Runners cooling down on Broad Street after last year’s race. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank, it seems, has hosted its final George Sheehan Classic, the road race named for the longtime borough physician credited with fostering the worldwide mania for amateur running.
The five-kilometer event, traditionally held in June, will be merged with the Asbury Park 5k in August, according to a cryptic, two-sentence post on the event’s website.
Nicole Corre, seen below running this year’s Boston Marathon, plans to tackle the five boroughs of NYC for the Boys & Girls Club in November. (Photo provided by Nicole Corre. Click to enlarge)
By DANIELLE TEPPER
When Nicole Corre, a Rumson native, heard about the Monmouth County Boys & Girls Clubs recent struggles, she knew she wanted to do anything she could to help out. So she turned her favorite hobby into a fundraiser.
Corre has done a lot in recent years to connect her free time with helping charities, most notably as called out by redbankgreen in 2011 working to start a Jersey Shore chapter of WGirls, a nonprofit network focused on helping women and children. An avid runner, she typically dedicates her races and marathons to local organizations.
This year, shell be running her second New York City marathon, her fifth overall, this time for the Boys & Girls of Red Bank and Asbury Park, as well as dedicating her 31st birthday to the cause.
I dont need or want much, so I asked my friends to just donate whatever money they would have spent if we had gone out for dinner or drinks, said Corre. Two days after her birthday is the 26.2-mile marathon, an event Corre said can be pandemonium.
Runners turn a corner last year in Fair Haven, which will no longer be part of the race course. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
For George Sheehan Classic organizer Phil Hinck, the annual Red Bank running event is really several races in one.
The foremost is the one in which hundreds of runners, walkers and wheelchair users strive to cross the finish line on Broad Street in as little time as possible.
But well before that race, there’s the pressure to prop up the number of runners, which has been in gradual decline since the event moved to the borough from Asbury Park in 1994.
And then there’s the race against the clock to break down the street barriers and timing equipment to get out of the way of downtown merchants opening for Saturday morning business.
Now, in the biggest change to the event in years, Hinck and the race committee have decided to shorten the main race to a five-kilometer event, from five miles, a move that they hope will juice attendance and expedite post-race clean-up.
The 18th annual running of the George Sheehan Classic swept through Red Bank, Little Silver and Fair Haven, NJ, under blue skies Saturday. More than 1,400 runners completed the five-mile race in humid conditions. Searchable results are here.
redbankgreen’s Dustin Racioppi and Trish Russoniello were on the ground to freeze the action in pixels.
To enlarge the photo display, start it, then click the embiggen symbol in the lower right corner. To return to redbankgreen, hit your escape key.