Mike & Courtney Newman, of Newman Racing LLC, have been running for as long as they can remember. We are talking as far back as when it was normal to run with a handheld CD player!

Both Mike and Courtney ran in high school. Courtney ran for Hillsborough and had a relaxed, enjoy every run approach to the sport. Mike ran for Forbes Road and was a bit more competitive. While he didn’t have a coach, or a team, he finished 6th in PA in the 1600 meters in 1989. They almost didn’t give him his medal because he didn’t have a uniform.

Mike went onto Carnegie Mellon University to become a mechanical engineer. His academic workload left little time for running but lots of time for snacking! Courtney went to the University of Delaware as a business major where she was a coxswain for the rowing team. Her favorite days were when the team had to run.

Living in the same town, Mike & Courtney suspect they were on many start lines together but had no idea about one another.

That was until November of 2004. Mike was working with Courtney’s mom on purchasing a home and training hard to complete the Philadelphia Marathon. Courtney was also running the Philadelphia Marathon but training a little less hard. For her it was a bucket list item as part of Team in Training after her close friend was diagnosed with Leukemia. The day of the race, Mike ran a 2:36 while Courtney ran a 3:40:55. While she had no idea what the Boston marathon was, Courtney’s Boston marathon qualifying time was 3:40 which meant anything less than 3:41 counted. They still refer to that as the 5 seconds that changed their lives. Mike greeted her with the great news on qualifying. Based on his results and enthusiasm, she agreed to let him train her to run Boston.

Training runs followed, then a beer or two at Tiger’s Tale and 7 months later a first date. Next came a wedding, two kids and lots of pets!

In the early years, their passion for running led them to coach destination marathon teams for the Cancer Support Community (CSC) in Bedminster. Participants agreed to raise money for CSC in exchange for an all-expense paid trip to an awesome place to run. They coached participants in fundraising and preparing for 26.2 miles while travelling and completing marathons in Big Sur, Nashville, Louisville & Pheonix.

After some medical scares with their children, they decided to keep their running a bit more local and founded the nonprofit Steps Together. Steps Together is a Hillsborough based 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to inspiring our community to pay their blessings forward and support Somerset County families facing a medical crisis. 10 years later, Courtney still serves as the Executive Director.

The first fundraiser Steps Together hosted was organizing a team to participate in the Steeplechase Distance Run. It is there that Courtney met Mark Zenobia of On Your Mark Productions. Mark fostered Courtney’s passion for event management as it related to road races. Mark often referred to her as “Grasshopper” and shared his decades of knowledge as the industry leader.

Newman Racing now manages several road races in the Central NJ area.

Their passion for running, firsthand understanding of nonprofits and incredible attention to detail result in a great experience for participants of their races and the nonprofits that hire Newman Racing!