WYETH RUN WITH PRIDE BRINGS OUT THE CORPORATE TEAMS Although the Wyeth Run with Pride 5K is open to any and all runners, it is packed with runners from the corporations housed on the Giralda Farms corporate complex and others nearby. It might be considered a warm up for those teams preparing for the larger Verizon Wireless Corporate Classic 5K that takes place in Morristown in July. Competition is intense but at the same time most team captains are realists. What was a strong team one year may be quite flawed the next. That seems to be the case for this year’s Wyeth. All the team captains who were contacted lamented the state of their teams for the race that will be held this Wednesday evening. In 2007 Schering Plough came home with third place finishes in all three divisions, Men, Women and Coed. It will not happen again according to team captain Davis Gates, of Summit. |
“We’re kind of beat up,” said Gates. “We peaked out in ’06 and were decent in ’07. This year I put all our key people on the coed team. We don’t have the depth that we had before. We got lucky last year because the competition in the coed and the women’s division was a little weaker than we had anticipated.”
“Back in ’04, ’05 and ‘06 we were really flying high. We were all at our peak. Everyone was doing well,” said Gates. “Now we probably need to get some new runners to keep up with those years. It’s hard to keep your streak going.”
“We came in in second place for so many years at Wyeth and then in ’06 we broke through and won one,” he said. “It’s hard to win at that race. We’ll be happy to medal.”
Gates said that they try to out strategize the other teams, like Roche, who they consider one of the Schering Plough nemesis. They might put all their speed on their men’s team while Roche may be loading their coed team. This year Gates is putting his strongest three runners on the coed team at the expense of the other two divisions.
“Our lead runner will be Erik Corbin (Mendham), who usually breaks eighteen on a decent day,” said Gates. “We’ve got this younger fellow, David Cole (Springfield), who will be our second man. We expect Tina Fleming (Newton) to lead the women this year. She didn’t run last year, but the years before she has been a consistent performer for us. She runs in the low twenties on a good day.”
“We have teams for both men and women,” he said. “But the cream of the crop will be on the coed team.”
Roche team captain Antonnella Lozito of Hoboken held out little hope that any of their teams would place in the top three this year. In 2007 the Roche coed team took first place, lead in by Adele McDonough of Belmar, who was the third woman overall in 20:32. McDonough is missing from the roster this year, according to Lozito.
And there is more bad news. All three men of the Roche men’s team that finished second in 2007 will be missing.
AT&T women’s team captain, Anne Skudlark of Westfield reports that she is missing her cream of the crop. Dede Paul of Madison ran 21:05 at a recent 5K in Madison, but she will not be on the team this year.
“If Dede Paul were running for us this year, we would have a very good chance to be in the money,” said Skudlark. “But since she is not, our focus will be on people being a member of a team and not so much the thrill of being in the money.”
“The Wyeth race is very well organized,” said Skudlark. “Dean Shonts always does a great job organizing. Wyeth has been very generous with their runner goodie bags, so it’s a really fun race to participate in. It’s a runner’s race. It makes it a very attractive race to run.”
ADP team captain, Mick Close of Cedar Grove, is a little more upbeat about his team chances this year. Sixty-seven ADP runners will be on the line on Wednesday, ten more than in 2007.
“We're hoping to do a little better than last year when we finished tenth in the corporate male team category and fifth in the corporate female team category,” said Close. “However, two of our top female runners are not running. One is getting married and the other is expecting a baby.”
Team organizer for the Wyeth teams, Jenna Sebring, was not certain that last year’s overall race winner, Murray Resinski of Morris Plains, who finished in 16:51, was entered in this year’s race. Resinski was on the Wyeth men’s team that finished in seventh place in 2007. Foster Wheeler was the top men’s team.
Diane Ross of Flanders was the first overall woman to finish in 2007. Her time of 18:46 helped her team to finish in fourth place in the women’s team division, topped by Maersk, Novartis, and Shering Plough.
From what the team captains are saying, it is all up for grabs. Registrations and packet pick-up will go on all week at the Sneaker Factory in Millburn. On site registration will begin at 5:00 p.m. The race starts at 6:30 p.m.
Originally published by the DAILY RECORD of Morris County, New Jersey on Sunday, May 18, 2008
Copyright, Madeline Bost, 2008
