On Sunday, November 5, 2017
NEW JERSEY WILL BE WELL REPRESENTED IN NEW YORK THIS MORNING
Mention the New York City Marathon and we begin to think of
who we know who will be running in the marathon, which is taking place this
morning.
Many runners from this area of New Jersey will be at the
race, but not all will not be racing. Some will be there as part of the paid staff,
like Dan Brannen of Morristown, who is a professional event organizer. Brannen and his crew which includes Jane
Parks of Morristown, and Wendy Van Dyk of Green Pond been at work all week in
the city performing pre-race tasks.
Many people like to volunteer when their marathon ambitions
have cooled. Runners like Tom Miller of
Chatham who will be at his usual spot for the 8th year of
volunteering. Will DeRoberts of Boonton
will be helping out as will Dave Lazarus, one of many of volunteers performing
vital functions.
Joe Sikora of Succasunna, who might be the local with the
most number of marathons in his log book will be running the NYC this
year. His best, he says, was in 1978 in
2:47. Now 39 years later he is expecting
to be well over four hours. Age does
have a way of slowing you down.
Kevin Higgins of Randolph ran in the Hartford CT marathon
three years weeks ago in just over three hours.
Higgins says that his best, a 2:53, some 20 years ago, is making it NYC
#28. He is giving his legs a rest after
Hartford and will just have fun; no racing.
Eugene Napolitano of Morris Plains says on a Facebook post
that he, like Higgins, will not be racing.
As he put it, he will be participating.
In his post on the Old New Jersey Runners website Napolitano wrote that
he ran his fastest time of 3:20.43 in 2001.
He said that Mayor Giuliani “had us on fire with his pitch at the start”
after the horrors of 911. In light of
what happened on the bike path in New York City this week, one has to wonder if
the current mayor will be delivering another inspiring message to the runners.
We wish them all well and best of racing luck.
GIRALDA FARMS MASTERS MEN CHAMPIONSHIP
Next Sunday, the masters men in the USATF circuit will be
running in the Giralda Farms 5K, and that is quite a change. There will be no Giralda Farms 10K; just the
5K.
That is not the only change.
The course will be very simple, but also challenging. The start is uphill on the Dodge Drive, the
road that cuts the corporate campus in two.
Before reaching the top, the runners will make a 180 around a cone and go
speeding downhill to Woodland Avenue.
After that the runners just keeping turning right. First right is on to Woodland heading west, a
right turn onto Treadwell and another right turn when reaching Madison Avenue,
but running along the pedestrian path that parallels the street. Another right turn to run down the campus
road to the finish. A breathless slow
start with a fast finish.
Only the masters men will have teams and it will give them a
chance to boost their scores in the Garmin Team Grand Prix. Appropriately enough the Garmin team leads in
the M40 division and are in second in the M50.
The adidas Garden State men lead the M50 and are second in the M40
divisions. Trailing in both those
divisions in third place is the Shore Athletic Club. They are in first in the
M60 division.
The race starts promptly at noon. Runners are always admonished to plan to
arrive early as traffic leading into the complex can get very backed up. It will be interesting to see if the
participation in the 5K doubles over last year with no 10K to run.
CORRECTION
A tie between the Clifton Road Runners and the North Jersey
Masters in the cross country 8km two weeks ago was broken by applying USATF
rules. That put the Clifton team in
first place in the W60 division and the North Jersey Masters in second. Last week’s column had the teams reversed.
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