Al Goldstein in the Blogishpere.

I was just about to do launch some publicity for the Al Goldstein Summer Speed Series.  But before I got started I wanted to see if anyone else was.  So I Googled "Al Godstein".  (Then I added "race" to the search and got ride of the nasty stuff.)  No body is talking about the Speed Series yet but Al is getting some love.

Ya know that he will be giving out the awards this summer (as usual) and he also gives out the awards for the NYRRC.   One of the great things about Al is that he gives a sincere handshake to all the male award winners but an even more sinner kiss to the female winners.

Here is what threlkeld, sadi in her blog Races like a Girl.  After she ran the Colin Caner 4 mile race she found out she won her age group......

"By the time I got back to Baggage they’d posted the results. Well. To make a good day better, I discovered that not only had I won my first ever award in a NYRR race, but I’d done it with style: 1st in the 40-44 women’s AG. It’s a good thing my birthday is a week away because the 45-49 winner beat me by 16 seconds. I was 12th overall, out of over 1,300 women. I’m still in somewhat of a state of disbelief.

Manning the awards table was an elderly gentleman named Al Goldstein (not to be confused with the Al Goldstein of Screw Magazine fame). He gave me a congratulatory hug and told me that hugging attractive women on Sundays was the biggest fringe benefit of his volunteer job, which NYRR founding member Kurt Steiner gave to him in 1992.

While I was standing there chatting with him, I had a quintessential New York City moment. A woman came up to the awards table and picked up one of the awards, which are all the same: half inch thick blocks of plexiglass with the award details engraved on the back, so they show through the surface of the plastic (they make good paperweights). Al said, in a friendly yet firm voice, “Please don’t handle the awards.” To which the woman replied, “I was just trying to see if they were glass or plastic.”

Al said, “They’re plastic.”

To which she testily replied, “Well, this is a race to fight colon cancer. They shouldn’t be made of plastic since that causes cancer.”

Al gave her a look that I can only describe as withering. I was somewhat tempted to ask her if she was concerned that runners would insert the awards into their asses. Otherwise, what was the issue? But I decided against it."

I can't wait to spend every other Wednesday evening with Al this summer