They took off with a headwind in the hamlet of Wallkill Sunday morning during the annual Shamrock Scramble 5K, and Pine Bush’s Jaelin Edwards and Newburgh’s John Abrams battled to the very end.

Edwards was in front of Abrams toward the end until Abrams caught up at the final turm leading into the homestretch near the finish. But Edwards, running hard at the end, would not let Abrams win the race – and the victor was still unknown Monday morning.

“I really had him behind me the whole time,” said Edwards, a Pine

Bush runner, of his motivation.

The official results, posted Monday, declared Abrams the winner as he set a personal record in a 5K race as he tried to out run Edwards. The time for both runners was listed as 16:48.

“It’s the first time I broke 17 (minutes),” said Abrams, who runs for NFA.

Al Schmidt is a race organizer and Edwards’ varsity coach at Pine Bush, and he knew early, as the runners assembled in near freezing temperatures and blustering winds, that it may be an uncomfortable race.

“The wind is going to be cold,” said Schmidt.

Schmidt was right.

The race helps fund Wallkill’s historical society, the fire department, scholarships at Wallkill High School and the St. Patrick’s Day parade, which was conducted in the hamlet Sunday.

The race is also trying to recover from an attendance decline in 2018, when it attracted only about 260 runners, down from 800 in 2015, due to an online registration issue. But it seemed better this year when 250 runners had pre-registered.

“That’s a better number already,” said Schmidt, before the start of the race.