HOHA CLASSIC UPHOLDS RUNNING TRADITION
Back for it’s seventh year, the HoHa Classic five mile race will be run this Sunday, May 8 th from Pier A in Hoboken. While having a race on Mother’s Day may be an obstacle for some runners, the race has had steady growth. In 2004 330 runners finished the race.
“Every year we add twenty more,” said race director Jim Doyle. “It’s nice. It’s not too crowded. We end up raising usually seven or eight thousand for the local charity.”
Founded by All Saints Episcopal Church the non denominational Jubilee Family Life Center runs an after school program for children and there is a very specific tie-in to running.
“We usually have a big crowd of kids from the Jubilee Center,” said Doyle. “This year we sponsored the kids. The club bought them new running shoes.”
Thirty children, ages six to twelve have been in a training program preparing them to run in the one mile fun run on Sunday. Each child was given a pair of running shoes, paid for by individual members of the HoHa Running club, and purchased at almost cost from the Hoboken Fleet Feet store.
“You hear about obesity in America but we had members of the club that each sponsored a kid,” said Doyle. “It puts a face to it.”
While there are several extremely competitive clubs in New Jersey, the Hoboken Harriers are not one of them. The club is essentially an organization of people who love to run and to get together socially. They run five days a week but one of those runs, the Tuesday evening run at 13 th and Washington is only two and a half miles. It is the Tuesday night run, which begins at 8:10 p.m., that new comers are encouraged to attend first.
“There are more people on Tuesday to run with you and it isn’t very long,” said Doyle.
To say that the club is laid back can best be illustrated by their elected club President, a border collie named Brooks Hopkins, who resides with member Rick Hopkins. “She’s very special,” said Doyle. “Now when new members join who have a dog they often threaten to run their dog for president. “It’s a little tongue in cheek.”
“Tongue in Cheek” might be the club motto, unofficial of course. For instance, at last year’s HoHa Classic the race was won by club member Seth Holland, but you wouldn’t know that from looking at the race results.
“Seth has a good sense of humor so he had registered as one of his favorite literary characters, Holden Caufield, from Catcher in the Rye.”
Holland almost didn’t pull off the win. Doyle was riding the “pace” bicycle but at one point Holland passed Doyle and took a wrong turn. Hans Parrado of Weehawken, also a club member, had been trailing by about twenty yards and when Holland went off course Parrado made up the difference.
True to the code of racers in such situations, Parrado did not take the lead but allowed Holland to resume his original position once he was back on course. They finished one-two in 26:51 and 26:53 respectively. Parrado’s wife, Patty Anderson-Parrado won the women side in 31:33.
The Classic course runs along the waterfront before going up into Stevens Tech and then back down to the waterfront.
“It’s flat as a pancake with the exception of half a mile uphill and half a mile downhill,” said Doyle. “The hill is probably at a mile and a half. You go up hill just past the two mile mark. It’s early enough in the race that you’re not too tired and you get it over with pretty early on.”
Although 5K is the norm these days, the Classic has stayed with the original distance of the Hoboken Classic from which the current race sprang after a few years when no race was run.
“There’s two or three other 5K’s in town, plus Stevens used to have a 5K every month so we literally had 15 5Ks going on,” said Doyle. “We thought, number one, we don’t need another one [5K] and number two, the old classic was five miles. You don’t see five miles as often as you used to.”
The old Classic used to tie in to a beer festival and in fact the beer festival lead to the old Classic’s demise when festival participants became too rowdy for the police to tolerate. Hence the HoHa Classic is beer-less but the racers still receive a unique treat when they finish – a Hostess cupcake treat, the HoHo, capitalizing on the closeness of the name to the club and race name.
“We have a little sign on them that says, “Enjoy your complimentary HoHo courtesy of the HoHa’s,” said Doyle, reiterating the unofficial club motto. “It’s all tongue in cheek and some people are more bewildered than amused, but some get a kick out of them.”
Registration on Sunday is at Pier A Park at First Street and River Road. The one mile fun run is at 9:30 a.m. with the five mile race going off at 10:00 a.m. For more information about the race and the Hoboken Harries go to www.hoha.net.
Published in the JERSEY JOURNAL of Hudson County on May 6, 2005.
Copyright Madeline Bost, 2005.