Running Long Island’s best little race

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For 25 races, Mike DeRosa and Pete Sobol, the co-directors, along with Junior Perez, Frank Sarro and John Suppa, and a bevy of many other volunteers have coordinated the Inwood 5K, which became the best little race on Long Island, according to race aficionados.

Now an era is ending. DeRosa, a Lawrence chiropractor, who practices in the building that he grew up in, and Pete Sobol, an Inwood businessman, are stepping down from their organizer positions.

“It’s the next person’s turn,” said Sobol, as a tape of the first Inwood 5K in 1993 ran on a television in De Rosa’s waiting area. “It’s time for new ideas and it’s time to give the next guy’s a chance.” Watching the tape with DeRosa, Perez, Sarro and Sobol was like viewing a home movie, and seeing family and friends.

Whoever those next guys or gals are, what De Rosa and Sobol and everyone who helped did is a great local standard. The race was created 25 years ago, but run 24 times — 1998 it was not held. In that time frame more than $110,000 has been given to Five Towns students for college.

“We have the thank you cards from the kids,” said DeRosa, who stressed that the money must be used for college. The scholarships are presented in June to graduating high school seniors.

At one time the race was run on the Nassau Expressway by Burnside Avenue and on Doughty Boulevard. The 5K starts and finishes on Bayview Avenue by Inwood Park and the route winds its way around the Town of Hempstead hamlet. From Bayview Avenue to Doughty Boulevard, then left and to Healy Avenue. Another left to Westville Road, then a right and another right to Soloff Boulevard to Cheshire Road. Then a left onto Sprague Road and a right onto Soloff Boulevard. A left to Donahue Avenue and follow onto Sheridan Boulevard. Then right on Bayview Avenue to the park.

Included in the festivities is a children’s Pumpkin Trot and what is called the fastest race raffle on Long Island.

Learning as they went, the race became bigger and better every year. This year there were 212 runners from as close as Inwood to as far as Florida.

Local sponsors are a huge part of the 5K’s success. Roy Meserole, who owned Meserole’s Funeral Home always helped out and the women’s winner’s plaque is named for his mother, Georgiana. The men’s plaque is in honor of Ray Barbuti, an Inwood native and sprinter who won two gold medals at the 1928 Olympics.

Through the years the sponsors have included the Inwood Buccaneers Athletic Club, the Inwood Civic Association, the Inwood Fire Department, Five Towns Early Learning Center, the Five Towns Community Center, Five Towns and Peninsula Kiwanis, the Knights of Columbus Council 378, Lawrence High School, Our Lady of Good Counsel Rosary Society, Sons of Italy 2385 and the John Oliveri Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1582. Recently, Inwood United, a soccer club has joined the roster of sponsors.

“This a jewel on the South Shore,” said DeRosa, referring to both Inwood and the 5K.