A native of Jamaica, West Indies, Lyle Kirlew, a veteran of the running sport, recently entered into the first Queens 10K in Flushing Meadow Corona Park and covered the course in 38:01, which earned him 14th place in a field of almost 6,000 entrants. The winner Julius Arile Lomerlying of Manhattan took the lead at the 2K mark and never looked back.
Last year, the organizers, the New York Road Runners Club, conducted its annual Queens Half-Marathon at the same venue and just like in past years met with extreme success. Why not continue?
This year they voted to change the New York series of one race in each borough to vary the distances in each borough rather than exclusively half-marathons.
“I was a little shocked that they dropped (the event)) down to a 10 K,” Kirlew said. “I ran the half-marathon before. The half wasn’t very popular.”
Kirlew was born and raised in Jamaica until he and his family moved north. He was 11 years of age at the time.
“While I was growing up in Jamaica, I played a lot of sports,” Kirlew recalled. “I had a lot of fun there.
“When I came here (to New York), I adjusted to sports easily. I didn’t play any one sport. I went to Brooklyn Tech High School. About five years ago at age 33, I took up running, and enjoyed it. I always wanted tu run a marathon. I thought that I could just get up and run in it. After I looked into marathon running, I knew (and realized) what I had to do.”
Now 37 and residing in Freeport, Long Island, Kirlew just wants to continue to improve on his running.
Kirlew will be competing in the New York City Marathon come November.
“My goal in the marathon will be to go under three hours,” Kirlew went on. “Now I’m training in Long Island-Hempstead and Freeport- wherever I can find a space. I do the Wednesday night series at Eisenhower Park. I’ll try to get in as much as I can. I already ran three New York City Marathons. My best time is 3:09.11, while my other two marathons were 3:26 and 3:20.”
Kirlew enjoys running. The training runs are tougher than the actual (competition.)
During the day, Kirlew works as a field technician for Verizon in Queens.
While Kirlew hails from Jamaica, Dan Telesford, who originally comes from Grenada, where he played a lot of cricket and soccer, was clocked in 39:12 for overall 32nd place in the Queens 10K.
The 39-year-old Telesford currently resides in New Windsor, in upstate New York, His next big race will be the Brooklyn Half-Marathon when his goal will be to run a 1:23.
Telesford certainly enjoyed competing in the Queens 6.2 mile race.
“It’s flat and we ran on its nice course,” he said. “I loved it and it was in the Park.”
