Islanders run the table at hometown 5K: Take top spots in major divisions
Joshua Green, 22, was the first overall to break the tape of the Shelter Island 5K run (just over 3 miles) in 15 minutes and 48 seconds.
The first woman across the line was Delia Hayes, 25, who posted a time of 18:53, and the first race walker was the perennial winner in her division, Louise Clark, who completed the race in 35:40.
The first cancer survivor, in an event to bring awareness and treatment of breast cancer, was Shelter Island’s Receiver of Taxes Annmarie Seddio, who came in with a time of 26:40.
All athletes agreed it was a perfect day for a race, staged on one of the most beautiful days of the year, with high skies, and a temperature of about 70 degrees.
A total of 323 runners and walkers registered for the event (but more were in the field without registering) and took the course from Stearns Point Road to a finish at Crescent Beach. Joshua Green, one of the finest athletes to come out of Shelter Island High School, finished just ahead of his brother Jason, 19, who ran a 16:01 race.
“We were together, right form the start,” Joshua said, but he had just enough at the end to take the race.
In 2018, Joshua became Shelter Island School’s first New York Winter Track State Champion as a key member of the winning four-person distance medley relay team.
Ms. Hayes, 25, a member of the Island’s Carey clan, ran track and cross country at Bronxville High School in Westchester County before stepping up to topflight collegiate running at Boston College.
Her time in this year’s 5K was not a personal record, she said minutes after the race, but she was proud of her race. She separated herself from most runners after the first mile, she said, and decided “to just go for it.”
The most unusual site at the finish line was a tall, broad fellow who came across the line with a wide smile and no shoes. Zach Newcombe, a part-time Islander, said he “forgot” to bring his running shoes to the race, and so ran the entire 5K shoe-less. Friend Caroline Hribar paced the barefoot boy.
How were his feet after 5 kilometers? “Not bad,” Zach said. “Not bad at all.”
It seemed nothing could take way from the beautiful autumn day, when Shelter Island presented a special show of superb athletics, bringing awareness to a worthy cause, and a celebration of a community coming together.
