets magnétiques à basse pression dans une atmosphère très amicale --- vous ne croire comment fort vos teammates peuvent obtenir à l'intérieur d'un bâtiment!

Obviously, our French readers are keeling over in laughter by now.  For the sake of our non-French readers who must be feeling left out of the fun, we have back-translated the above from French into English using the same translation engine:

• The people of Twenty-nine were present at the beginning 
• The objective of this training session is to carry out each positioning 2 seconds more quickly than preceding. That means that last should be 14 seconds more quickly than the first, which is large command if you leave too fast in the beginning. 
• We started so much late that David Pullman A even made at the beginning. It is not a good sign since the man has some not very usual ideas about surveying. Thus should it begins its 600m first in 1:58, carries out the second in 2:15 and asks the trainer, " I remove the next one? I do not think that I have 1:58 more in me of this moment " Hmmmm... which is why we like it... NOT! P.S. Heard sideline, David Diviney in John Kenney, " John, please do not follow David Pullman! ".
• Never mark Birkey made him with its first training session of track. It missed the training session the last week because it thought that the arsenal was located at the sixty-eighth street and the avenue of Lexington. Thus it finished upwards with a one year old subscription to modern antiquities in the place. The trainer called to him, " it is perhaps unhappy that this should be the first track that you never took a step in function. If you carry out several times on a certain track out of wooden beat-towards the top some front share, then you would really appreciate that this place is sky."
• It is reminded to you with that on February 17 was indicated in the trainer Tony Ruiz as day so that the runners of road make Thursday harms the series of arsenal (you have a choice of 400m, 800m, 2 miles and relay). Those low- are introduced, the mass storage subsystems to low pressure in a very friendly atmosphere --- you not to believe how extremely your teammates can obtain inside a building!

Yup, Bubba, those French folks sure kinda talk funny ... This has been a multi-cultural public service brought to you by your favorite website.

2/03/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

•  The workout is an out-and-back 10K course.  The out portion goes from the statue around the northern hill to West 102nd Street.  The back portion is, by definition, a retracing of the steps.  The intent is to run the second half of the workout about 15 seconds per mile faster.

FIELD NOTES

• Snow.  What is a little snow?  It will never stop real runners.  Therefore, we have thirty-five people out here tonight, including the late charging Aubin Sullivan but not counting Gordon Streeter arriving late and doing a solo six mile run.
• If we are stuck with snow, then this is the type of snow that we would have preferred.  The snow was coming down light and soft in a dry windless air (no Arctic blast tonight).  The accumulation was less than a quarter inch at the start, and it was great to run through the fresh snow (that is, until the faster groups passed by and trampled the snow).  Every breath that you took sucks in the flakes to scratch the back of your throat.  Every step you took gave you an extra fraction of an inch in distance due to the slippage as well as a fuller extension of your hamstring (ouch!).  We would have liked to say "No bikes!" but we did in fact see a few mountain bikers.
• Jumping out a cab right next to the Daniel Webster statue to join the workout was Ross Galitsky, with this explanation: "Those three blocks from my apartment to here are treacherous."  That may be a statement of fact, but this is a privilege not extended to the rest of us lumpenproletariats.  And what would Fritz Mueller say to this sort of running ethic?
• Kim Mannen was asked about whether we have a team in the Millrose Games.  She said, "Why are you asking me?  How should I know?"  Answer: "Kim, you are the closest thing to a trackie around here."  A good reputation travels around fast ...
• Joining our workout tonight and shooting out like a rocket was Gordon Bakoulis, preparing for the Olympic Marathon Trial.  For us, a very important consequence of that race is that her husband Alan Ruben will be missing the Snowflake 4 Miler here.  So we'll need the young turks to take over the mantle.  That is easier said than done, as we saw that Alan Ruben and Stuart Calderwood had the juniors sucking snowflakes once again tonight.  For his part, John Scherrer is undoubtedly disappointed, because he won't find out if Alan will outkick him yet again.
• John Scherrer sent a salutation via his special personal messenger (Stuart Calderwood): "While you are running through the snow tonight, I want you to remember that John Scherrer is running indoors on the Armory track in shorts right at this moment."
• The person who was seen with the most number of slips was Tivon Jacobson.  We guess that he was not used to seeing this sort of stuff in Tucson, Arizona.
• The coach saw that everybody got back to the Daniel Webster statue safely.  The final straggler commented, "I know that I am not a snow runner for a good reason.  Its name is Nathan.  He used to kill me in the snow at the races.  While I was slipping and sliding, he would just motor along."
• Upon information and belief, there should be a Central Park Track Club 4x400m master relay team at the Millrose Games on Friday night.  If you are going, you should get there around 5pm.
• For the road workout two weeks from today (February 17th), the coach Tony Ruiz will be at the Armory instead.  He is encouraging people to race in the Thursday Night At The Armory series (you have a choice of one or more of the 400m, 800m, 2 mile or relay).  These are low-keyed, low-pressure races in a very friendly atmosphere.  Even the coach will be racing (assuming Dr. Randy Ehrlich fixes him up first), and how many of you (other than Craig Chilton) have seen that!?

