Club guests include "SuperMac," - called Michael, who is an American runner residing in Manhatten, "Mad Dog," - Mike Mykytok, Brian Clas, Khalid Khannouchi (okay, not in the club but was drafted in a workout), "Comfy Ed," - Ed Stickles, the Moving Comfort coach, and Conor O'Driscoll.

The club's first competition is the Achilles Marathon Relay when the four members will hook up to try and win the race in the Men's open division.

A brief history of the Club: Four outta shape guys wanting to get back into the swing of things meet on the Bridle path in Central Path. Following a promising first workout of mile repeats, when local star Brian Clas came and led the Boys they decided to meet each week - on Tuesday evenings. Well also on Thursday's too, but that did not fit in the team name.

After a second session where Shiney and The Rope led a bunch of 300's the Boys decided to enter a relay, just for the $1000 bucks first prize. "Let's form a team," said Titanium. "Why not, sure!" Said the Rope. "Will we win?" Asked Smokin' J. "As long as you don't tell your affiliated club about the race." Answered Titanium. Shiney looked confident, Mega Blubber (the team's enemy) had not injected his lethal venom into Shiney's belly as yet!

The team started to rock n' roll with success, at a local 5-km that the boys had as a tempo (following a gruelling week of training) Shiney was #2, The Rope was a 'bandit' #4, Titanium was #5, Rachid Thabi was #8, Super Mac was #15, and Smokin' a notch after. The race officials however ignored the team name!

The men's USATF 8KM Champs brought a lot of old friends to town - Phil Wharton, Tom Nohilly (though sadly moving outta town), and Mike Mykytok (Mad Dog if you've read the book) all expressed a big interest to train with the Fat Boys, and Todd Williams got immediate honory membership when telling that he was 30-lbs over weight a couple of months prior to the day.

Nolan Swanson, another top US runner also got on the invite list as he looked quickly at a table of the healthy runners' food and said, "Where's the nearest Krispy Kreme shop?"

The next Fat Tuesday race will be the Half Marathon in Emmaus PA where Smokin' J & Titanium hope to compete. Shiney will be treading the boards on 42nd ST, and the Rope will no doubt be on the roads training hard.

Mad Dog leads Brian Clas in the 8-km USA Champs.

The question of uniformity - "What color should our singlets be? What about yellow?" Titanium asked Smokin' J.
"Hm, I'll have to see if I have a yellow singlet." he replied.
"Well what color is your official team's singlet that you usually wear?" Titanium quipped....
Could it be yellow??

Revelation #103 Shiney is a male model.

“There is a great atmosphere among all Ethiopian runners. Our friendship really helps us, we are brothers, a real family. We support each other in training and racing. If we see one of us is tired, we speak some words of encouragement. It’s a matter of respect, we know each other’s abilities and that we have all worked hard and that’s why we have got to the top. Very soon you’ll see, Ethiopia will be the worldÂ’s greatest marathon running country.” Tesfaye Jifar on his training partners......
"I kicked your butt in training, and then you beat me in the race... I can't understand it, I saw you running away and thought 'I should be able to at least beat him!" SuperMac to Titanium.

Two weeks prior to our official bash at the cash Smokin' J' announces, "Okay, as of monday I am going to stop smoking, and even quit drinking beer till the race." Well that seemed like a worthy contribution to the cause. We were feeling uplifted after checking the race website and seeing no Kip's or Rono's.. in fact there was hardly a team we recognized on the rosta. Excellent.

Now The Rope and Shiney had more reason to worry - in every single work out they were blasting ahead and leaving us (literally as it happens) in the dirt of Central Park. The Rope put the pressure on Shiney, "You'll run the last leg!" And so our tactics were worked out.

The preparation of legs is a well thought out operation for any good plan, and so it happened. Titanium said, "Who wants to run what?" Smokin' said, "Either second or third." And as The Rope had positioned our star, Shiney, he himself was left to select the fate of himself and Titanium, "I'll run the third leg." Thus Titanium got the first leg.

This actually was bad news for the team as in the following workout Titanium was a real long way back on the repeats... and guess what? The first leg is the longest.

