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Hot Chocolate, Snowball runs are fast approaching

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December may be the month when winter temperatures arrive, but that won’t stop more than a thousand runners from taking part in two upcoming local races — the Hot Chocolate Run in Seaford and the Snowball Run in Wantagh.

Registration is under way for both races, and organizers are encouraging runners to come out and participate. Money raised from each run will benefit various community initiatives.

The 12th annual Hot Chocolate Run, organized by the Seaford Wellness Council, is scheduled for Saturday, Dec. 5. It begins at 9 a.m. just south of Seaford High School, and finishes in front of the school. Approximately 1,000 runners are expected to participate in the 5K race.

In Wantagh, the Snowball Run returns on Saturday, Dec. 12, after a two-year hiatus. The five-mile run will begin and end at the middle school-high school complex. The Wantagh Chamber of Commerce is spearheading the race.

Snowball Run

Mitchell Rich, a chamber board member and race organizer, said his hope is to get 400 participants. He expects this race to attract distance runners from all over Long Island. “That’s our biggest selling point in the running community: we’re the only five-mile race in December,” he said.

Due to concerns on the part of the Nassau County Police about having a large chunk of Jerusalem Avenue, a state road, closed for a lengthy period of time, the course has been changed from its initial route. The race begins under the overpass between the middle school and high school and heads up Daffodil Lane, then west on Jerusalem Avenue for a quarter-mile.

Runners will then turn south on Wantagh Avenue to Park Avenue, and back north. The course then enters the side streets near the Wantagh Woods shopping center before crossing over Wantagh Avenue onto Beltagh Avenue and ending at the school.

Rich said that the course originally would have kept participants on Jerusalem Avenue up to the Seaford-Oyster Bay Expressway, but the chamber did not receive approval from the Police Department for that course, so about two miles of the course has been moved to side streets.

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