Runner Returns to Take Long Beach Labor Day Race

Monday's early-morning wind in Long Beach failed to slow down Gerry O’Hara.

At 8 a.m., O’Hara toed the starting line on the boardwalk at New York Avenue and was the first runner overall to cross the finish line at the Robert McAvoy Labor Day Five-Mile Race.

“I was lucky to be in the race from the beginning,” said O’Hara as he gathered his breath, having just completed the race with a time of 28:55.

Under an overcast sky, the 48-year-old East Rockaway resident trekked the boardwalk and streets of Long Beach with hundreds of other runners, including members of his team, Super Runners Shop in Huntington. He first ran the race in Long Beach about 10 years ago and since then has participated periodically, coming in among the top 10 overall finishers four years ago.  

Part of his training routine is to run the boardwalk every other week, sometimes with his teenage children, and to run a few races on Long Island each month. Long Beach’s five-mile race is one of only a few left on Long Island, he said.  

“It never get’s old,” O’Hara said about returning to the Labor Day race and winning.

Peter Hawkins, 48, a wheelchair-bound Malverne resident who uses a racing tricycle, preceded O’Hara at the finish line, crossing it at 25:13, and Melissa Moschetto, 31, of Long Beach was the first woman to complete the race at 31:51. On Monday, Moschetto shaved 19 seconds off her time from when she was the overall Long Beach winner in the race in 2010.

“It’s fun,” Moschetto said about participating in Monday’s race.

Now in its twenty-third year, the Robert McAvoy Five-Mile Race, which is run by the Long Beach Recreation Department, is named after a long-time Long Beach resident and plumber, who along with his wife, Ann, were known as great supporters of the department.

Click here for overall times.

Click here for individual awards.

• Overall Winner: Gerry O’Hara, 28, of East Rockaway - 28:55
• Overall Women's' Winner: Melissa Moschetto, 31, of Long Beach - 31:51
• Long Beach Women's Winner: Melissa Moschetto, 29 - 32:12
• Physically Challenged Overall Winner: Peter Hawkins, 46, of Malverne - 25:13

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