The distance to be covered is exactly a marathon. The course is the main road loop of Prospect Park, hilly to say the least. You are either running up or down a hill. To give the reader an idea there is a 5-km race in May on this course - last year we ran the first mile in 4:30 and it felt like 5:30 which is too close to comfort for what we passed the second mile in (that felt like a 4:30).....

So the next plan was to stick in a goal time. At this conjecture I should point out that the Fat Tuesday club members are not still dreaming about PR's (well apart from Shiney who is just doing it). The last time Titanium hit a PR he was running backwards, forwards you'd have to roll way back to the days when Clint Eastwood's fistfull of dollars was not a description of his wrinkled mug. So the idea was could the boys, all together hand in hand, or leg to leg, beat the Women's World record for a single woman.

In our favor was obviously the fact we only had to run 25% of the distance. Against us was the fact 'she' was a talent, and 'she' had just taken a minute from an unbelievably tough week old untouchable record. Things were looking grim, time for a Senor Macho peptalk. Hm, who could deliver a speech like that to us? Even in our own city two Master's women, Zoomalong & Kimka, were winning every competition pasted on an entry form beating 99% of the men. Was there a man to talk to who could instill confidence in us?

I thought Golf Clubs and Sports cars, I thought chest wigs, and Men's Health. It was then I decided to really play up the part about the hard, hard course. I mean Juan hector hernadez Mendoza, or whoever he was who beat me, along with his compadre, only could scrape under fifteen minutes for the 5-k, now if he'd done two loops... Catherine Ndereba would've been there on his shoulder - ouch!

New Goals; To treat ourselves to a great lunch if we won, and to hit the Bar if we lost. To try and beat the Co-Ed teams and feel good about ourselves. To say we had the most different nations in one united team... hey we could cheat, draft in another runner and have the Five Nations Team - now there was an idea.

"It's time the lot of you stopped worrying about image and pretending to be good and actually went about the process of raising the bar for yourselves," Olympic medal winner Rick Mitchell of Australia. "In the 40 years I've been around athletes I've never seen a medal presented to a pair of sunglasses or a Lycra suit."

Shiney, in red, and Titanium, in gold.

Getting a picture of The Rope is proving rather difficult, as for Smokin' J I tried to copy a picture from the NYRR web site and it comes up 'invalid' file... thus instead 'You' (if yer so wish) have to go there and click on race results, click on the rabbit Run 5km,or click *here, and there you have him - pushing the stop button on the watch as he crosses the line, in a red singlet - photo #9. Also on that photo page one can see Titanium being elbowed by Shiney on the starting line - that in turn brought out Shiney's comment, "The other time we were on the same page you were in a gold suit...." That in turn led me to go back to the race photos @ NYRR and find the above printed photo. Geez, this is long winded.

"So how come you're called the Fat Tuesday Athletic Club?" Twas asked. Well, it is a long story! But what is not.

It goes back to February. I was in Austin, Texas. Following a race in the city a group of us went to a Cajun restaurant to eat in the middle of the afternoon. My job was to keep the pitchers rolling, and roll they did.

Just as the Sun was setting a group of us cleaved off to explore the town - it was Sylvia Mosqueda, who is a 1:10 half marathoner, and a 15' 5-km runner, Carmen Troncoso who ran 16:28 recently as a 42-yr old for the 5km, and Todd Reeser, the former men's 20k National Champion.

In the first bar we stopped at three of us ordered a round at the same time (I think Sylvia was at this early stage ordering shots), and we got some medallions with Fat Tuesdays written upon them. The drinking continued.

About a while later we headed to another bar. On coming to the door they were ID-ing everyone and asking for a cover charge. Having no ID I told the bouncer we were the famous Fat Tuesday rock band from Sweden. He looked at me, then looked again with ears that had heard 1,000 scams, "Y'all all need EeyeDee Sur"
"Look, don't you recognize me? Look again, it is me, the guitarist from the Fat Tuesday's! Have you seen last month's Rolling Stone?" Then, to my utmost satisfaction, the guy starts nodding his head, "Yeah, I think so, from Sweden? Is that you?" I grab Sylvia, "And this is our singer!" And Sylvia fittingly chokes out a blues refrain. We were in!

A few more jars and I am propping up the bar with the house band members, who are pausing for their break.
"Yeah, we're the Fat Tuesday's, you've heard of us right?" This guy the size of Texas, well that was his beard, with more tattoos than Greyhound has buses is now nodding his head, "Yeah, I know you urm, what kind of music do you play?"

