The Pros from Dover

Movie- references aside, this morning was the First New York City Ekiden. NYCRuns’s Steve Lastoe kindly gave me credit for the Ekiden, but as they say in Silicon Valley, ideas are a dime a dozen; it’s all about the execution.

It was a small affair, not as many teams as I hoped. The enthusiasm throughout, teams fast and slow, young and old, was superb. It’s there in NYRR races to be sure, but as with smaller-scale events (including track and cross-country meets) it’s more evident and the intra- and inter-team mutuality made it special. So far as I could tell, it was well-received. There were several multi-club teams. Yet there were enough clubs — Warren Street, VCTC, CPTC New Balance (including Brenn and Sue doing 2 legs each), Front Runners, Prospect Park among them — that word I hope will spread since my ideal is that we can get the top clubs to suit up their five best (an ekiden should have 5 legs, but Steve did 4 for this first effort) and have at it (Penn DMR-like).

As the tag-line has it, “Not Just Another Race In The Park” and anyone who participated will agree.

Importantly, apart from the specific-race itself (won on the four-man side at least by Van Cortlandt Track Club, which had four teams and a wonderfully vocal cheerer (for all) in Mary Ann), this was LetsRuns’s first foray into a Central Park race. There are other non-NYRR events in Central Park, but the more organizers the better. (I learned that when an organization has an event in the Park, it gets that date in the future unless it gives it up. This barrier-to-entry as antitrust lawyers would describe it, does create a concern about other organizations getting preferred slots, like in the spring or the fall. It strikes me as anti-competitive and worth a follow-up post.)

Kudos to all the folks that Steve go out, at the start/finish, at the baggage/food, and on the course itself.

The Race Itself

Readers of my last few posts might be surprised that I volunteered, albeit for a shorter leg, to run. I did 5-miles on the roads yesterday. I was hopeful that I would being able to hold it together. In a manner of speaking I was. I did leg 1 for the NYCRuns team. Two lower loops. I HURT but the knee didn’t, so I was happy. One cannot race on charm alone. I neither know nor care about my time.

One amazing thing is how rude some people are. You’d think anyone who saw a runner coming her way wearing a number and following others wearing numbers would get out of the way. You’d be wrong. After my leg I did some marshaling, though, asking people to keep to the right to leave the inside stretch clear for the races and most had no problem with the request. A few, though, from stupidity or rudeness, refused.

A couple of videos, to give a sense of Central Park in the winter: