The Inside Loop – April 2015

It was certainly an awesome thing to see: Nick Guerrero on the sidelines at the recent Scotland Run cheering the PPTC teammates he knows and those he doesn't know yet, all of whom were sporting the red and white! Busted up bad while on the job with SCPD, Nick's on the way back. Great great great! PPTC thanks Nicoletta Nerangis for her efforts to transplant a local chapter of Achilles to Brooklyn. The number of PPTCers interested in this effort as well as our own Mike Ring is certainly inspiring. Still in its early days, the Brooklyn contingent of this great group still has space for you to put your shoes on the ground so if you can, get there to help those who wish they could. Centered for now at Jack Rabbit in Park Slope and then getting to Prospect Park for the workouts, check it out!

Did you know? There's a Brooklyn in Maryland, Alabama, Connecticut, Indiana, Kentucky, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Wisconsin. There's even a Prospect Park in New Jersey unless it's been paved and turned into a parking lot for another strip mall. Now to find out if there's a running club in each location…

PPTC was on the road running, along the sidelines cheering, and at the finish line with USADA and the athletes whose finishing positions had been selected for drug testing at the recent United Airlines NYC Half Marathon. Thanks to Wayne Bailey, Nicole Importico, Janice Fuld, and Patty Chongtenn, and our friends from CPTC Diego Ferrerya, JR Modica, and NYC's Kimberley K. Jones. So far no PPTC athlete has ever been selected for testing by USADA but from the times our PPTC males and females have been running, it might not be too long.

Coaches Tony and Charlene's weekly speed session workouts have left the protected confines of the Prospect Park YMCA Armory's indoor 200m track so as of Tuesdays and Thursdays, hi ho, hi ho, it's outdoors we go! Hey, it's officially Spring 2015 so as they say, 'whadaya 'spect.' The upcoming ten-week session is approaching the start line so if your training plans include structured speed work with the greatest, get thee registered, pronto.

One topic for discussion on a recent PPTC long run was whether we can or can't write off the cost of running shoes on our 2014 income tax returns? This was of special interest to none other than PPTC's own Juan Seaforth who apparently from his recent Facebook posting had dyed his entire collection of running shoes instead of taking the traditional approach we all might have used when only using hard-boiled eggs to color.

If you have running shoes that you don't prefer to use while training but know that they still have life left on them, you cant just dump 'em. You know that, right? Word was that JackRabbit would take them and turn them over to a company who would grind 'em up and use the material for composite tracks somewhere someplace. Exact info on this is hard to come by and depends on which staff member at their stores you happen to have this conversation with.

PPTC's friend Ian Grey on the other hand accepts any and all running shoes and running related paraphernalia (shirts, shorts, etc.) and uses them with runners young and old in Belize. Ian has groups of young runners, teens, adults, and has even coordinated a running group with those incarcerated. Apparently sporting good supply stores have not been invented there yet and mail order is a huge challenge. Ian's sister Golda lives in Brooklyn and I'm sure my neighbors wonder just what 's going on when we transfer the black plastic (shoe-filled) bags from my car to hers.

Like the ad sorta says, "got shoes?" We'll work out getting them from your closets to my basement to Golda in Brooklyn to Ian in Belize, I assure you. Send me an email.

As Bill Rodgers used to say, "see you on the roads…"