Profile

PROFILE A MULTIFACETED RUNNER

Get to know Doug Krohn of Carver, Minnesota

In 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.

BY PATRICK O’REGAN

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 (1969- 1970), 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.”

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

most effortlessly in 36 minutes.” His talent now fully awake, he wanted to run a marathon. He drove up to Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth the next spring, just to watch the finish of the race. Encountering the great marathoner, Dick Beardsley, Doug approached and told him he wanted to get into marathoning. “What do I need to do?” he asked. Dick said, “You need to do three things – run, run and run some more.” Dick also told him to leave his watch at home when he ran his first marathon. “Don’t worry about your time. Just relax and get comfortable with it.”

Keeping Dick’s advice in mind, Doug ran the Twin Cities Marathon in the fall of 1981. He ended up running with a group of Masters runners from Chicago. “I didn’t know what I was doing,” Doug recalled. “I just ran comfortably with them.” He finished in a very respectable 2:56, on the basis of running 50 miles a week for seven months. “I was hungry for the next one,” he recalled. “The pace work from college had hit home. I knew I now needed speed work.” Doug started training with Lenny Beard, a 2:27 marathoner, following his notion that it’s better to run with someone who is better than oneself. They would run a 20 mile run every Saturday and get to a track for speed work. With steady improvement, they ran Grandma’s and the Twin Cities marathons.

When Lenny moved on, Doug trained with Tom Stambaugh, a 2:25 marathoner, who also knew Beardsley. On two occasions, the three of them ran together. Doug continues to stay in touch with Beardsley to this day. “He’s such a motivator,” Doug said. “Always on cloud nine.” Now married to Lisa, Doug shared with Dick the experience of adopting children at about the same time – Doug’s daughter from Korea, Mandy, and Dick’s son, Andy. Doug and Tom would train together for two years, meeting every Saturday to run 20 miles around a lake in the Cities. They ran the Omaha River Front Marathon, which Tom won. Doug was thirteenth in 2:34. Other people who would come into the training routine with Doug included Bruce Mortenson, Doug Suker and Harry Cottrell.

Boston gets into every marathoner’s blood at one time or another. Doug determined to run his first Boston in 1984. His last long run before the race was a 20 miler with Ron Daws, the local Olympian in the marathon and running guru. “It was painfully slow,” Doug recalled. Daws liked the long slow distance philosophy of training. Doug didn’t. The first Boston was a tune up. He ran 2:54. Two years later, he would run it again. This time in 2:36.

During this time, Doug would meet many of the great runners of the era. Once, at Boston for the marathon, he happened to be in Bill Rodgers running store, run by Charlie Rodgers, brother of

Doug Krohn runs Grandma’s marathon in the 1980’s. he had his personal best in 1986 with a time of 2:32:12 to finish 32nd. Submitted photo

the great runner, when a little man came in. “Aren’t you Bill Rodgers?” Doug asked. “Yeah, and what’s your name?” Rodgers said. Another time, Doug ended up on an elevator in Boston with a woman. “You’re Joan Benoit Samuelson!” Doug said to her, recognizing the great woman marathoner and winner of the first Olympic marathon for women. “Yeah,” she said. “Who are you?” They chatted. She signed his race number.

Doug improved. Training hard, he set his sights on Grandma’s Marathon in 1986. “I remember the day like yesterday,” Doug said. “I was always well prepared and well rested for marathons, but that day I toed the starting line feeling really good.” He ran his personal record of 2:32:12, finishing 32nd out of over 6,000 runners. At the finish line, he thought, “What are those 31 people in front of me doing differently than I am?” He set his sights on the Twin Cities Marathon that fall, thinking he could get another personal record. He finished in 2:33:10. “I’m proud of that 2:32:12,” Doug said. “That’s the best I had. I put it all out there.” He would run the Chicago Marathon at age 50, his last one (of 20). He finished in 3:10. “That was the only time I hit the wall,” he said. “It was the hardest one.”

