More than 250 runners turned out Sunday morning for the 19th annual Jamesport Sound to Bay 10K and 5K, presented by the Jamesport Fire Department. READ
Tag: Sound to Bay 10K and 5K
The sun was nowhere to be seen, hiding somewhere behind a thick cover of clouds. The temperature was in the 70s, the humidity wasn’t bad, and a refreshing breeze acted like a natural fan. READ
Kevin Harvey, a miler from Sag Harbor, never ran in the Sound to Bay 10K before, but that didn’t prevent him from winning on Sunday morning. (Credit: Daniel De Mato)
SOUND TO BAY 10K AND 5K
The four winners of the 16th annual Sound to Bay 10K and 5K on Sunday morning faced some obstacles. Not only didn’t they know exactly who they would be racing against, but they didn’t even know the course they would be running on.
Something is to be said for familiarity with a race course. It’s helpful for a runner to know the twists and turns of a course, where the hills are, and what side of the road is the best to run on.
Yet, despite being newcomers to the event, they managed, with the aid of a well-marked course, to find themselves first to the finish line. (more…)
DANIEL DE MATO PHOTO | Michael McShane of Laurel was the winner of the Sound to Bay 5K in 16 minutes 57 seconds.
SOUND TO BAY 10K AND 5K
Along with the other first-place finishers in the 15th annual Sound to Bay 10K and 5K, Gregory Hayward was presented with a large, cup-shaped trophy, bigger than anything he had ever won before. Then again, even well before his race on Sunday morning, Hayward had won something even bigger: his health.
Hayward was a multiple-sport athlete when he attended Sachem High School. When he reached his 20s, though, his sports days seemed behind him and his physical condition deteriorated. That was until Hayward reached his 30s and decided a lifestyle change was in order. He started running and eating a healthier diet.
Now, a hundred pounds later, “This is the result,” he said after receiving his prize for taking first place in the 10-kilometer race.
Hayward is 32 years old, and a road running rookie. The Glen Cove man would be in contention for a rookie of the year award, if such a thing existed. Hayward picked up his second win from only five races, clocking a time of 35 minutes 53 seconds.
Most spectators probably didn’t know that Hayward and Elizabeth Waywell of Dix Hills were the male and female winners of the 10K race until well after the fact. It was virtually impossible to tell. Confusion reigned. The event was not the best organized.
Both races started at the same time at different sites — the 5K at South Jamesport Beach and the 10K at Iron Pier Beach in Northville — and they both finished at South Jamesport Beach. While runners in the 5K race were still pushing themselves across the finish line, the first 10K finishers were mixed in there somewhere. With no announcements or distinctions with the runners’ bibs, one couldn’t tell who was a 5K runner and who was a 10K runner. Further complicating things, some runners switched races without notifying race organizers. Hayward and Waywell were awarded and recognized at the the awards ceremony.
Hayward, who had about four runners ahead of him at one point, said he ran the type of race that he expected to run. He said he told himself after each mile that he was on target and kept a 5:47 mile pace.
“I always keep pace,” he said. “A lot of guys like to start out of the gate going faster probably than they should, and I think that’s where I have an advantage because I time myself almost to the second. I think that helps.”
Hayward said he took the lead after about three kilometers and held it the rest of the way. He finished ahead of second-place Travis Wooten of Riverhead (36:29) and third-place Jesse Thompson of Bay Shore (37:14). Doug Milano of Aquebogue (37:49) was fourth and Tim Steiskal of Naugatuck, Conn., (38:26) was fifth.
Hayward said that back when he wasn’t in tip-top shape, he would not have imagined this. By taking one step after another, he has gone a long way, much further than 10 kilometers.
“Now I sort of hit my stride as I continue to age,” he said. “My only thought was to just get healthier to lose a little bit of weight and just to walk and jog and do as much as I could. Now I win.”
Like Hayward, Waywell made her first appearance in the Sound to Bay race. Like Hayward, the 55-year-old woman appreciates the importance of pacing herself and fighting the adrenaline-pumped urge to start out too fast.
“It’s taken me a long time to learn, but you got to stop going out too fast, and I never understood that,” she said. “It’s not panic. It just feels good and it doesn’t feel like you’re going too fast, and you go out, and then you die, and you don’t have time to recover.”
Keeping in mind the tale of the tortoise and the hare, Waywell understands that the race goes to the sure and steady.
“You do have to know what your pace is and not overdo it in the beginning,” she said, “and if you have something left in the tank at the end, that’s when you spend it.”
