THE SHORE ATHLETIC CLUB

OF NEW JERSEY

Home of the 2005, 2007 and 2009 USA Track and Field
National Club Team Champions.

Saturday August 28, 2010

  STILL AVAILABLE/ STILL AVAILABLE - A limited supply of the great Shore AC 75th Anniversary Magazine, published to commemorate our club's three quarters of a century of achievements in track and field, road running, cross country, racewalking, and a whole lot more. The magazine is full of outstanding photos, stories and 68 pages of great stuff!!  To purchase a copy, send $13 ($10 for the magazine, $3 for postage) to Shore AC, PO Box 381, West Long Branch, NJ 07764.

Returning to Lake Takanassee
After 24 or 25 Years
By Brian Lundberg

  It had been twenty-four or twenty-five years.
  I arrived at Lake Takanassee feeling a bit nervous, as well as a bit nostalgic. Memory is fluid, unstable. I glanced around, surveying the scene, trying to connect the sights and sounds confronting me with those dancing in my head. The results were uneven. What seems like a lifetime ago, The Lake was my favorite place to race during the summer while getting ready for the high school cross country season: good people, low-key, fun, yet sufficiently competitive.
   I spotted some official-looking people and made my way over. I had to ask if Harry Nolan was still running. Someone pointed him out to me and I went over to introduce myself. He was, surprisingly, still quite young, and of course, he did not know me. Recollection playing with me, I was surprised to learn that he was more or less about my age all those many years ago.
   Elliott Denman, whom I remembered well by name only, was there, too. Compelled to share my story with Mr. Denman, I engaged him in a nice, one-way conversation: I hadn’t run The Lake in about twenty-four or twenty-five years. I just started running again after a twenty-four year break.
   I have been living and teaching high school literature for the past five years at an international school in China. I would be back in the States for several weeks during summer vacation. For nostalgic reasons, I wanted Lake Takanassee to be my first race back in the States.  Mr. Denman graciously made a point of introducing me at the starting line, informing other racers that I had come all the way from China. In the end, I hit my target time of 18:30.
   Running has always been connected to meaning for me. Meaning lies at the root of why I began to run. Running began for me as a quest for victory and individual achievement. Fortunate to have had a great and inspiring high school coach and exemplary teammates, running was transformed into a vibrant weave of camaraderie, budding friendships, interpersonal loyalties, philosophical explorations, and simple joy. Places and spaces of meaning shift over time, however. The things that made running so fulfilling were lacking in my college experience. I left running behind.
    Spaces shifted once again. I began to run consistently last July, building the mileage base on this 44 year old body and losing 30 pounds in the process. There is not much of an active running scene in Shanghai. I have not yet found others who run similar amounts, pace, and times that I do. Therefore, I run alone, with nobody else. Nevertheless, running has, once again, become meaningful, meditative. At the same time, I have made some potential contacts to share the sweat and significance as I move forward and pound the pavement.
    Shanghai hosts only a few road races per year. That makes my summer weeks at home in NJ particularly significant running-wise. I had an enjoyable time at Takanassee. I followed that effort with a 5:16.9 one-mile the following week at the Shore A.C. All-Comers meet, mostly on the basis of simple distance and some minor road work. A few more races remain before I return to China for the beginning of the fall term.
    A cliché, I know, but life sometimes makes circles, spirals perhaps.
   Years ago, I represented the Shore A.C. in North Carolina at a National Cross Country Championship meet. Today, I printed my application to rejoin the Shore A.C. Next year, with the necessary track work added to another year’s worth of distance, I hope to take this then 45-year-old body-self to a sub 5:00 mile. In that race, I will be wearing the Shore A.C. singlet. A different logo just would not feel appropriate. With my friends' memory and loyalty, the meaning just would not be there.
 

 (Shore AC has extended a warm "welcome back" to Brian Lundberg, who ran The Lake" for Madison Central HS (which now is Old Bridge High) two dozen, or perhaps a full quarter-century, ago.  We always welcome "alumni" and old friends.  We have forever felt that running The Lake, or walking it, is one of the greatest athletic traditions to be found in America - or anywhere. // Elliott D.)
 

 

SHORE AC ATHLETES EXCEL
 AT USATF MASTERS NATIONALS

   Shore Athletic Club competitors played starring roles at the 2010 USATF  Masters National Track and Field Championships (July 22-25 in Sacramento,    California) collecting four gold medals, one silver, and six bronzes.
  Leading the way - as she has at so many National Championship meets in  recent years - for Shore AC was throwing events great Oniethea “Neni” Lewis.  Moving up to the women’s 50-54 age bracket, Shore AC’s “Neni” set a National record of 181-11 in the hammer throw, won the shot put at  44-8 3/4, and placed third in the discus at 124-6.
    Shore AC’s Roland Cormier won the men’s 70-74 2000-meter steeplechase  title with a 9:21.22 performance.   Teammate Maurelhena Walles ran second  in the women’s 35-39 400 meters in 58.91, then earned a gold medal with the 4x400 relay team that won in 3:52.85.
     Dick Hill of Shore AC had a busy Nationals, running fourth in the men’s 70-74 2000 steeplechase (10:33.75) and 10,000 meters (51:56), and fifth in  the 5,000 meters (24:43.)
   Tony Plaster of Shore AC ran a best-ever 2:14.77 800 meters placing fourth    in the men’s 55-59 division.  Teammate John Kuhi made his debut as a steeplechaser and placed fourth in the men’s 65-69 2000-meter barrier race (9:42.10) and added performances of 1:19.09 in the 400 and 3:04.97 at 800.           
   Shore AC racewalking star Panse Geer finished fourth in the women’s   60-64 5,000-meter race (30:56) and fifth in the 10,000 meters (1:04.23.)
    Pat Toland, soon to return to Shore AC membership, added a third  place in the men’s 40-44 shot put with a toss of 41-10.
    Many Shore AC athletes are already planning to return to Sacramento  next summer, when the California capitol city hosts the IAAF World Masters Championships.