Dan McGrath, Jessica Allen top finishers in LI Marathon

BY JOHN JEANSONNE | john.jeansonne@newsday.com

6:08 PM EDT, May 4, 2008

Amid all the running, galloping, rambling, jogging and perambulating, teacher Jessica Allen of Hampton Bays again was a trailblazer Sunday. For the third time in five years, Allen, 30, won the women's division of the Long Island Marathon in 2:55:21. (The other two years, she finished a mere second.)

Valley Steam's Dan McGrath, 25, having agreed to his older brother Shaun's proposal to take a study break from his law school finals at Notre Dame for this 26-mile, 385-yard challenge, flew home just long enough to win the men's race, in 2:25:38. (Shaun McGrath, 29, jetted to Long Island from his engineer's job in Las Vegas to not-quite join his brother; Shaun finished fifth in 2:42:07.)

"Overall great day," said Allen, who teaches art to middle schoolers in the Sachem district. "It gets easier every year and I feel faster. But it's nice to be done." Her last marathon, a victory in Virginia Beach, was just seven weeks ago, and her next won't be until she races in Buffalo in three weeks.

McGrath, too, ran in Virginia Beach, where he finished second, and, though the Archbishop Molloy grad had completed the half-marathon here in past years, "I wanted to try to win my home-town marathon." Having done so, he was off to catch a 5 o'clock plane back to South Bend, Ind., for a big jurisprudence test.

Meanwhile, all around those champions, the quotidian activity of pedestrian travel was undergoing its annual transformation into a local celebration of cardiovascular and ambulatory might.

When this event debuted 35 years ago, it consisted only of the official full marathon distance. But it has continued to evolve into what now is labeled a "Festival of Races" to accommodate all citizens open to fitness. Following Saturday's 5-kilometer race and a shorter kids' fun run, a total of 4,348 souls Sunday hastened, hurried, glided, trotted or traversed through either the daunting marathon, the less-intimidating half-marathon or the 10-kilometer test.

The bulk of foot traffic -- 3,154 finishers -- took on the 13.1-mile half-marathon on a foggy, cool morning ideal for distance running. And there were plenty of familiar developments.

For the third time, Lyndsey Webber, 25, of Sayville, won the women's half, in 1:21:22. She has a psychology degree from the University of Richmond, which may not help explain why she runs -- "Haven't worked that out yet" -- as much as being from a family of runners.

The men's half-marathon title went to Felipe Garcia, 25, of Brooklyn, in 1:11:48. Runner-up at that distance two years ago, Garcia assured additional silverware for the increasingly cluttered trophy case of the team representing the Hempstead-based Colombian restaurant Mi Tierrita.

A native of Mexico, Garcia took up running because "there was nothing else to do" after finishing his office job, where he is saving money to continue his schooling. He is one of two dozen recruits by Mi Tierrita owner Eduardo Pabon who, according to team member Diana Ceylan (ninth in Sunday's 10k), coordinates workouts and pays entry fees for the club members, who are all originally from Latin America.

The arrangement gives the runners, who don't necessarily work at the restaurant, a competitive showcase -- Sunday's 10k women's champion, Brazilian Maria Morales, 34, of Brentwood (37:55), also wore the Mi Tierrita colors -- in exchange for publicizing Pabon's eating establishment in the running community of physically energetic types constantly working up an appetite.

Like so many of Sunday's participants, the men's 10k winner, Patrick Harten, 34, of Long Beach brought a fairly lengthy running resume to the proceedings, dating to his long-distance and cross-country career at St. Anthony's High School. Now an air-traffic controller, "I gave it up for about 12 years," he said, "until my brother-in-law challenged me to a triathlon," which includes running, biking and swimming.

That quickly led to his sub-three-hour finish at this year's Boston Marathon just two weeks ago. "I was going to do the half today," he said, "but I wasn't sure about my legs after Boston."

For him and the rest Sunday, legs ruled.