New Haven Independent

James Carney of Boulder, Colo., finished first among the record 5,400 people who ran the 20K race on a sparkling late-summer day, leading from start to finish, according to race Director John Bysiewicz.

Carney wore Number 2 because he finished second last year, Bysiewicz said.

Carney (shown running on Sea Street) finished in 59:11, he said. The first woman across the finish line near the New Haven Green was Jill Steffens of Athens, Ga., who finished in 68:48. Neither was a course record. Each runner picked up an $8,000 check for the win for the 20-kilometer race. That’s about 12.43 miles.

You can see all the results here.

By the time Haas, a 63-year-old from Cheshire, passed by, the bands had packed up, the water stations had cleaned up and she had to share busy East Street and Grand Avenue, among others, with traffic.

By that didn’t bother Haas, who said she was training for the New York City Marathon and had run her first marathon at age 60. She wasn’t talking much: She was huffing and puffing as she jogged and walked along the 12-plus mile route. But she did say, emphatically, that she was going to finish. According to Bysiewicz, she did indeed finish.

She knew the loneliness of the long-distance runner.

Jet Giulietti had been sort of lonely on race day for the past 31 years, or at least as lonely as a man can be while surrounded by three dozen or so family members.

Giulietti, 78 (left in front in photo) is called Jet even those his formal name is Concezio; he earned the nickname when he ran fast in his younger day. He and his family have been manning a water station on Sea Street near Howard Avenue for as long as there’s been a race. (Sea Street is what Ella T. Grasso Boulevard is called after it passes under Interstate 95.)

He wasn’t lonely this year, however. Not only did this reporter show up after an e-mail from Jet’s brother Dom. But reporter Jody Latina and photojournalist Jim Bagley from Channel 8 came as well.

Giulietti said the family tradition began 31 years ago after they received a letter from the mayor. He wasn’t sure said which mayor. (It was Frank Logue.) The letter asked people along the route to provide water to the runners. The Giuliettis been doing it each year with a growing family that is now in the third generation. After the race, they all repair to the backyard for a day-long picnic.

The weather hasn’t always been as perfect as it was Monday, he said.

“We’ve gone out in raincoats many times” but they’ve always gone out, he said.

Down Howard Avenue from City Point, as runners plodded by, Gladys Johnson and Lessie Freeman were directing traffic and keeping a man in a Mercedes Benz from entering Howard Avenue from Sixth Street. Lorraine and Zack Hart had a small table with water set up outside their house. At the corner of Fifth Street, Syndi Garay of New Haven’s Westville neighborhood looked bored as she sat on her bike; this was the first year she wasn’t in the race.

“Injured runner,” she said.

Near where Fifth Street becomes Sargent Drive, Sarah McIver of Arthur Street and a score or so of her friends and neighbors (in photo) manned another water station, as they have for every year since the race has been on.

“These are my neighbors and we’ve been out here for 31 years,” she said proudly, as runners made the right turn from Howard Avenue to head for Long Wharf Drive and a chance to run along the New Haven shoreline.

That’s about the halfway point.

If you were cheating and had a car, as this reporter did, you could drive along Howard Avenue toward the Green. There, thousands of people finished the race in various states of exhaustion, joined by their supporters and people just out for a good time. There were many people carrying beer, but the longest line was for coffee and donuts. Running is hungry work.

Kelly Cruz of Hamden was lying on a table as Tim Livingston, who works for a firm called Bio Dynamix of Shelton, applied a muscle activation technique for muscles that no longer function properly.

Bysiewicz, whose sister is Connecticut’s secretary of the state and who has been running the road race for 17 years, said a total of 4,923 runners crossed the finish line for the race.

The event, which carries the full name of Stratton Faxon New Haven Road Race, is the 20K national championship run. Bysiewicz said the proceeds from the race go to local charities.

How much money was generated by the race fees and sponsorships and to whom they would go will be determined in a few weeks, he said.

The sponsorship of the race will stay with the New Haven-based firm of plaintiffs’ attorneys for at least the next couple of years, Bysiewicz said. The firm donates 10 percent of its profits to charity, he said. Both partners, Michael Stratton and Joel Faxon, run in the race.