REPORT FROM CENTRAL PARK NORTH

Although some people insist on meeting in Central Park even when the conditions are horrible outside and when they have the option of running on America's finest indoor track, a few more sensible middle-distance runners enjoy the friendly confines of Washington Height's finest mondo surface.

• The 200s are part of the warm-up, and the 1200s are run at 5000M pace. The goal of the workout is to maintain an even pace despite ridiculously tired legs from Sunday's race and Tuesday's workout.
• Upon walking outside before the workout, one observer remarked, "Blow winds and crack your cheeks.  Rage, blow! You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout.  Till you have drenched our steeples, drowned the cocks! I don't care, I'm running inside!"
• The unofficial count was 3.  In attendance were John Scherrer, Isaya Okwiya, and Devon Sargent, although Devon pulled a Kim Mannen and ran with the sprinters.  Still, we were pleased to see more Columbians and fewer Yalies.
• The track was nearly vacant during the late session.  About the only people there were brave representatives of CPTC, the French ambassador of the Warren St. S&A Club, two lovely ladies from Moving Comfort who were offended when mistaken for Warren St. runners, and two runners from King's College TC.
• Craig Chilton and Stuart Calderwood reportedly kept their distance from the track due to fear of a teammate's vicious elbows as displayed on Tuesday.  Chilton remarked, "Where I come from, we'd throw him in the penalty box and give him 5 minutes for roughing." Calderwood just grinned and said, "The little punk will get his at Snowflake."
• For the first time in recent memory, David Pullman did not lose an article of clothing at the workout.  In fact, he wasn't even late. Instead, he didn't even attend.

2/01/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

3x(200m, 100m recovery)
1600m, 800m recovery
1200m, 600m recovery
800m, 400m recovery
3x(400m, 200m recovery)

FIELD NOTES:

• Twenty seven people at the start, with the late arriving David Pullman to be added to the count.
• The talk of the town before the workout was about the second mat.  Now the New York Road Runners Club has officially begun using the Champion computer chip to score races.  Whilst there is no official description of the process, we believe the following to be true based upon the experiences of many people.  First of all, there is usually no detection device at the start of the race (but they can do that at the start or at some midpoint, if they so choose).  So you do not have to cross over a magical stripe to start the clock for your race.  Everybody is in fact given the same start time.  When you cross the finish, there is a mat right underneath the finish clock and there is another mat a few feet ahead.  We believe that your final time is based upon when you cross that second mat.  It is therefore possible for you to get a faster time than someone who crossed under the clock before you but whom you beat to the second mat (and we know of several instances).  Please bear that in mind in your next race!  It cannot hurt you to go all the way through.
• This is a ladder-down workout, starting from the longest down to the shortest items.  There should not be a significant decrease in speed, but only something like 1 second per quarter faster as you go down the ladder, starting with 5K race pace for the mile.  At least, that was the theory.  The praxis was another matter, obviously, and we can name some names.
• Sid Howard stood around to listen to the workout and then said, "I think I better stick to my short workout."
• First of all, we note that Isaya Okwiya covered the last 400m in 61 seconds.  Hmm ... isn't that faster than the world record pace for 5K?  Then we note that Kim Mannen ran rationally (more or less) at around 90+ second per lap for the 1600m/1200m/800m and then set a goal of 1:28 for the first 400m.  Fair enough.  The actual time was 1:15 --- can  you believe that?  And she covered the last 400m in about 1:12.  Maybe she should consider a remedial math class ...
• Two alternate hypotheses have been proposed for Kim Mannen speeding up at the end of the workout.  Alternate hypothesis # 1 is that she got additional rest while socializing with Linsey Scherf on the sideline.  Alternate hypothesis # 2 is that a certain Alan Bautista was saying to her from the sideline, "Kim, hurry up with the workout.  I wanna eat my burrito."
• Meanwhile, today saw the season debut of Devon Sargent at the indoor track.  "I haven't been here in such a long time.  I just want to find out what it feels like again."  She did 4 repeats of 400m's in this first session.  Now, if only our camera was active at the time, we would have caught the people on other teams gawking at her, like "Who is this fast woman?"
• Traffic report: David Diviney said that he waited on the 86th Street, let two D trains go by without getting on and finally saw the big posted sign --- NO C TRAINS!.  It cost him twenty minutes!  So please note that the C train will not be running for some time and adjust your travel plans accordingly.
• A very important announcement concerns the road workout of Thursday, February 17th, 2000.  It is this --- THERE WILL BE NO ROAD WORKOUT.  The coach Tony Ruiz is going to relocate on this date (and only for this date) to the Armory for the Thursday Night at the Armory track races between 8pm and 10pm.  This is an opportunity for all you distance runners to run a low-keyed, low-pressured track race (or several of them) in a friendly atmosphere.  You can check the event schedule at the link at THURSDAY NIGHTS AT THE ARMORY TRACK.  Don't forget that the race entry fee is waived for all the people who have registered to use the Armory this season. 