Before you knew it, he was wandering off to talk to the management (at my request) to get us up on stage to do a guest slot. At this conjecture my band members, were advising me that it was really time for, On the road again- Apart from Todd who now did not seem to know what chorus line he was tied up to, his arm just kept on waving, and we happily downed his drinks accordingly.

Well this is only Chapter One; Many things followed including ending up in a cowboy diner at 3 AM in the morning, another few bars in-between, the loss of Carmen somewhat earlier. Arriving back at the hotel an hour before the flight back to NYC, and 30-minutes taxi ride away from the airport how to check in with luggage, huge lines of people, extra security, and fifteen minutes to take off..

But, to get back to the thread - The first time I met Smokin J for training on the Rez I had that medallion in my pocket - just by chance hence the name!

The usual BS happens each week the guys meet, usually led by Titanium, "I'm gonna be slow tonight guys..." (No comments, as he always is), "I'm out of form, I won't be running hard, perhaps ___(Some slow split)..." adds Smokin' - Time out! Smokin' forever underestimates his powers, take 15-30" per mile off his guesstime to get his result...
"I've got a slight injury tonight, should I run hard?" That'd be Shiney, well regardless he is always off in front so we never know what his hard or easy pace actually is!... Meanwhile The Rope never flinches, "Whatever you guys wanna run - I'll do it..." Okay, just because the Rope is in form we don't have any smart answers for him - he is always right apart from.... "So I told you Rop was gonna win..." said The Rope.
"Rope, you named every single runner in the field apart from Rop!"

The Fat Tuesday club members always try to be helpful to each other. One day Shiney says, "I need some help moving a friend from his house this Wednesday..."
"Sure no problem..." say the guys in unison.
"Doesn't any one have commitments, or a real job?" asks Shiney.
Only Smokin' and he'll slip out for a friend.

Learning more about the club members we find that Smokin' J is married, to Smokin' Jo, Shiney is married to Actress Kate, The Rope is single, and The Titanium is single too. Non are Pringle-single (kinky) so don't get any odd ideas about names like The Rope - sporty connitations only.

Seoul International Women's Marathon Relay, 07 April 2002, 1st RUSSIA 2:18:24 (6-women, flat course.)

Achilles Marathon Relay, 28 April 2002, (4-men, hilly course.)

The final practice of long repeats; we do 4 x 1-mile, with 2:30 rest (timed from the first finisher). With five days to go all the guys turn up, as is the norm, for the session. The Titanium finally looks like he is coming into form, he runs the set for the first time in sub 4:50. The good news for the team is that he trails the Rope & Shiney. Smokin' J has a bad session, due only to digestion problems.
Smokin' has committed the sin of eating Pizza on the way to the workout, and if that was not bad enough he washed it down with a beer!

The only glitch is when Shiney pulls up on the last repeat with a hamstring twinge. When Shiney later hears that Smokin' had just thrown up he mutters, "Great, what a team - one injured, another sick...."

The Titanium is concerned only when he hears The Rope's therapy for Shiney, "Have you got ankle weights?"

The day of the race dawns, with a shield of rain over an overcast sky. We arrive at the park thirty minutes before the gun, this is not a day to be early as it is flippin' cold too.

On the starting line Titanium overhears a Frenchman, "Ah-ha, I think I can do good today..." he is discussing with his coach whilst surveying the pack. Steve Marsalese of the Harriers is there, "Are you doing the full Titanium?" On hearing not, "Ah I've no respect for you anymore." The Titanium, who would rather scissor cut the great lawn in Central Park before running 26.2 miles just smiles back, he decides to go for the blast-off tactics.

At the first crossing of the exchange zone, after 1-mile, the Titanium glances over his shoulder - the gap is about a minute.... things are looking good.

Six miles later the Titanium passes to Smokin' whilst Shiney acts as the cameraman. The ankle band swop over is smooth, Smokin' disappears and the competition is nowhere to be seen. The plan is going well, as Smokin' would later comment, 'We had everything in perfect order - no need to go crazy.

The Rope took over on the third leg. Liam Kinsella yelled from the sidelines, "Go man, run faster..." However little did he know that The Rope was whipping through some 5-minute miles, "Get real spectator!" The Rope was thinking.

