A Brisk, Bright Day for Shelter Island 5K
Three of the top seven finishers in the Shelter Island Fall 5K Saturday were Krauses — Janelle Kraus Nadeau, the first of Cliff Clark’s long-distance stars, and her first cousins, Alex and Alysa Kraus of Fairfield, Conn.
Nadeau is 40 now and is not running competitively at present, most of her energies being devoted to rearing the Nadeaus’ children, Josephine, 7, and Rhys, 5. She does coach cross-country, though, the Montrose School’s girls team in Franklin, Mass., where she, her husband, Bill, and their children live.
The field of more than 500, most of whom ran and some of whom walked on that bright, brisk day, also included Kal Lewis and his Shelter Island High School boys cross-country county-champion teammates, who are coached by Toby Green, a former outstanding Shelter Island cross-country runner himself.
But Lewis, who is the number-one Class D runner and 49th over all in the state at the moment, took his time, as did his teammates, who were told by Green to jog the 3.1-mile course in order to save themselves for the division meet, which was to have been held at Sunken Meadow State Park in Kings Park Tuesday.
Chris Koegel, 35, of Wantagh, whose in-laws live in Sag Harbor, won the race, which benefited three breast cancer efforts on the East End, but he said, after having crossed the Crescent Beach finish line in 17 minutes and 42.90 seconds, that Lewis “would have beat me jogging if he wanted to.”
“This is the last time I can say I beat Kal in a race,” his stepmother, Robin Streck Lewis — who finished 100th in 28:40.09 — said, with a smile.
The aforementioned Alex Kraus, 20, was the runner-up to Koegel, in 19:07.03, and his sister, Alysa, 17, was third, in 19:41.03. Both are students at the University of Connecticut. Janelle Nadeau, who’s going to run soon in the New York City Marathon for the first time, was seventh, in 20:39.33. She was the sixth American at Boston in 2008.
“Janelle and Bill got married at this race in 2011,” said her father, Chuck Kraus, one of the spectators that day, his right wrist having recently been operated on. “He carried her over the finish line, and then she left to get her hair done.”
Though under orders, Lewis and his cross-country peers — Junior Gil, Jonas Kinsey, Tyler Gulluscio, and Emma Gallagher among them — “took off like crazy,” according to Green, “but then they jogged.”
Most of the group crossed the finish line at the end of a flat almost mile-long stretch along the beach about a half-hour later. Kinsey, unable to restrain himself apparently, placed 11th, in 21:13.70. Lewis, who had won the Manhattan College invitational’s varsity F race in Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx the weekend before, finished 130th, in 30:06.38.
Mary Ellen Adipietro, who oversaw the race, as she has done for almost two decades, said she expected the three beneficiaries, the Coalition for Women’s Breast Health at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital, the North Fork Breast Health Coalition, and Lucia’s Angels, would realize more than $35,000 from it. Lucia’s Angels, which assists the families of those in the final stages of the disease, memorialized a friend of hers, Lucia Bagan, who died of breast cancer 12 years ago, she said.
Mike Rau, “the voice of Van Cortlandt,” was there, she added, sharing the announcing duties with her husband, Dr. Frank Adipietro. Paul McDowell led the way on a bike, and “a group of guys who’ve been doing this for years” cooked on fire department grills hamburgers and hot dogs, which in turn were served on tables the department had also provided.
She agreed that the 5K course was easier than the Shelter Island 10K, which is held in June, though agreed also that it would be considerably toughened if it began at the bottom of the Crescent Beach hill rather than on the top of it, near the Goat Hill golf course. The 10K’s last two miles are uphill all the way, while the 5K’s last stretch is flat, with a following wind.
East Hampton High’s cross-country runners, boys and girls, were a couple of hours to the west Saturday morning, competing in the New York City Cross-Country Carnival meet at Fordham Prep in the Bronx.
Evan Masi, the best of the dozen freshmen Kevin Barry is carrying on his boys team, won the jayvee race over a 2.5-mile course in 14:22. Ryan Fowkes, the team’s top runner, placed 11th in the varsity race, in 13:47.
As for East Hampton’s girls, Diane O’Donnell, their coach, said her team placed fifth among 10 in the varsity race, with Ava Engstrom placing seventh, in 16:27, and Bella Tarbet ninth, in 16:39, followed by Mimi Fowkes (21:33), Sydney Salamy (22:02), Stella McCormack (23:53), and Marlena Bellucci (24:15).