Night at the Races meet 3

Photos and text by Noah Devereaux

For a club with track in its name we sure don’t spend much time there. Thursday night we made a small effort to rectify that by going up to the Armory to race 25 laps around the indoor track.

Jana Trenk thought she had more time to get uptown and wound up getting to the Armory in the middle of the heat she was supposed to be running in. We slapped some numbers on her and she jumped into the slower heat without any time to warm up. It was a little comical watching her separate from the rest of the field with a 39 second first lap. She settled into a more reasonable pace but tired of leading after 10 laps and slowed down to a jog for a few laps. Once the other women caught up to her she realized that maybe she could still race it and came into the finish with a 19:38 that would have been a good but not great time two or three years ago.

On Wednesday night Chris Fischer dragged Ted Brakob out drinking until 1am for his birthday but Ted still went into the race with confidence that he could survive at 16 minute pace. He was seeded high in heat 2 and took off on pace but started to lose steam after he found himself out front leading the race for several laps. Deeper in the pack, Noah Devereaux hit a few metronomic 40 second laps with Sean Quealy and Johnny Nuzzela trailing not far behind. Halfway into the race Noah felt a twinge of lingering plantar fasciitis and decided to drop out hoping to avoid making it worse. His foot still hurts regardless so he probably should have just toughed it out another 2k for a modest PR. Maybe the universe is just telling him he’s not meant to run a fast 5k. Johnny succumbed to dry mouth on the first lap but held on for a respectable 17:15. Sean wasn’t wearing his glasses and could barely see but with a couple laps to go he could sense that he was closing the gap with Ted. He hammered the last two laps in 35 seconds each to come in at 16:44, less than half a second behind Ted.

In heat 3 Ben Collier led the race for 18 laps as John McElroy was biding his time in the pack. It looked like John was gaining steam but in reality everyone else was slowing down as John pressed on with a steady pace. Ben had nothing to answer with as John motored past on his way to a lifetime PR of 17:06, faster at 43 than he was at 17. Bringing up the rear was Chris Fischer who got an adult PR of 17:40 even after going all-out in the 800m earlier in the evening.

Thanks to Linda Chan, Murray Rosenblith, Jimmy Leung and Mary Johnston for making the trek uptown to cheer. It was fun racing on the track but everyone agrees it’s no easier than racing on the roads. The real moral of the story is don’t try to lead a track race.