Record 494 Participants Race in 24th Women's Distance Festival

Shelby Greany started making her mother, Patricia Greany, go for walks with her about a year ago, which graduated into runs at an increasing distance or pace.

“She told me to get off the couch, and she’ll either go with me on the jog, or pace it for me so I know how long I’m supposed to go for,” Patricia Greany, 47, of Suffern said.

Well, so far the training is paying off, as Patricia and Shelby finished first in the mother-daughter team times at Saturday’s Annual Women’s Distance Festival at Rockland Lake.

“She’s definitely surprised me,” Shelby Greany, 20, said. “To come from last year when she wouldn’t be able to feel her foot after jogging to see where she is now is inspiring to me.”

Although it’s hard to know just how much inspiration Shelby Greany needed for the event, as she also finished the best overall time in the 5K race, completing it in a little bit more than 17 minutes. It was the fourth of five times she’s won the race, but she nor her mother are sure exactly how many times she’s finished with the top overall time.

“Running around Rockland Lake is always nice,” said the soon-to-be junior at Providence College in Rhode Island, where she is a scholar athlete on the track and field team. “This event is always well run, and it’s fun to come back to it and see a lot of the same people working on it or running it year after year.”

The Annual Women’s Distance Festival began long before Shelby Greany began her reign of dominance. Saturday’s was the 24th running of the women’s-only 5K, which has always been put on with all proceeds going to the Rockland Family Shelter, a nonprofit organization that works to help victims of domestic violence and sexual assault, and their families through a variety of services including running an emergency shelter.

“It’s incredibly generous and wonderful what they do for us,” said Lea Carnevali, the events coordinator for the Rockland Family Shelter. “As an events coordinator, I’m always in awe of how great the event comes out. Larry Wolf, the race director, and Kara Katz, the race chairperson, did a great job putting on the event this year.”

On Saturday, 494 people participated in the race, a new record for the event beating its previous one of 423.

“It’s amazing,” Carnevali said. “People are popping up everywhere really wanting to help out. It makes you feel good to live in this community. It’s a really supportive community.”

The event, which also had a portion starting a few minutes after the race for walkers as well as a short race for kids before the 5K race and walk, was organized and sponsored by the Rockland Road Runners, a group of local runners to promote jogging in the county.

It cost $18 for a Rockland Road Runner member to register before July 5 for the race, $20 for a non-member to register before July 5, $18 for ages 12-19 and 60 and up to register before July 5 and $25 to register between July 6 and race day. T-shirts were guaranteed to the first 400 registrants. The kids race was free and open to kids of both gender in elementary school or younger, but donations were of course accepted, and all the participants were given medals. The overall winner also received $100, but since Shelby Greany is a scholarship athlete, so couldn’t accept money and donated back to the Rockland Family Shelter. There was also a raffle, giving away prizes like gift certificates to local restaurants and businesses, as well.

“You get a lot of bang for your buck,” Larry Wolf said.

At Rockland Lake, there were also booths from some sponsors were runners could check out some running gear, get a massage and learn about other workout programs and more. They were also collecting old running sneakers and cell phones. The shoes are donated to Nike as part of its Nike ReUSE-A-Shoe program, which collects old shoes and transforms them into material used for creating athletic and playground surfaces. The cell phones are given to Verizon as part of its Verizon Wireless HopeLine, a program that collects old cell phones, refurbishes them, sells them and then gives the profit to nonprofit organizations that help victims domestic violence, as well as purchases cell phones for victims of domestic violence.

Wolf said the event would’ve taken place rain or shine, but he didn’t end up having to worry about that as he and the event lucked out with a sunny morning. Patricia Greany said the weather only added to the enjoyment of her first running in the event, even though she had been coming for years to cheer on her daughter.

“It’s a great event for a great cause,” she said. “It’s all women, strong women, running for a good cause.”

She said this was her third 5K so far this summer, and has one more planned with her daughter, July 23 at Cherry Lane Elementary School in Suffern to raise money to precent child abuse. She also said she would like to run in the Women’s Distance Festival again in the future.

“As long as I’m healthy, I’d love to come back,” she said. “I think anybody of any age and come out and compete if they train for it.”