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Run for the love of it





Shannon Wells, Karen Coss, Heidi Long and Kristin Morris catch their breath after the Jingle Bell Race.

Numerous students have said goodbye to the Multnomah mile and enjoy occasionally running competitively for the excitement and challenge.

Sunday, Darin Markwardt, freshman, placed third out of 1,500 runners in the half marathon Run for the Roses with a time of 1 17:16. The race began at OMSI and wove through downtown Portland. Markwardt said one of the highlights of the race was outsprinting two guys at the end of the race to come in third. Throughout a large part of the race, he talked with a man who had just run in the Bostom Marathon.

Markwardt said he races because he loves challenge. "When you get done you know you've done your best and produced your full potential,"he said.

Markwardt has prepared for months by running 80 miles a week. April 7, he raced 8km in the Bridge to Bridge race and placed eighth out of 823 runners with a time of 27:31. He placed second in his age division in the 15km Shamrock Run with a time of 56:13.

Markwardt said having a race to look forward to motivates him to run even on days when he doesn't want to. He runs about an hour and 45 minutes each day. He has been using the local races to train for a race in Alaska on July 4. The 5km race begins in a tourist town, in front of 10,000 spectators and proceeds up the side of a mountain and back down.

Another distance runner, freshman Abe Long, raced last year in a 26-mile marathon in Newport, Ore., winning in his age division and placing 16 out of 430 with a time of 3:06 hours. Last year, he also won the Duaphalon race in Roseburg, Ore. The Duaphalon is a combination of running 5km, biking 20km and running 5km. Long said he doesn't have time to compete when he's in school, but he wants to continue racing later on. He runs two to 15 miles a day, three and four times a week whenever time allows.

Some students ran in the Bridge to Bridge race, including freshman Dave Temple who ran in a 5km race and placed third in his group of 200 people with a time of 18:50 minutes. Temple also ran in a 5km race in the St. Patrick's Day Shamrock run.

He said, "It's a mind battle when you're racing competitively." Temple enjoys racing because it is exciting, but he said he mainly runs to "rejuvenate and give me motivation to keep going."

Sophomore Karen Coss and freshman Kristin Morris, roommates, started running together at the beginning of the year and wanted motivation to keep running. So they ran six days a week to prepare for the Jingle Bell 5km race on Dec. 5.

Junior Shannon Wells also ran in that race and placed first in her age group. Wells said she enjoys running in races because a race gives her something to look forward to and strive for as she runs each day. Because of the cost of running competitively, Wells prefers to get her exercise running on the streets near Multnomah.

Michael Paine, a sophomore, ran 5km through downtown Portland in the Bridge to Bridge race, placing fourth out of about 220 with a time of 16:13 minutes. Paine said getting sucked into running is easy because he's never satisfied with his time. He enjoys racing because he gets to see how he compares to other runners.

Paine also runs with a competitive team called Team Red Lizard. He is excited about building relationships with these men who "eat, sleep, and run." He runs with the team once a week for an hour and a half and runs about 12 miles.

Paine said running has "a lot of parallels to the Christian life. It's an inner struggle."