On
Sunday, April 8, 2018
ED NEIGHBOUR: DEDICATED VOLUNTEER, DEDICATED RUNNER
Ed Neighbour of Sparta, wears many hats in service to the
sport that he has enjoyed since he was a boy.
He is currently the President of the Morris County Striders, but that
pales in significant when compared to his service to USATF. His
involvement with the New Jersey association began in 2005 when he was asked to
fill a vacancy on the Long Distance Running Committee. He became the division chair in 2008.
In 2011 Neighbour was elected president of the association and
served two full terms of office, vacating the position in 2017. Presidents and vice presidents may serve for
only two three-year terms.
“I always got more enjoyment out of being the LDR division
chair. Not that it hasn’t had its
moments”, said Neighbour. “I’m more in
my comfort zone there”.
One of the USATF president’s duties is to act as the master
of ceremonies at the annual awards banquet, which has grown in size to 500
participants.
“That was my biggest apprehension about becoming president,”
Neighbour said with a chuckle.
Neighbour credits his father with turning him onto running.
“My father got caught up in the first running boom and I
started going to races with him. I was
probably 11 or 12 years old.”
Back then Ed Neighbour the elder, was a very competitive
masters runner and his son remembers how his dad would get wound up prior to
races.
“He was in his own zone,” said Neighbour. Son and father ran in the early Ridgewood Run
10Ks and the Giralda Farms 10K. Dad even
took him to Deer Path Park to run in a cross country race.
Despite his early start in the sport, Neighbour did not run on
a team while in high school nor in college.
He did continue to run while attending Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in
Troy NY and ran several New York City marathons and in Philadelphia. While in his 30’s Neighbour ran shorter races and
turned back to marathons in his 40’s. By
then he was able to choose destination marathons, including Rome, Madrid and Buenos
Aires.
Neighbour has run the Big Sur marathon in California three
times and clearly loves the scenic Highway 1 along the rugged California coast. His first Big Sur was in 2011 when the course
had to be changed to an out-and-back due to a portion of the highway sliding
into the Pacific Ocean. The other two
times he ran the full point to point course.
“You start at Big Sur and you run through the Redwoods for
five miles and then you come out and you get your first glimpse of the ocean,” said
Neighbour, adding that is when the runners know how much of a head wind they
will be running into.
A week after one of the Big Sur marathons Neighbour found a
trail race to run and has since added trail racing to his repertoire, an
offshoot that he really enjoys. After
two years with no marathons, Neighbour will be doing his 26th this
year, although he is still choosing the right one
This morning Neighbour is in Middletown, running the Indian
Trails 20K. It’s a race he describes
tongue in cheek as rolling, knowing full well the course is all hills. He feels that he is ready for the distance
having come through December and January training with no trouble. It has just been February fluctuations and
March’s nor’easters that have been a challenge.
“I’d always start out with a plan, a fixed idea of what I wanted
to do with mileage, and always bargain myself into running more,” said Neighbour. “I’d go out and ‘I’ll just do five’ and then,
‘I’m OK, I’ll do six’, and that would turn into seven.”
Neighbour runs with his club on Wednesday evenings, and when
he is not at a race, he joins club members for Sunday runs. Some Saturdays the club will have an impromptu
run on the Columbia Trail in Long Valley, which is where they were this past
weekend. Neighbour did twelve miles on
the flat converted railroad bed, ready to go the distance at today’s 12.4
miles. After the race he will put on his
LDR cap and hand out championship awards to his fellow USATF competitors.
##
Race Results can often be
found at www.compuscore.com or at www.bestrace.com
A calendar of USATF
sanctioned events can be found at www.usatfnj.org
or at www.raceforum.com for running and
tri and biathlon events.
Contact Madeline Bost at madelinebost@verizon.net
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