Sour Grapes; From the sidelines an Urban Athletics relay member, "Hey, that is not fair - your team is not a real team, you're in Central Park, he's in Westchester..." And your point is exactly? There certainly was no point as this said person is not even an Urban Athletics member himself(!)

The tripe took a turn for the worse, "You guys should let someone else win for once." Well my team, The Flying Pokemon's, lost this race last year - is that good enough? Last year we were a 3-man team, this year we were 4, our bemoaner had 7 other team mates. We refrained from comment.

The handover to Shiney (who has only been running for 2 1/2-yrs) was another text book job. Shiney dressed in his anti-running gear, and Riker's Island Inmate T-shirt, zipped up the hill with the gears that see him dominate our 300's each week. It is all over, Shiney runs unchallenged to break the tape more than a mile clear of the next team.

As the guys come to congratulate Shiney women with cameras ask for the boys to move aside - They want pictures of just Shiney. "It must be his Kirk Douglas chin..." grumbles smokin'. An official comes over, "Did you guys finish already? You're a lap ahead of the field. Did you want to get to the post race food first?" Well that kind of sums up The Fat Tuesday's racing philosophy.

And indeed we were invited to go and dine with Shiney's wife's (yes sorry to his adoring fans) sister. More photographs of Shiney, then finally someone wants a group photo - Liam the Harrier. The Rope questions, "Hey are you the guy who was yelling at me go faster dude?"

And that my friends was that, the real heroes of the day were the athlete Marathon guides who volunteered to go out and run other people's races, and of course the Achilles members whose radient smiles brought sunshine to the hearts of all.

As the team drive off back to Manhattan, around 2:30 in the afternoon, Shiney asks, "Shall we go for breakfast now?" Now that's my kind of team!

Anyroads we decided to focus on a few races. The quit teen Smoking 4-miler as, in Smokin' J's words, "Since I'm trying to quit...." Not that Titanium acts like a teenager.... Not that 4-miles is a kind distance, the kind that does not go on for too long.... (Shiney quote, "You wait till we run a 1500m!")
Then would be our club championships - a timed lap of The Reservoir in August.

The Reservoir is the most run on path in the world, probably. It is 1:55-miles long, on a gravel surface that is not conclusive to fast running, and is covered with runners, joggers, and tourists. Jackie Onassis used to run here each day, and thus the official name is the J.O. Reservoir. The scene has been in O-too many films to be listed. And, most runners know their approximate Reservoir time.

There have been claims, wild times, and history. Basically we are taking any time with witnesses (at least two people we know). The record thus stands with Titanium at 7:24. However since Smokin J has run 8:15 on the outer Bridle path loop (much longer, dirt and bumps) this record does not seem very secure.

The months have rolled on and the club is still going strong. A troop bound not by politics, country, or creed, but by the common factor of a willingness for self-betterment, to strive to gain wings on our heels.... Enough, enough.

FACING: Getting to know the Fat Tuesday's in-person (as opposed to their outer self's). The Rope

This Dutch guy is an integral link in keeping the work outs at a grinding high pace. The Rope does not know the meaning of the words rest or easy, he does know the word tempo though (that's an insider comment). He lives his life in the way others dream of. The Rope used to work down on Wall Street before deciding that was not the path for him, a soulful guy with more balance than the rock of Gibralter.
A claim to fame; Sammy Davis Jr used to live on the same floor of The Rope's apartment.

Smokin' J

Since arriving in NYC in the mid-nineties, when the young (then) Northern Irish runner began running to improve (well start) his Big Apple social life, Smokin has been a fixture at the sharp end of the NYC racing circuit. Running was the core of Smokin's leisure time, he worked at Two Boots Pizza Joint (the home of Urban Athletics for the fall of 2000). Apart from becoming a pizza connoisseur Smokin's talents re-emerged as a local running star. Back in Europe Smokin' had been a top notch runner reaching the level where one dons one's country's outfit and all that.
A claim to fame; Princess Diana, Prince Charles, Philip, and Andrew, the Queen Mother, and countless others have sat in the back seat when Smokin' has been driving. Has ties with the British aristocracy!