1/27/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• In view of the 5K race on Sunday, there were two workouts for racers and non-racers.  For the racers, the first question was, "What are you doing here on a night like this?"  Notwithstanding this, if you insist on running, then the course was 3 times the lower loop.  There were some pickups that were based upon time intervals (e.g. 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 4 minutes) rather than on distance.  For the non-racers, the course was 4 times the lower loop.  In the second and fourth loop, the long pickup is the Stuart Mile (that is, running a mile from the letter S marked on the road between Tavern on the Green and Columbus Circle all the way to mile marker at East 72nd Street --- despite what anyone might have told you, the S stands for Stuart, not for the Start).

FIELD NOTES

• The temperature was in the teens at start time, and there was a northwesterly breeze blowing in.  When the coach got there, the collective murmur was, "Let's get the workout going."  There were twenty-seven people at the workout tonight.
• The head count included Audrey Kingsley, who went around introducing herself to the new faces, "Hi, I'm Audrey.  I used to run with this club a couple of weeks ago."  She did not run the workout tonight.  So why was she here?  "Oh, I can come out just to see my friends, right?"  Oh, how sweet!  (Technical note:  The preceding exclamation came from Ramon Bermo, who was touched enough to give her a hug.  Since we promised her that this note will be published by 10pm tonight, we better hurry up ...).  Post-analysis:  It seems that she must have missed more than two weeks --- we have not even had the chance to ask her about what she thought about the famous artwork in Famous Saying # 734.
• Our coach Tony Ruiz came today in civilian clothes and said, "I always believe that I should practice what I say.  I said that I was going to take some time off from running, so I am showing you that I mean it.  So I'll be leaving after I give the workout and Stuart (Calderwood) will stay behind, even though he didn't know until this moment.  After all, you don't expect me to hang out for twenty-six minutes for you in this cold weather.  Right?"  The citation of the 26 minute figure was analyzed to death afterwards.  Well, the shortest distance tonight was 3 times the lower loop (= 5.1 miles).  So does the coach figure that none of us could cover 5.1 miles in 26 minutes even if we killed ourselves?
• Of course, Tony's formulation rests upon three and four loops being mutually exclusive and exhaustive events.  That is not necessarily true.  On the way out, people were trying sort out who was doing what.  Somebody asked, "Are you doing three or four?"  Answer: "Two."  Surprise!  Surprise!
• Meanwhile, since Stuart Calderwood was not staying for the workout, the caretaker tonight was elected to be that NYU Running Coach Ramon Bermo.  He earnd this extra duty on account of Famous Saying #760 but most of all because we all love him.  Postscript: Someone asked us if we left out "NOT" in the last sentence; that is the reader's prerogative.
• When Alan Ruben passed us, he said, "You've got to look carefully inside New York Runner.  There's more inside."  Answer: "Alan, you've got to look carefully inside our website.  The story about you was already published last night as Famous Saying # 758."
• After the workout was over, John Scherrer asked, "Is the lower loop really 1.7 miles?"  Answer: "Yes.  If you need the other three decimals, you can consult the description given on our website."  For the record, it is 1.7153 miles.  John seemed immensely disappointed, "I was hoping that you could tell me off the top of your head.  Now I'll have to look it up on the website."  Yes, and pile up a few more hits for the web site.
• Pam Bohl had heavy incentive to run fast in this workout.  Her plane for France leaves at 1100pm, and she absolutely and positively must check out of her hotel on Central Park South by 830pm.  And there are no taxis inside the park, either.  Run, Pam, run ...
• We apologise for those people who were looking for a good workout tonight, as we were obviously a bit too anxious to get out of the cold tonight while pursuing our individual workout agendas.  We are usually better organized and coherent.  Really.
   
• Yves-Marc Courtines submitted this amendment: "Having arrived, as usual, just in time (approx. 7:14pm - 7:16pm) for the workout, I was dismayed to see that our namby-pamby group of runners decided to start things EARLY simply because it was a little cold out.  Hence, I started a leisurely turn down the south end of the park when I caught up to . . . AUDREY (chatting with a non-workout clad Tony).  Inspired by Tony's prodding, Audrey did indeed join me in the workout as we quickly settled on a Roland-like 2 laps instead of the recommended 3 or 4.  Therefore, despite the immediate presumption by the editors of the CPTC website in describing the Thursday night workout that Audrey might be (once again?) slacking, we unfortunately do need to point out that she did do the workout (although it was done à la Roland).  Sarah also witnessed us finishing our run, so there's independent proof for any doubters."
   
