PROFILE
A MULTIFACETED RUNNER Get to know Doug Krohn of Carver, Minnesota BY PATRICK O’REGAN
I
n any field of endeavor, but – as it seems to me, at least – especially running, people often slip the urges of their talent, holding it off for years, until, often suddenly, it wakes within them and extends an invitation to be taken advantage of. So it was with Doug Krohn. He didn’t really come into his own as an outstanding (2:32:12 marathon) runner until after his college days. This profile, then, is the story of a runner who, from a humble athletic beginning, discovered that he had a talent for running and thereafter got all he could from the gift he had been given. And more, when his days as an outstanding marathoner were over, Doug went on to promote running in a variety of ways – coaching, race management, recruiting, announcing and so forth – doing what he could to get others involved in the great sport of running. He truly is a Renaissance man and promoter of the sport.
Summary of a Running Life If you discount running away from an angry older brother, Doug grew up without athletic influences. He was just another active youngster in Carver, Minnesota. But he had friends on the high school track team who got him out for track. He ran the 440 and 660 his first two years (19691970), clearly not distances he was meant to run. He hated it. “God bless their hearts,” Doug said of the coaches. “They really didn’t coach much.” Strangely, he was pointed in the right direction by the tragic death of a friend, Crae Degler, who was an outstanding two miler. Doug wanted to run that distance as a tribute to him. The coaches insisted on the mile. He became a good high school miler, posting a personal best of 4:53 and placing third in the conference championship as a senior. But he was better than that. Two years after graduating from high school (1972), allowing some time to work, run a little, grow and mature, Doug joined the Air Force. “In basic training,” he recalled, “I started to notice that running came easy to me.” He also learned about disciplined training and teamwork. During the mile run of PT tests, he would finish far ahead of the others. “Okay, Mr. Runner,” the sergeant would say, “keep going. Run another one.”
18
WINTER 2019
Doug Krohn, standing, is pictured with Dick Beardsley. Beardsley’s advice to the young man who wanted to start running marathons was to ‘run, run and run some more.’ Submitted photo Perforce, being a member of a team mattered to him. After four years in the Air Force, Doug headed for Minot State College, just down the road from the base to which he had been assigned. There, some urge getting a hold of him, in his junior year Doug approached the cross country coach, Wiley Wilson, about getting on the team. The coach told him to get changed and promptly put him into an indoor mile against the All American runner, Tim Francis. Without training, Doug ran 5:30. “It was grueling,” he said. “I didn’t get pacing.” But he would learn. The practices were mostly five minute mile repeats in parks.
This kind of intensive training was new to Doug. “Everything hurt,” he said. He fell under the influence of two outstanding runners – Tim Francis and Bill Schalow. “I was learning by doing,” Doug said. He would slow it down in practice, saving it for the races. In his senior year, though still losing to most of the good runners he faced, he could say to himself, “I get it now. I get pacing.” After college (1980), with a degree in business management, Doug kept running. He was determined to try a 10K. In his first attempt at that distance, he ended up third behind two college All American runners. As he recalled, “I ran al-
