Author: Eric Turkewitz

NewRo Runners, the group that organizes the Paine to Pain Trail Half Marathon, will host our annual Preview of the course on September 26th at 8:00 am. Please arrive 10-15 minutes early so that we can start promptly.

All runners are invited to join us , whether you’re signed up for the race or not, and whether you want to run the full monty or just a section (see below)

This is not a race, but simply a guided running tour of the P2P course, which NewRo Runners will do this run as one of our regular weekend group runs.

We usually get 50-75 people and I usually have about 10 trail leaders since there are no flags on the course.  If you know the course and can lead, please email me privately.

Rules for 2021!!!

First, please be vaccinated against COVID, as others won’t be too keen on running in your huffing and puffing slipstreams for miles on end.

Second, I am counting on distancing between groups of runners happening naturally as speedier runners take flight. Leaders will pause at major junctions so others in their groups can catch up. This is a guided running tour, not a race.

We will have multiple groups – which we coyly designate as fast, medium and slow, because tall, grande and venti didn’t seem right.  The groupings will generally (and very loosely) be:

• Fastest – Was training for 3:30 marathon or faster (or 1:40 ½-marathon)
• Medium – Was training for 3:30 – 4:15 marathon (or 1:40 – 2:10  ½-marathon)
• Slower – Was training for 4:15-5:00 hour marathon (All runners should be capable of running a 2:30 half marathon on the street – please, no walkers.)

There are no fees, no services, and you don’t have to be a member of NewRo Runners to join us. We do this once a year as one of our always-changing weekly  group runs and invite others to join us so we can show you our playground.

Just send me an email, tweet (@PaineToPain), Instagram (@PaineToPain) or mention on our Facebook page, so that I have a sense of how big our crowd will be, and let me know which group you think you might run with. You can always change groups on the spot, or mid-run if you don’t like the itsy-bitsy, tiger-striped shorts of the guy in front of you.

Important!!  We do not meet at the starting line for P2P! We start, instead, at the trailhead for the Leatherstocking Trail. This is at the corner of Pinebrook Boulevard and Hillside Crescent in New Rochelle. (See map) There is parking available on Hillside Crescent.

There is one water fountain along the way, inside the Saxon Woods Golf Club, which has bathrooms as well, and is at the 6.8-ish-mile mark.

Your options are:

• 5.6 miles — Out and back on the Leatherstocking trail, which is marked. (Also some of the more challenging terrain of the race.)
• 10 miles — Stay with the group until we head south down the Hutchinson River Trail (after passing the golf course) and then bail out at Pinebrook Boulevard.  This is the same street we started on, but two miles to the north. Then justrun on Pinebrook (going left) back to the start. There are no turns to make after leaving the group.
• 13+  —The full monty. As an extra bonus, instead of running the Broadview hill at the start of the race, you get to run it at the end when you are tired.

Please let me know if you will be able to join us.

Eric @ PaineToPain.com

OK, this is your Dog Days of August email blast, with the race now just over eight weeks away. Race Day is October 10th — Columbus Day Sunday.  (Or Indigenous Peoples’ Sunday, as preferred by an increasing number of folks.) I suggest you read. Every. Word.

While I usually try to goose these missives with some humor — maybe a Rosie Ruiz joke — I lead now with something conspicuously unfunny:

Mandatory Vaccination
You must be vaccinated to run this race!!! You gotta get that first jab by September 15th. I wrote about this in April — when the virus was on a steep decline and I was being extra cautious (hope for the best, prepare for the worst).  Now, with Delta, it appears that the caution was warranted. “I don’t wanna!” is not a valid excuse.  No vax = no bib. Yes, we will check. We don’t want runners bringing this virus home to immunocompromised grandmas.

COVID Race Day details to follow.
Exact details of how we’ll manage the congested parts of the event — bib pick up, porta-potties and the start line — will follow as we get close to race day.