  QUESTION: What is so Roland-like about this?  The Roland person did complete 3 full laps for a total of 5.1459 miles, as witnessed by John Scherrer and Eve Kaplan.  One practices law and the other is a boxer.  If you doubt them, you will be get a libel lawsuit and a punch in the nose.

1/25/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

12 x (400m, 200m recovery)

FIELD NOTES:

• First real snow of the year on the outside, thirty-six people inside on the track today.  The prescription of this workout was 12 quartermiles done at 5K pace.  The usual 3x200m warmups were foregone, because you are not supposed to get warmed up enough to blast off.  The coach yanked you out of the workout if you looked like you were running hard.
• On their way to the Armory, Brian Barry and Roland Soong ran into Frank Schiro, who stopped them and said, "The Armory is closed today.  They don't want any Irish and Chinese people in there."  Yes, as gregarious as ever, ...
• In going through the race results last week, people wondered how Stacy Creamer managed to run a 1:33 half marathon in San Diego considering how ill she was right before she left.  Today, Stacy gave proper credit to Alan Bautista, M.D, aka "The Miracle Worker."  Using the word 'miracle' may be overstretching it, for the doctor did not over-promise and merely offered a 24-hour respite from that terrible flu.  Stacy said, "I would have settled for just two hours."
• The purpose of this workout is to prepare people to set the pace for the 5K race.  That is why you should feel bouncy and energetic at the end.  Of course, someone had to go up to the coach and ask, "I want to do this whole workout, run the mile race here on Thursday and then do the 5K.  Is it alright?"  Weeeellllllll, ...
• Stuart Calderwood explained how he positioned this type of workout to his high school athletes once up a time.  On a Monday workout prior to a Thursday meet, he told them to take it easy.  To make sure that they don't go berserk, he designated a runner in each set whom no one else is supposed to pass.  At the end of the prescribed workout, he asked the group, "So ... (pause for dramatic effect) ... are you ready to break out a really fast one?"  As the group nodded their heads in happy anticipation, Stuart said, "Well ... save that for Thursday!"
• Pam Bohl, our resident in France, came for her first indoor track workout of the season.  So this means that her cost per session has just taken a dive from $infinity down to $100.  She aims to show up once more to reduce the cost to $50 per session.  Deep down, she said that it was all for a good cause.  Incidentally, not only was this Pam's first visit to the Armory, but also her first experience on a banked indoor track.  "Very strange!  My hamstrings felt funny at first, then I got used to it."  David Diviney had this powerful endorsement, "I could think of nothing else better to do on a Tuesday night!"  Would the Armory like to use this quote?
• On the way back to the train station, Jim Olson said, "I used to live in Minnesota.  When the wind-chill got to 100 degrees below zero, I realized that it was a SERIOUS situation."  Even the Alaskan Pam Bohl was impressed.  Quick quiz:  Who was the first Alaskan on the Central Park Track Club team?  Answer: Kathryn Collins, M.D., last seen wearing orange at the 1999 Boston Marathon.
• On the "A" train back downtown, people were exchanging confessions about their vices.  One person said, "Cigarettes" (and this was not Tony Ruiz).  Another said, "Several."  Then a third person said, "Math.  You can ask Bola Awofeso about it."  And this person wasn't even Tivon Jacobson.
• One to watch:  A little bird on the wire tells us that Tyronne Culpepper will be running the 400m on Thursday ... 

1/20/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• The coach had counted on conditions to be bad enough to cancel the workout.  Unfortunately, things look fine when he ran up from Columbus Circle to the Daniel Webster statue.  So he offered two options: (1) a single clockwise six mile loop, with pickups of no more than 3 minutes on sections of the road where the footing looks good; or (2) heading east to go to the East 90th Street in order to cover the race course for the Gridiron 5K race.

FIELD NOTES

• The thermometer under the BIOGRAPHY sign on Central Park South read 23 degrees Fahrenheit at 7pm.  It had snowed earlier in the day, but the roads in the southwest corner of the park were plowed and quite passable.  During the workout, the snow returned and it did get slushy at the end.  But all in all, it was actually quite nice: the park was quiet and devoid of traffic (no bike pack!), the grass was covered in white, the snow was light and gentle, the winds had not started yet (just think back to the arctic blasts at last week's workout) ...  Wish you were here ...
• At 7pm, Brian Marchese looked at the other three people who were there and proclaimed, "This has to be the lowest turnout yet."  Not true.  When the hurricane forced a workout to be officially cancelled last year, there were two people there.  Today, by the time that we set out, there were 26 people present.  Amazing, isn't it?
• When John Scherrer got there, he looked around and said, "Where is that Craig Chilton?  After all that trash talk from him and after throwing down the gauntlet for some serious running on Thursday, it turns out that he isn't here?"  But Craig showed up in due time, as we all know that he would never miss a workout (unless it is to decorate a Christmas tree ...).
• The following paragraph was an inflammatory note from one of your track brethren that was posted on our home page during the day:
  You look out the window and snow is coming down like dandruffs.  Here is an invitation: "Why not come to the Thursday night races at the Armory tonight instead of doing the Frosty the Snowman imitation road-slideshow in the storm tonight?  On the fastest track in the world, you can do a 2 mile run and then recover for a 800 meter run, and then recover for an 800 meter relay. And all for FREE if you are registered with the Armory.  It may even be fun as well as a comfortable and safe alternative.  Of course for those who insist on the hardship, and we know there will be some, I have no doubt they will gather more or less on time at the web-ster statue and be duly noted on the web."
  Technical note: Craig Chilton said that his browser could not display text that is put in neon green.  The trick is to select the text in the usual manner (left click at the start of the paragraph and drag to the right bottom.  When selected, the background becomes dark while the words appear in a light color.  In this way, you can even read text that is put in orange on top of an orange background (like the 1,000 repetitions of the word 'bestiality' on our home page ...)
• If you exercised option # 1 to run the 6 mile loop, you would have either gotten a good workout like the two Margarets or else you would have gotten into some deep conversation with your teammates.  
• If you exercised option # 2, you would have to listen to the coach Tony Ruiz give you a yard-by-yard analysis of the 5K course.  "Here is where you die because you went out too fast like I told you not to ..."
• While going down Harlem Hill, Harry Morales commented that he had his worst accident when he went sledding after a snow storm and went head-on into a wall.  Eve Kaplan made a short comment that she knew what a broken jaw felt like.  At that point, a teammate asked, "Harry, did you know that Eve is a boxer?"  This innocent introduction brought together two boxing pugilists who then proceeded to exchange experiences about broken jaws (Eve said, "I can assure you that those cartoons that show people seeing stars are not purely metaphorical --- I saw stars when Tiffany Rodriguez broke my jaw with a left hook that I had supposedly prepared against for a whole month!"), a complete review of the pantheon of legendary boxers (Ali, Holmes, Norton, de la Hoya ("the boxer with the Armani model look"), Chavez, Chacon, etc) and a listing of all the fight videotapes that they own (note: desperately seeking a tape of the Holmes-Norton fight; will pay top dollars; contact Harry).

1/18/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

3 x (200m, short jog recovery)
3 x (1000m, 400m recovery, 600m, 300m recovery)
The first set should be done at four mile race pace; the last two sets at 5K race pace.

FIELD NOTES:

• This morning, it was zero degree fahrenheit outside and the wind-chill was something like minus thirty, or forty, or whatever.  Not even Sarah Gross went out for her 6am bike ride.  Still, there were thirty-two people at the start of the workout tonight.  Are we good, or what?  Two people (Jim Aneshansley and Eden Weiss) even came up here just to be timers.  Are they good, or what?
• For those of you who have been to the website this week, you will have the notice about our teammate Sheldon Karlin passing away.  It is unfortunate that many of the currently active members joined the club too recently to have known the man.  Today, Frank Handelman gave a brief eulogy to talk about this very special person.  In Frank's opinion, Sheldon Karlin is the greatest runner in the history of our club so far.  This has less to do with any set of race times, which were impressive enough, but with the manner and ease with which he comported himself.  Frank said that he was privileged to have been a teammate of Sheldon.  So this workout was in fact dedicated to his memory.
• Mary Rosado made the comment that it was a dynamite indoor track meet last Thursday at the Armory.  First of all, there was Kim Mannen winning her heat in 1:08 by fractions of a second in her first ever quartermile race.  Next, the Central Park Track Club women's team of Sue Krogstad-Hill, Mary Rosado, Kim Mannen and Denise Crain-Whittaker won the 4x400m.  Our coach Brian Denman was so excited that he forgot to records the splits.  Kim was supposed to have ran somewhere between 64 or 65 seconds in her relay leg but we will never know for sure.   Mary Rosado wished that the web photographer could have been there, but unfortunately he would rather freeze his butt out in the park.  This week, we will probably be seeing even more of our people at the Thursday meet, including Jim Aneshansley, Eric Aldrich and Eden Weiss.
• Coach Tony Ruiz commented that Kim Mannen may have found her true calling at the track instead of that five-borough nonsense, and that Kim might be working out with the sprinters instead from now on.  Out of the crowd came the voice of Alan Bautista, "Yes, you've lost her!"  To which the coach said, "So instead we got you in the trade?"
• Eden Weiss was the timer for the day.  He was perfectly trained for it, as a teammate noted: "You warmed up before you started, you wore a track suit while you times, you cooled down after you finished, and you changed back into street clothes afterwards.  You take this seriously, don't you?"
• As Frank Schneiger laid down to stretch himself, a teammate went up to congratulate the master co-ed relay team victory for him and Irene Jackson-Schon.  It was duly noted that Frank somehow got himself to run the four mile leg while Irene had to run six miles, and they both ran the same pace (about 7:30 min/mile).  This led Frank to say, "Why are you telling me this?"  Strictly a statement of the facts and nothing else.  He added, "This reminds me of the story of this basketball coach.  He was being interviewed by a reporter, who had at point asked, 'So what about your record?'  The coach stuttered and finally said, 'But she did not look like she was only fourteen ...'"  Why do we have these bad jokes around here?  Don't we deserve something better?
• On the way back, people were talking about how bad the workout was last Thursday in the cold.  Well, this Thursday looks worse --- the forecast calls for sub-freezing temperature, dreadful wind chills plus some snow amounts on the ground.  We'll see you out there!
• Finally, would you believe that this workout even earned a trivia quiz of its own?

