Endurance on his 85th: Stan Nemeroff returns to Northport to complete 25,000 miles of running

On Saturday, October 5, former Northport Village resident Stan Nemeroff returned to the place he lived in and loved for nearly three decades for a pre-birthday celebration. He was 20 days shy of turning 85 and, remarkably, in the final stretch of a 25,000-mile journey he began five decades ago. 

He came to Northport via Austin, Texas, where he now lives with his wife Sandy, to clock some miles on his way to 25,000. He completed the journey during a stay with his daughter Robin Nemeroff in her current hometown of Hillsdale, New Jersey.

A former investment analyst and “a very mathy guy,” said Robin, Stan is also a disciplined runner. Inspired by his own father, Stan started jogging while living in Greenlawn in the 1970s. He worked in the city, but took an earlier train home on Wednesday evenings to run, and then jogged again on the weekends. Each run was three to four miles long, he said, and his schedule was consistent. 

“Certainly, early on, I never expected to be running for 50 years,” Stan told the Journal in a phone conversation earlier this week. “But it’s something that I did and something I felt good about. I was blessed with good genes, a strong body and not a bad mind. So I kept at it.” 

Based on his three-day a week jogging schedule in which he averaged 10 miles per week, Stan made his calculations: 50 weeks in a year equals 500 miles per year, which multiplied by 50 years is 25,000 miles. It’s a number he compares to the Earth’s circumference, his running journey just a bit longer than that of the equator, which has a length of 24,901 miles.  

Life is a marathon, not a sprint
Stan said it was during his 75th birthday, while living in Rockland County, New York, that he committed to completing his 25,000th mile by the time he was 85. Finishing the final 5,000 miles in the next ten years seemed doable; Stan’s family celebrated the occasion by getting him an Earth-shaped cake with a runner at the top. He invited the people at his party to run the final miles on his journey ten years later, and many of them did. 

“He’s been clocking this in and chipping away at this goal for truly decades and decades,” Robin told the Journal, recalling how her dad would map out his route and calculate the distance, always running three days a week and making up any days he missed along the way.    

Stan’s interest in running was imprinted on him from a young age. His father, Irving, “really believed in exercise and being physically fit,” long before jogging became an accepted pastime or a good thing to do, Stan said. “So I had that example.” 

It wasn’t until about ten years after he was married, though, that Stan began running on his own. He and his wife Sandy lived in Corona, Queens before moving to Greenlawn, where he would run on those Wednesday evenings and weekends. They lived there for 20 years “and interestingly we never really visited the town of Northport. We never understood why we didn’t, but we didn’t.” Then, one evening, they went to the movie theater on Main Street with another couple.

It was dark, Stan said, so he and Sandy didn’t get a sense of how picturesque the Village was, but they knew they wanted to come back during the day. They did, and within the year bought a home on Tracy Court, a new development just off 25A and Reservoir Avenue. 

“And we had 28 great years in Northport,” Stan said. It was 1988 when they moved in, and Robin was already off to college. Her brother Cary went to Northport High School. Stan happily shares his fondness of Northport, easily recalling the things he loved when he lived here, from his new Village jogging route, to the “beautiful harbor,” breakfasts at Copenhagen Bakery and great entertainment at the Engeman Theater (he and Sandy were season ticket holders).

“It’s really an extraordinary place,” he said. “What a great place to spend your life.”

Life, however, took Stan and Sandy away from Northport in 2016, mostly to be closer to their children. They spent a few years in New City, in Rockland County, before moving to Texas to be near Cary and his family. 

“My parents loved everything about Northport,” Robin said. “They loved the theater, never missed a show. They would go down to the water, just spend time there. I grew up with dogs, but in their later years they didn’t have a dog and my mom would get her fix communing with all the dogs down by the park. They say nothing compares to what they found there.”

Because her dad worked in the city, he spent a long time commuting, “but never ever complained about it because it was like being on a vacation, he said, when he was in Northport,” Robin shared.  

So it only made sense for Stan to return to Northport as he neared his 85th birthday, to clock some of the last miles in his 25,000-mile journey. It was a beautiful and busy Saturday in town when he arrived, surprised by family and friends wearing “Run Stan Run” t-shirts. Together, they added more mileage to Stan’s total, then lunched at Copenhagen, where another special cake was made in Stan’s honor. He was accompanied by many family members (including his daughter, son-in-law, grandson, sister-in-law, nieces and nephews) who came from Queens, New Jersey and Pennsylvania to share in the celebration. 

His former boss, who is ten years his senior, also surprised Stan that Saturday in Northport. “It was really a memorable occasion,” he said. 

Stan admits to having slowed down over the years, but speed was never his goal. He recalls completing the 2003 Great Cow Harbor 10K in “slightly more than an hour.” His pace is up to 15 to 17 minutes per mile now; it’s not real running these days, he said, but more like speed walking. And he’s just as excited about it as he was when he started 50 years ago. 

“I'd like to keep going as long as I possibly can,” Stan said. “I guess I think it’s advantageous to my health and it’s just a great thing to have done this. I’d like to see how much further I can get. I doubt that I’m going to make it around the globe a second time, but I’ll put a couple additional miles on.” 

Stan Nemeroff turns 85 today, October 25. Happy birthday, Stan! May you carry a piece of Northport with you on all of your runs.