With 5K runners still on the course, Waywell said she crossed the finish line not knowing for sure whether she had won or not. It wasn’t until later, in the parking lot, when a friend and fellow runner, Tracey Epstein of Smithtown, told Waywell that she had indeed won that she knew for sure.
Waywell turned in a time of 41:24, well ahead of the runner-up, Shari Klarfeld of Plainview (42:45). The next three finishers were Laura Brown of Westhampton Beach (43:26), Emily Schwartz of Rocky Point (43:43) and Jane Chitkara of Wayland, Mass., (43:55).
Regarding that tortoise and hare thing, Waywell had a confession to make. She prefers the hare.
“It doesn’t matter that I’m getting a little long in the tooth, I always go with the hare,” she said. “I figure he got the best of both worlds. He got to run quickly and to have naps.”
DANIEL DE MATO PHOTO | Tommy Kohler of Hampton Bays, running with a prosthetic left leg, took second place in the 5K race.
MCSHANE LEAVES BEHIND PACK, PACE CAR After about the first mile of the five-kilometer race, the pace car pulled up, and the leader, Michael McShane, was on his own.
“I guess they just didn’t want to be that close to me,” he said. “It was fine. The arrows on the ground, I knew where to go, but having something to chase always helps. It’s a lot easier.”
As it was, McShane made things looks easy. The 22-year-old Laurel man won the 5K race in 16:57. “I took the lead off the bat and just kept going,” he said.
McShane, a former cross country and track and field athlete for Molloy College, is coming off a stress fracture in his foot. Considering that, he said: “I’m pretty happy. I really haven’t been able to get consistent running into the summer.”
The next finisher after McShane was Tommy Kohler of Hampton Bays, who runs with a prosthetic left leg. Kohler’s time was 18:37. Nicholas Bjelke of Dix Hills took third in 18:43, Christian Berglin of Hampton Bays was fourth in 19:01 and Darren Hindeniter of Mattituck was fifth in 19:10.
Kohler, 45, a retired detective, has a J-shaped carbon-fibre prosthetic left leg, similar to the one South African sprinter Oscar Pistorious has. While Kohler was a New York City detective, he got shot in the thigh during a gunfight in 1994, leaving him with paralysis from the kneecap down. He kept the leg for almost four years, moving with the aid of crutches and growing frustrated after 14 or 15 surgeries. “After a while I just kind of gave up on it and I said, you know, there’s got to be a better way,” he said. In 1998 he had the prosthetic attached and started running almost immediately.
“The technology’s been there for a while,” he said. “It’s basically lightweight and it’s based on energy return. So you can put one on, and it does not necessarily mean that you’ll be fast. You got to learn how to put all your body weight, energy through it. If you put it through it, it comes back at you. It’s like anything else, it’s training. You got to train hard on it. To run fast, you got to train hard.”
Kohler, who runs for the NYPD Running Club, has been doing just that. The race was a tuneup for him. In three weeks he will compete in a world championship triathlon in London that will include a five-kilometer run.
“Today I just wanted to go, give it all I got, get my paces down,” he said. “I couldn’t get first but I tried.”
Ann Herr, 33, a marathoner from Wading River, is accustomed to longer distances, but she didn’t do badly, winning the women’s 5K race in 19:15.
“My goal is to go under 19 [minutes]; it didn’t happen,” said Herr, who has asthma and runs for the North Country Road Warriors. Another Wading River runner, Katherine Skinner, was second in 20:02. She was followed by Kristin Tamburro of Arlington, Va., (20:21), Suzy Heffernan of Cutchogue (20:34) and Melanie Pfennig of Cutchogue (20:42).
GARRET MEADE PHOTO | Gerry O’Hara of East Rockaway won the Sound to Bay 10K race on Sunday morning in 36 minutes 29.14 seconds.
SOUND TO BAY 10K AND 5K
Maria Pavkovitch had been through the routine before. While her boyfriend played golf at a nearby golf course, she would do some road running. That was the plan again for Sunday morning until the pair noticed a flyer advertising the 14th annual Sound to Bay 10K and 5K.
So, at her boyfriend’s urging, Pavkovitch decided to enter the 10-kilometer race instead and use that as a workout. Her expectations were modest for a race she had not prepared for.
“I didn’t eat the right food last night,” she said. “I didn’t go to sleep at the right time.”
Talk about spur of the moment. Pavkovitch registered for the race only 45 minutes before its scheduled start.
And then she won it!
Pavkovitch, 28, of Union City, N.J., was the leading woman from the beginning of the race, which started at Iron Pier Beach in Northville. She did, however, face a challenge from the runner-up, Kathleen Callahan, at the three-mile mark.