Price Increase.
Now let’s talk money. The price is still $55, but it goes up August 16th. You opened this email on the 16th? So sorry. Just don’t say you weren’t warned. (Registration link)

How does NewRo Runners put on a race this good at such a cheap price? First, we don’t get paid. Not even me. Call it a labor of love. Or a hobby. Or giving back. Whatever you call it, this baby is non-profit. Anything left over goes into the trails or to local charities.

It Doesn’t Happen Without Sponsors
Second, we have sponsors that help defray the costs. This year Salomon and New York Presbyterian – Sports Performance Institute are major sponsors. And we again have the generous personnel support of Montefiore New Rochelle Hospital at the finish line and Empress EMS at our aid stations. And, as we’ve had since Year 1, Westchester Road Runner helps with logistics and pre-race bib distribution. And those are just a few that help make this race a reality.

Registration Cut-off
This year, based on the incredible pace of registrations, we expect our largest field ever, at 900+ runners. (In 2008, we had just 50, and to publicize it we put flyers up in train stations, store windows and on telephone poles.) But we will not oversell the race and swamp the trail with too many runners. We want quality, not quantity. You should not count on race day registration (or even registration through the planned online close Oct. 5) being available. Let your friends know.

Deferred 2020 Registrations
As of this writing, 103 of the 266 runners who deferred from last year have still not registered. You must register if  you want to run! If you’re one of those laggards, and you wait too long and we close registration, your deferral will be lost.

To claim your deferral, first sign in and go to your profile on RunSignUp.  Follow the instructions about halfway down the page under the heading “How to Claim a Deferred Registration” at this link to claim your deferral.

Logistics, logistics, logistics.
The shirts, medals, live music, free photos, exceptional food, enthusiastic volunteers, and most awesome and magnificent (and humble) race director are all sweet perks, and are all planned. But race logistics are always the bread and butter of this tour through the lower Westchester trails, and they always will be for as long as my reign shall last.

We hope to run five waves again, three minutes apart. (We were socially distancing before it was fashionable.) Obviously, consultations with local health officials and common sense may alter that part. If we get too many people signing up in the closing weeks we will close down registration. Once again, you’ve been warned.

Final notes for those who’ve never run Paine to Pain and are thinking of it: This is the most fun, best organized, and dollar-for-dollar best value for a race in New York. Ask any friend who has run it!  Not me, of course, I’m biased. Feel free to read the comments of others.

We just want to create the second best race in the NYC metro area. (Look out NYC Marathon, we have our eyes on you.)

The link to register is here!

Eric Turkewitz
Race Director and Grand Poobah
Paine to Pain Trail 1/2 Marathon
NewRo Runners
Westchester County, NY
painetopain.com
Daytime phone: 212-983-5900
Eric [at] PaineToPain [dot] com

Real job:
The Turkewitz Law Firm
228 East 45th Street – 11th Floor
New York, NY  10017
212-983-5900
www.TurkewitzLaw.com

Update for 2022 (and 2023):

Due to the enormous success of the vaccination program, the substantial decrease in severe illness, and that the event is outdoors, we suspended the vaccination requirement used in 2021.  Let’s all hope there aren’t any funky new variants that come down the pike that force a change.

——–

2021 policy: So we opened registration on April 22nd and people saw something new (for us): A requirement that you be vaccinated to participate.

So here’s a few words on the response to the policy and why we did it. First the response. We had over 500 people register within 48 hours. Yeah, that’s a lot.

How many complained? Five. So the vast, vast, vast majority of runners in the NYC area are clearly on board with this.

Second, why? Well, as I mentioned when we opened registration, I don’t have a crystal ball. While the trajectory of beating back the virus looks good now as I type here in April, I have no idea what will come two, three or four months from now. Race date is October 10th.

Will there be new strains that spread faster? Are deadlier? Are vaccine-resistant? Beats the hell out of me.

On race day we may have 800 athletes darting in/out of porta-potties, congregating closely in lines to claim bibs, congregating closely at the start, running in each other’s huffing-and-puffing slip streams for minutes on end, coming into contact with many volunteers (some of whom are children) and using the high school’s locker rooms (if they allow us).

