The first annual Julia Rusinek Memorial road race held in New Haven, CT took place April 9. The road race is in remembrance of Julia who died in July 1999 of heart failure due to an undetected heart defect. Jose Lopez, the new department chair at South High School, was the race director. According to Rosa and Henry Rusinek, 307 people signed up for the race, 242 finished the race. The light snow was the reason for the no shows. Julia was to have been a senior at Yale University, and many of her friends wanted to have the race in Connecticut to they can come back to New Haven each year. The race raised over $6,000 and the proceeds will go to the underprivileged children of New Haven.

The winner of the race was 21-year-old Hiroyuki Suzuki, who is on the Yale soccer team. Brian Joseph, a junior at Harvard University and one of Julia's track teammates at North, placed second. Suzuki was clocked at 18:06 and Joseph ran 18:08. The women's winner was 36-year-old Jeanne Lucey from Old Lyme, CT. Her time was 19:27 and she finished fourth overall.

Other notable finishers were Simon Frid who placed second in the 16 and under category. Simon runs for track for North Middle. In the 17-25 group, South's Josh Merlis who runs cross country and track for South High placed 11th in his age group in a time of 21:22. Eamon Flood, who is Josh's track coach, was right behind in 21:39. Andrew Krause, a graduate of Great Neck South and a senior at Yale, ran his first road race ever and turned in a time of 23:47. For the women, Barrett Marlan second, Dina Frid third, and Jen Aziz fourth in the 17-25 female group, were all Julia's high school teammates. Marlan graduated from Central Connecticut in 1999 and ran track for them. Frid is a senior at Cornell and Aziz is a senior at Columbia. Keren Rosenzweig, a senior at Duke University, and Liz Hochman, a graduate of Colorado University, round out Julia's high school teammates who took part in the run. Jeannie Grimm placed fourth in the 26-35 age category. Grimm is a physical education teacher in Great Neck and coached Julia in gymnastics in the middle school. Vivian Rusinek ran and placed ninth in the 26-35 age category.

Coach Chris Omeltchenko, who coached Julia in track in high school, placed first in the 36-45 age group and was seventh overall in the race. His time was 20:27.

In the 46-55 age group Eugene Frid placed second in 22:41. Frid is from Great Neck, as well as Ira Hochman who was clocked in at 26:17. Henry Rusinek placed ninth in 28:51, and Rob Cohen placed 11 in 30:59. For the women 46-55, Vida Aziz placed third in 39:49 and Suzanne Krause placed sixth in 45:50. Linda and Isaac Rabino placed in the over 55 age category. They are close friends of the Rusinek's. Almost half of the race entrants were the Yale University students and all in all the first race was a big hit with everyone who ran. There were raffles and plenty of food and drink for everyone. Many of Julia's friends and relatives were all on hand to be part of the race.