Long Island Marathon returns on a 'beautiful day' in May

Hundreds ran on a sunny Sunday in the return of the Long Island Marathon to early May after two years of pandemic disruptions.

Runner participation dropped to about 1,200 last year. It bounced back to 2,500 for the weekend races in Eisenhower Park and the surrounding area beginning on Friday, said Corey Roberts, the race director at Race Awesome, the company that organizes the event. Pre-pandemic, that total was about 5,000, he said.

The event was canceled in 2020 and moved to September last year.

“We are back to the traditional May,” Roberts said. “It’s gone fabulous. Beautiful day. Beautiful weather. All-around great day.”

One of the roughly 1,225 half-marathoners was Valery Gendelman, 38, who carried a Ukrainian flag as she ran the last stretch of the 13.1-mile race. About 475 ran the 26.2-mile marathon Sunday and 800 more ran shorter races on Friday and Saturday.

“We're in support of the country and their independence,” said Gendelman, who was born in Ukraine and emigrated to the United States with her parents when she was 6. She lives in Lynbrook. “What's happening is absolutely devastating.”

Her husband, Simon Gendelman, whose parents emigrated from Ukraine in the 1980s, said his entire family is proud of their heritage. They want to continue bringing attention to the war in Ukraine.

“Ukraine is doing a great job of fighting and just doing everything that they can to be a sovereign nation,” Simon Gendelman said. “Hopefully they'll come out and prevail.”

Sunday’s race was also a personal one for Regina Floriani.

Floriani, 32, has run the half-marathon every year in the past 10 years, including in 2020 when the East Meadow race was canceled but runners could submit their time online. This year, she didn’t train as much as she used to and almost didn’t run.

But she did, in honor of her grandmother, Barbara LaRocco, who died last year at age 95.

On Sunday, Floriani donned a black tank-top with a photo of her smiling next to her grandmother printed on the back.

“She was a fighter. So I was a fighter for her today,” said Floriani, a Massapequa schoolteacher who lives in Farmingdale. “The training wasn't there, but I made it. I made it for her.”

Thousands of spectators flocked to Eisenhower Park and the surrounding area to cheer on the runners, including half-marathoner Paul Fuller.

Sunday marked his first half-marathon. Fuller, 34, decided to run after seeing an event banner when driving down Hempstead Turnpike several weeks ago.

“Once the pandemic hit, it was all about staying healthy,” said the father of two, Logan, 5, and Leilani, 4, who watched him sprint across the finish line along with their mother, Felicia Fuller, and their great aunt, Paulette Fuller-Taylor.

The pandemic has made Paul Fuller more conscientious about his health and he said the process of training has led him to be more consistent with his exercise.

“Usually when I started working out, I stopped after a couple of weeks,” said Fuller, of Roosevelt. “By joining the marathon, it made me keep training without stopping.”

This year, Leiba Rimler, 37, a Brooklyn librarian, won the women’s marathon in 3:07:14. Far Rockaway's Shlomo Schreiber, 29, won the men's marathon in 2:36:58.

Baila Schreiber knew her husband’s typical finish time, so she knew he was near when an announcer said a runner was a half-hour away from the finish line in Eisenhower Park. She shook with nerves for him as she waited with their two sons.

“I was so nervous for him,” Baila Schreiber said. “I knew how much it meant to him and how much he wanted it. So I just wanted it to be exactly what he wanted.”

Shlomo Schreiber said he began running marathons seven years ago and loved the feeling.

“Running is very, very, very liberating,” he said as he stretched his legs. “It's a way to feel confident in yourself. It's a way to feel in control — something that you know that you're able to do and stay in it.”

By Dandan Zou

dandan.zou@newsday.com@DandanZou

Dandan Zou covers education for Newsday. Previously, she worked for a community newspaper in Maryland and a personal finance magazine in Washington, D.C.