Inaugural Garden State 10-Miler A Family Affair

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The inaugural Garden State 10-Miler race was a family affair, in more ways than one.

Sure, there were members of the same family signed up to run the 5K, 10-mile and half-marathon challenge races.

But the race itself only came about because of the work of two relatives, both with connections to Franklin Township.

The race, which drew hundreds of runners to Colonial Park on a cold, windy March 26, was sponsored by the Garden State Track Club.

The club’s president is Chuck Schneekloth, a new township resident and the literacy coach at Franklin Middle School.

Schneekloth said his club identified a need for a marathon tuneup race for the state’s many marathon runners, in advance of the spring running season. The Boston Marathon is set for April 17, and there are a number of other races during the season.

Schneekloth approached his cousin, Robert Brown, a township police officer, to see if there were any police-related charities that might benefit from a race event.

We do, Brown told him, the Nick Magos Cancer Callout. The charity benefits family members of Somerset County SWAT Team members who are battling cancer and other life-threatening illnesses.

“It came to my mind automatically,” Brown said.

“And we’re always looking for ways to raise money for these families in need,” Brown said. “We all seem to know someone affected by cancer. You can always do more.”

“We thought that would be a perfect charity,” Schneekloth said. “It’s local, it’s police, it’s everything that people want to support.”

Schneekloth said there were about 950 registrations. Dozens of township residents were among the runners.

“This is kind of like, hey, welcome to the spring road-racing season,” he said. “Kind of the portal into it all.”

Also helping out for the day were about 60 volunteers from Franklin High School, mostly from the Army Junior ROTC.

Brown said Colonial Park was chosen as the central point of the races because “it’s a beautiful park, a nice place, kind of highlights the towns’ features. Some people from out of town hopefully get to see a nice part of Franklin.”

He said the goal is to turn the race into an annual event.

“We were just over 900 runners, that exceeded my expectations,” he said. “Next year we’re trying to get it bigger and better, and bring even more to the park.”

Brown is a runner, but he did not sign up for the inaugural race.

“I wanted to make sure it went off smoothly,” he said. “I have a lot of family and friends who are running today. Maybe down the road, when we work out all the kinks, I’ll do it.”

“But I plan to run the route next week, just to say I did it,” he said.

Also running the race was former Mayor Chris Kelly, who is a triathlete. Kelly was running with some fellow cancer survivors.

Kelly finished the 10-mile race 88th out of 535 runners, with a time of 1:13:32.

The 10-miler winner, Joshua Izewski of Doylestown, Pa., finished with a time of 48:41.89, a full four minutes ahead of the second-place finisher, Aaron Leskow, of Toms River, who clocked in at 52:47.45.

Other township residents, their finishes and their times were:

 

Garden State 10-Miler

88. Chris Kelly, 1:13:32.42

105. Eddie Jimenez,  1:16:18.59

111. Jarrett Dewelde, 1:17:18.07

122. Jackie Lemme, 1:18:37.94

167. Michael Burke, 1:23:19.20

179. Luis Chanez, 1:24:42.94

181. Konstantin Paradizov, 1:24:59.35

183. Colin Germain, 1:25:15.08

212. Annie Heimberg, 1:27:34.39

241. Timothy Shea, 1:30:20.70

278. Katie Germain, 1:34:26.39

301. Colleen Partenope, 1:36:36.47

310. Ken Mangin, 1:36:55.79

321. Etsuko Manogue, 1:38:22.26

342. Mary-frances Chavez, 1:41:04.08

351. Jo Ann Coffee, 1:42:03.03

356. Leila Mezaber, 1:42:20.45

364. Pal Muniratnam, 1:43:22.92

386. Julie Daigle, 1:46:44.54

389. Maryann Imroth, 1:46:45.68

402. Matthew Valia, 1:48:10.33

411. Patrick Shea, 1:50:01.97

438. Christine Dewelde, 1:53:43.43

442. Njagi Singh, 1:54:48.54

446. Beth Kuhn, 1:55:30.10

479. Team Don’t D Romero, 2:01:28.10

496. Shobha Devaiah, 2:08:32.87

497. Aruna Sridhar, 2:08:37.56

498. Rita Borad, 2:08:38.09

507. Kim Ivey, 2:12:53.96

510. Jennifer Welch, 2:15:04.01

512. The Warrior Siblings, 2:16:09.37

520. Stella Ayala, 2:23:00.01

522. Suma Murthy, 2:23:42.64

523. Madhu Murthy, 2:23:42.88

529. Gayathri Ravishankar, 2:36:50.91

 

Garden State 5K

27. Andrea Bourgal, 20:03.16

36. Jarrett Dewelde, 20:41.46

54. Rob Porter, 23:08.06

75. Alison Brown, 24:30.73

82. Giuseppe Morisi, 25:07.04

96. Peter Deng, 25:44.10

130. Kathy Parks, 27:50.17

147. Leila Mezaber, 28:52.34

155. Matt Partenope, 29:08.69

161. John Aglitz, 29:50.94

169. Debra Blue, 30:26.80

170. Christina Marold, 30:27.03

187. Beth Kuhn, 31:09.03

196. Maryann Imroth, 31:23.15

202. Camillia Shanks, 31:57.58

207. Lorrie Del Casale, 32:30.72

209. Erika Rossi, 32:35.85

210. Kari Costello, 32:35.90

273. Gretchen Dietze-john, 43:51.77

285. Liz Chase, 49:34.61

290. Yogitha Jagadeesh, 50:23.65

291. Lokesh Bommegowda, 50:27.76

292. Santhebennur Sridhar, 50:30.91

300. Kim Ivey, 56:27.72

301. Rekha Shriram, 1:00:30.15

305. Vijaya Srivatsa, 1:06:57.98

 

Half-Mile Challenge

22. Jarrett Dewelde, 1:37:59.53

78.Leila Mezaber, 2:11:12.79

90.Maryann Imroth, 2:18:08.83

101.Beth Kuhn, 2:26:39.13

121.Kim Ivey, 3:09:21.68

 

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