1/13/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• The workout begins with everyone going out together up to West 84th Street (you know, this is the two-mile mark in the four mile course that starts at East 90th Street).  From there, the first pickup is a mile to West 102nd Street at half marathon race pace.  The idea is get warmed up on this very cold night.  We recover north to the top of the Harlem Hill and down to the northern entrance into the park from Martin Luther King Boulevard (in other words, right at the front door of Bola Awofeso's home).  The next pickup is about three-quarters of a mile at 10 mile race pace to West 102nd Street through the transverse.  Recovery is the same one as before.  The last pickup is one-and-a-half mile to East 90th Street, going uphill all the way, which means that you shouldn't even worry about your split time.  From there, we jog back to the Daniel Webster statue.  The total distance is ... have you figured it out yet? ... 6.3445 miles (and we are not joking about the four-decimal precision either --- see our Central Park map to verify).

FIELD NOTES

• The thermometer on the top of the building on Central Park South read 29 degrees at 7pm.  But with the strong northwesterly winds, the wind chill was probably sub-zero.  It also rained this morning (though not the 5 inches of snow predicted by Channel 5), so there were some icy spots on the road.  So the turnout of 26 people tonight on a week when the city is being swept through by a flu epidemic must be considered quite good.  Technical note: the count does not include Aubin Sullivan who ran right past the statue despite her teammates yelling "Wrong way!  Wrong way!" nor Nathan Klejman who was zipping around the lower loop but the count does include Fritz Mueller who probably wanted to see how many real Menschen are left on the team.  Of course, this weather is nothing compared to some famous historical events (like the one on one foot of ice on the road --- okay, so we only slid the four mile loop at 15 minute per mile pace).
• In the morning, the following note was posted on our home page:
  YOU LOOK OUT THE WINDOW AND IT IS SNOWING.  SO YOU WONDER, IS THERE GOING TO BE A WORKOUT TONIGHT?  OF COURSE.  THE WORKOUT IS ON, UNLESS OFFICIALLY CANCELLED AND IT IS NOT.  IN FACT, THE WORKOUT IS ON EVEN IF IT IS OFFICIALLY CANCELLED.  IN ICELAND, THEY RAN WHILE THE VOLCANO WAS ERUPTING (SEE FAMOUS SAYING # 660).  SO WHAT IS A LITTLE SNOW?
  Why do we behave this way?  Why can't we just stay home and be warm and comfortable?  The short answer must be that being smart is not one of our attributes, in spite of our very impressive reading list (figurative sculpture?  distributed artificial intelligence? Vier Letz Lieder of Richard Strauss? Who are these people?)
• Brian Marchese got to the workout and saw the web reporter.  Brian said, "I guess you are here to record the names of the people who show up?"  Of course, we are not just interested in names, but also in the states of mind.  Brian's state of mind was typical, "At 6pm, I just woke up from a nap, and I was nice and warm.  I was thinking about not coming, but here I am."
• Cyclist watch: None were seen, not even Scott Willett or Julie Denney could be enticed to come out tonight.  Finally, the park is ours (and ours only).
• Standing at Martin Luther King Boulevard was our traffic director Bola Awofeso.  He waited until our last runners came by before he went home.  What would we do without him?
• This is Charles Allard's last workout as he is moving to Tokyo.  Ramon Bermo said, "You know that you can read about the workout on the website and do the same one yourself.  You can e-mail your splits to us."
• Quiz: Is it a recovery when you have to scale the steepest hill in the park?
• Someone wishes to send a special note to Tyronne Culpepper, a strong proponent for the safety measure of bringing a subway token to the workout  --- "My hands were so cold that I lost any feeling.  When I got to the train station, I could not unzip my pocket to fish out the token.  So, please make sure that your token is in an easily accessible place."

