Several local runners are gearing up this week to run the Long Island Marathon, which takes place on Sunday, May 3.
“I love the Long Island marathon because it’s early and kicks off my training season,” said Cara Baugh of Oyster Bay. “It psyches me for the whole rest of the year.”
Baugh has run the Long Island Marathon four times, but is running the half marathon this year because she has another race the next weekend and doesn’t want to push herself too hard. She has done a total of 22 marathons and also does triathlons and numerous shorter races every year.
The 44-year-old corporate attorney also has three kids, and has to balance her time between them, work and training. She has found a group of women in Oyster Bay, the “Hotties,” who train together all year round. She said they usually meet around 5:30 a.m. every other day to run five or six miles when the weather is decent. If it’s too snowy in the winter, they head to the preserve to snow shoe or cross country ski, and in the summer, they bike and swim in the bay.
“It’s wonderful to have people in the neighborhood to be active with,” she said, adding that she also loves the area that she has called home for the past 15 years.
“Oyster Bay is a mecca for training, especially triathlons,” she said, noting several of her favorite places are Muttontown Preserve, Theodore Roosevelt Beach and Centre Island. “I love training on Long Island. I don’t need to join a gym.”
Caroline Cosgrove, 34, of Centre Island ran the full marathon two years ago and will run the half marathon this year.
“There’s so much energy in the first half,” she said. “It sort of dies in the second half and makes it hard to push through.”
The clubhouse manager for Seawanhaka Yacht Club and the chair of the Wellness Committee for Oyster Bay-East Norwich Schools, Cosgrove said she has always been active but really began focusing on her health after her mom died of colon cancer about 10 years ago. She said she runs about 30 miles a week and does several Beach Body programs at home to avoid going to a gym, and now has her 5-year-old daughter competing in short races.
Nick Cuddy, 35, and his wife, Kate Cifarelli, 30, have been running the marathon for the past five years. The couple gets up at 4:30 a.m. to run together, as Cuddy has to commute to Brooklyn from Oyster Bay for his job with UPS. He said they always run for a cause and chose juvenile diabetes this year. Cuddy will run the half marathon so he can attend his niece’s first communion, while Cifarelli will run the full.
“We did it once and were addicted,” said Cuddy. “It felt like such an accomplishment and we both loved the runner’s high we got when we completed it.”
