University Daily Kansan
Friday, April 18, 1986
7
Profs' daily jogging leads to marathon
By GRANT OVERSTAKE
Staff Reporter
Masochists from near and far will join ranks
unday for the extended period of self-torture that is
required in some cases.
The race will begin at Hershberger Track in Memorial Stadium at 7 a.m., and some 300 gluttons for punishment are expected to abuse their legs, lungs, hearts and souls on a painfully hilly 26-mile, marked by a spray painted line through the street. Outside, out 13 into the countryside and back again.
THE RUNners WHO finish in less than 2 hours, 2 minutes, or so, will have a chance to bring home a championship and Relays watch, along with their aches and pains. Others, who consider their goals to be finishing in less than three hours, or merely saving the salve of personal satisfaction to comfort them.
For most of the marathoners the race will be a chance to put hours of road work and miles of running to the test. It is considered next to impossible to run a marathon without training, but some will probably
To dissuade these larkish would-be marathoners, each person running must have taken a physical afterburning test to prove they are fit. The statement found on the official entry form which states that the runner is free of medical defects that could hinder his performance, and that the runner is under 21 years old, his parents must sign a release and waiver. No one under high school age can run a 21 mile race.
PETER LORENZI, 28-year-old assistant professor of business at KU, is only a few days away from finding out for himself what it's really like to run a marathon.
"My doctor said I was crayed when I went to get my physical for the race," Lorenzi said. "He gave me a note that said I could run and another note that said I should see this shrink."
Lorenz is the youngest member of a group of faculty members that meets daily for runs during the noon hour. The group has grown from a handful to nearly 30 regular members since it was organized in
There are professors from the School of Business, the department of mathematics, art history, fine arts, systems and ecology, chemistry, physics, ROTC, American studies, engineering, geological survey and education in the group, according to T.P. professor and one of the original group members.
"WE RUN EVERY DAY. In fact, this is our social hour. A time to go swimming." *Strinavas said*.
Some of the runners enter other races daring the
equitation. They go to Marathon in Kansas City, Mo., and the Dam Run in
Oklahoma.
The sight of a score or more of middle-aged men can be frightening. More than one driver to slow down and stare, said Phil Montgomery, professor of math. Sometimes the parade of palpatting professors is an object of abuse,
"A lot of people holler and shout at us," Mont-germain said. "We were running one day of town, and these kids drove by and sprayed ketchup on our hands of sort of squirt bottle. It wasn't funny at the time."
But it's the closeness of the group that keeps the two running, Montgomery said. He's been running at LSU since 2014.
"I COULDN'T GET a handball court and I couldn't
"I GET NOBODY to play basketball with me," he said.
"I don't like it."
"You know there's going to be people there to run with every day. It is a va reinforcement. It is really a great group. There's always someone ready to run the pace you want to run."
the weather is too severe, the group seeks refuge in Alen Field House, running dizzying circles
"PHILOSOPHICALLY IT IS a bit much," Montgomery said of the 28-mile route. "The first time it just proves you can do it. It takes three hours, but in a few minutes, your four legs going that long is something to train for."
on a 220-yard track. At least 12 of the faculty jagers are planning to run in this year's RU marathon, and they will be in attendance.
Mike Otto, professor in the School of Fine Arts, and Jim Hale, doctoral candidate in Human Development and Family Life, will not be running in the KU marathon.
Instead, they will be running in the legendary Boston Marathon on Monday.
For Ott, who was one of the original members of the lunch bunch, Boston will be his fourth marathon. He hopes to better his personal record of 2:42. That's a long way from his first running efforts in back to school.
"TD OUT AND run a mile and I thought I was touch." Ott said.
Halle's career has followed a similar pattern. He has been running only three years, yet already has won six league titles.
"I started out running one and a half to two miles a day and then I found this group and starting coming up the hill."
"This may be my only chance (to run Boston)," he said. "I want to go because I'm not sure I'll ever be able."
LONG BEFORE Pink Floyd ever harmonized about it, the marathoners of the world knew about The Wall. It is something that one runs into after 20 miles of racing. It comes from a depletion of energy sources from within. Sometimes the wall is hollow, and you see that it's be hit a wall. But for Halle the wall is a myth.
