2015 NSEF Road Race and Fitness Walk

2015 Road Race Synopsis

The North Stonington Education Foundation presented the tenth annual “Runners and Walkers in Support of Education” The 5 K road race and two mile fitness walk was held on Saturday May 23, 2015 at the North Stonington Grange Fairgrounds. There were also four children fun runs of varying distances based on age. 123 runners, sixteen walkers and twenty six children participated.  This year we had two other groups participate in our events.

The first group were 100 from the “Girls On The Run” who ran the 5K course starting prior to the normally scheduled race. The 100 consisted of 48 girls from grades 3 through 5 and their adult running buddies.

The other group was from the North Stonington Elementary School “Lions Marathon Club” which completed their last mile during the children fun runs. There were 44 children involved in that sub event. Hence we had 118 children participate.

Overall there were over 400 people at the event. The weather was sunny with temperatures in the 60’s.  The after race picnic, with food donated by Steak Loft and prepared by Grange volunteers included hot dogs, hamburgers, veggie burgers, chips, and home baked cookies and assorted soft drinks.

Prizes were awarded to the top three overall winners (male & female) and the top three in each runner’s category. This year’s male winner was Mark Oliver of North Stonington with a pace of 5 minutes 24 seconds per mile, in second place was Jeff Walker of Westerly and third place was Chris Foster of Mystic.

The top female was Karen Dobley of North Stonington with a pace of 7 minutes eight seconds, in second place was Vanessa Cherenzia of New York City and in third place Barbara Barnes of North Stonington.

The major event sponsors were Olde Mistick Village, The McCarthy’s, Cherenzia Excavation and Charter Oak Federal Credit Union. The supporting sponsor was Schonning Insurance and Chelsea Groton Bank.

State Troopers from the North Stonington office and Fire Police volunteers provided traffic control at various intersections. Volunteers from the North Stonington Ambulance Association were on the Grange grounds to provide assistance as necessary.