It was nice, nay, gentlemanly, that those strapping young fellows made it a point to come up to the first female finisher, fourth over all, after the Ellen’s Run 5K in Southampton Sunday, as it was partly in respectful acknowledgement that they couldn’t keep up with this 22-year-old wisp of a gal with the chestnut bob, cheap sunglasses in baby blue frames, and Geneseo Knights singlet.
One of those gents bore an extraordinary resemblance to Henry Cavill in “Mission Impossible — Fallout,” from the chiseled visage and brick basilica build on down to the mustache perhaps better suited to a 19th-century explorer in search of the source of the Nile.
Another who approached in congratulations also sported the brushy facial accouterment, full, not thin, but clearly in tribute to the ’stache that adorned Oregon’s late, great distance man Steve Prefontaine, which if you’ve spent any time around the college cross-country scene you know is one of the more welcome athletic trends of recent years.
Then, too, this is the runners’ ethic and one of the draws of the sport — the camaraderie, the collegiality, the mutual support in an individualized endeavor that is singularly grueling.
The turnout was strong for a fine breast cancer cause, the hot, flat course and general lack of shade perhaps recalling those photos of the South Fork around the turn of the 20th century — treeless, a “blasted plain,” as the nation’s founders used to say, stretching to the horizon.
But while the top female lamented not encountering a cooling sprinkler to dash through, a different participant could be forgiven for wondering about the 9 a.m. start time, as it seems to discourage roadside spectators. In particular, a la the sunset Shelter Island 10K, the front-lawn card table tottering under the weight of standing bottles of adult beverages, and next to it the swell in the white linen shirt and espadrilles raising his vodka and grapefruit in salute.
Push Ellen’s back two weeks in the calendar, it could even ring out the Hamptons summer.