Rod Dehaven
In U.S. Marathoning, Rod DeHaven Gets it Done
Cathy Breitenbucher
October 2001
Chicago Athlete
Track and field's elite was congregating in Edmonton for the world championships, storm clouds were gathering ominously across the Upper Midwest and Rod DeHaven's family was getting ready for his wife's birthday party.
Still, at the end of an early-August day that had started with a 16-mile run and included an 8-to-3:30 shift at the office and a work-related class, DeHaven needed to get in a few more miles. What to do?
"I hopped on the treadmill for four miles," DeHaven said.
Just more evidence of DeHaven's get-it-done attitude, one that could produce great results when he runs in the La Salle Bank Chicago Marathon.
DeHaven comes into the Oct. 7 race as one of its biggest names, thanks to his victory in the 2000 Olympic Marathon Trials and his sixth-place finish last April at the Boston Marathon. Even if you don't see him up front early, he's certainly not someone to be counted out after the way he rallied both in the Olympic Trials and at Boston.
Until his 2:12:41 at Boston, his P.R. was a 2:13:02 at the '98 Chicago Marathon.
"Once I got to 17 miles, I was just running to finish because there wasn't anyone else around," DeHaven recaled. "I was fighting my watch instead of fighting the field. It was one extended time trial.
"Hopefully, I'll be in more of a race mode from Comiskey Park to the finish."
The last couple years of DeHaven's racing life have had as many ups and downs and twists as a Six Flags roller coaster. After the exhilaration of his Olympic Trials victory in Pittsburgh, DeHaven succumbed to dehydration and gastrointestinal problems in Sydney, finishing just 69th. He was sick much of the winter, too.
"If you had asked me in January about a 2:12:41 at Boston, I'd have said, 'Yeah, OK,' " DeHaven said. "A month ahead of Boston, I was down for the count for a whole weekend. I ran the a half-marathon in Memphis and I told myself that if I didn't run 1:05 I'd pull out of Boston."
He ran 1:05:01 and decided to soldier on, also competing in the LaSalle Bank Shamrock Shuffle in Chicago before toeing the line in Hopkinton, Mass. "I was a little concerned about my fitness," he confessed.
"To get a P.R. and sixth place, I was pretty happy. Other people were banged up and they disintegrated before my eyes."
The roller coaster took another plunge in June when DeHaven flew to Eugene, Ore., for USA Track & Field's championships. DeHaven flew to Eugene after a layover in Denver, but his bags didn't, due to severe weather that caused many flights to be delayed or cancelled. Using borrowed shoes and gear, DeHaven dropped out midway through the 10,000 meters.
"I felt that under good conditions I could run 28:10 or so," he said. "But given my lack of sleep and the heat, I ended up falling apart and so did everyone else except Abdi (Abdirahman, who won by nearly 16 seconds in 28:23.82)."
DeHaven endured yet one more downer on the Fourth of July when, racing in a lesser event in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, instead of at the Peachtree Road Race, and perhaps thinking he could cruise, he placed third. "After the Eugene fiasco, I didn't feel that fit," he explained. "I don't think I did any serious workouts from the time I was in Eugene until Cedar Rapids. It was a wakeup call and now I'm training much better."
DeHaven chose the Cedar Rapids race in part because he could get there easily from Madison, Wis., where he lives. Chicago offers similar proximity, plus a flat course - no small factors for a 35-year-old family man who puts in 130-mile weeks around a 32-hour workweek as a computer programmer. Incidentally, DeHaven's wife Shelli is due to have their third child on Oct. 8.
"The organization of the Chicago Marathon is tremendous and they made me a very good offer to run there," he said. "It's not like Chicago is ever a second choice."
DeHaven grew up in South Dakota and ran the 1,500 at Division II South Dakota State before moving up in distance and moving up the ranks. A late bloomer? "I'm a never-was," he quipped.
DeHaven worries about a lack of talent and depth in U.S. men's distance running, tracing the problem all the way back to the Americans' boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics.
"Marathon running is a big deal in this country, but people who watch marathons would never sit and watch a 10,000 on the track," he said. "It's just too hard. People don't stick with it. The typical college kid will run track and figure, 'I'll run a marathon when I'm older.' Then they hit 26 (years old) and have $20,000 in college debts, they're uncoached and they just quit. We lose 90 percent of our runners."
Chicago Marathon executive race director Carey Pinkowski still thinks DeHaven can make a breakthrough at Chicago and says he has never given up on American marathoners. "It is my responsibility to give our kids a chance, to market them and support them," he said. "Look to the future -- there are some great ones coming down the road and I feel you will see Americans winning major marathons in the next few years."
DeHaven showed positive signs on Aug. 18, placing fourth with a 1:04:38 in the Parkersburg, W.Va., Half-Marathon, which served as the USATF championship.
DeHaven says he will take the remainder of his career one marathon at a time. "The biggest indicative factor will be I'll take a month off (after Chicago), and it gets harder to start back up again," he said. "Some people are surprised by that, like, 'Don't you just live to run?' and I'm, 'No.' "
DeHaven already is thinking about what he will have meant to U.S. running. "I hope I've attracted some younger guys into the sport, figuring if I can do it, they can too," he said.
That may prove to be DeHaven's legacy, but he probably already has written his epitaph.
"Being the lone American man in the Sydney Olympic marathon," DeHaven said, "that description will follow me for the rest of my life."
Rod DeHaven will be running Chicago on October 7th.