University Daily Kansan
Friday, April 22.1977
3
Marathon runner:to the beat of a different drummer
The marathon run is a long, grueling race. And it often becomes more taxing because rain frequently accompanies the race. And the weather conditions this year's marathoners will face are
Ironically, it rained last weekend (the originally scheduled date for the Relays) so the marathon would once again have had an additional obstacle.
By RICK BRYANT
Sports Writer
Regardless of the weather, however, the marathon runners will be there and most
Sometimes it's better to forgo heroics for rationale. Granted, that isn't always the most glorious way out, but for once I'm glad I had the sense to talk myself out of having that I had seriously considered--running in the marathon in the Kansas Relays.
It seemed to be an interesting challenge at first. I wanted to experience first hand what it would be like a marathon runner. I wanted to supervise the frustration and the relief. I wanted to demand of myself the dedication required to complete the run. I wanted to learn what the marathon was.
BUT, ACTUALLY, I had never run competitively in my life and only sporadically for leisure. And 26 miles, 385 yards is mid-evening jogs by any stretch of reason.
I am also not of the build that the serious need needs. Mine is 5-8 frame that carries 172 knots.
I had a brief conversation with KU coach Bob Timmons about the possibility of entering the marathon. I explained my initial plan to compete for the event, and for enlisting the race. His reply was terse.
"YOU CAN PUT me down on record as being against the whole thing."
But when I gave more thought to the idea, I knew he was right. So, instead of running the marathon, I drove it and studied the course the runners will follow tomorrow. And I thought about the thrill the finishers must feel.
This is the seventh year that the marathon will be run over the same course. It runs southeast out of Lawrence to the sleepy hamlet of Vinland and returns the day before.
In 1970, Timmons and Gene Burnett, a Lawrence resident, flew around the county in Burnett's plane to select a path for the marathon. When the plane landed, Timmons had a course selected and appinned to his marathon route; he has held for the last eight marathons.
THE ORIGINAL course began and ended in the county while crossing the southwest part of Douglass County around Globe Lone Rock and included 19 runners were enclosed that first year.
Timmons decided the following year that the marathon should begin and end in Memorial Stadium. Burnett and a civil lawyer argued that the course, which is approved by the AAU
THE RACE will start on the west track of the stadium. Everyone runs one lap around the track, then up the right footpath of the hill to the Camanile.
Tomorrow at 7 a.m., more than 100 marathon runners will begin the race in Memorial Stadium. Last year 122 runners completed the course in 343. Also here's what the course looks like.
As the runners near the top of the path, they can either go left on the path through the bushes, or continue onto the steps. The hill is steeper than it looks. I timed myself at a little over a minute to reach the top on a slow iog.
The course then goes left from the Campanile along Memorial Drive where the runners turn right at the stop sign and traffic booth.
FROM THE TRAFFIC booth, the course goes across Jayhawk Boulevard and down Indiana Street to 19th Street. The runners turn right onto Louisiana Street and go south past Lawrence High School, then out of town. The intersection of Louisiana and
Staff drawing by DAVID MILLER
23rd streets could give the runners a brief break from their lights, aren't in their when they put them on.
Now it's four miles straight south on Louisiana past Broken Arrow Park and across 1st Street. All of the course is paved blacktop. But the next two miles are very rough until reaching the bridge over the Mississippi River. Then it smoothes out the rest of the way.
THE RUNNERS take a left at the stop sign and hit the five-mile mark on O'Leary Road at about 7:30 a.m. for the leaders. They walk about six minutes per mile in a marathon.
Most people have the misconception that all of Kansas is flat—not so. The next three miles are gently rolling hills that will certainly tax the runners.
at mile-marker eight, the road bends right and offers a view of choice real estate
in the Cedarwood Hills edition. The road goes downhill to rest the runners briefly and then back up.
MILES NINE and 10 are the real killers of the course. The road goes up at an angle steeper than the hill outside the stadium and for a longer distance.
The course flattens out the rest of the way into Vinland, the half-way mark. On the right side of the road stands the old brown boat now boarded up to keep the tourists away.
Aid stations every three miles offer water, Gatorade and this year, for the first time, ERG-Electrolyte Replacement Glucose drink.
The Kansas marathon attracts all kinds and ages of runners. More women are entering each year and the age bracket of competitors range from 10 to 61.
IN THE MASTERS Division, persons over 40, Bob Cleighton, 42, of Atwood, K. holds the record with a time of two hours, 48 minutes. The course last year in three weeks, 47 minutes.
