Go to just about any road race in Ocean County, New Jersey and you will most likely see or hear Patty Hancock of the Ocean Running Club.  Patty has been running and inspiring others to run for well over 30 years and keeps up her regimen of participating in a race just about every weekend at the Jersey Shore.  She is either running the race or organizing it.

According to her twin sister Michelle (Mike), “I remember Patty trying to start a club to have friends together, just to get involved, be a club, and have fun. She was always one to try to organize things to get people motivated. We were only pre-teens then and she got yellow T-shirts and called her club The Chicken Noodle Club.”

Patty has also overcome a lot of adversity and it has never let it slow her down. In the last few years she had a pacemaker put in, her husband Bobby had a pacemaker put in, she was diagnosed with osteoporosis that has required infusions to help slow the progression, her brother died, and she had skin cancer (12 stitches), and many breast biopsies from a cystic breast disease. But none of this stopped her and most people are not even aware of these things as Patty never lets on and keeps on going.

According to her sister she witnessed Patty getting hit by a car on Route 18, when they were just 10 years old. It was bad, she bounced and skidded along the road after the hit, landed near a curb, and tried to pull herself onto a grass area. She had the skin peeled off her back, and a compound fracture of her leg with a bone sticking out of her leg. Doctors told their mother that the leg was too damaged and had to come off. Her mom pleaded to save it, and the doctor miraculously did, and Patty spent a long time in a wheelchair and had to be home schooled. But she recovered and maybe that experience inspired her to run.

Known affectionately by her friends as “Chatty Patty” she is never at a loss of words of encouragement to her fellow runners and especially beginners. Patty recently helped a woman whose husband was deployed to Iraq learn to run so when he returned she could run with him.  He returned and she surprised him by running with him at the past Seaside Half Marathon.

Patty also volunteered to be a guide for blind runners, helped them train for a marathon  and accompanied them to an event in California where she ran as a guide.

When Ocean Running Club’s Arturo Gonzalas' daughter Jessica was diagnosed with Leukemia, Patty put her picture on the Club’s  Summer Series shirt and would ask for prayers from the runners every week. Then, she would head out to a Newark hospital to see Jessica. Unfortunately, she passed, but Patty gave tremendous support to his family. Any family in the running community is like family to Patty.

She can also be seen at many high school track and cross country meets encouraging runners.  She was instrumental in establishing a scholarship offered by the Ocean Running Club which is awarded to deserving high school students going on to college,

Patty has been the glue which holds the Ocean Running Club together as its President, a Race Director and organizer of many other running and fun social events. She has guided trhe club in these capacities from a small club to one of the largest ansd most active running clubs in New Jersey.

Recently she has even diversified into triathlons and has brought that same spirit in participating in them as well.

Patty’s mother is a World War II veteran and Patty wouldn’t think of doing anything other than visit her on Veterans Day. She finds time even with a full time job, her volunteering and training to be a terrific wife for nearly 40 years to Bobby, a caring mom to Todd and Patrick, a guiding mother-in-law to Jamie and a proud grandmother to Lily.

She has come a long way from that “Chicken Noodle Club" over 40 years ago and is still running strong and inspiring others to do the same.