ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, May 1, 1996 TAG: 9605010026
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
COLUMN: Community Sports
SOURCE: DAVID MULLINS
The first person to run a marathon did not have a great experience.
According to legend, in 490 B.C., a Greek soldier named Phidippides was dispatched from the battlefield at Marathon to take news to Athens of a great victory over the Persians.
When he finished the 20-odd mile run, he is said to have cried, ``Rejoice! We conquer!''
Then he dropped dead.
Now there's a sport I want to be a part of.
In 1896, the marathon was made an official event of the first modern Olympics held in Athens. In 1924, the race distance was standardized to the current 26 miles, 385 yards. Interestingly, the first time that length race was run in competition, in the 1908 Olympics in London, the distance was set so that the finish line could be in front of King Edward's royal viewing box.
The Leukemia Society has given runners plenty of support to make sure we can finish the marathon and do it safely. We're given a personalized 18-week training schedule that is tailored to our specific goals and needs.
Runners preparing for their first marathon are urged to build up to training 40 miles per week. Intermediate and advanced runners are expected to run 50 miles or more in some weeks plus some strenuous speed workouts at the track or on the road. In all programs, the training schedules call for several long runs, up to 230 miles, during the training period.
Team members are also assigned an experienced coach to help them run free of injuries and worries. Blacksburg High cross country coach Jack Hencke leads our New River Valley marathon team.
Among other things, Jack preaches the importance of building our endurance gradually and of stretching our muscles, both before and after each run. His main jobs are to keep us running safely and to make sure we reach our conditioning peak as close to the July 14th San Francisco marathon as possible.
As Phidippides could tell you, marathon running can be a dangerous sport. In my five marathons over the past 21/2 years, three runners have died. One person died during mile 23 of the 1993 Marine Corps marathon in Washington, D.C., and two collapsed and died after finishing the 1994 New York City Marathon. One of them had finished just two seconds behind me.
These two marathons had a combined total of over 40,000 entrants. Some people argue that in a city that size, it wouldn't be that unusual, statistically speaking, for three people to die of heart attacks on a given afternoon, whether running in a marathon or sitting on the couch eating Cheetos.
Well, maybe.
No matter what the dangers, I'm pressing ahead with my training. As I write this, it's mid-April and I'm a little behind schedule. I ran 116 miles in March, right about the minimum my advanced schedule called for. I'm supposed to run about 143 miles plus speed work in April, but so far, I've done only about 65, and precious little speed work.
I ran the Charlottesville Ten Miler in a recent weekend in 74 minutes, 26 seconds. That's pretty close to my projected marathon pace, but I've got to build up my endurance so I can maintain it over the first 26.2 miles.
One thing hindering my running right now is about five to 10 extra pounds that I didn't have last year at this time. That condition wasn't helped by the Ten Miler post-race party, which offered not only water, sports drinks, and fruit but also brownies, cookies, bagels, eclairs, and donuts.
Non runners may be surprised to learn that this party also offered another post-race treat that lots of other races now offer: beer.
Of course, this race was in Charlottesville, where certain fraternities at the University of Virginia have been reputed to approach drinking as if it were an Olympic event.
In future columns, I'll report on how training and fund raising are going for me and my teammates. In the meantime, if you hear from one of us asking for money, please try to help if you can.
And if you see Phidippides out there on the road, tell him to lay off the Cheetos and beer.
Blacksburg runner David Mullins has committed to run the 1996 San Francisco marathon July 14 as a member of the Leukemia Society team in training. Mullins and several dozen other Western Virginians are seeking contributions to help finance research and patient aid in the fight against leukemia and related cancers. This is the second in a series of first-person columns on the experience).
LENGTH: Medium: 83 linesby CNB