So while this is an outdoor event, risks still remain. But this is not the kind of risk  you take for yourself — like getting impaled on a tree limb after you trip. Instead, it’s a risk foisted upon others that may come into contact with a panting asymptomatic participant.

We put the vaccination policy in place because that’s the best we can do for now, and we sure as hell can’t put one in place after people have signed up.

The analysis was easy. All we had to do was ask ourselves: What are the ramifications of being wrong?

Well, if things go south virus-wise, unvaccinated runners who are asymptomatic might infect other members of the community.  That would be bad. Very, very, bad.

But if things continue to go well virus-wise, then what was the harm in a wrong guess now? I could always reverse the policy later. BFD.

So this was an easy call to make. There was no down side to demanding the vaccination, but you couldn’t say the same for the reverse.

Now there may be some who can’t currently get the vaccine due to an age restriction or a documentable medical restriction. Those people can contact me and, come September if they still can’t get it, we’ll talk.  Based on the prevailing pandemic conditions (assuming the race even goes off) I will make my best efforts to come up with a reasonable accommodation as I have done in the past for disabled athletes.  But you should know that “I don’t wanna” is not a valid reason.

It’s tempting to try and persuade the very few anti-vax runners to get this done. But if they won’t listen to the brightest epidemiologist, virologist and infectious disease doctors in the world, who have spent their lives studying this stuff, then they are unlikely to listen to some race director.

Let’s hope that come October I see all of you at the start line waiting for the musket shot and the worst I see are some scraped knees at the finish. And let’s hope that, with the help of a cooperative community, the virus is beat back and we can race with abandon through the woods (and the mud?) like a bunch of kids.

–Eric

Paine to Pain is Back!!!!  (We hope!)

OK, we can’t read crystal balls any better than you, but it sure looks like that coronavirus (cursed be its name) will have considerably subsided by October due to vaccines. Woo hoo!  Go vaccines!

(And if you do have crystal balls, please seek medical attention.)

So here is the magic registration link for the October 10th race:

Registration for Paine to Pain 2021

Hey, I got a question or three!

Hush up young man, let me do my spiel, K?

First up, the Stupid-Cheap Rate ©®™! is back!  For two days only, you’ll get this race for just $40! That’s right! Just! Forty! Friggen! Dollars!!!!  That’s 62,101,600 Venezualan Bolívars, so you can really appreciate what a good deal this is!

Other races will charge you 40 bucks just for a picture! That’s why other races suck! Here you get the race, the photos, the medal, the shirt, the music, the post race food…..ahh yes, the food.  P2P veterans know how much I care about that! Is NewRo Runners an awesome race club, or what!?!

That rate (dollars, not bolívars) is from 12:01 a.m. on April 22nd (Earth Day) until 11:59 p.m. on April 23rd (my birthday).  After that, the rate goes up.

But why your birthday?

I said hush up whippersnapper! Because I said so! (Also, Valerie Bertinelli was born the same day! And if you are my age and watched One Day at A Time in 1976, you would understand the significance!) More importantly, who’s going to overrule me?

That’s great, but is your race any damn good?

How did a dolt like you get into my email? It isn’t just good, in my completely unbiased opinion as race founder/director/grand poobah for all 12 prior iterations of this, it will be the greatest run since the Millenim Falcon did the Kessel run in under 12 parsecs! It’s even better than Cannonball Run II, and Sinatra was in that! Yeah, it’s that good. Even Mrs. Poobah and the little Poobahs agree!

Read the reviews from 2019! Or 2018! Or 2017! Or 2016! Or 2015! Or 2014! Or 2013! Or 2012!

Or read the two-page spread on the race in Trail Runner Magazine. That’s right. National press, baby. We baaad! But not in a creepy, Michael Jackson kinda way.

But, but , but…about the potential for cancellation due to coronavirus?

A pox on you and your ancestors! The virus will be gone, I tell you, gone! (Knock wood, toss salt over shoulder.)  Our cancellation / no refund rules remain in effect, except if we have to cancel due to the virus.  Then we’ll scramble like hell to figure out something fair. Which will be easy if we cancel before we order shirts and medals in August, but not so easy if afterward.

