Member Spotlight: Douglas Olney

Our first member spotlight for 2021 is on Douglas Olney. While he started running in 1975, Doug joined PPTC in 1984 and has been an active member of the club ever since, organizing many events (and coordinating the bus loading for the NYC Marathon).

How did you get into running?
I started running 45 years ago, in 1975, when I was a sophomore in high school. My younger brother had been running with the junior high team for over a year, and I knew some others who were on the high school track team, so I decided to give Spring Track a shot. This was quite a leap because I was not much of an athlete in general (gym definitely was my least favorite class!), and I had no idea what I could do.  

The training was painful at first, but I kept at it. I ended up running the 440, not particularly fast, at about 65 seconds. However, I found I liked the sport and decided to continue on with Cross Country the following fall. Over the summer I trained with my brother, who was entering high school. When the XC season got underway, I discovered right away that I had some talent at the longer distances, and became one of our team's regular scorers. Then in my first indoor meet I broke 5 minutes for the mile, and unexpectedly placed. 

After that, I was hooked! I continued to run in college at the Div. III level. My school, Bates College in Maine, has a very strong distance running program, and I got much faster over those four years...even though I rarely scored points for the team. Now running is my lifetime activity: I'm going to keep on doing it as long as I can!  

Why did you join PPTC?
I moved to Brooklyn in 1983 and pretty much ran on my own. At the time, PPTC sponsored a springtime 10K in Prospect Park, "Runners Love Brooklyn". I placed in my age group, and at the awards ceremony, a club member came over and invited me to attend their next monthly meeting, which was at the Prospect Park Y.  It was a nice group of people, and it seemed like the best way to meet other local runners. So I officially joined PPTC in 1984 and have been a member ever since!

Editor’s note: Not only is Doug a longstanding member of PPTC, he is a longstanding member of PPTC’s Board of Directors and is currently PPTC’s treasurer.

What is your favorite club event/activity?
I'm going to name three: 

1) Harry's Handicap on New Year's Day. The format is unique, and the post race gathering is so much fun.  
2) The NYRR Team Championships. PPTC definitely leads in team spirit: Our cheer tunnel 400 yards before the finish is the best!  
3) The post-NYC Marathon Reunion. It doesn't matter if you're there as a finisher or just as a volunteer/supporter, you can't help but to be moved by the amount of good will existing in one small space!

Doug at the 2017 Brooklyn Half

What distance do you most enjoy about running/racing? Why?
Historically, my best racing efforts were at the Half-Marathon. But now [that I’m] older and much slower, a "long run" is less than 10 miles, so I'm going to say that these days my favorite racing distance is 5 miles, because that was the distance of most of my college races. It's also the distance of my favorite road race in Massachusetts that I run every 4th of July.

Has the pandemic changed how you run/race at all? Why?
Yes it has!  Since the pandemic started, I've been consistently running more weekly miles (now over 35), much more than I have run in several years. I have been working from home since March, and going for a run is my only opportunity to get out of my small apartment. 

As for racing, I have done a couple of virtual 5K – including the AGSS – but that's about it. I find that racing on your own isn't as much fun; I miss the energy you get from running in a crowd.

What is your favorite [running] memory with the club?
For many years, I have coordinated the PPTC NYC Marathon Bus loading. It's fun to get up in the pre-dawn darkness to help all of our runners get on their way to Staten Island. 2016 was rather traumatic, however. That was the year that one bus failed to show, stranding about 30 of us at JackRabbit, including myself. We couldn't get a straight story from the bus company, which was so frustrating because there was nothing I could do! Finally there were 5 of us, all PPTC members, left in front of the store. We squeezed into the back seat of an Uber, and headed over to the Staten Island Ferry. After standing in an hour-long line, we eventually got on a bus and arrived at Fort Wadsworth, still in time for our wave start. Obviously some people were upset at the screw-up, but many more were so understanding, for which I was grateful.

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PPTC is a diverse and supportive team. We want to celebrate the diversity of our club and membership, and encourage everyone to share your stories with us.

Text & Photos: Douglas Olney
Edited by: Linda Chan & Alison Kotch
Produced by: Alison Kotch