Magician Materialized Before Anyone Noticed
By Jack Graves
 Abbey Allen
A river of humanity flowed from the Springs School Saturday morning, participants in the Hamptons Marathon and Half-Marathon.
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(10/01/2008) Interesting that the winner of Saturday’s Hamptons Marathon here, Oz Pearlman, is a magician, for — poof! — without the race directors noticing, and thus failing to stretch out a tape, he crossed the finish line unheralded, amidst half-marathoners he’d lapped, holding out in front of him two handfuls of fanned out over-sized cards.
When a sportswriter running after him asked if he hadn’t been the marathon’s winner, Pearlman, who majored in electrical engineering at the University of Michigan, said yes, and added, “You mean nobody got a photo?”
Then, obligingly, he held up some of the cards for an after-the-fact one.
The 26-year-old New Yorker, who said he had to get back to the city that afternoon to get ready for a magic show there, ran the undulating 26.2-mile course’s leafy back roads and bay beach loops in 2 hours, 37 minutes, and 50 seconds, a 6:02 per-mile pace. His was a record-setting time, by 7 minutes. His training partner, Michael Arnstein, who did not return this year, had won the Hamptons Marathon inaugural last fall in 2:44:51.
Arnstein, he said, was in Toronto for Sunday’s marathon there. The two had done the Hawaii Ironman last year, with Arnstein finishing 10 minutes ahead of him. “He’s a better triathlete than I am,” said Pearlman, “but I’m a faster runner.”
When told that Arnstein, who had followed up last year’s marathon victory with a second-place finish in the Montauk Half-Ironman the next day, said he was “fueled by broccoli,” Pearlman said, “Yes, he eats just fruits and vegetables. Not me — I like meat and potatoes.”
 Jack Graves Photos
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Pearlman was this year’s favorite because he had run a 2:29 in Tallahasee, Fla., in February. He said he is to run a 50-miler in Chicago on Nov. 1. In last year’s 50-miler there he had run “the fastest U.S. time in four years, a 5:31.” That worked out, he said, to a 6:37 pace.
As was the case with Saturday’s Half-Marathon winner, Kevin Starkes, a 28-year-old Brooklynite, who won in 1:15:05, Pearlman is a recent convert to running. He had swum the 50-yard butterfly and the 100-yard freestyle in high school, and had run one season on the cross-country team, “because of the girls.”
“Miles five through eight with the uphills and turns were the toughest,” Starkes said on crossing the line near the Springs School’s tennis courts. But the lead bikers helped, they supplied great motivation.”
Starkes, who works with the Covenant House homeless shelter in Manhattan and runs for the City Coach Multisport team, which also could boast that day of the women’s winner in the half, 26-year-old Bridget McKenna, said he had only run for the past one-and-a-half years. “I grew up in West Hempstead,” he said. “I was never an athlete, but I got tired of the status quo. I jumped right in. My first race was a half-marathon in Central Park.”
Jim MacWhinnie, 36, of Southampton, the half’s runner-up, in 1:23:00, said he never had Starkes, who “was so far ahead,” in his sights. MacWhinnie said he had run most of the way with his training partner and fellow Southamptoner, Jason Hancock, 34, who finished third in 1:24:17.
Jessica Allen, the marathon’s top woman, just missed qualifying for the Olympic trials last spring.
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Nobody that day seemed to mind the rain, which at times was drizzly and at times was torrential. Howard Lebwith, the eldest participant in the half-marathon at the age of 78, said as he crossed the line, “I did the Australian crawl on Stony Hill Road.”
Both women’s winners — Jessica Allen, 31, of Hampton Bays, in the marathon, and McKenna in the half — set records. Allen, who just missed qualifying for the Olympic marathon trials last spring with “a 2:48-something,” covered the course in 3:07:10, nevertheless shaving 6:48 off last year’s winning time, and McKenna took 2:06 off of last year’s winning time in the half-marathon.
McKenna said at the finish line that she had run into a car on the course, but quickly added that “it was my fault.”
Allen thanked her biking friend, Joao Monteiro, for leading the way. “The rain was wonderful,” she said in answer to a question. It was great at Napeague. There hardly was any wind, though it was definitely muddy at Stony Hill.”
Next up for Allen is the MightyMan Half-Ironman in Montauk this weekend. She was third in that demanding race last year, she said. This was her first Hamptons Marathon.
The course, she said, “would have been harder — there were a lot of twists and turns — if I had run harder.”
She might run another marathon in the spring, “but at the moment I’m kind of burned out.” When told a co-worker of this writer had run a 2:38 in New York 25 years ago, she said, “A 2:38. . . ? I’m working on it.”