1/11/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

3 x (200m, short jog recovery)
3 x (1200m, 600m recovery, 800m, 400m recovery)

FIELD NOTES:

• There were twenty-six people at the start of the workout.  This was not impressive in the absolute sense.  But if you consider the flu epidemic that has been sweeping through this area in recent days, it is a miracle that so many people made it.
• We think that we will ask our regular photographer to show up next week with the camera.  When Margaret Angell heard that, she said, "Oh, no!"  But fear not, for we will not try to recapture that famous photo of her in a business suit at the track.  What caught our eye is a full-size cardboard poster of Khalid Khannouchi breaking the world marathon record, with his face hollowed out like they do at carnivals.  We will be charging only a dollar per picture (two dollars for non-members).  Bring cash; checks will not be accepted.
• Ira Gold thinks that he has it worked out like a science, saying "I have to leave my place at 7:12 to get here on time.  Last week, I left at 7:14 and I was late."  Well, don't count on it!  Here is someone else's travel diary: "Last week, leave at 6:55, arrive at 7:15, sat around for half an hour.  This week, leave at 6:55, arrive at 8:00."
• You know that we have been lobbying to get Eric Aldrich to move into the "A" group.  So when he finished the workout, our designated monitor told him, "Your last 800m was 2:24.  We saw that."  Eric asked, "So what were the 'A' guys running?"  Answer: Erik Goetze, clocked in 2:20.  So is he ready, or what?  P.S.  Jesus Montero, a half-second behind Eric, may be ready for prime time too. 
• DESPERATELY SEEKING STEVE PREFONTAINE:  At the Tuesday workout, David Pullman left his Pre shirt at the Armory track.  If anyone has seen it, please contact the very distraught owner at dpullman@pullmanco.com 

1/6/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

• We run south from the Daniel Webster statue until we reach the "S" line just south of the Tavern on the Green.  (footnote: "S" stands for Start, and not Stuart Calderwood who first used this as a workout landmark)  This marks the start of a one-mile warm-up run at half marathon race pace.  We 'recover' uphill to Cleopatra's Needle.  We run a pick of half mile from the Needle to East 90th Street.  We jog up to East 96th Street and then turn around to get on the reservoir loop at Engineer's Gate.  We run a full loop (1.577 miles) fast.  Thereafter, we jog another mile on the reservoir to exit at West 86th Street and head back to the Daniel Webster statue.  The total distance of the workout is 6.5 miles.

FIELD NOTES

• The attendance count at the start was forty-two persons, including the Ironman Israel winners Scott Willett and Julie Denney (on bicycle).  At the end of the workout, Margaret Angell appeared at the finish with the comment, "I just got off work."
• Last night, the wind chill was around 10 degrees fahrenheit with cold  northwesterly winds.  Sometime during the day, the winds switched to the southwest direction, and it was actually quite nice (unless you wear shorts like David Diviney) out there tonight.  At 7:05pm, we counted only around 10 people, but the crowd quickly swelled up.  We started out later than usual, because there was an extremely obnoxious passerby who was craving for attention.  That was fortunate because we headed south and not north as latecomers have come to expect.  This is perhaps time again for the coach to spring a start-on-the-dot-at-seven-p.m. workout just to shake people up.  As we have always suggested, it is not necessary to start at 7pm every time --- it is sufficient to remind people now and then that this is a likely scenario in order to make them show up on time.
• On January 1st, Alan Ruben ran the Y2K 5K in Connecticut to finish third overall in a time of 17:33.  The winner's time in this race was around 17:10, which is over one minute slower than Alan's current real 5K time.  So what happened?  Alan explained, "I was hoping that I could still win it while running slow."  Maybe he did not want to collect another big trophy because his wife, Gordon Bakoulis, was the female winner of that race, adding yet another trophy to her gigantic collection.
• At the end of today's workout, Charles Allard announced that he will be moving to Tokyo in ten days.  For many cosmopolitans, this city (and this club) is one of many stops in life.  We have received so much from the many, many club members over our twenty-seven years; in turn, we hope that we have given them some fond memories while they were with us.  Certainly, Charles will be able to continue to read about us on the world wide web wherever he may be.  Charles will be at next week's workout.  Please make sure that you offer your best wishes to him and his lovely family.
• As our readers are no doubt aware, we broke the news last week that Scott Willett and Julie Denney were the winners of the Ironman Israel.  So when Julie showed up today, people came up to her to ask about the race.  She said, "I feel funny about saying anything, because I have this feeling that someone standing next to me is listening to every word."  Hmm, whom can she be talking about ... ?  When Scott showed up, he looked around and said, "Hmm.  This is most unusual.  I wonder where Galitsky is."  The answer would present itself a while later, when Aubin Sullivan and Ross Galitsky were observed to be running by themselves down East Drive in the opposite direction.
• At the start of the workout, the coach sorted people into different pace groups.  Blair Boyer had this question, "Where is the out-of-shape-people group?"  We don't necessarily feel that this is Blair's group --- he should be in the very exclusive 'overtraining' group, but unfortunately members of that group never perceive themselves as such ... 
• Tyronne Culpepper wishes to enter into the official record that he has acquired another phrase in his French vocabulary beyond the previously reported "Comment ça va?", namely "Bonne année!"  Of course, he also knows that other phrase used in the refrain of the song Lady Marmalade (and it is not "Coochy, coochy, ya-ya, da-da; Coochy, coochy, ya-ya, here Mocha, choca lata, ya-ya")...
• You are no doubt familiar with the story that Rich Borrero was asked by the coach to take some time off over Christmas-New Year, and was able to stay off for 83.5 hours before heading out.  Indeed, according to our Global Surveillance System (tm), Rich was observed to be running at a fast clip in the park on both Monday and Wednesday this week. 
• By this time, you are probably looking for Eve Kaplan's workout review.  Unfortunately, she said, "I have no word to give for this workout.  It is true that there are many more words in the vocabulary, but I have to be absolutely sure that the correct word is used."  So our education will have to wait ...  stayed tuned for the next episode of the Road Workout Descriptions, coming to you every Thursday, now and forever.  In lieu of Eve's review this week, we will offer Bola Awofeso's final words, "I need a cab to get home."
• Oh, just to save you the trouble of asking, we also want to know, "Where is Audrey Kingsley?"  By the way, Dan Sack was present.  As Joe LeMay promised, this is the best soap opera in town ...