Terry Ziegler of Oklahoma owns the marathon record with a time of 2:31.15 and has won the event three years straight, 1973-75.
Distance runners seem to run to the beat of a different drummer, Burnett remember.
LACOMBE STARTED RUNNING in fall 1972 in the KU FACHI FUNITY Program because she said, it offered a challenge and she to show herself that she could learn to run.
With an arm and a leg slightly smaller than the other side, this runner came down the hill just as the officials were closing the gate to allow theathon. The event is closed after five hours.
After one semester with the program, she began to run by herself and has continued since then. She said she preferred to run alone because of the freedom that other runners sometimes unsee her, pace.
bers is about a handcapped runner with will power.
"That would make me one of four women marathon runners in Kansas," she said.
One year a runner making the return trip ran into an farmer's yard and collapsed at the 20-mile mark. After receiving aid from the farmer, who came running out of his house to help he got up and finished the race.
Lacombe, a native of France, said that people in her homeland weren't interested in physical fitness, and that few French women ran.
Recently, Lacombe said she once read that in the United States there was one woman marathon runner for every one-half million population.
EDWINN ELBEL, professor emeritus of physical education and manager of the Relays, that as far as he could remember Lacombe was only the third to finish the marathon in the history of the KU event but only one entered last year but only one finished.
The man wanted so badly to finish the marathon in the stadium that he climbed the chain-lattice of Memorial Stadium and landed on the taut surface of Hershberger Track.
She wants to finish in time to get a plaque
THE STORY that Burnett best remem-
By. JEANNE HIERL
It takes trouble, dedication and time to train and compete in a marathon. And the personal gains can be measured only individually. All finishers receive a medal, lunch, a small reward for such a high breed. But the marathon runner is a special breed.
"When I run I count," she said, "I count
steps because I change my breathing
method."
THE SAID she varied 50 sets of three steps, breathe out—two steps, breathe in, with 50 sets of three steps, breathe out—two steps, and the count is two for two when running uphill.
Lacombe, 32, an associate professor of French is the only woman entered in the Paris International Exhibition.
Staff Reporter
A tall, statuesque woman has been seen keeping a steady pace around town lately as she runs and runs . . . and runs. The woman is Lacombe, and she is training for the marathon.
The marathon is a grueling endurance race of 26 miles, 385 yards, that was in attendance at the 1972 Olympics and games in Athens, Greece, in 1896. It commemorates the legendary feat of a Greek soldier, who in 490 B.C., ran 26 miles to victory over the Persians at Marathon.
Lacombe said she was entering the marathon because it was the one event people could do when they weren't young enough to be champions.
The marathon has a history of 'older' participants. For a time it was thought that a young person didn't have a chance to win. But in 1951, a 19-year-old Japanese woman the
Boston Marathon, the second most coveted marathon after the Olympics event.
LACOMBE SAID that she didn't expect to win the Relays marathon. People who ran the course, she said, consider themselves winners if they manage to complete the long course.
In the marathon whatever you do is
she said. "You prove something to
yourself."
"The trouble with training for the
competition," she said, "is that it takes too much time."
Lacome has been training all semester. She started running an hour a day and has gradually built up to two hours a day. She marathoned, thus this to be her only marathon attempt.
But, she said, she expects to keep running for the rest of her life.
"RUNNING MAKES you happy with yourself," she said. "It is part of my routine now, and if I don't run it up against with guilt, I will not be humanistic ideal of 'sane mind, sane body.'"
Running may make a person happy, but it can also cause aches and pains. Lacrombe admitted she has some of those. She said she got a pain in her side when she ran, and her left foot and right knee sometimes ached.
Lacome also said that she used to have mild heart condition but, it had cleared up after treatment.
IN ADDITION to running two hours a day, Lacombe said, her training includes
eating healthful foods and getting plenty of rest. She said that, like many athletes, she was superstitious and would wear the same shoes on a marathon race that she wore every day.
Lacombe said she thought she would complete the run, but not the way the original Greek runner finished. According to legend, the Greek was so exhausted by his efforts that he dragged into Athens, gasped "Victory" and dropped dead.
"I think I am crazy to finish," Lacombe said. "It takes fanaticism and I have some of that. I have seen myself do have believed that I have believed possible. And besides, everyone who finishes within five hours gets a plaque, and I want one of them."
I'm looking for a home where there's
- Swimming in a heated pool
- Free utilities
- Air conditioning
- Laundry facilities
- On campus living
- Covered parking
- Wall to wall carpeting
I'm looking for a home at
Jayhawker Towers
843-4993
Apartments
1603 W. 15th