"I've never experienced anything like the wall," he said. "I understand there'a physiological thing, but if you train correctly you'll have the necessary stamina."
Wall or no wall, the marathon is usually a battle
with pain, according to Bob Hughes, professor of business and veteran marathoner. Hughes has run in seven marathons but won't be able to run the KU team for a third time, because he suffered during the Macy's Marathon last October.
"We were running on the right side of the road during that race." Hughes explained. "Normally we would have been walking up a hill, but we leveled differently on the right side, it was causing me to take longer strides with my left foot than I did."
"WELL, IT BEGAN to get sore and at the 20-mile mark I was in 10th place and my cardiovascular and pulmonary systems were go. So I started shifting the weight on my back. It ran on the inside of my foot for a while or two."
"At the 22 mile course the cours went down a steep hill and then up the other side. When I tried to push off the up side of the hill, it hurt so bad I had to stop. I thought it was my sock bunch up inside my shoe."
At the 38-mile mark, still thinking that something was inside. Hughes asked his wife, who was waiting for him, to step aside.
"She said there weren't, so I put it back on and maneuvered to finish the race." Hughes said.
His time of 2:46 was admirable considering that he had run the last six miles on a tractioned foot. He had been able to get up and down when he sat down to take his shoes off after the race, his legs crumpled so badly they felt pretzel, his knees crumpled so badly they felt pretzel,
And, although he had broken his foot, Hughes didn't stop running. It was bronzeiens that finally forced him to the doctor in December, where he confessed about his pain.
"The start of a marathon is very exhilarating,
knowing the task ahead of you and feeling the uncertainty of whether you're up to it," he said.
"There's a lot of adrenaline and you have to learn to
There's something exciting about running a marathon. Dubes said
control your effort in the early part. There's plenty of time to run fast later.
"For the first part you're just settling in. You're still within your training distances if you trained properly. The nagging doubts begin during the test." You probably began to tell you the truth about how you really feel.
LORENZI, WHO HAS been picking the brains of other faculty loggers for marathon trips, says he's driven by them.
"Absolutely," he said after a recent noon-hour run "inside Allen Field House, out of the cold and rain.
"I've been doing 55 miles a week for 10 weeks and that's what it takes," he said
Lorenzi said his longest race to date had been a 25-mile road race, or about 15 1/2 miles. He has run at least 20 times in that distance.
He said that he had learned a lot from talking to the other faculty members, but that he knew there was much more.
"I've just been trying to find out from others what it's like," he said. "They say that you just run the first six miles without sweating then think of it as a 20-mile race."
HE PLANS TO DRINK a special solution that replaces lost minerals along the route. He also plans to run with a partner and to have a motorized fan club.
"I've got a girl lined up to follow me on a moped," *Olentar* said. "I was thinking of having a whole squad of cops around."
Lorenzi might have trouble with his fan club because the rules state that no motorized vehicles will be allowed on the course. Nevertheless, Lorenzi himself is confident that he'll make it all the way.
"Just think, when I started running I thought that one who runs a marathon has got to be out of their mind."
"Rain, heat and wind are the three things I fear the most," he said. "I'll be ready."
BY KEVIN REARDON
Finishing 26-mile course involves endurance, agony
Guest Writer
At the 18-mile mark I hit the wall. Hard. I can honestly say that at no time in my life have I ever been more depressed and physically exhausted.
At 18 1/2 I stopped along the side of the road and lost my spaghetti, next to a dead bird. At that moment I would have traded places with him.
My legs cramped and my stomach felt terrible. It was warm outside, but I started having cold chills. I looked at the other door, and I saw a man in red underwear why, why the bed, we are doing this.
I finally stopped wondering and cleaned off my shoes in the grass and once again began limping down the road.
EACH STEP ANOTHER brick in my wall.
