BY MIKE POLANSKY
Brendan Martin, the top Long Island distance runner currently in training, will be the featured speaker at the Tuesday, March 15, open general meeting of the Greater Long Island Running Club, which will be held in the auditorium of the Plainview-Old Bethpage Public Library. The meeting will begin at 8 p.m. and the general public is invited to attend.
Martin was the overall winner of the July 2015 Marcum Workplace Challenge, Long Island’s largest road race with nearly 10,000 entrants, and was the overall winner of the Sayville Running Company 10-Mile Run to the Blue Point brewery both in January 2015 and January 2016.
Martin has been setting records and winning races since his days on the Smithtown West track and cross country teams, and was part of the Long island record setting Smithtown West 4 x 1 Mile Relay team. He led Columbia University to the 2009 Ivy League HEPS Cross Country title. A very strong marathoner, Martin set a personal best marathon time of 2:15:30 in the 2015 “Grandma’s Marathon” in Minnesota to qualify for the 2016 Olympic Trials. He was also the Penn Relays 10,000 Meter Champion in 2015.
“We are thrilled to be able to welcome Brendan Martin to our March 15 meeting,” said Greater Long Island Running Club executive director Linda Ottaviano. “He is an awesome athlete, and obviously has a lot to share with all Long Island runners, including reporting on his experience at the Olympic Trials, which will have been held before the meeting.”
Also on the March 15 agenda is the presentation of checks from the proceeds of running club events to the Opening Word Program of the Dominican Sisters to help provide English language and other skills to enable immigrant women to become productive members of American society, and to the John Theissen Children’s Foundation.
