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TechnographMarathon mania runs through area
By Sara Garcia
Posted: 10/11/05 Section: News
Mary Stech said she thinks it would be hypocritical to work in health care and not stay in shape.
But going for a walk near her home in Mahomet or pedaling for 20 minutes on a stationary bike was not enough for the 44-year-old nurse practitioner.
She trudged up and down mile-high hills along the Pacific Coast with her daughter and second husband in April 2004 as part of her first marathon, the Big Sur International Marathon in California.
Stech is not fast. Nor is she skinny. She simply decided, soon after her husband's 50th birthday, that she was going to finish 26.2 miles. And she did.
The running enthusiast trained for her second marathon, the 2005 LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon and finished in five hours and forty minutes. She is part of a growing number of Americans who do not fit the stereotypical profile for a marathoner - quick and thin - but are still training for and finishing marathons across the country.
In 1976, the number of U.S. marathon finishers was 25,000, according to the Road Runner Information Center. By 2004, the center reported that the number had grown more than 16 times to 423,000. Ryan Lamppa, a researcher with the center, estimated that there are 15,000 to 20,000 marathon finishers in Illinois, though statistics describing the rate of growth were not available.
"The marathon is going mainstream, no doubt about it," Lamppa said in a phone interview.
It is clear an increasing number of Americans are becoming obese, but at the same time, many people are going in the opposite direction and seeking ways to increase their fitness levels. The new runners are rarely trying to beat a certain time and few hope to place among elites in marathons with as many as 40,000 participants. Most just want to say they did it.
Lamppa said the number of marathon finishers has shot up twice since the 1960s. The first jump was when a growing number of runners flocked to the sport in the mid-1970s after hearing about famous runners like Bill Rogers, who won the Boston Marathon multiple times, and Frank Shorter, who won a gold medal in the 1972 Olympic Marathon in Munich, Germany.
But going for a walk near her home in Mahomet or pedaling for 20 minutes on a stationary bike was not enough for the 44-year-old nurse practitioner.
She trudged up and down mile-high hills along the Pacific Coast with her daughter and second husband in April 2004 as part of her first marathon, the Big Sur International Marathon in California.
Stech is not fast. Nor is she skinny. She simply decided, soon after her husband's 50th birthday, that she was going to finish 26.2 miles. And she did.
The running enthusiast trained for her second marathon, the 2005 LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon and finished in five hours and forty minutes. She is part of a growing number of Americans who do not fit the stereotypical profile for a marathoner - quick and thin - but are still training for and finishing marathons across the country.
In 1976, the number of U.S. marathon finishers was 25,000, according to the Road Runner Information Center. By 2004, the center reported that the number had grown more than 16 times to 423,000. Ryan Lamppa, a researcher with the center, estimated that there are 15,000 to 20,000 marathon finishers in Illinois, though statistics describing the rate of growth were not available.
"The marathon is going mainstream, no doubt about it," Lamppa said in a phone interview.
It is clear an increasing number of Americans are becoming obese, but at the same time, many people are going in the opposite direction and seeking ways to increase their fitness levels. The new runners are rarely trying to beat a certain time and few hope to place among elites in marathons with as many as 40,000 participants. Most just want to say they did it.
Lamppa said the number of marathon finishers has shot up twice since the 1960s. The first jump was when a growing number of runners flocked to the sport in the mid-1970s after hearing about famous runners like Bill Rogers, who won the Boston Marathon multiple times, and Frank Shorter, who won a gold medal in the 1972 Olympic Marathon in Munich, Germany.
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