A RETURN IN THE NAME V.C.R.

While those of us in the modern era have relegated the VCR to a thing of the past, one group of race walkers has breathed new life into the acronym. Racewalk.com has uncovered a secret movement across the US under the code name V.C.R. No, it's not about recording television shows in sub-standard resolution, it’s about the debut of a group of once-prominent race walkers reemerging on the national race walking circuit.

In the new millennium, V.C.R. has a whole new meaning. Varsano’s Chocolates Race Walking is lead by former national team member Marc Varsano, now proprietor of an acclaimed shop of fine chocolates in lower Manhattan.  While Varsano is currently the team’s figure head and is not currently walking, Varsano says don’t count him off the track just yet. His inspiration is George Foreman and he figures he can come back before 40. In the mean time, Varsano states he keeps his team always hungry. Finding this ironic I inquired as to the perks of membership in this elite circle of Rubik’s Cube generation walkers and Varsano said they only get chocolate if they win.

The current team is composed of three of the five 20K World Cup Team Members from 1987. Led by team pioneer Paul Schwartzberg, the team hopes to recapture a bit of past glory along with helping Varsano spread positive imagery about chocolate. Thus countering the dark chocolate message of Tim Burton’s Willy Wonka remake.

While Schwartzberg quit walking for a number of reasons in 1988, he remained fairly physically active. However, as the years crept on, so did the pounds. Tired of my needling him about his spare tire, Paul tried to run off the weight. Unfortunately, his once nimble frame got injured and he resorted to his former sport of race walking.

The race walking paid off big. The pounds dropped and so did his pant size. After walking by himself a bit he decided to contact the "Legend of Chocolate," Marc Varsano, who on a friendly whim said that they should form a team and support each other’s road back to fitness.

It’s now a year and a half later and Team Varsano is about to come out of its chocolate-covered shell. While Marc has been unable to devote the time to the road, he has concentrated on the reemergence of 1980’s great race walkers as the Varsano’s Chocolates Race Walking Team.

Walking less than 45 miles a week at 6 a.m., Paul is motivated to humiliate me by breaking my PR in the 20K, of course while just having fun. Beyond that he has no aspirations other than fitting in clothes he recently had altered to fit his newly reenergized body.

While Schwartzberg was making great strides, Varsano was devoting too much time to team logistics, so they expanded their sphere of influence and suckered, I mean invited, Ret. Colonel Steve Pecinovsky into their plan. While Pecinovsky is too busy with Homeland Security to comment, the dynamic-duo needed a third active race walker to officially have a scoring team. They pulled Ray “Yoopernational” Sharp into Varsano’s 80’s reunion.

Ray made a splash last year, launching Ray’s Walking Yoopernational on the Yahoo Newsgroup. For those of you who don’t know it, hell I didn’t know it, a Yooper is someone who lives in the Upper Peninsula (U.P.)of Michigan. Now in the form of Ray’s Walking Digest, Ray has kept us up to date on his race walking goals. I am pleased to say that Ray attributes some of his resurgence into race walking by a peak in interest caused after I contacted Ray for bio information to be included in racewalk.com and “Race Walk Like a Champion.” Shortly after my call he started training, set some goals, and tried to qualify for the 20K Olympic Trials. While he was not nearly fast enough for the OTs, he was a devil in the kitchen after the Penn Relays.

Ray spent the summer competing in triathlons and when the season ended he started 50K training. The camaraderie of walking together with Paul and Steve brought things full circle for Ray as he and Steve’s friendship goes all the way back to a 1978 training camp in Squaw Valley, California lead by former Mexican race walking coach, Jersey Hausleber. The trio emailed each other, coenabling their training, each understanding the challenge of having a family, being a masters athlete, and trying to recapture some of the past glories.

“Just some old farts getting together to see how much fun they can have with this and hopefully get some good results,” says Sharp. The teams first stop: the national 50K in Clermont, Florida, Feb 13 th. The goal is simple, “respectability, as much as that’s possible for a race walker," says Sharp.

Unfortunately, the team is currently unable to score, as Schwatzberg plans to skip the 50K, keeping a vow he made to me in college that he would never walk one, and lead the team at the 20K trials in April. However, don’t count this team out of the scoring just yet, Racewalk.com has it on a reliable source that team V.C.R. is not quite complete. A heavy recruitment effort is going on. When asked what the qualifications were, the only official comment given is that race walkers on the team would have to remember watching the A-Team before it was a regular on TV Land. Oh and of course, you to have an appreciation for the world’s finest chocolates.

And asked at the end of the interview for an inspirational quote to young walkers starting out and more experienced walkers on their way back, Schwartzberg replied “Buy Varsano’s Chocolates, he ships everywhere!” Check out his web site at www.varsanos.com