That was April 20, 1975, when I ran in the manhole of an apartment building with a 26-miler. At the start of that spring semester, I had planned a tight running schedule that I was determined to follow. I never did it, but I missed the semester, but sometimes things just don't work out. Other things get in the way, like all-night poker games, going home and the
I soon lost the piece of paper that had my running schedule and cumulative miles written on it and my running skied off. By mid-February I was tired of running and was going to get so ridiculous to work so hard for a $5 T-shirt that had "Kansas Relay Marathon" on it.
1 BUT I HAD been an average cross country runner on a pennsylvania team and compete. Knowing that I would never make a college team, I finally decided to train, semi-regularly.
Marathon day came before I was ready. It
was a beautiful spring morning that Saturday, a perfect day for a run.
A thousand things raced through my brain. I thought how hard I had trained and how many times I had slacked off. I thought I was going days in high school and my bad ones, too.
Once again I tried to imagine how far 26 miles was, only to remember a signpost just inside the road. A big pine pike: "Kansas City 28 miles." It took me 30 minutes to drive that distance using a car.
I WONDERED If I would hit the wall, that point where pure physical exhaustion and depression combine to decimate many runners. More than anything else, however, I thought about whether I would finish my. I never had to do that. The hours but just finishing would be enough.
I stretched and loosened my legs just like the other 300-old fools gathered in Memorial Stadium that morning. The rubber band held tight keeping and I was truly scared.
I didn't think they would ever get the race. They thought that they were many people to line up on the track, so they positioned themselves on the track. The rubber band was tighter than it had ever been.
THE STARTER GAVE his instructions
See AGONY page ten
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Marathon course long, torturous
By BILL VOGRIN Staff Req
Staff Reporter
The marathon route, or the trail of tears, starts and ends on the Jim Herberacker track at Kansas Memorial Stadium.
will take one lap around the track
need to compare Hill backsons' Memorial Drive.
Seale the hill backsons' guard booth. Hopefully at this hour the commandant will be off duty, and the runners will be allowed on campus to
TURN RIGHT On Mississippi Street and run up the street and across Jayhawk Drive. There be a gentle breeze rolling across grass as you pass between Fint Hall and The Brewery. A person in a killer rallie as you hit the back roads of Daundock Creek.
Remember this hill, the south side of Sunflower Road, it may be easy going down, it makes for a rough last跌.
Your legs should be loosening up as you hit Indiana Street and follow it, to 19th Street. Now run east to Louisiana Street, and watch out for speed traps, as you again run south past Lawrence High School.
Ignore the fast food joints on 23rd Street, a fine tuned marathon body must only masturbate from all the grease in those restaurants. You are probably feeling pretty cocky now, just the two-nile mark, and all flat land.
THE RUNNING becomes monotonous now, there are no distractions as you head out of town. The grass in the lawns of the houses you pass looks nicely comfortable and comfortable on the way back, should you collapse on it.
This three-mile stretch on Louisiana is the easiest part of the course. If you are feeling any pain right now, you had better give up because you won't know the meaning of the word pain until you tackle the next 16 miles.
Return to Lawrence on the same course. Those pains in your side will be long gone but the blisters will just be gone.
Don't dive in the Wakarusa River. You may sniff bad but the river snows mild. Pass over it and head to O'Leary Road. Be a little lttery of O'Leary, there are some rough hills ahead.
Him one mile east to Badinburn and then follow Badinburn to Vialand. Sounds easy doesn't? But there's a catch. It is seven miles to Vialand, and it innsurely hills, bills really, and less than ideal road surfaces.
NO, THERE ARE no gravel roads to run, but the
Pace yourselves and remember that the five miles on
the trail are a long one, and will kill you, but the
one on Sunflower Road is a short one.
blacktop is in poor shape and may cause your Adidas to blowout at top speed.
Some marathoners will want to add a word to the Do Not Pass signs that they will see frequently. The word "out" and exhaustion can cause even the fiercest competitor to pass out.
THE SPEED LIMIT signs of 50 mph can also be ignored.
As the pack spreads out the run can become lonely. Do not get discouraged. Do not start walking just because no one is running.
If you make it to Vindal and turn around just east of town, the experts say you have made it. They say anyone who can do 13 miles can do 25. Don't believe them. Each car has a wheel rack. Road will be there; only they will look twice as big.
Then relax,you idiot,you made it.
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