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A Debut With a Difference October 30, 2002 By JERE LONGMAN Dressed in tights and a skullcap against yesterday's chill, Marla Runyan stepped out of a van in Queens and pressed a course map of the New York City Marathon close to her face. She is the most versatile female runner in the country, and perhaps the best all-around athlete, all the more remarkable given that she is also legally blind. She stood on Crescent Street, facing the Queensboro Bridge, which will carry runners into Manhattan on Sunday between Miles 15 and 16. David Monti, coordinator of the elite runners, told Runyan that she would make a hard left onto the bridge. A couple of barrel-shaped orange traffic barriers could serve as a kind of turn signal. "Do they block this off?" Runyan asked about the traffic and side streets. Yes, Monti said. "So you can't possibly go the wrong way?" Runyan asked. At the 2000 Sydney Games, she became the first legally blind American athlete to compete in the Olympics, finishing eighth in the metric mile. Now, at 33, she will make her marathon debut. She will have to negotiate 26.2 miles without being able to read a pace clock, or even her watch. She will need assistance to find her water bottle, and she will have to navigate changes in elevation of more than 100 feet by feel instead of anticipation. Unless other runners are within 20 to 25 feet, Runyan will not know that they are near her. Beyond that, she has only a vague sense of motion. Even when her competitors are within 15 feet, she will identify them by swatches of gauzy color and running styles instead of by their faces or the numbers on their running bibs. She toured the tricky stretch of course leading to the Queensboro Bridge yesterday afternoon to familiarize herself with a warren of turns. Her husband and coach, Matt Lonergan, suggested that Runyan look for the Nike billboard on the bridge span as a signpost. "I can't even see that," she said. "I can just see an image." A more reliable marker would be the aquamarine Citicorp building that rises 48 stories above the drab landscape. Monti told her that it was one of the taller buildings on the East Coast outside of Manhattan. A left turn at the building would put her on a straight path toward the bridge. "Now that is a great landmark," she said. Runyan, who lives in Eugene, Ore., has Stargardt's disease, a degeneration of the retina that has left her with a hole in the center of her vision. Even with corrective lenses, her eyesight is no better than 20/400. But her life has been one of extending possibility, not succumbing to limitation. Her ambition for Sunday is to finish among the top 10 women with a time of about 2 hours 28 minutes. At the 1996 Olympic trials, Runyan competed in the running, throwing and jumping events of the heptathlon. She holds the event's record time for 800 meters. At the 2000 Sydney Games, she made the final of the 1,500 meters. She has since set an American indoor record for 5,000 meters (3.1 miles) in 15 minutes 7.33 seconds, also winning two national track championships at 5,000 meters and American road titles at 5,000 and 10,000 meters. "My sense is that she says, `This is what you can do,' instead of, `This is all you can do,' " said Allan Steinfeld, race director of the New York City Marathon. If she holds her intended pace, Runyan could threaten the American debut record of 2:26:58, set in New York last year by Deena Drossin. But she is running into the unknown at this distance, and there are several concerns that could adversely affect her times and, potentially, risk her health. Road running presents different challenges from racing on a track, where the surface is uniform, turns are predictable and unvaried and changes in elevation are nonexistent. Two weeks ago, at the national 10-kilometer (6.2-mile) road-racing championship in Boston, Runyan hoped to use an arch of balloons at the finish line as a signal to begin her final kick. But the balloons blew away, confusing her plans. She won, but was unable to locate the tape stretched across one side of the finish line. In New York, race organizers have made two accommodations for Runyan. Their support is designed to aid her without providing an unfair advantage over other runners. Essentially, visual cues will be converted into audible cues. "It's like those talking books for little kids," Monti said. "She's going to be able to hear what others can see." A male bicyclist will ride behind and to the side of her, shouting her time at each mile. The cyclist will be allowed to read aloud any signs announcing water stations and course hazards, and he can notify her of coming turns. But he will not be allowed to ride in front of Runyan, which would provide an unfair edge in pacing and shielding from the wind. And the cyclist will not be allowed to call out her split times, only her cumulative time. A female cyclist will ride ahead to each fluid station for the elite athletes. The stations are located every four miles. One cyclist will be used for all stations so that Runyan can easily identify her voice. The cyclist will stand at the front of each water table and shout "left" or "right" for the location of the station, but she must hold the water bottle at the height of the table, and cannot run alongside Runyan to hand her the bottle. "If Marla bangs the bottle and knocks it on the ground, that's where it will stay," Monti said. For the first time in New York, the group of 25 elite female racers will start 35 minutes ahead of the rest of the field to give the women's race more exposure. This should prevent Runyan from having to run in a pack of men. And the city's Department of Transportation has been monitoring the course daily, filling in potholes. Still, the marathon is a formidable venture for any runner, fully sighted or otherwise. Sometimes, collisions occur at fluid stations. There are significant hills on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge at the start and on the Queensboro Bridge, and an undulating stretch for several miles in Central Park. While a blue line is painted on the entire course, it follows normal traffic patterns, while runners are allowed to take the straightest path through turns. This is called running the tangents. If Runyan is too reliant on the blue line, she could lose valuable time. Perhaps the greatest threat to her success is losing contact with other elite runners and being forced to run alone, unable to use her competitors as a sort of compass. "That is clearly a risk," Monti said. In September, Runyan finished second in a half-marathon in Philadelphia, running 1:11:19 on a humid day. She has trained up to 115 miles a week, finishing a 23 1/2-mile run in 2:35, and maintaining a pace of 5:35 for up to 15 1/2 miles. She feels extremely fit, and her primary concern about the marathon is one that all debut runners have: how will her body feel at 20 or 22 miles, when some begin to hit the proverbial wall? She has never fallen in a race, and she believes that there is more jostling on the track than in the wider space of the roads. Wide turns do not bring anxiety as much as S curves, in which runners veer from one side of the street to the other. The early weather forecast is daunting - a high of 39 degrees - but Runyan said she did not want to retire without experiencing the thrill and pain of a marathon. She is sensitive to any suggestion that the cyclists will give her any undue advantage. "It implies I'll have someone two feet from me, giving me cocktails and energy bars," Runyan said. "That's not the way it is." As she completed her tour of the course between Miles 13 and 15 yesterday, Runyan said the turns jarred her sense of direction. "You don't know which way is up," she said. This means she will rely on the blue line, and the voice of the accompanying cyclist, as urgent tethers. Because she cannot do math in her head when she is racing, Runyan will not try to calculate split times after each mile, but will instead aim for times at various distances: 55.50 for 10 miles, 1:13:30 at the halfway point, 1:52 at 20 miles. Between those landmarks, she will rely on perceived effort. "Blind faith," she said. Her race will be run essentially in increments of 15 feet, which is the radius of her peripheral vision. It is akin to running in the dark with a miner's headlamp. While other runners may despair if they fall behind the leaders, she has long gained the mental strength to run when she doesn't know how far behind or ahead she might be. "When I despair, I hear a voice that says, `You don't know what's going on,' " Runyan said. "What I see is not necessarily what is happening. What I think is despair might be perfectly reasonable." Joan Benoit Samuelson, the 1984 Olympic champion, has cautioned Runyan to run conservatively for the first half, preserving her legs and her stamina. She knows, too, the bridges and cold weather could skew her split times. Over 26.2 miles, things should even out. "It's important not to panic," Runyan said. "All of your reactions have to be gradual reactions. There is a lot of time for things to go right and wrong." http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/30/sports/othersports/30MARA.html?ex=1036980647&ei=1&en=d3df5656111bb3e1 HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company
