The Visiting Nurse Service & Hospice of Suffolk hosted its eleventh annual 5K race/walk “Run for the Health of It” Saturday with more than 300 people crossing the finish line.

The race course, which incorporates parts of the Cow Harbor 10K Run, starts on Main Street, bringing runners past the Skidmore House, Northport’s oldest homestead, curves around Norwood Avenue onto Waterside  and then back onto Main Street again.

Kieran Gibbons was the first to cross the finish line with a time of 18:16.  It was the third consecutive year that the Northport resident won the race.

 “It was not as fast as I was hoping for,” said Gibbons who completed the race with a time of 17:55 last year.

 Gibbons has been training for a 20-mile race in Buffalo, and felt that Friday’s intense training  impacted his performance. 

 “It’s a great course, but tough because of the hills,” Gibbons said. “It was the perfect day weather-wise, and there was a great turn-out.”

 It was also a wonderful ‘family day’ for Gibbons whose daughter, Mary, and brother from Albany, also took part.

 Mary, “improved a lot in her time,” Gibbons said, proudly adding that the 13-year-old placed first in her age group.

 Kathryn Martin, the master runner renowned who has broken both national and world records, finished with a time of 19:57.  She was the first woman to cross the finish line. 

 “Personally I was surprised at how well I did,”  Martin said, explaining that she wasd still feeling the effects of having competed in the Big Sur Marathon in Monterey, California less than a week before.

 While “my legs felt heavy before I took off,” in the end, the Northport resident was happy with her time, and with having supported  VNSHS, an organization which is very "near and dear" to her heart.

 “I almost always do the race. It is a fabulous cause, and it feels good to support them,” Martin said. “They do a superb job and the race goes off flawlessly.

 Proceeds from the race/walk benefit an annual bereavement retreat for children  in Montauk, and Martin said that she knows from friends who had need of these services how “tremendously healing” the bereavement retreat can be for youngsters.

 Joey Hanna, 36, also of Northport, trailed Gibbons by three seconds, and took second place for males with a time of 18:19.  Chris Delmedico, 44, of Commack, placed third with a time of 18:55.

Patricia Taylor, 34, of East Northport, was the second woman to cross the finish line with her time of 20:35.  Fourteen-year-old Kristen Homeyer of Kings Park took third place for women with a time of 21:05.

 VNSHS’s Cindy Slansky, of Huntington Station, 37, was the fastest nurse with a time of 23:14.

 James LaMantia, o-owner of Northport’s LaMantia Gallery, called it "a great Northport run" that benefits a great cause.

 LaMantia, the Northport Rotary’s  president-elect, said the  VNSHS is one of the organizations that the Rotary strongly supports.

 “VNS is very close to our hearts. I love doing the race,” he said.

Go here for a searchable list of race results.