2020 Awards Night Recap
Katie Lundgren, Leo Gil, Nicholas Cohen, Linda Chan, Holly Chase, William Ngo, and Tim Peck
This year’s Awards Night was held on February 21 at Berg’n. I arrived at Berg’n shortly after 7 p.m. to find that there were already a good number of people there, undoubtedly the same people standing in their corrals 30 minutes before races start. But the name tag table still had mounds of name tags on it: More people were on their way.
The bar was open and there was a spread of food all ready for us: The cheeseburger sliders were my favorite, but Nathan Weiser told me that the cauliflower parmesan sliders, which I neglected to try, were his favorite. After some mingling, eating, and drinking, the awards ceremony began. This year the bar seemed to stay open during the awards ceremony, a plus for the more thirsty among us.
Then the awards ceremony began, with welcoming remarks from team captain Lillian Park and president Tom Meany. Afterwards, we jumped right into the awards with Tom Meany bestowing the President’s Award on Jimmy Leung for his contributions to the club, which (as Jimmy admitted) primarily seemed to be organizing food runs. We all know how ubiquitous Jimmy is and how his contributions span beyond organizing food runs, though!
The awards ceremony continued with a recap by Jana Trenk of PPTC’s committees. The committees and their members were recognized for their contributions to the club. If you’re inspired and want to be included in next year’s recap as a committee member, join one! Reach out to the committee leaders listed on the website for more information.
Following the committee recap, Noah Devereaux recapped changes in the club records. Noah meticulously monitors members’ running results throughout the year and maintains the club records portion of the PPTC website. We’re getting faster as a team. It’s exciting to see, and it’s an honor for these fast runners to be recognized for their efforts and achievements.
The club records recap also included a recap of club records for ultra-marathon running in both trail and road races. Rachel Guinn maintains the portion of the website listing these records. Once again, amazing achievements were highlighted. Are you inspired yet after looking at those? Hold on, because there’s more to come.
After the records recap, the awards ceremony continued with a cowbell award for the Most Races run to Leiba Rimler. If you checked the spreadsheet before Awards Night, you would have noticed that Leiba ran 54 races in 2019! Impressive.
The next award was Most Improved Runner, which was awarded to Joelle Reeves. And then the Bob Mueller Award was awarded. The Bob Mueller Award goes to a club member who is 50 years old or older who has made a significant contribution to the club. This year the Bob Mueller award was awarded to Murray Rosenblith.
Sara Devine, PPTC’s Volunteer of the Year
While the Most Improved Runner and the Bob Mueller Award are awarded to members chosen by club members, the next two awards were chosen by the team captains. These awards were the Volunteer of the Year and the Ultra-Runners of the Year. In a touching moment, team captain Adam Devine awarded the Volunteer of the Year award to his wife Sara Devine. We have all witnessed Sara’s work as a volunteer in the past year. I don’t know how Adam (who normally cries at the drop of a hat) kept it together on Awards Night, because after awarding Sara with the Volunteer of the Year Award, he awarded the Ultra-Runners of the Year awards, which I would guess is one of Adam’s favorite award categories. This year’s Ultra-Runners of the Year awards went to husband and wife Brian Schwartz and Carmen Cramer. Fittingly, both Brian and Carmen were drinking water all night because they were running the Febapple Frozen 50K Saturday morning.
Carmen Cramer and Brian Schwartz, PPTC’s Ultrarunners of the Year
The next award was another member-voted award: Most Inspirational Member. I may be wrong, but I don’t think there was much contest in this category this year. The Most Inspirational Award was awarded to the trio of Mary Johnston, Joelle Reeves, and Jana Trenk, who each broke PPTC’s record for the marathon in successive months, with Joelle finally topping the leader board with a finish time of 2:55:08 from the 2019 California International Marathon.
Mary Johnston, Jana Trenk, and Joelle Reeves, PPTC’s Most Inspirational runners
Andy Wong, PPTC’s Comeback Runner of the Year
Next up was the award for Comeback Runner of the Year. This is another member-voted award that’s given to a runner who was injured and out of commission for at least 4 months, and who returned to racing with a strong race. The Comeback Runner of the Year was Andy Wong, who broke bones (leg and clavicle) after wiping out on the bike portion of the NYC Triathlon and then trained hard to race well at the 2019 Berlin Marathon.
