About Glirc

Who We Are

The Greater Long Island Running Club (formerly the Plainview-Old Bethpage Running Club) is Long Island's largest and most active running club, with a membership that spans all of Nassau and Suffolk Counties and beyond. We have a lot to offer every runner; monthly meetings with interesting programs, special clinics, regular group road runs and track workouts for runners of every age and level of ability, and discounts to local running stores. Footnotes, our monthly magazine, includes a complete calendar of local races and other events of interest to local runners. Our Office/Clubhouse provides full service to the Long Island running community. Our April Nationwide Insurance Run for ASPIRE, David Lerner Police Appreciation Run, Greenbelt 50K Trail Run, Long Island Women's Run, Rob's Run (cross country), Lazer, Aptheker, Rosella & Yedid Kings Park 15 Kilometer Challenge, Long Island Workplace Challenge, Ocean to Sound Relay, Runner's Edge TOBAY Triathlon, Carter, DeLuca Farrell & Schmidt Ho Ho Ho Holiday Run, Oyster Festival 5k, fun runs, trail runs, "road trips", etc., etc., all make for a full calendar of activities for local runners.

But most of all, GLIRC offers the ready availability of friendly people to run with and compare notes with. We support each other and help each other to more rewarding running experiences. No matter what your age or ability, whether you are a mile a day beginner or a veteran marathoner, there's a place for YOU in the Greater Long Island Running Club!

Presidents Message

In managing a running club, just like in any other endeavor, the true measure of your success is not how well you do when things go smoothly, but how well you react when difficulties arise.

In the 40 hours before this year's Motorola Ocean to Sound Relay, we had to deal with a very serious dilemma. At 3:00 PM Friday, we learned that the New York State Department of Transportation had totally closed the pedestrian/bicycle path that parallels the Wantagh Parkway at Goose Creek. (In fact it will be closed till next May!) Although Lt. Tom Essex of the NCPD Highway Patrol was quick to come to our assistance, it soon became apparent that there was no way that we could safely engineer the passage of 120 teams and their support vehicles from Jones Beach to Cedar Creek Park.

I am fond of reminding people that "there are no problems, only opportunities," and the GLIRC team took the opportunity to come up with "Plan B" in relatively short order. (Hey, it had to be in short order; we had less than 40 hours to get it done!) Race Director Alan End, with a really big assist from Barry Saltsberg, went out and measured an alternate Leg 1 that would take the runners on one loop around Cedar Creek Park and then on an out-and-back course on as much of the northern end of the bike path that was still open, with the Leg 1/Leg 2 Transition in exactly the same spot a previous years. Amazingly enough, and thank you again Alan and Barry, by sunset on Friday all of that was in place.

All well and good, but we still had the task of notifying 120 teams that they needed to show up at Cedar Creek Park rather than at Jones Beach Sunday morning. Earlier in the day, Linda Ottaviano, the Club's Senior Administrator, had talked about perhaps closing the office a few minutes early — but obviously that was not going to be. Once the change was finalized, Linda sent out email blasts to all Club members and to all Team Captains who we had email addresses for, and started on the phone to reach the forty-odd Teams that we were unable to reach by email. By 6:30 PM or so we had done all that we could to communicate....and the bottom line was that only 3 or 4 folks showed up at Jones Beach on Sunday morning.

On Sunday morning, Alan had his troops mobilized to assure that the new Leg 1 went off as smoothly as possible. With Barry Saltsberg and Peter Martin on the lead bikes, and the logistic support of such stalwarts as Fred von der Heydt, Curt Robinson, Nick Palazzo, Bob Sherman and Carl Grossbard on the ground at Cedar Creek, the only word that appropriately describes our effort is "seamless". The Motorola Ocean to Sound Relay turned out to be a major success this year — and determined effort is what turned the trick!

This month's column was originally supposed to be about the Runner's Edge-TOBAY Triathlon, and even under the unique circumstances of Ocean to Sound, I don't want to totally leave that event out. Briefly, it was great, Co-Directors Jose Lopez and Ray Farrell did another superb job, and the able assistance of TOBAY Recreation Supervisor Diane Blanchard, Linda Ottaviano, Mindy Davidson, Vinny Croce, Fred von der Heydt and many, many others made that event a success as well.

See you on the roads and trails,

Mike Polansky President, Greater Long Island Running Club