PotatoHampton: Remembering Dan's 10K Minithon

Remember the Dan’s Papers PotatoHampton 10K Minithon? A lot of people do. It was held for 34 years, from 1978 to 2012, and it was a lot of fun. It was also the first running race ever held in the Hamptons.

Last April I wrote about some of the stuff that went on with it back then, and a number of people called to share what they remembered.

Then, in June, I got a call from Connor Flanagan, the executive director of the Bridgehampton Museum, and he asked if I would mind if they revived it, using the name PotatoHampton because of its fond memories. In particular they’d like to make it an annual affair celebrating the potato farms, but also to raise money for the museum, which recently opened in its new location, in the historic 1842 Topping Rose mansion across from the War Memorial monument in the center of town.

I told him to go right ahead. And so, last Saturday, the new PotatoHampton took place. Terry Hackett sounded the start with a bugle call, and the race, now much shorter at 5K, left the museum grounds and took the runners down Ocean Road to turn right on Paul’s Lane, then up Halsey and back along Church Street to the finish, back where they started. And when all 65 runners returned to be greeted by their supporters, everyone was treated to a special viewing of the art show in the museum, with original works from Andy Warhol, John Chamberlain, Jasper Johns and Larry Rivers, courtesy of the collection of philanthropist Lana Jokel.

Having 5K races these days in the Hamptons is very popular. In fact, on the very day of the PotatoHampton, a 5K race, commonly called the Mash 5K, took place in Sag Harbor. One-hundred and sixty-seven people ran and with five annual earlier races, it has so far raised more than $200,000.

The PotatoHampton I founded back in the day was not intended as a fundraiser. It was intended instead to create a joyful run in the Hamptons to start the season. For example, at one of these runs, the winner of the best costume award was two people dressed up as French fried potatoes.

The idea came about when, in the fall of 1977, a New York City policeman named Tom Gabriel came to my office. The prior year, he’d run in the New York City Marathon. That race had been founded only a few years before.  1,800 runners had run in it and everybody had a great time, he told me. (This year more than 50,000 people ran in the New York City marathon.)

“Were here all summer and there’s no run,” he told me. “You should do one. We’d all love it.”

“Like 26 miles?” I asked.

“No. 10K.”

“What’s a 10K?”

“Shorter.”

“And when would we hold it?”

“10 a.m. on a Sunday morning would be good. It’s a religious experience.”

That’s crazy, I thought. They’re all crazy.

At that time, Dan’s Papers was still in its infancy. It only came out in the summer. Maybe it would be good if the paper did this.

And so I called then-Southampton Town Supervisor Marty Lang about it. He thought it was a great idea. Good for business. He’d get the police involved. Also the fire department. We’d need the fire department. I asked if he would fire the starting gun.

“I can get one from the Town Recreation Department,” he said.

I had no idea how to run a running race. Didn’t know about water stops. Or official timers.

But at the start, I did hand out maps showing the route to be run. The runners would go past all sorts of historic places — the Beebe Windmill, the Sagaponack School, the Sagg General Store, the Sagg Post Office, the endless fields of potatoes, the fishing bridge on Bridge Lane…

The winner of our first race was Marcel Philipe, a member of the French Olympic Team. Out of breath, he nevertheless told me his watch showed he’d run faster than he’d ever run before.

“It’s too short,” he said.

“I drove around the local roads until I got to 6.2 miles more than when I started,” I told him.

“A car? You need an official timer,” he said. “Also categories. Over 50. A women’s division. A children’s division. At least three water stops.”

At the finish line everybody got a certificate of participation and a potato from a potato sack that farmer John White had in the back of his pickup truck.

I lived and learned. When entry forms indicated our first race might attract more than 500 runners, I moved the start from the front lawn of our building to the 1,000-car parking lot of the Bridgehampton Commons. Few people were there at 10 a.m. But when we held it there again the second year, the place was buzzing with things to do.

There was a peace rally. A group protesting our race. A flea market and people putting leaflets on windshields advertising the Mash Race in Sag Harbor.

“They’d heard we’d have a big crowd here,” I told Lang.

“Maybe we shouldn’t have it next year from here to spill all the way down Main Street. It passes five churches along the way. It’s Sunday.”

He raised his arm to fire the gun. In the silence, someone among the 900 runners coughed. And off they went.

I recently went online to view the 1978 and 1979 stories in Dan’s Papers about the PotatoHampton. The site is nyhistoric-newspapers.org.

In the account of the second race in 1979, I wrote how I hopped into the back of a police car and we took off with lights flashing through the parking lot to get ahead of the runners onto Snake Hollow Road then up Mitchell, left on Scuttlehole and then back down Hayground where the cops screeched to a halt. They ran off to help other officers set up barriers across the Montauk Highway for the runners, only to leave me locked in the car’s back seat as a criminal not allowed to get out. This is what I get for doing this, I shouted to nobody.

Two weeks later I was visited in my office by five somber members of the cloth. Officers in the Bridgehampton Council of Churches. Could I please do this on another day? Any other day.

We did this for 34 years. Each year there were more. All as fundraisers. And so, in 2013, I thought our work was done.

Long live PotatoHampton.