THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 4, 1996 TAG: 9602040049
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY ANNE SAITA, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CAPE HATTERAS LENGTH: Medium: 100 lines
The dark gray skies outside Gary's Restaurant in Hatteras village were spitting tiny pellets of freezing rain, thrown almost horizontally by biting 24 mph winds.
Anybody else would have declared the day a crummy one, weatherwise at least. Not Kristi Klinnert.
``It's not a bad day,'' she assessed, dining on a Spartan lunch of coffee and dried toast. ``My throat's upset, and I'm a little nervous and tired. But the weather itself - this is great.''
Great, maybe, if four weeks ago you were trudging through darkness and blankets of snow, glazed by ice, and continuous subfreezing temperatures that are the mainstay of south-central Alaskan winters.
Klinnert, 27, decided there was no way she could continue with her current life in Anchorage and possibly make the U.S. Olympic marathon team this month.
So she took a sabbatical from her teaching job in January and headed to Cape Hatteras, home of high winds and longtime family friends Dwight and Deborah Burrus.
``In a way, Hatteras has been such a neat transition. People here are like family, too,'' she said the day before departing for Columbia, S.C., where the women's marathon trials will be held next Saturday.
Like her friends in Anchorage, a city of 250,000 that is home to half of Alaska's population, the people in this Outer Banks community have been very supportive.
Motorists honk their horns and wave when they pass the 5-foot-4-inch Klinnert on Highway 12. Many greet her by name.
``Just knowing that people really care and think what you're doing is admirable makes you feel really good, makes you feel appreciated,'' she said.
Klinnert will likely draw on that enthusiasm and her deep Christian faith when she runs her heart out next weekend on the hilly course in Columbia.
She'll be vying with a couple of hundred elite women runners for the top slots on the women's marathon team, which will compete against other world-class athletes in Atlanta this summer.
Among Saturday's competitors will be all the top runners, like Anne Marie Lauck, Olga Appell and Joan Benoit Samuelson, who won the first women's marathon at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.
Women from North Carolina and Virginia, including at least a few from Hampton Roads, also are expected at the starting line.
Klinnert got started in running about the same time Samuelson earned her gold medal, thanks to a physical education and math teacher at Kodiak Junior High School in Kodiak, Alaska. She moved to Kodiak because of her father's former job in the U.S. Coast Guard.
``I was, like, the nerd of the school, and she took me under her wing,'' said Klinnert, who would later emulate her instructor and become a P.E. and math teacher.
She raced shorter distances while a college student at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Ariz. ``It's windy - just like Hatteras, though Hatteras has more pizzaz to its wind.''
Klinnert didn't attempt a 26.2-miler until about a year and a half ago, when she entered the Twin Cities Marathon in Minnesota. There she crossed the finish line in 2 hours, 48 minutes - averaging 6 minutes, 25 seconds per mile.
The time also qualified her for the Olympic marathon trials, which had a cutoff time of 2:50. Klinnert has run two other marathons, in Boston and Japan, but Twin Cities remains her best effort.
``The marathon is just so hard,'' she said in a childlike voice that befits her petite frame. ``It's just so painful. But I love it. I love running.
``You have to really work at it hard. I mean, you can have talent to do a marathon, but you also have to do your homework.''
The drain of training in darkness and teaching full-time began to wear on Klinnert, so she decided to finish her ``homework'' here in Hatteras, where she logged 100-plus miles of running each week.
``The people on Hatteras are just so supportive,'' Klinnert said. ``You kind of meet the whole village when you run through it - 10 times.''
It might have been tough going against 40 mph winds, but at least this place provided plenty of sunshine. And no bears.
Klinnert recalled one encounter with a Kodiak bear - the largest land carnivores in the world - while running a 5K (3.1 miles) loop in Kodiak. She'd never broken 18 minutes at that distance until she came upon fresh bear tracks and suddenly saw a huge flock of seagulls take off in the near-distance.
``I broke 18 minutes - no problem - that day.''
The Alaskan hopes she'll set another personal record Saturday, for herself and the fans she's accumulated along the way.
She'll spend part of this week with a class at Saxe Gotha Elementary School in Columbia. The children have been writing to Klinnert since she qualified for the trials.
She'll also be reunited with fiance Chris Waythomas, a runner and geologist. The couple plan to marry in March.
And what will she miss most about her adopted home on the Outer Banks?
``The people. I've only been here four weeks, but I feel like I've known them all my whole life.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
DREW C. WILSON/The Virginian-Pilot
Kristi Klinnert, 27, took leave from her teaching job in January and
spent a month in Hatteras training for the Olympic marathon trials
to be held in Columbia, S.C., Saturday.
by CNB