PPTC was saddened to learn of the death of Brian Casey,Noleen Casey -Tomasi’s da’, and Peggy Casey’s brother. PPTC sympathies to Noleen, Peter, sons Harry, Liam, and Andrew, Peggy Casey, and Derick and Diane Casey, as well as family in Ireland. Let’s keep Brian Casey in our thoughts and prayers.
Great to see Gil Torres and company spearheading the Saturday morning new runners group.
Heard that Doug Olney treated himself to a new Bianchi road bike for his recent birthday. Older but faster!
PPTC was in the house at Joe Leahy’s Brookyln Shamrock’s pre NYC marathon pasta dinner at Buckley’s restaurant the Thursday before the marathon. Thanks again for the PPTC invite Joe! ‘’Ultra Al’‘ Prawda was the last man standing as Joe presented an award to the runner who had run the most marathons lifetime. Paul Soskind was among the finalists but Al took the prize! If I told you how many marathons he says he’s run, lifetime, , you wouldn’t believe me so ask Al himself.
And speaking of Paul Soskind, the man is hard at work putting together PPTC’s presentation for PPTC’s anniversary celebration in 2010. PPTC goes back to the ‘’days when ‘ but I hear that Paul and committee are planning to synthesize memories from PPTC’s distant past, ancient history past, and if possible, pre historic past as well. Hey, we be old !
Didn’t PPTC’s three busses to the start of the NYC Marathon in Fort Wadsworth establish some kind of a PPTC milestone. Getting to 9th street and PPW at 545am also established some kind of a record but hey, remember, records are made to be broken so watch out in 2010. PPTC might be camping out across the street in the park behind the bandshell.!
Tom Touhey should be more of a familiar figure on the inside loop with his family’s recent move to Windsor Terrace. Bye bye Marine Park, hello Prospect Park !
Hope you haven’t run out of patience waiting for the YMCA to open the Park Slope Armory facilities on 8th ave and 15th street. The view to the 8th street side of the building doesn’t indicate any digging’s going on for the Y’s new olympic size pool facility . For ten points, who sang that oldies song, “ Any Day Now............” Are you in for the Turkey Trot? Opportunities abound to volunteer as well as run it so check it out! If
PPTC makes it happen , PPTC needs you to make it happen. PPTC runners that head over to NYRRC races in Central Park are wondering what kind of changes are in store at events with NYRRC’s new medical director Dr. Stuart Weiss at the helm. Thanks to Dr. Louis Maharam for all of his years at NYRRC.
PPTC ‘s Wayne Bailey, Tom Byrnes, Marilyn Bucich, Natacha Ferrari, Maria Green, and Junior Passee volunteered with the USADA ‘s drug testing program at this years NYC marathon. This year blood sampling was also employed. Interesting !
In case you haven’t seen her out in the roads, Emma Roman is back in the hood looking as sleek as ever!
None other than PPTC’s own Carolyn Kubitschek made the front page of the New York Law Journal earlier in October. Thanks to Sandy Ferrari for passing this along.
If you can swim in a pool , ride an exercise bike, and run on a treadmill, you might want to open the door to the world of indoor triathalons. Coordinated by Jack Rabbit in coordination with various YMCA’s , these are fun ( really !!! ) and a valuable way to keep your training up throughout the winter months. Maggie Deschamps,,Tom Byrnes, Clair Doherty and other PPTC members have done these in years past. Check out the Jack Rabbit site for schedule, locations, costs, and more information..
Still have guests staying over after the NYC marathon? When are they ever going to leave! Tell them its time to go home, after all, you have to start training for 2010.
See you on the roads
Sunday, November 8, 2009
NOVEMBER 2009 THE INSIDE LOOP TOM BYRNES and FRIENDS
Meet The Members: Rebecca Rosenberg-Beran By: Amy Duquette
Chuckling, “It didn’t bother me too much. We got first and second place.”
Rebecca is an incredibly fast, consistent and strong runner. She is quiet and even-tempered. She is very modest.
Rebecca has a healthy relationship with running. She always feels joy from running and has a positive response toward it. Never feeling like she has to run or has to push herself to get in a training, she always wants to run. “I just feel good when I’m done. And while I’m running, I feel in control of my body and I like that feeling.” She does admit that there have been days when she’d like to sleep in a little later, but overall “loves it.”
She liked it right from the very beginning, at age 10. Her mother picked running among all the other extracurricular, signing Rebecca up for the Mt. Olive, NJ town recreation program. She hit the nail on the head. Rebecca’s father even came to coach his daughter’s team. Rebecca was “slow” when she started but a year later with an increased in her speed came an increased love for the sport. Continuing in middle school and high school, she competed in the 800 meter and the mile on both the track and cross country teams. “I was more comfortable at the longer distances, I was in my element.”
Being on running teams helped Rebecca, a shy girl, develop her self confidence and build a tight group of friends. Rebecca’s middle, high school and college experiences were all enhanced because she was a track team member. She equally enjoyed the experience of running with being a part of a team. In college, she walked-on to Rensselear Polytechnic Institute’s (RPI) division three school’s track team. Along with an intense chemical engineering workload, she and the team practiced everyday (from 4 to 6pm running followed by weight training) and competed on Saturdays. Rebecca was dedicated and never lost her love for the sport. She set her 1500 PR of 4:47 in college. In both her junior and senior years she was the top placing female and captain of her team. But she will not share this information right away, she’s modest.
After college, Rebecca found her marathon motivation when she joined Team Utopia out of Albany, NY. This team had lots of marathoners in training and she got “sucked in”. In 2006 at age 23 she ran her first 26.2 race in NYC, finishing in 3:29:30. She literally followed in her father’s steps who ran this same marathon years earlier. “It was awesome. I felt good the whole time. I had my name on my shirt and at the end got confused, thinking ‘how do they know my name?’ But it helped, I didn’t want to let down these people who were calling for me.”
Rebecca ran the Philly marathon in 2007 at even faster 3:23. She had qualified for Boston with both races and completed the Boston marathon in 2008. She was disappointed with her time of 3:42. “Anything can happen the day of the race and Boston didn’t go so great. I knew by 10 miles in I was pushing too hard. I was psyched to run and went out too fast and then it just did not come together.”
Her best race was an invitational 5K in 2002. Although the weather was cold and rainy, with puddles covering the ground “…something just happened during that race. People pushed me and everything came together.” She finished in 18:40 and won a well-deserved Fruit of the Forest pie.
Rebecca moved to New York in 2008. She ran the Staten Island Half that year and noticed that the PPTC women were the fastest women’s team finishing the race. This motivated her to join the club. “I like how there are different people in this club doing different things but there is always at least one member running every (local) race. And after my first practice with the club Maggie (Deschamps) ran me home!”
Rebecca now works as a consultant for a pharmaceutical company in the chemical engineering field. She found that her experience with running has helped to develop her work ethic. She has seen how, if she works hard at anything, she’ll improve.
From time to time Rebecca and her finance run together as they continue to explore this city. But for the most part, she uses it as her “sane time… time to just zone out” as she plans on running a faster marathon while continuing to love and enjoy the sport.
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