Team goes the distance in Ocean to Sound Relay

A starting horn blares on the Jones Beach boardwalk, and we're off and running.

First stop, the team van, which is parked strategically in the parking lot by the exit to Field 2, where we will begin our 50-mile race across Long Island.

Teams, vans, even the pronoun we, are not words usually heard in association with the individual sport of long- distance running. But then again, the Bethpage Federal Credit Union Ocean to Sound Relay is not like any other race.

Early autumn is the time of year when Long Island's running community is in fast forward. There are major events almost every weekend, including the new, all-women's Divas Half Marathon, being held today in Eisenhower Park; yesterday's Hamptons Marathon; and last week's Great Cow Harbor 10K race, which brought 5,000 runners to the streets of Northport.

But the most unusual, and yet endearingly popular local running event is Ocean to Sound, which celebrated its 25th anniversary on Sept. 19. This is a race in which 123 teams of eight competitors - each running an average of 6 miles while the others follow in a van -- make their way from Jones Beach (the Ocean) on a scenic but circuitous 50-mile route to Oyster Bay (the Sound).

This race adds the element of teamwork to a solitary pursuit. And, as will inevitably happen when you provide eight Long Island adults with a good excuse for not mowing the lawn or doing laundry on a Sunday, it can get pretty goofy.

Think "Chariots of Fire" meets "Road Trip."

I'm running with a team from the Greater Long Island Running Club. While our captain, Jim McDougall, 55, of Ronkonkoma, runs the first leg, the rest of us need to get on to the Wantagh State Parkway, where we can provide him with water as he works his way 6 miles up to Cedar Creek Park, where the second leg begins.

The problem is that more than 100 other teams need to do the same thing, so we want to beat the traffic, hence our rapid egress from the parking lot.

And with that, we begin to establish the pattern of this race - drive like mad, stop, hand out water, zip ahead to next transition point, drop off runner, pick up runner just finishing his leg - and doing this while trying to obey traffic laws and avoid hitting the other teams' runners.

"The pressure's on," jokes my teammate Ray Coyle, who is driving McDougall's Dodge Grand Caravan, while our captain runs. We notice that the rear right tire seems flat, there's no CD player and it has 153,000 miles on the odometer.

"We demand a new team vehicle!" somebody yells from the backseat.

Everyone laughs. Five minutes with these guys, and I feel like they're old friends: Marty Schimmele, Bob Barnes, Coyle, Lou LaFleur, Mike Fernandez and Steve Lutz.

We're matched together on this team because we're all "masters" -- running parlance for over 40 -- and we all run about the same speed. McDougall, though, is the wise old hand in this event, having run 24 editions of Ocean to Sound. "We get to run together and support each other," says McDougall, explaining why he does the race every year. "And it's a nice tour of Long Island."

McDougall was there when the idea for this event came into being- in June 1984, when a group of local runners competed in the now defunct Manhattan-Mahopac relay. "It was fun," recalled Alan End, who also participated. "But I felt we could do a better job on Long Island."

Two years later, in August 1986, the first Ocean to Sound was held and End's confident prediction was open for debate. "There was really no traffic control, because we did it without telling the police," End said. "We didn't make that mistake again."

Last week, estimated End (who is still the race director), about 100 police and auxiliary officers patrolled the course.

Early on in the race, traffic isn't a problem.

Outside of our parade of vans, few vehicles are on Merrick Road, as McDougall finishes his leg in Cedar Creek Park and "hands off" to Schimmele (there used to be a baton, but now the runners exchange a wristband with a computerized chip that is swiped on a timing mat at each checkpoint).

Schimmele passes off to Barnes at leg three, in Walker Field in Massapequa. The rest of us cheer him on and again rush back to the van, which is parked just outside the park. I notice two bystanders on the corner watching quizzically.

"Where are you people going?" one asks.

"Oyster Bay," I reply.

"Where did you start?"

"Jones Beach."

"What? You're running all that way?"

"Well, no. It's a team thing," I call out, rushing off to the van. An inadequate explanation, yes, but it's hard to have an elevator speech about an event in which some people race it seriously and others do it dressed up as nuns, cowgirls, and cops and robbers.

The costumed runners are competing for the annual Ocean to Sound Spirit Award. Some deserve it on their names alone, the Half-Fast Runners from Sayville being my favorite. Others -- Cougars and Cubs -- sound like they're auditioning for a reality show.

There are even several solo entries.

Still, I'm puzzled as to the theme of one team van we pass, festooned with book covers. What's that all about?

Barnes runs a sub-7-minute-per-mile leg and now it's Coyle's turn. His route takes us right on Washington Avenue in Plainview, right on Jericho, left on Avery - it just goes on and on.

Red course signs guide the runners, but I'm amazed at how our captain navigates with barely a glance at the printed course directions.

"I've done it so many times," says McDougall who, in 1993, competed here a week before his marriage with a "Wedding Bells" team that included his fiancee Doreen and most of their wedding party.

Meanwhile, we've gone from the flat, sun-splashed South Shore of eastern Nassau to the tree-lined but hilly North Shore of western Suffolk. My teammates are up for the challenge: Coyle hands off to LaFleur, who in turn gives it over to Fernandez, who runs a determined leg through Huntington.

Our goal is to finish among the top five masters teams, a division that features such powerhouses as the Runner's Edge, Super Runners Shop and the Bellmore Striders.

It's early afternoon when I take the wristband from Fernandez at the corner of Shore Road and Spring Street in Cold Spring Harbor and run smack into bumper-to bumper-traffic on Route 25A. I have volunteered to do the longest (seven miles) and toughest leg of the race.

As I pant and puff up the one-mile hill by the Cold Spring Harbor Fish Hatchery, I'm beginning to second-guess myself. It's hot, I'm already tired, and now - on a long stretch along quiet Stillwell Lane -- I'm alone. Eventually, I see a runner ahead of me. Suspecting he might be from a rival masters team, I pick up the pace. "Looking good," I say to the other runner as I pass. He grunts in return.

A right turn takes me up a short, brutal hill on Syosset-Woodbury Road. A mile to go, and my legs are burning. Right on South Woods Road, past Syosset High School and I stagger into the parking lot of Stillwell Woods, to hand off to Lutz, our anchor man.

Surrounded by my teammates, I return to the van. In the notebook I left on the front seat, McDougall has written a message: "Heroic run, John!"

Lutz runs his heart out, too, and we're there to cheer him across the finish line at Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Park, overlooking Long Island Sound. The winning team - from the Sayville Running Company - finished long before us, in a time of 4 hours, 37 minutes, 19 seconds (a sizzling 5:35-per-mile pace). The last finisher - Eva Casale of Glen Cove, running solo to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society - will complete the 50-mile course in 10:10:54.

My team is happy with our performance - we covered 50 miles in 6 hours, 1 minute, 19 seconds (average pace of 7:17 per mile), good for 17th overall and 5th among masters teams.

I'm even happier to have spent the day with these guys.

Walking over to the post-race party set up in a nearby tent, I see a runner cross the finish line dressed in a white, fake-blood-spattered dress shirt with a plastic knife sticking out of his back. A group of other costumed runners are waiting to greet him.

Finally, I realize the identity of this team. They're the characters of the game Clue, and used two team vehicles, one adorned with books to look like the Library; the other the Billiard Room (although, Col. Mustard tells me, "We lost a few balls on Southern State Parkway.")

The Clue crew -- actually members of the North Brooklyn Running Club -- end up winning the Spirit Award. Their captain, Mishka Vertin, also reveals to me who committed the murder:

It was Miss Scarlett, with the knife, at the finish line -- of the Ocean to Sound Relay, where else?