Preliminary 5K winners await final filings

Organizers of the virtual Shelter Island 5K believe they are on track to raise the kind of money they have in past races, but numbers aren’t yet tallied.

The word came from Julie O’Neill Bliss, who with Race Director Mary Ellen Adipietro helped organize the event.

With 100 registrants, 70 have reported their times to race timers from elitefeats.com with 30 more expected to file information by today, Thursday, Oct. 29.

Registrants had a choice of entering other in-person races or could opt to use a treadmill and track their times at https://www.mapmyrun.com/; use a Certified USATF course; run in a park with measured fitness trails; or download the free app Strava.

Following their walks or runs, pictures and times need to be submitted to elitefeats.com/results.

Results to date show the following winners, but those could change as the final 30 participants indicate their times:

• Trent Hampton, 41, of Lake Ronkonkoma, No. 1 with a time of 19:25.

• Bill Nadeau, 44, of Franklin, Mass., Number 2, with a time of 19:58.

• Stacy Clark Kehl, 27, of Shelter Island Heights, Number 3 overall, and Number 1 among women with a time of 20:58.

• Kevin Barry, 58, of Shelter Island, Number 4 overall, but Number 3 among men with a time of 21:28.

• Nicole Furlong, 30, of East Hampton placed second among females and fifth overall with a time of 21:33.

• Janelle Nadeau, 42, of Franklin, Mass., placed third among female participants and sixth overall with a time of 22:39.

With the race dedicated to raising money to help fund a cure for breast and other women’s cancers, but hampered by the COVID-19 pandemic, organizers were determined to find a way to raise the funding and elitefeats.com personnel were guides to the virtual methodology.

The event benefits the North Fork Breast Health Coalition, The Coalition for Women’s Cancers at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital, and Lucia’s Angels — a nonprofit that helps women and families with late-stage women’s cancers and raises money from sales of raffle tickets.

Many participants opted to purchase raffle tickets as well as paying their registration fees and raising their own funds, according to Ms. O’Neill Bliss and Ms. Adipietro.

If the name Janelle Nadeau sounds familiar, she is a former Islander who trained on the Island with guidance from Cliff Clark when she hoped to run as an Olympian in 2008. Unfortunately, injury kept her from reaching that goal.

But her running career on and off the Island is first rate.

The daughter of Linda and Chuck Kraus, her first race ever was the Shelter Island Women’s 5K when she was in elementary school. That race finished in front of what was then Kraus’s Restaurant, which belonged to her grandparents. It is now Sunset Beach.

Years later, after stellar high school and collegiate careers, she came back home and won the mixed gender race outright in 16:47.

In her high school career, Ms. Kraus-Nadeau ran unbeaten for four years in League 8 and Suffolk County Class C/D competition in cross country and track. She was All-State in cross country three times, won the New York State Cross Country C/D Championship her senior year and was selected to the All Northeast cross country team her senior year. She still holds the fastest girl’s time ever run at the Indian Island 5,000 meter cross country course at 18:43.