On Sunday, Oct. 15, Westbury endurance athlete John Cantwell was the overall winner of the special "Mike and Barry's 60th Birthday Six-Hour Run," staged by the Greater Long Island Running Club and the Broadway Ultra Society, to commemorate the 60th birthdays of Club President Mike Polansky and Sunken Meadow Run Group Leader Barry Aronowsky.

The run consisted of 2.07-mile loops on a special course on the trails of Sunken Meadow State Park, and 105 runners ran for all or part of the six hours and dozens more were on the course as volunteers and several dozen more just showed up to watch.

Top finisher was John Cantwell of Westbury, who logged 39.03 miles, followed by Rimas Jacelaitis at 37-3/4 miles and Tom Matthews at 36-1/2 miles.

Among those who were on hand to take part in the event were two octogenarians 81-year-old Ted Corbitt of New York City, known as "the father of modern ultramarathoning," and 80-year-old Huntington attorney Mel Freidel. Ted turned in 21.19 miles over the six hours and Mel ran for 19.82 miles.

Also on hand for the event was Oyster Bay Town Councilman Len Symons, who presented both Barry and Mike with special Citations from the Town of Oyster Bay in honor of the event, and stuck around to run two loops of the course with Mike.

The club extended congratulations and thanks to Six-Hour Race Director Vinny Croce, to Assistant Directors Paul Cooper and Paul Seltzer, to Technical Coordinator Rich Innamorato, to Crew Chiefs Amy Goldstein and Nick Palazzo, to Ellen Weinstein for the magnificent birthday cake; and to all the other great people who volunteered their time and effort (some of them for six hours ... and beyond) to make the day an incredible success: Barbara Aronowsky; Lenny Brotman; Joe Brennan; Sharon End; Tom Fama; Laurice Firenze; Gina Gelman; Jeff Goldman; Mary Anne Goldman; Chip Herbst; Jim Hogue; Bert Jablon; Myra Jablon; Jose Mendez; Nancy Morrin; Linda Ottaviano; Bette Perlman; Sue Polansky; Kate Quaranto; Rachel Seltzer; Bob Sherman; Robin Sitzer; Sharon Sitzer; Jim Stajk; Mary Ellen Stajk; Elaine Winkler; Steve Winkler; Sam Zinn; and Sylvia Zinn.

"My thanks to my friend John Cantwell for joining us on this great day and my congratulations to him for a great race," observed Race Director Vinny Croce. "Thirty-nine miles in six hours is a tremendous accomplishment especially on this challenging Sunken Meadows Course."