More than 800 participants turned out for Sunday’s May Day 5K here, a race founded last year by two East Hampton High School track teammates, Dylan Cashin and Ryleigh O’Donnell, to raise money for organizations addressing mental health problems.
“It was a great day for running,” the women’s winner, Lauren Dara, said after crossing the finish line at East Hampton Village’s Main Beach. “I hope this race is here to stay.”
Cars that didn’t arrive well in advance of the scheduled 9 a.m. start were diverted by village police to streets well up from the starting line — providing a workout in itself for those who were shunted off on their way to parking lots at the beach.
Jerry Larsen, the mayor of the village, which, along with the East Hampton Village Foundation and the Old Montauk Athletic Club has been a champion of Cashin and O’Donnell’s cause, put the start time off until 9:15 so that the bursting-at-the-seams field could assemble. A siren sent them off.
It was a real race up front, with the Green brothers of Shelter Island, Joshua, 22, and Jason, 19, vying with Sergey Avramenko, the Katy’s Courage 5K winner, Erik Engstrom, the defending champion, and Brendan Medeiros, a 34-year-old Brooklynite who was to win out in a very swift time of 15 minutes and 25.44 seconds.
Sprinting toward the tape, Medeiros led Joshua Green by about 15 yards, with Jason Green about the same distance behind his older brother. Afterward, Joshua Green, whose time was 15:37.87, said Medeiros had shadowed him “for about the first 4K and then blew my doors off.”
Jason Green finished in 15:47.49, Avramenko, 38, followed in 15:49.11, with the 26-year-old Engstrom, who reportedly was sore from motocross racing in New Jersey the day before, finishing fifth in 16:35.77, about 34 seconds slower than in 2022.
Dara, 43, who lives in New York City and visits here, was 21st over all in 19:58.36. She finished sixth in last year’s inaugural May Day 5K, she said. Alyssa Bahel, 25, who had been the female winner at Katy’s Courage, was the runner-up to Dara, and 27th over all, in 20:29.71.
The race, whose proceeds are to benefit the Tyler (Valcich) Project’s mental health work, attracted a number of Cashin and O’Donnell’s fellow student-athletes, including the varsity softball team, and nine members of the Bonac Bolts, youngsters who had trained on Sunday mornings for the past two months at the high school’s track with Cashin and Liam Fowkes.
Also among the 35 participating teams was an East Hampton Village and Town Police Department one captained by Jen Dunn and Bethany Smith whose 40 or so members ran in memory of Bryan Eldridge, a village detective who took his life last year. Eldridge’s daughters, Lola, 13, and Bella, 15, were also in the large field.
The age-group winners were: Lily Brown and Jasper Samuelson, 14-and-under; Greylynn Guyer and Jason Green, 15-19; Bahel and Joshua Green, 20-29; Michelle Miller and Avramenko, 30-39; Rita Greene and Craig Berkoski, 40-49; Dora Damiano and Steve Day, 50-59; Jane Kenney and Jeff Kaplan, 60-69, and Diane O’Donnell and Andrew Greenway, 70-plus.