But we don’t want to cancel!  We got one of the greatest trail loops this side of the Mississippi to run!

One last question, I swear. What do we do if we are already registered from last year?

Wow. You asked a good question. I’m impressed. Answer: You still must register, but you obviously don’t have to pay. Follow the instructions about halfway down the page under the heading “How to Claim a Deferred Registration” at this link for instructions on how to claim your deferral.

WE ARE BACK!!!!!!!!  Can I get a Hallelujah?

And thank you once again to our 2019 top tier sponsors:

• Westchester Road Runner
• Montefiore New Rochelle
• Empress EMS
• NewRo Runners
• Hi-Touch Executive Search
• Breaking the Tape Productions, LLC
• PennyWise Consulting

Eric Turkewitz
Race Director, Grand Poobah
(Mrs. Poobah threatened divorce over use of Race Overlord or Darth Turkey.)
Paine to Pain Trail 1/2 Marathon
Westchester County, NY
painetopain.com
Daytime phone: 212-983-5900
Eric [at] PaineToPain [dot] com

Real job (Where I put on my lawyer face):
The Turkewitz Law Firm
228 East 45th Street – Suite 1110
New York, NY  10017
212-983-5900
www.TurkewitzLaw.com
Eric [at] TurkewitzLaw [dot] com

NewRo Runners, the group that organizes the Paine to Pain Trail Half Marathon, will host a “preview” run of the course on October 4th at 9 am. Please arrive 10-15 minutes early so that we can start promptly.

While there is no race this year due to the pandemic for the reasons I discussed over the summer, that doesn’t mean we can’t do a fun run. (But we don’t start at the P2P start line — read this whole message!)

We usually get 50-75 people doing this and I usually have about 10 trail leaders since there are no flags on the course.  If you know the course and can lead, please email me privately.

Rules for 2020!!!

Bring a mask!!!  First, you will need it for the start area when people congregate.

Second, while many will lower it while running, I fully expect everyone to pull it up when passing civilians (or each other) out on the trail. The trails are narrow, and we are breathing hard, and forcing others to breathe our air is not just potentially dangerous, but rude.

Distancing between groups of runners will happen naturally as the speedier runners take flight. Within your group, please don’t run in each other’s slip streams. Leaders will pause at major junctions so others in their groups can catch up. This is a guided running tour, not a race.

We will have multiple groups – which we coyly designate as fast, medium and slow, because tall, grande and venti didn’t seem right.  The groupings will generally (and very loosely) be:

• Fastest – Was training for 3:30 marathon or faster (or 1:40 ½-marathon)
• Medium – Was training for 3:30 – 4:15 marathon (or 1:40 – 2:10  ½-marathon)
• Slower – Was training for 4:15-5:00 hour marathon (All runners should be capable of running a 2:30 half marathon on the street – please, no walkers.)

There are no fees, no services, and you don’t have to be a member of NewRo Runners to join us. We do this once a year as one of our always-changing weekly  group runs and invite others to join us so we can show you our playground.

Just send me an email, tweet (@PaineToPain), Instagram (@PaineToPain) or mention on our Facebook page, so that I have a sense of how big our crowd will be, and let me know which group you think you might run with. You can always change groups on the spot, or mid-run if you don’t like the itsy-bitsy, tiger-striped shorts of the guy in front of you.

Important!!  We do not meet at the starting line for P2P! We start, instead, at the trailhead for the Leatherstocking Trail. This is at the corner of Pinebrook Boulevard and Hillside Crescent in New Rochelle. (See map) There is parking available on Hillside Crescent.

There is one water fountain along the way, inside the Saxon Woods Golf Club, which has bathrooms as well, and is at the 6.8-ish-mile mark.

Your options are:

• 5.6 miles — Out and back on the Leatherstocking trail, which is marked. (Also some of the more challenging terrain of the race.)
• 10 miles — Stay with the group until we head down the Hutchinson River Trail (after passing the golf course) and then bail out at Pinebrook Boulevard.  This is the same street we started on, but two miles to the north. Then run two miles on Pinebrook (going left) back to the start. There are no turns to make after leaving the group.
• 13+  —The full monty. As an extra bonus, instead of running the Broadview hill at the start of the race, you get to run it at the end when you are tired.

