Nowhere To Run

If a tree falls in the woods but nobody hears it, did it really fall? If a track team runs without a track, did they really run?

In a city besieged with financial downfalls and setbacks, one man is reaching out and literally trying to get things back on track. Ron Guialdo, a Trinidadian, and legendary in the competitive running world, has captured the hearts and minds of a dozen children living in Chelsea while on his quest to transform their potential into reality through his love of track and field. As New York City prepares to host the prestigious Colgate Women’s Games at Pratt Institute in January 2010, one man commits his Sundays to share his joy of the sport and develop future, lifelong runners. 

“The whole thing started really simply with an impromptu practice on the West 28th Street track my sons and their friend Carson could easily walk to,” said Ron. “Little by little our group grew organically with kids just joining in, on the spot. They’re all just really excited about testing themselves and stepping onto the track to run.”

Today, a team of 12 enthusiastic, energetic children show up each Sunday to practice starts and sprints, build stamina, tone, stretch and ultimately test their wills and resolve under Ron’s careful guidance and expertise.

But New York City is not Trinidad.  Winter is upon us. Where will the Chelsea Greyhounds run?

“Being so new brand new, funding is a huge challenge” said Ann O’Dell, mother of one of the young Greyhounds. “What we really need is a track or some sort of indoor facility to practice in during the winter season, i.e., health club, school, private facility, etc., that could loan out for a couple of hours one to two days a week.”

So far, local indoor facilities have been non-responsive or have responded with flat-out refusals. The coaches continue to search and the kids continue to hope.

“I like running at practice because I know someday, when I get to high school, I’ll be really good,” explains Carson, 8 years old, PS 33. “ I want to make the team when I get older.”

If anybody knows what it takes to get Carson where he want so go, it’s Ron Guialdo. Guialdo and his four siblings all attended college on full track scholarships and received numerous national awards. As a senior at DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx, Ron won the Big Apple Championships in the 110m hurdles and ran on the fastest 4x100m relay team in the state.

The family’s exposure to track began at home with his mother, Pollina Guialdo. She was the 1959-60 West Indian Women’s Track Champion at the age of 14 and 15. She moved her family to the Bronx a few years later and taught her children how to jump hurdles in their basement, using chairs and a broomstick, and set up a pile of mattresses in the backyard to demonstrate the mastery of
high jumping.

Today, a co-owner of a small event design business, The Color of Magic on West 28th Street with his wife, Kristine, Guilado is inspired to pass the baton his mother passed to him.

All four of his  sons will all step into the starting blocks the year.  This past spring, without any prior training, his oldest, Zuma, 9 years old, took second place in both the 100- and 200-meter dashes at the All-Borough City Champs Meet.

Obvioulsy, Ron’s passion for the sport doesn’t stop with his family’s past and present legacy. He has actively extended his commitment to the community by reaching out to neighborhood children near the Chelsea Prep track where he and his sons practice, and the result is the newly named Chelsea Greyhounds.

With the recent addition of Jeff Barna, the Physical Education Director of Chelsea Prep Elementary School, as assistant coach, Ron hopes to take the Greyhounds to the highest level.

“It’s our goal to obtain scholarships for every child on the team,” said Ron. “And we fully intend to instill in them a lifelong love of running and teach the power of achieving one’s goals through hard work and dedication.”

Coaches Guialdo and Barna are shepherding the team through an array of variable level meets this year, including the prestigious Colgate Women’s Games held at Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute in December. The rewards for each child, and the team, are potentially unlimited and the spirit at Sunday practices reflects a sense of the anticipation and wonder of the unknown challenges that lay ahead on a bigger playing field.

As 10-year-old team member Elena Bertolotti, PS 212, expressed last Sunday after running her very first  two-mile warm up, “I love to run!”

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We’d love to see her get the chance this winter. If you have an indoor track for the Chelsea Greyhounds let us know:  dhollander@manhattanmedia.com.