Running home

Mike Sciacca

As a child growing up in the Big Apple during the 1960s, David

Shostak recalls sitting in front of his family’s television set and

watching the New York City Marathon.

“I can remember sitting and watching it, thinking it was pretty

amazing,” said Shostak, 51. “I was athletic but never a runner. I

just enjoyed watching the big spectacle that it was.”

Shostak, a Huntington Beach resident for the past 22 years, will

return home to run the prestigious marathon on Nov. 2.

The 26.2-mile course constitutes a start on the Verrazano-Narrows

Bridge in Staten Island and continues through the four other

boroughs: Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Manhattan, where the finish

line will be set up in Central Park.

Event organizers are expecting about 30,000 runners to enter. In

addition, 12,000 volunteers will work the 34th annual marathon and up

to two million spectators will line the running course.

“It really is an incredible event,” said Shostak, who is entering

his first New York City Marathon.

It will be his 10th marathon, overall.

He got the chance to run in his home city when his name was

selected in a June 11 lottery. Shostak said that about 20,000 U.S.

residents and 10,000 runners from overseas entered the lottery.

“It really was the luck of the draw,” said Shostak, who learned of

his selection on the Internet. “I am so excited about this. It’s

considered second to the Boston Marathon in terms of prestige.”

Shostak took up running just five years ago.

“Every Saturday, for the past five years, I’ve run with the Cal

Coast Track Club in Corona del Mar,” he said. “I then entered mini

triathlons. That was my start.”

His fortitude toward running has impressed his family.

“First off, I think he’s insane but, of course, I’m proud of him,”

said his 21-year-old son, Jared. “I don’t know of any other

51-year-olds -- or even people half his age -- who can do what he

does.

“I remembered thinking when he first started running years ago

that it might be a faze. But, he’s kept at it and that’s pretty

amazing.”

David Shostak’s first attempt at a marathon was the San Diego

Marathon in Carlsbad and the experience left him exhausted but

exhilarated, he said.

“It’s funny, you curse the wind, so to speak, because you feel

really bad but the next day, you ask yourself when you can run the

next one,” he said. “I hit the wall about the 20-mile mark but I told

myself that I’ve come this far and I’m not going to quit. Your first

marathon is a very humbling and very emotional experience.”

A senior project manager for Vehicle Global Position System

Navigation, Shostak has run the San Diego Marathon three times now,

with a personal best of 5:54.

His training schedule for the New York City Marathon is nothing

out of the ordinary. He runs three times a week, sometimes around

Surf City but mostly, along the trails of Newport Back Bay.

He labels himself a “slow but steady” runner.

“There are so many things I enjoy about running: the scenery, the

stress reduction and weight control,” Shostak said, adding that he’s

dropped 20 pounds from his 6-foot-2 frame. “The solitude also is

great. It allows me time to think about things that are going on at

work and in my life.

“But my enjoying these marathons is not so much about the actual

running -- it’s about the camaraderie with the other runners. They’re

a great group of people whom I enjoy being around.”

With some 30,000 men and women set to jam the starting line on the

Verrazano-Narrows Bridge on Nov. 2, Shostak says he won’t feel lost

in the crowd.

“Hey, I’m going back home and I’ll be running around places I

know,” he said. “I would never have thought I’d be actually running

the New York Marathon, but here I am. I’m ecstatic to have this

wonderful opportunity.”

* MIKE SCIACCA covers sports and features. He can be reached at

(714) 965-7171 or by e-mail at [email protected].