Please let me know if you will be able to join us.

I’ve been trying since March to create a Paine to Pain race plan. But three problems keep slamming me upside the head:

1. 1. Hundreds of runners (if they show up) running single track in each other’s slipstreams, not for a few seconds but for minutes at a time. And I can’t stretch the start out over a couple of hours because I need to deal with road closures.
   2. The #PortaPottyProblem — hundreds of runners dashing into those stifling little boxes in the 20 minutes before gunshot. Do you want to breathe that air?
   3. And no matter what I plan, the whole thing could go kablooie the week before the race due to a rising infection rate, leaving us stuck with a lot of your money already spent.

So I’m finally throwing in the towel.

For the 380 people who registered at the stupid-cheap $35 price right after last year’s race we offer three options since we haven’t spent any money yet:

• • Refund
  • Deferral until 2021 (likely date, October 10)
  • Donate the $35

I’ll try not to guilt you into the donation, but will mention that NewRo Runners is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, and this past few months we donated $10,000 to help feed front line workers (and raised an additional $25,000) and spent thousands more creating 3,000 masks for free distribution to the community.

I’m just sayin’.

Choose one of the three options by going to your profile on RunSignUp and selecting Paine to Pain from your list of upcoming events, then clicking on manage registration.

A couple folks asked about a virtual Paine to Pain, but I confess that such spirit doesn’t move me.  Half the fun is the camaraderie of the shared experience before, during and after the race. As to the other half of the experience, the actual race, well the course is entirely open (with the potential exception of the finish line on the track) so you really don’t need me to run it. Try not to get lost. Fife and drum music optional on your e-device.

If we get really lucky and the virus magically vanishes — which I do not expect since I’m not a magical-thinking kinda guy — I might try to organize some kind of event on the trails.  If I do, it will (necessarily) be a last minute decision, and one I would make only in conformity with the CDC and within Westchester County health guidelines.

In the meantime, please stay safe. And don’t be one of those chuckleheads who think you can wear a mask below the nose. It’s like wearing a condom on your balls.
——————

Eric Turkewitz, Race Director
Paine to Pain Trail 1/2 Marathon
Twitter: @PaineToPain
Instagram: @PaineToPain
Facebook: Paine To Pain
(Notice a social media pattern?)

Real job:
The Turkewitz Law Firm
228 East 45th Street – 17th Floor
New York, NY  10017
212-983-5900
www.TurkewitzLaw.com

So here we are, on Earth Day. The day we always open registration!  Woo hoo!

Except, of course, that we aren’t. Because that would be stupid. I’d insert an emoji with a tear rolling down onto a facemask if I had it.

But not all the news sucks. Because so far, with your donations, we have provided over 2,000 meals to front line workers and others in need. Read on, my friends.

Last week we put up $5,000 in matching funds to buy food from local restaurants to deliver to front line workers. And we got $15,000 in donations. Wow.

You guys blew our doors off with that response.

So we’re doing it again! NewRo Runners and Paine to Pain are putting up another $5,000, hoping for at least $10,000 more in donations. That means a total of 25K from you and 10K from us. [Donate here]

We received donations from about 200 people and groups. But this email is going out to about 5,000. Maybe (if you haven’t been furloughed) you can spare one race fee for the effort to help those that have helped us?

We’ve also set it up so that you can form your own group to make donations, regardless of what type of group you are. [Form group here.]

So far we have spent about $12,000 on those meals.  Food/money has so far been delivered to:

• Montefiore New Rochelle Hospital (provides P2P finish line medical)
• Empress EMS (provides aid station medical)
• New Rochelle Police Department (provides traffic protection for P2P start/finish)
• Hope Community Services (our local food kitchen, because their client base tripled from March to April)

Participating restaurants  (some of whom have previously donated to us as P2P sponsors) include:

• AJ’s Burgers
• H&R Bialy
• Mikey Dubbs
• North End Tavern
• Joey’s Deli
• COSI
• Maria’s
• Posto 22
• Avenue Deli & Café
• Westchester Taco Grill
• Italian Meateria

The running club is, by the way, a non-profit 501(c)(3) and you get a receipt for the tax man.