Matthew Grant, PPTC’s Male Runner of the Year
We were then back to two awards awarded to members chosen by the team captains. This year’s Male Runner of the Year award was awarded to Matthew Grant, who time and time again blew away the competition in his age group at weekly races. This was a well-deserved award for a grand master runner whose race times would be competitive among runners who are decades younger. If you’ve been reading this from the beginning, then it’s probably no surprise to you that the Female Runner of the Year award was awarded to Joelle Reeves.
Crystal Cun, winner of PPTC’s Outstanding Single Contribution award
The next award was another member-chosen award, and this was the award for Outstanding Single Contribution. This year’s recipient was Crystal Cun. Crystal wasn’t at Berg’n to accept her cowbell, as she was trying not to get blown away while hiking a mountain in Patagonia.
The Al Goldstein Generosity Award was awarded by the captains to Jennie Matz for her contributions in organizing events for Runner Safety Awareness Week. Jennie was also not present at Berg’n to accept her award: She was at an airport waiting to return from a family vacation to Hawaii.
The final award of the evening was New Member of the Year. This was awarded to William Ngo. There seemed to be some kind of snafu: While Will’s work for the club should no doubt be recognized, Will wasn’t eligible for the award this year since he was also nominated last year (not my rules: It’s in the description of the award). There was some confusion as Will took the mic to give his award to fellow nominee Stephanie Mei. We’ll make sure you’re always in the running, Will, to continue passing the new member baton!
While there were no cowbells left to hand out, there was something maybe more important to award: $100 cold hard cash (aka a check coming in the mail). This was the Run Brooklyn Award, which is given to six members who have run six qualifying races that started and ended in Brooklyn. Eligible awardees submitted their names and the races they ran in a spreadsheet, and the winners were selected in a drawing. Team captain Missy Burgin pulled names from a Turkey Trot hat held by Adam. The winners of the Run Brooklyn award were: Maggie Deschamps, Murray Rosenblith, Lisa Knauer, Doug Olney, Adam Wapniak, and Jana Trenk.
Next on the awards night program was closing remarks. Missy gave the closing remarks, but it was not just a mark of the end of the awards ceremony: Missy announced that she was stepping down as team captain. In her place, Leanne Glasser would now be a team captain. Leanne recounted how Missy was the first PPTC member she ever met, and how that then led Leanne and her husband Dillon to join PPTC. I’ve attended Awards Night two consecutive years now, and in both years, a team captain stepped down. Surely this can’t be a regular thing, right? I guess we’ll find out next year.
The awards ceremony was over, but Awards Night was not. There were still drinks pouring at the bar and there was still food at the buffet. Last call at the bar was shortly before 11 p.m. and the captains kindly nudged us to get ready to leave. We slowly made our way to the exit collecting a favor of a pair of PPTC socks on our way out.
Congratulations to all the award winners: It was a great Awards Night! See you there next year.
2020 Awards Night Winners
President’s Award: Jimmy Leung
Most Races: Leiba Rimler
Most Improved: Joelle Reeves
Bob Mueller Award: Murray Rosenblith
Volunteer of the Year: Sara Devine
Ultra-Runners of the Year: Brian Schwartz and Carmen Cramer
Most Inspirational: Mary Johnston, Joelle Reeves, and Jana Trenk
Comeback Runner of the Year: Andy Wong
Male Runner of the Year: Matthew Grant
Female Runner of the Year: Joelle Reeves
Outstanding Single Contribution: Crystal Cun
Al Goldstein Generosity Award: Jennie Matz
New Member of the Year: William Ngo
Run Brooklyn: Maggie Deschamps, Murray Rosenblith, Lisa Knauer, Doug Olney, Adam Wapniak, and Jana Trenk
Text by: Linda S. Chan
Photos by: Larry Sillen
Edited and Produced by: Alison Kotch