For the first time in its 46-year history, Saturday’s Shelter Island 10K was won by a local runner, Ryan Fowkes, a 24-year-old East Hamptoner and Virginia Tech grad student who is making a name for himself nationally in long-distance running. And it was presumably also the first time since Burke Koncelik won the inaugural event in 1980 that the race’s female competitors were topped by a local, to wit, Penelope Greene of Noyac, a SUNY Geneseo all-American, who finished seventh over all in the field of 800-plus.
There were no Kenyans or Ethiopians at the starting line. Apparently no one knew quite why. Had they been deported? Were they training for races offering more prize money? At any rate, in the absence of “elite” runners, the popular 6.2-miler that ends with the flag-bedecked Joey’s Mile, in memory of Shelter Island’s Lt. Joseph J. Theinert and the some 7,000 others who died in Afghanistan and Iraq, was up for grabs.
Jordan Daniel, a Westhampton Beach native who won this race in 2021 and 2022, and who was the runner-up to Fowkes this time, said, when asked about the front-runners, that the lead had seesawed “back and forth the whole way.”
At the finish line, Fowkes, who’s to compete this summer in the World Games mile trials in Oregon, and who holds eight George Washington University cross-country and track records, said he’d made “a hard move” at mile 5. On entering Fiske Field, he waved to his father as his long strides swept him around the park’s perimeter toward the finish line. He broke the tape at 31 minutes and 16.92 seconds, about 12 seconds ahead of Daniel.
Rounding out the top five were Sean Grossman, 29, in 31:51.01, Benjamin Tuttle, 32, in 31:56.86, and Tim Rossi, 33, in 34:05.21. Jason Green, a 22-year-old Shelter Islander, was sixth in 34:30.00. Then came the top three women — Greene, who’s coming off an impressive career at Geneseo, including 2025 Division III outdoor national titles in the 10K and 5K, in 36:26.94, Erin Gregoire in 36:44.77, and Jeanne Mack in 37:17.56.
Bill Rodgers, the legendary long-distance runner, ran in the 5K, which had 599 finishers, and spoke to the crowd in front of the Shelter Island School before the beginning of the popular 10K, whose course has been described as among the country’s most beautiful. It was hot, as always, but not as humid as it often is. “London, Paris, Rome, Shelter Island” one competitor’s T-shirt read.
The 5K was won by the 31-year-old Jeremy Mulvey in 17:16.30. Dan Shaw-Town, 42, was the runner-up in 19:17.71, followed by Max Notley, 16, in 19:33.58. Abigail Hickock, 29, was the female winner — and 12th over all — in 22:34.08. Alyssa Kent, 24, the 17th finisher, was the second female, in 23:04.32; Sarah Defreitas, 22, was the third — and 24th over all — in 23:52.16.
Cliff Clark, one of the Shelter Island 10K’s founders, said he’d been impressed by Fowkes’s times in 1,500 and 5,000-meter track races, adding that he could only get better given the fact that long-distance runners peak between the ages of 28 and 32.
Also, said Clark, Fowkes was coming along at the right time. “Track and field has taken off . . . the shoes are better, the training’s improved, the nutrition. . . . And there’s money to be made.”