Want to know what else we’re trying? We’re looking to buy a couple thousand masks. No, not to sell. To give away. For free. Just like all the food we give away at the P2P finish line. Because that’s the way we roll run. So we may donate even more moneyfor that project.

If we can pull this off, the masks would be the non-medical type since those are needed elsewhere.

At this moment, can you think of a better way to serve a local community?

You can donate here: Donate here.

And special thanks to Sean Mosher-Smith (P2P veteran) of Echo Design Lab for creating the fundraising logo on short notice!

Eric Turkewitz,
Race Director, Paine to Pain

I’ve said it before an I’ll say it again: This race doesn’t happen without volunteers. In fact, no community event happens without volunteers — people willing to wake up and do things simply for the benefit of others.

You guys are it.

When I did my race recap, I extolled the wonder of it all, with all of the moving parts that putting on an event entails. Sometimes, people just did things without me asking or knowing. Intersections got covered, medical people appeared out of thin air to pitch in when needed, signs got moved to appropriate spots, and a million other things while my head spun off its mooring on Sunday morning as I tried to focus on the start and finish.

After handing off materials to the registration table I didn’t even have to look back, unless it was to say hello to a runner.

I did my best to meet and greet so that runners would have a great time, and you guys did all the hard work while I stood up there and got the acclaim.

And the runners came back with spectacular reviews, from veterans and newbies alike.

But it doesn’t happen without you.  Yes, I said that before. Yes, I’ll say it again.

Anyone can come up with plans. But it’s the execution of those plans that takes work. And you executed.

Let’s look at my annual review of the various “jobs” that we had to take care of, shall we? While my recap of the race has the look and feel of the runner’s perspective, this is what “backstage” of Paine to Pain looks like:

Updating web site

Designing shirt

Distributing shirts

Designing medal

Distributing medals

Planting/removing signs

Online registration

In person registration

Banner/sign design and purchases

Setting up start/finish line banners

Ordering tents, tables and chairs (start and finish)

Placing tents and tables

Shopping for start/finish line goods

Manning intersections

Organizing close to 200 volunteers

Data analysis to determine in August how many will show in October

Creating and manipulating spread sheets

Creating income statement

Writing checks and tracking invoices/payments

Finding restaurants to donate food

Getting that food to the finish

Ordering water/additional food/utensils/cups/plates for finish

Feeding people / staffing food stations

Manning three aid stations (and arranging for water for them)

Medical coverage for three aid stations and finish line

Finding and coordinating sponsors

Firing muskets and establishing colonial theme

Establishing massage stations

Securing and transporting baggage

Maintaining email list and sending out mass emails

Laying out, and then sweeping,  ~800 flags

Supervising cheerleaders

Announcing arriving runners to the finish

Finding/providing music for start, finish and on the course

Obtaining permits

Obtaining insurance for every municipality and sponsor

Coordinating four police departments

Coordinating parking

Race day communications via ham radio

Finalizing results and fixing scoring errors

You accomplished an astounding feet. Each year I dump some project on someone — often a person with a full time job — and that person just gets the job done, consuming, usually, several hours of time.

All of your effort shows. Year after year the glowing reviews come in that you guys nailed the execution of the race, and this year has exceeded the stellar reviews of the prior ones. I’m not sure how you top A+, but you managed. It is the volunteers that turn a mere footrace into a piece of performance art.

Over and again people came up to me to talk about the enthusiasm of the volunteers. At the start, on the course and at the finish.

We had runners registered from 19 states and two other countries.  We often now find runners flying in to see family/friends on this particular weekend so that they can run our race. It’s what a community event is all about.

It. Doesn’t. Happen. Without. You. There. I said it again.

–Eric