Sept. 11 Memorial Run To Step Off Tonight

Runners, hundreds of them, will assemble tonight on Belmar’s boardwalk at 16th avenue for a 4-mile run to Spring Lake and back.

There will be no prizes given out for the fastest time. Runners will not pin numbers to their chests. There will be no clock and no t-shirts will be given out.

The Sept. 11 memorial run, the 11th annual, will be a slow run, in silence, in honor of the nearly 3,000 people who died on 9-11-01 in the attacks.

“The running in silence part is the key issue,’’ said Tim Mahony, a Belmar resident who started the event on the second anniversary of the attacks. “When we’re on the boardwalk an everyone’s running in silence and then I hear someone say ‘Oh, yeah, that’s right. It’s September 11th’ that’s when you know you’ve done your job.’’

Runners will begin at on the boardwalk at 6 p.m., where a portion of the names of those Jersey Shore residents who died that day will be read. The group will run, in silence, to the Sept. 11 memorial in Spring Lake, where additional names will be read before running back to Belmar.

In Manasquan tonight, a memorial service will be held in the plaza, beginning at 7 p.m.