Shiney

8:23 for the 3000m steeplechase! Okay, that is Shiney's brother Justin. New York acting credits for Shiney include: Dale Mercury in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Detective Bob in Dead Ends at Lincoln Center, and He in The Malady of Death at the Orenda Theatre.
Film work? You got it: Sebastian in Spin the Bottle (independent feature), and Benjamin in the award-winning short Still Life. Matt was born in Wales, and came to New York to study acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse, where he met his wife Kate.

Titanium

Claim to fame, eats bagels & drinks coffee... yet survives - so far. Trying to outdo Odysseus, or else can't find his way home.... Known as The Running Gipsy in Europe. Can't play the piano like Dave Brubeck.
An interesting fact; the Fatties are all Europeans, only by perchance.

Smokin' J wanted to press on with the original plan of running the Smoking 4-miler in Central Park, and Titanium (who had raced the 5-k course 4 times in the last month) decided to hang with Smokin' J. The Rope meanwhile decided to take a weekend outta New York.

Predictions: Okay, The Rope will have a nice time, Shiney will have the best time, and Smokin' J will miss the race (as he did the last race we arranged to do).
Nah, I think Smokin' will make the starting line this time, and judging from his improvement in the last workout probably run great. He said of this race, "This is it, I am going to run, and quit the smokes!" Let's hope so!

• The Results: Firstly let me say the weather was not conclusive to racing on the chosen day (uh-oh, we can read the results already). It was hot and humid, 76-degrees so. The Teen Smoking 4-miler in the words of a West Side Runner from Britain, who finished in the top 15, "Doesn't attract New York's best runners." Well I was not thinking the same thing as I was charging up Cat Hill in the first mile chasing Kabiso.K. the Ethiopian version who is winning every single week the road races in the Tri-State (he is a 28-min 10k runner). To make matters worse Arsenio Ortiz (winner of last year's Big Sur CA Marathon) seemed to be finding the chasing easier than I.

  Mile splits; ugly. Result 21:16, #3 for Titanium.

  Reports from the other guys have not materialized as yet. I saw Smokin' on the starting line, I waited, and waited for him at the finish. I phoned him in the evening, and he did not pick up, and as yet my email inbox has not been graced with a message... news will come.

  The same goes for Shiney, still waiting for the results of the Kenny Dolan 5km from him.

  Hm, Smokin was supposed to just this race to quit Marlboro's not the race!
  Due to lack of news from the other guys I will ramble on a bit more about my race; Okay, I had wanted to run about a minute faster. Two weeks ago I ran a 4-miler in 20:29 and I thought because I took a time out in the third mile of that race I would be able to run 20:10-20 on the more difficult CP-course.
  After the first mile, a cat's whisker chopped in half, under five minutes I was doubting this goal. However the first mile was up Cat Hill and the next would be flat and downhill. It was at this stage when it was no longer possible to hang on to the Ethiopian, Ortiz was still a possibility. (At this stage it is important to note that his name appears as something else in the official results but it was 100% Arsenio.)
  10:14-ouch! And this was my downhill 'get it in the bank' mile? I knew now that all hopes of running sub 20:30 were off the cards. To think last year I ran 19:46 the day after running a 5-k race on this course with relative ease!
  Three miles and I no longer want to write about this race - I really, really was trying. Although the mile split, 15:44, looks like I had lost interest I was actually pushing as hard as I could go - but to no avail. My left leg killed, and felt as weak as a baby's thumbnail.
  Coming into the finish I felt okay again, but the damage had been done. As I said Racing is Brutal sometimes - but hey, No Excuses.

  Update: Okay The Rope did have the best time, he went for a holiday weekend to New Paltz. Smokin' pulled a calf muscle during the race, jogging in - he has to rest for 10-days now poor soul, "I think it was those 300's I smoked on Thursday...." Is that a brand, or the session we did? Considering he was running very well on thursday I'll take the latter.
  And Shiney? Well Shiney went to a wedding the night before and danced, woke up dehydrated, go to the race too late to enter, ran as a Bandit, hit the first mile in 4:53.... and unfortunately faded to a 16' 5km. NOT vindicative of his form at all! All in all a bad weekend's racing!

  Soon after the Fatties fizzled out, and have not raced together, or indeed trained. Reunion coffee/bagel breakfasts do continue though!