Several -- and I mean numerous -- alumni sent me the same link to an excellent New York Times blog post about Van Cortlandt Park. It is linked here.
The post really captures the old-school history of Vanny. I think it's great that so many of you were thoughtful enough to send me the link.
Many of you know how much I appreciate the history of the VCP 5-mile course. What I love (or, temporarily, "loved" since the current construction has laid waste to the original) about Vanny is that you can compare different generations of Marist Running, because the course layout (pre-construction) is basically the same.
Oh, I know all too well the refrain that former coach Rich Stevens used to tell me as our 1990s teams approached (and eventually eclipsed) his 1970s teams' Vanny school records: The course back in the day was much more challenging in terms of footing, etc. It was a mess. There were piles of sand all over the place. The course was not well groomed.
Yes! I know! I lived it!
I ran Vanny as a mediocre XC runner at Marist from the fall of 1982 through the fall of 1985. And though I did pass the "Rich Stevens Real Man XC Test" of breaking 30:00 on the VCP course, I did not do it by much (my memory is fuzzy, but I believe my PR to be in the 29:10 range ... not that it matters).
Even Coach Stevens finally admitted that our 2000-2008 team marks at Vanny blew away his still excellent teams from the 1970s -- better terrain notwithstanding.
Here's hoping that the "old" Vanny can be back in play, so we can continue these debates of which teams were better in the future.
For now, check out this fine homage to my favorite big chunk of real estate in the Bronx.
1 comment:
I've been running at VCP a little bit since all of the recent snow. Up until the storm last night, the back woods was somewhat runnable...thanks to a park golf cart that sort of plowed the whole trail, and some cross country skier tracks. It's since gotten very icy, and now buried...dangerous.
I ran on the old VCP course my junior and senior years of high school, and then saw the new course my freshman year at Marist. Despite the deterioration of the current course from the way it was my freshman year at Marist, it's still much better than the old course.
-Reese
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