PROFILE

Lisa and Doug keep a beautiful pair of Golden Retrievers. Coming down the stairs one day, Doug tripped on one of the dogs and fell hard, tearing a quadriceps from the bone. Two surgeries later, he’s back to running, but with just the occasional 5K race.

He recalls the joy of it all: “Running can be so nice. Running right along in a little 10K fun run, effortlessly, throwing in two 5:15 miles, just for fun, breaking free of the crowd, pulling away, with hardly a strain…” Training

Doug’s approach to training for a marathon can be reduced to a few simple rules: • Running no more than three marathons a year was key to his success. After each one, he knew what he had to do for the next one, and had the time to do it. • It’s a good idea to train with runners who are better than you. If you can run with them from time to time, it will do wonders for your self-confidence. • Speed workouts are necessary. Doug says he lived and died by repeat miles with a lap jog between each. • Of course one must run long distances. A 20 mile run once a week suited Doug. He didn’t like the Long Slow Distance of Arthur Lydiard (and Ron Daws). It seemed painfully slow. • “I just loved the hills,” Doug said. “No hill in a marathon scared me.” • For top flight running, 70 miles a week in the cold months and 100-110 miles a week in the summer was fine, with hills and track workouts for variety. Think quality rather than quantity. “I sometimes wonder,” Doug said, “if I might have done better had I not done so much quantity, but more quality.” Continued from page 19

In the early years, he announced the races organized for women by Mae Horns, mother of Olympian Janis Klecker. This expanded into organizing his own races. With the philosophy of making racing fun for the whole family, Doug and his college buddy Bill Schalow got Solemotion Race Management in full swing. Doug applies a personal touch to the races, bantering with the crowd as announcer and making the race fun for the kids, too. He and Bill have started a number of races that continue to this day. Bill manages eight or nine races a year in Fargo, North Dakota; Doug manages four or five a year locally. The top race on Doug’s schedule is the Don’t Worry Be Hoppy 5K race in Waconia, Minnesota, which has 700 to 800 runners. The whole thing is a lot of work, but Lisa and Mandy help, and he loves it.

Coaching

As a certified trainer, Doug was the head of the Life Time Fitness Running Club in Chanhassen, Minnesota. A few rules Doug follows in coaching: • Know your goals. What do you want to accomplish? If this is to be a marathon and it is your first one, just run it. Forget about the time. • Keep a training log. This will tell you if you are ready for the big race. • Listen to others; absorb everything you can. • A good schedule for the novice marathoner is to get up to 60 miles a week with track workouts of two one-mile repeats, hill workouts and a 20 miler every other week. • Cross training and weights for the upper body are good ideas. • Keep it simple and have fun.

The Rest of Life

Doug stays active. For work, as noted, he manages four to five races a year. He also drives a bus taking veterans to the VA hospital in Minneapolis. He does some coaching; the dogs need to be walked and the usual business of living attended to. He lifts weights and runs to stay in shape. He and his running buddies – John Naslund, Bruce Mortenson, Jared Mondry, Paul Brown, Chad Austin, Doug and others – get together at the Scoreboard restaurant every month for the camaraderie and talk of running. When he looks back on his running life, he takes immense satisfaction in the thought – “I knew I had peaked. I left nothing in the tank. There was nothing more I could have done to get better than I was.”

20 WINTER 2019 Race Management

With a degree in business management and a variety of business work experience over the years, Doug was well equipped to manage races. He also had the perfect attitude: “I love to motivate people,” he said. “Get them active, even if just walking a 5K. The key is to pass the love of running on to other folks.”

For years, Doug was on the recruitment committee for the Twin Cities Marathon. He recruited wheelers and elite able bodied runners for the race. In one push, he went to Atlanta for a gathering of wheelers. His approach to the wheelers was pitch perfect. “I told them,” Doug said, “that I wanted them to come to the TCM as athletes, I want to treat you like athletes and not just wheelers.” Many ended up coming.

For many years, Doug has been a race announcer (he has a wonderfully resonant voice).

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