1/4/00

WORKOUT DESCRIPTION:

3 x (200m, short jog recovery)
4 x (600m, 250m recovery, 300m, 250m recovery)

FIELD NOTES:

• There were twenty-eight people at the start of the workout.  It goes without say that David Pullman showed up fashionably late (exactly at 830pm) and wanted to know how much of the workout he missed already.  Answer:  Two of the four sets were over.  When Audrey Kingsley sat out one set, a teammate suggested, "You can stay behind to make up the missing set.  You can always run with David Pullman."
• If you arrived early at the Armory, you would have seen Regina Jacobs leaving the building.  She is scheduled for a stab at the mile record at the Armory during the New Balance meet later this week.
• Outside, the rain was pouring down.  So what did John Scherrer do?  He went outside to run his warm-up and came back soaking wet.  "I don't want to be rushed in warming up ..."  he said.
• This workout is a bit shorter in total length (about 2.5 miles) than normal (usually 3 miles).  This means that the sets are supposed to be done faster than usual.  This workout and others to come are meant to prepare people for the two upcoming scoring races: the Gridiron 5K and the Snowflake 4 Miler.  Although our coach is a firm believer in holding back in the first mile, there is the recognition that one cannot let others get too far ahead in a 5K race. 
• Before the start of the workout, it was pointed out that Sid Howard was named as the M60 Masters Track Athlete of the Year as selected by the USATF Masters Track & Field Committee and reported in the National Masters News.
• As all you soccer fans know, there are different divisions in most European leagues.  Each year, the two teams at the bottom of the scoring table in a division are demoted into a lower division while the top two finishers get promoted to a higher division.  Thus, it is with our running groups.  Two weeks ago, Ira Gold got promoted to the next division for being consistently faster and he is looking at another experience.  This week, we heard multiple requests to promote Eric Aldrich to the next group.  Why?  "Because he was leading every set in an effortless manner."  After all, suffering is the reason that we come out here every week.  Eric was quite willing to move, but he wanted to know what the fastest group was running for the 600m.  When he found out 1:41, he said, "Too fast for me right now!"  How does the promotion system work on this club?  Well, we are a democracy.  So you can be elected to move to another division, and you can also elect yourself to another division.
• When Bola Awofeso is in charge of timing duties, you know that he is going to bark out his orders.  Thus, we heard him yelling from one end of the track to the other end, "Hey, Kim, this is not a social party."  Kim Mannen's explanation was, "I was having a word with someone who ran me off the track in the last set.  It was not a social call."
• When coach Tony Ruiz said that there were not many race results over the holidays, someone pointed out that Noel Comess and his partner, the Amanda Hesser (yes, it was not just Amanda Hesser, but the Amanda Hesser), finished third in the costume contest of the Millennium Midnight Run.  They were dressed as a champagne bottle and a champagne glass (see photo).  Before you scoff at this non-running diversion, we should inform you that it was worth $500 in cash!  Eat your heart out!
• While there were many Central Park Track Club people out at the Millennium Midnight Run, some members of the trigeek brotherhood traveled down to Ocean City (New Jersey) for some bonding as well as the polar bear swim.  We are offering premium prices for photos of the said event.
• Ross Galitsky was extremely curious about how we found out about the Ironman Israel results, because the trigeek brotherhood was supposed to have been sworn to secrecy.  He said, "Since I didn't tell you, it must have been Ramon (Bermo)."  We will not issue any confirmation or denial, since Scott Willett won't believe us anyway --- if we deny it, he would be sure that we were trying to protect Ramon; if we confirm it, he would be sure that we were trying to protect Ramon.  So, there you have it ...