Amanda Moszkowski, who, along with Diane Weinberger oversees the event, said Monday that while they wouldn’t know for a couple of weeks how much money would be turned over to the race’s primary beneficiary, Project MOST, and to Southampton Hospital, that, given the inclement weather, “it was a great turnout — we’re very pleased. I think we had 1,200 finishers of the 1,500 who had signed up.”
Everyone got a medal, including Mike Ramos’s boxer, Buster.
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There had been no mishaps as far as she knew, she said, adding that the 150 volunteers and the police had performed exceedingly well, “beginning at 5:45 a.m.”
Moszkowski added that the American Cancer Society and Team In Training runners had raised considerable sums for their causes — Team in Training’s being leukemia research. “The American Cancer Society raised $65,000, and Team in Training, I’m told, raised $145,000! That’s pretty impressive.”
Other top marathon finishers besides Pearlman were Chris Schulten, 36, of Middlefield, Conn., the runnerup in 2:54:02; Angel Rojas, 22, of Water Mill, the third-place finisher in 2:56:56; Mark Maritzen, 35, of Rye, N.Y., the fourth-place finisher in 3:02:38; Allen, the fifth-place finisher, in 3:07:10, and Mike Bahel, 42, of Amagansett, the eighth-place finisher in 3:16:20. Christina Schaefer, 23, of Southampton was 19th over all, in 3:28:06.
Other locals in the marathon field of 292 were Robert Rosen, 50, of Montauk, who was 21st; Tom Rutkowski, 44, of Montauk, who was 59th; Laura Miller, 23, of Sag Harbor, who was 177th; Jeannine Ryan, 44, of East Hampton, who was 232nd; Tennille Treadwell, 43, of Amagansett, who was 237th; Joyce McGrath-Macfarlane, 46, of Southampton, who was 244th; Robin Ross, 44, of Shelter Island, who was 253rd; Gary Cooper, 46, of East Hampton, who was 254th; Robert Almeraz, 40, of East Hampton, who was 271st; Americo Fiore, 78, of Southampton, who was 276th; Dennis Fabiszak, 38, of Southampton, who was 280th, and Rosemarie Abrams, 56, of East Hampton, who was 284th.
Besides Starkes, MacWhinnie, Hancock, and McKenna, who was fourth over all, the top 10 of the half-marathon, which had 809 finishers, comprised Stephen Szycher, 32, of New York City, Jorge Flores, 37, of East Hampton, Jason Slutsky, 26, of Seaford, Laura Brown, 41, of Westhampton Beach, the women’s runner-up in 1:29:45, Peter Costa, 22, of Malverne, and Doroteo Soledad, 33, of Water Mill.
Other locals in the half included Bruce Helier, 47, of East Hampton, who was 20th; Marybeth Dee, 36, of Sag Harbor, who was 54th; Paul Fiondella, 61, of East Hampton, the course’s designer, who was 59th “in 1:43:51, my best time ever;” Timothy Malone, 24, of Water Mill, who was 62nd; Paul Maidment, 57, of East Hampton, who was 66th; James Read, 44, of Shelter Island, who was 70th.
Yanina Cuesta and Linda Silich’s spirits were sunny at the start, undaunted, as was the case with their fellow runners, by the rain that at times was torrential.
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The list goes on: Sharon McCobb, 45, of East Hampton, who was 71st; Andreas Neumeier, of Southampton, who was 85th; Anne Pontani, 52, of Southampton, who was 88th; Billy O’Donnell, 55, of East Hampton, who was 100th; Becky McDermott, 25, who now lives in La Jolla, Calif., who was 179th; Jackie Minetree, 48, of Sag Harbor, who was 230th; Yanina Cuesta, 34, of East Hampton, who was 360th; Linda Silich, 45, of East Hampton, who was 472nd; Krista Brooks, 39, of East Hampton, who was 496th, and Lebwith, who was 752nd.
Age-group place-winners in the half included Flores, first in the 35-to-39-year-old group; Helier, second among the 45-to-49 men; McCobb, first among the 45-49 women; Maidment first and O’Donnell third among the 55-59 men; Fiondella first and Arthur Nealon third among the 60-64 men, and Lebwith second among the 75-79 men.
Shaefer was first among the 20-to-24-year-old women in the marathon; Bahel was first among the 40-44 men; Rosen was second among the 50-54 men, and Abrams was third among the 55-59 women.
David Katz, the race’s timer, gave finish (gun) times as the official ones rather than the net (chip) times. Bob Beattie, a racing timer who works at the Gubbins New Balance store in East Hampton, said Katz was not out of line in doing so. “U.S.A. Track and Field-sanctioned races recognize the finish times, not the net times. . . . It’s to prevent cheating by elite runners who might benefit from starting back in the pack.”