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History of the Spring Lake Five
At first glance it may seem odd that a small town on the Jersey Shore would be home to one of the largest and best running events in the nation. Since it was first held in 1977, the Spring Lake Five Mile Run has grown from a small local fun run into New Jersey's largest road race and a nationally recognized event. Despite this growth the race has remained a low key, non-commercial event.
The Spring Lake Five began in 1977 as a project of the Recreation Committee and the Town Council. Councilman Richard Gardener, the council's liaison with the Recreation Committee, recruited the town's running "guru" Tom Baum for assistance. At this time, running was not a wildly popular sport and most running events were geared to small groups of serious participants. However, the running boom of the late 1970's was beginning to sweep the country. Inspired by the Olympic successes of marathon runner Frank Shorter and the writings of fitness author Dr. Kenneth Cooper, more and more Americans were lacing up their sneakers (they weren't even called running shoes back then) and taking to the streets.
The initial concept of the race fit perfectly with the mind set of this new group of running enthusiasts. The plan was to stage a low key event with the emphasis on having fun and treating each runner equally. Awards sere kept to a minimum and each finisher received a commemorative T-shirt. The organizers designed a scenic course which looped through town and ran down the length of the boardwalk. The race started and finished in front of the Municipal Building immediately after the close of the town's Memorial Day ceremonies.
The first race, held on the afternoon of Memorial Day was an instant success. Over five hundred runners of all abilities completed the course that May afternoon. While this sure seems modest by today's standards, it was an extraordinary turnout in 1977. Road racing was a cult sport at that time and very few events could attract hundreds of participants.
The next three years saw the race grow steadily. By 1980, over a thousand runners came to Spring Lake. The challenges of managing this growth were large. Local resident Dick Kinney took over direction of the event in 1979-1980 and guided it through this period of growth. During this period of time, it seemed that every local town was starting its own run. In the face of this competition, the success of Spring Lake's event continued and it soon became a fixture on the shore area's running calendar.
After the 1980 race, Kinney stepped down as director. His successor became involved in the race through an unlikely chain of events. Dr. Robert Hazel, an avid local runner, was quietly spending a winter evening with his family when one of the borough's snow plows misjudged the width of the street and in front of the his home and damaged the curbing. The damage to the curbing was small, but the benefit to the race was large. For in his conversations with various town officials about the curbing, the subject of the race came up. The town officials discovered Dr. Hazel's interest in the sport an prevailed upon him to take over the direction of the race.
Under Dr. Hazel's direction, the race began the process that would make it one of the sport's best run events. Up to this time, road racing was an informal and erratically administered sport. However, the early 1980's saw the sport mature and runners become more sophisticated. Many of the early races soon found themselves unable to meet the challenges presented and simply disappeared. During the early 1980's Spring Lake began a tradition of leadership in the sport.
Dr. Hazel soon found that the time involved in putting on the race had grown tremendously and recruited John Haulenbeek, another local runner, as co-director. He and Hazel would direct the race together for the next two years, with Haulenbeek remaining as sole director until 1986. During this period the start and finish areas were moved to the beach front and the race date was changed to the Saturday morning of Memorial Day weekend.
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