Running in what could well have been the snottiest weather in the Montauk Turkey Trots’ nigh-half-century history — last Thursday being a rainy and very windy day — the some-600 competitors were more or less unfazed.
When asked afterward by this writer, who had spent the morning shifting from one foot to the other under the Elitefeats timing tent, if it weren’t the height of misery doing two loops around Fort Pond, one six-miler, Cebra Graves, said, “It wasn’t cold.”
Of course, the fact that he had won his 50-to-59 age group might have colored his thinking.
The gusty wind was at the runners’ backs in the first mile and off their shoulders as they ran along Industrial Road and up by the Montauk School, but it hit them full blast as they headed down the half-mile home stretch toward the start-finish line at the Circle. (Elitefeats had tried to put up an inflated arch there, but, because of the strong winds, could not anchor it.)
Ryan Fowkes, 23, who holds eight records at George Washington University, topped the 50 runners who did the six-miler in 30 minutes and 38.94 seconds, zipping along at a 5:06-per-mile pace. Sean Grossman, 28, a member of the Brooklyn Track Club who ran at the University of Miami and, before that, at Deer Park High School, smashed the three-miler’s course record of 15:21.85 set last year by Fowkes’s G.W. teammate, Nic Rodgers, who, in turn, had bettered the 15:34 that Artie Fisher ran in 1988.
Grossman, whose time was 14:41.37 and who was staying with his girlfriend Hanna Jerome’s family in Montauk — five of them ran that day, he said — was a first-timer.
The weather hadn’t bothered him, he said. In fact he was “flying in the first mile,” given that the wind was at his back. “At the end, the wind did begin to get to you, but then it was over.”
Hanna Jerome, also 28, won among the three-mile women — and was ninth over all — in 19:07.71. The three-miler’s field of 525, while far smaller than last year’s 879, was nevertheless impressive given the off-putting conditions.
Alyssa Bahel, 27, of Sag Harbor, was the female winner — and ninth over all — in the six-miler in 42:17.57. Her father, Mike, was 13th in the three. Dylan Cashin, a plebe at the United States Naval Academy who recently competed in the N.C.A.A. triathlon championships in Florida, ran the three with her 17-year-old brother, Liam.
“She loves it there,” Dylan’s uncle Kevin Barry, who coaches East Hampton High School’s boys winter track team, said before reporting on Monday morning that his team of 30 had fared well in its first cross-over meet at Suffolk Community College-Brentwood the day before.
Winter Track Notes
The turnout for boys and girls winter track (34 in the girls team’s case) is “double what we’ve had in the past two years. I’ve got some of my cross-country runners and a lot of kids from Don McGovern’s soccer team came out,” Barry said.
The boys are captained by three seniors, Benson Edman, Edmar Gonzalez-Nateras (from Pierson in Sag Harbor), and Juan Salcedo. Gonzalez-Nateras won Sunday’s 600-meter race in one minute and 30.07 seconds. His goal, Barry said, is to break T.J. Paradiso’s school-record 1:27.05.
In other events, Eduardo Calle placed fifth in his long jump debut with a leap of 18 feet 4 inches, and the 4-by-400 relay team of Gonzalez-Nateras, Sean Perez, Edman, and Bradley Rodriguez — Perez and Rodriguez being first-timers — placed second in 3:58.
Yani Cuesta, the girls team’s coach, reported that “in our first meet, on Saturday, we recorded some surprising times and a few personal records are already in the books.”
Greylynn Guyer, Cuesta said, won the 1,500. Sara O’Brien took second, and Briana Torres fourth, in the 800, and the 4-by-400 relay team of Guyer, Heidi Jimenez-Bustos, Paige Francis, and Laura Martinez placed third.
Those turning in personal best performances were Vicky Chen in the long jump and in the 55-meter dash and Sophia Figueroa in the 55-meter high hurdles.
