Dans Papers - June 1, 2007 - The Running of the Potatoes Starts The Season

At seven a.m. last Sunday morning in the Hamptons, almost a thousand people got up, opened a window, took a deep breath and declared that this was an absolutely perfect day for the Dan's Papers Potatohampton 5k run. Then they got dressed to run, or waited while a significant other or friend dressed for the run, and then headed over toward the monument in the center of downtown Bridgehampton.

It was indeed a perfect day. It was partly cloudy, 63 degrees and humid. It was a day when, if we had had an Olympic class runner on the road, which we didn't, records might have been set. This running of the Potatohampton, our 29th, was to be contested by a combination of summer homeowners and locals. The time posted for the win, 16 minutes and 31 seconds, was described afterwards by the man who achieved it as "respectable" for this distance. It was a wonderful way to start the morning and a simply wonderful introduction to summer in the Hamptons. The leafy trees arched over the narrow roads. The lawns were lush and green. The gardens were bursting with flowers and the potato fields were plowed and ready for planting.

All the profits from this event would benefited the Bridgehampton Child Care and Recreational Center on the Bridgehampton-Sag Harbor Turnpike.

In 1778, the young men in the Hamptons, forming into the Bridgehampton militia, mustered in a park on Ocean Road just south of where the monument is today in the center of town. And so it was in that park that we set up our registration tables, our trophy table and our home base water station under some tents to welcome the runners.

Personally, I arrived from East Hampton in an old English sports car that I bought in 1964 for $800 from a guy named Charlie Brown who owned C. B.'s Bar in Hampton Bays. I've owned it and kept it up ever since. I would be the lead car in this race. And to get it looking that way, my girlfriend Chris and I scrubbed her up and down with soapy water before we left home.

It's ten tough miles for a deep red 1959 Triumph TR-3 from my home to downtown Bridgehampton. But I held it steady and the oil pressure hovered around 20 pounds and the engine temperature stayed in the 360 degree range. So she was fine. I arrived early to give the old girl a rest before race time. And then I brought her out front of the runners as they lined up -- about twice as many as last year -- and we waited for the gun to go off, at which time, I hoped, I would shift into first gear and she would not stall out.

We led the runners south on Ocean Road for about a mile, then west on Paul's Lane toward Halsey. Six runners had quickly separated from the front of the pack within the first half mile, but by the time they passed the two mile mark and the water station manned by volunteers from the Child Care Center, four of the six had fallen away and now there were just two, side by side, in the lead, running easily. They stayed that way, side by side, all the way up Halsey to Hildreth Lane and took another left, and then a turn right onto Ocean Road, heading for home.

And they were talking to one another.

"This is not very competitive," I said to photographer Kimberly Goff, who I had invited to sit in the cockpit next to me. "I hope they make a big run for it at the end. It could get exciting."

"I think they know each other," Kimberly said. We could not hear what they were saying. But she said they were all friendly and laughing together.

"Damn," I said. "They're gonna cross the finish line together."

Well, they didn't. In the last step or two, one of them, 36-year-old Mike Guastolla of Manhattan, leaned forward for the win. Mike Lyons, 35 and also of Manhattan, was clocked one second later.

As the rest of the runners now began to come across the line -- 12-year-old kids, teenagers, young men and women, older men and women, disabled men and women, women pushing baby strollers etc. -- I got out of the car and walked over to talk to the sweaty, breathless winner.

"What were you guys talking about?" I asked.

"We talked about the beautiful day."

"Do you know each other?"

"We're both members of the Warren Street racing club."

"Did you consider crossing the finish line together?"

"We did. But in the end, he said, 'Your young daughter is here. You cross first.' And so I did."

Mike Guastella lives on the Upper East Side and works for a private equity firm on Wall Street. And here's a surprise. He vacations at his parents house in Yaphank and came out for the run. He and Mike Lyons have been friends since they were classmates at the University of Pennsylvania, where Guastella ran the 800 and Lyons was a 10k champ. And there were half a dozen other members of the Warren Street club who also came out to run.

Thomas Heinz of East Marion finished third, nearly 35 seconds behind the two Mikes. Fourth to finish was Edward Stern of Manhattan, who's time was 17:12. Stern has been a longtime runner of the race. He's the son of Leonard Stern, the developer of the Meadowlands and the Hartz Mountain company. Ed also worked at Dan's Papers one summer.

The first woman finisher was Tara Farrell, 28, of Quogue -- her time was 18:30.

The Dan's Papers Potatohampton 5K has been run every year for the past 29 years. It is the oldest running race on Long Island and was founded at a time that the New York Marathon was just a couple of hundred people running through traffic. The Potatohampton has been an awful lot of fun, kicking off the season in the Hamptons every year on Memorial Day Sunday. And it's had its hilarious moments. One year, two people ran the race dressed as French Fried potatoes. Another time, my trusty sports car took us off on a wrong turn as I was yaking away with my photographer and I almost had a heart attack leading this long line of runners, pied piper fashion, on a road that went who knew where? Somehow, we recovered and made a second but deliberate wrong turn to get us back and it has been known ever since, somewhat affectionately looking back on it, as something to remind me of just before the start of every race. The runners have run this race through rainstorms, floods, heatwaves, hurricanes and even over a damaged and weakened bridge across Mecox Bay that was closed to vehicular traffic but was still something the runners had to cross. I had to promise the police that we would post somebody down there at the entrance to the bridge to make sure the runners did not cross it in lockstep, the stress of which might have collapsed it. As we were benefiting the Stony Brook University Hospital Psychiatric Wing at that time, the person who got appointed to check the runners entering the bridge was a Neurosurgeon from that facility, something I thought appropriate. He wore a beeper. Nobody called. The bridge survived.

This year we had no such hilarity. Indeed, if anything, this was the most smoothly run event in the history of the race. My hat is off to Joan Gray of Dan's Papers, who pulled the whole thing together and was there to see that it all happened. I'd also like to thank the Southampton Town Police, without who's cooperation this would have never happened, the Bridgehampton Ambulance Corps, our army of volunteers from all over and the Town of Southampton Recreation Department. Refreshments were supplied by King Kullen of Bridgehampton, Bob's Village Market of Bridgehampton and by Hampton Mortgage Co. I'd also like to thank the thousand people who came, 600 of whom came to watch 400 run. I'd also like to thank our other sponsors, Hildreth's Home Goods, Bridgehampton National Bank, Southampton Inn, ABCO Electric Corp, AFL Web Printing and Pulver Gas and our volunteers, Lally Mockler, Margaret Rice, Carol White, Blossom and Martin Gluck, Sylvia Fridle and her son and daughter, Claudia Pilato, Marie McAlary, Sarah Quinn, Robin Holtz, Yi Lu, Matt Cross, Justin deMarco and Mike Villensky. The results of the race, giving the times of all the runners, is posted on the front door of the Dan's Papers offices at 2221 Montauk Highway and will remain there through the middle of next week. See you next year.