“I’m not one to look back at all, but when I was getting water, I saw her in the corner of my eye,” said Pavkovitch. Pavkovitch said she then told herself, “I guess you got to work now.”
And she did.
The former Rutgers University cross-country and track and field athlete who now runs for the Central Park Track Club in New York City, said the middle of the race is when pain starts to creep in. She said that was the case two years ago when she took third place in the Sound to Bay 10K.
This time, though, she wasn’t giving in to the pain.
She said: “This time I was like: ‘You know what? I’m just going to go for it. It’s going to be over in three miles. I waited around long enough for [the race] to start.’ So, I just wanted to make it worthwhile.”
And she did, turning in a winning time of 39 minutes 23.2 seconds.
“I know I can run faster than this,” Pavkovitch said, noting that her usual 10K time is around 38 minutes. “Today just wasn’t the day for it.”
GARRET MEADE PHOTO | Maria Pavkovitch of Union City, N.J., who signed up for the 10K race only 45 minutes before the scheduled start, was the first female finisher.
She added: “You just never know how you’ll feel when you get out there. You never know what kind of day that you’re having.”
Callahan followed Pavkovitch to the finish line at South Jamesport Beach in 39:51.2. Nadine Moors was third in 41:10.1, Tara Wilson was fourth in 41:49.4 and Kim Ely was fifth in 46:09.4, according to the unofficial results.
On the men’s side, Gerry O’Hara made his debut in the Sound to Bay 10K a winning one. O’Hara, representing the Super Runners Shop team, wanted to set a six-minute pace per mile, and he did better than that, averaging 5:31.1 per mile over the 6.2-mile distance. It added up to a final time of 36:29.1 for the 48-year-old East Rockaway man.
Anthony Galvan, a Riverhead High School senior cross-country runner who is 30 years younger than O’Hara, claimed second place for the second year in a row. Galvan’s time was 37:51.5. Shaun Mara, another Super Runners Shop runner, was third in 37:56.8, with Tommy Pyon (37:58.2) fourth and David Damarest (38:13.5) fifth.
O’Hara said he took the lead about a mile and a half into the race. He said a refreshing breeze helped him, but then again so did the competition. He was being pushed by younger legs behind him. “You have the fear of them coming up on me,” said O’Hara, whose son Patrick and daughter Emily also ran in the event along with teammates on their Kellenberg Memorial High School track and field teams.
O’Hara said he was happy with his victory. He said he had not won a road race in a while, but he is among the top 10 finishers in most of the races he competes in. As he explained it, there really is no secret to success in a road race, and there are no shortcuts. “You got to do the mileage,” he said.
For Galvan, the race was like déjà vu. He had led the first two miles of last year’s race before shin splints forced him to slow down, and he had to settle for second place behind Shawn Fitzgerald of Cutchogue. This time Galvan, who was as far back as in fifth place, said he experienced cramping in his midsection during the second mile.
The race comes a day before Galvan and his Riverhead High School teammates hold their first preseason practice. “I don’t know what the coaches have in store for us,” he said, looking ahead to tomorrow.
The 14th annual Sound to Bay 10K had a little twist to it — and a late start. With the addition of a five-kilometer race, the event produced a record turnout, with 615 runners completing the races. The 10K had 368 finishers.
The race director, Bob Sikora, said that when he saw all the runners who had assembled for the races, his first reaction was, “Whoa! — and no!”
A couple of hundred registrants the morning of the races caught organizers by surprise, delaying the start of the 10K by about a half-hour. Runners like Pavkovitch were anxious to get started as the final buses scrambled to deliver runners to the starting line. “I was already warmed up and then cooled down and warmed up again and then cooled down again,” she said.
The large turnout kept the 40 or so volunteer workers busy.
“Obviously you learn by your mistakes,” Sikora said. “It got off late because we didn’t have enough buses and so on and so forth. There are a few things that have to be worked out to make it run smoother.”
The five-kilometer race was won by Patrick McCabe in 18:42.7. The next four male runners after him were Jacob Rigios (19:28.5), Zack Nicholson (19:58.0), Ken Poliwoda (20:37.5) and Dan Cletaka (20:41.5).
Patricia Alcivar, a professional boxer from Forest Hills, was the first female finisher in 20:38.2. A determined Alcivar managed to hold off second-place Shannen Fuertes (20:42.5) at the finish. Fuertes was followed by Allison Hofmann (20:54.5), Melanie Pfennig (21:45.9) and Jazmine Carrillo (22:15.7).
An unidentified man who had collapsed while running the 5K race was taken by ambulance to Peconic Bay Medical Center and treated for a possible heart attack, according to Riverhead police. No other details were available.
Jennifer Gustavson contributed to this article.