The Deseret News Marathon has collected perhaps more than its share of adventures and misadventures during its 25 years. Here are some favorites, drawn from the lore of this sometimes crazy race:
THE (TEMPORARY) PRISON ESCAPE (1971). Gary Langston, a resident of the Utah State prison, entered the marathon after earning a day pass for good behavior. According to then-race director Keith West, "The guard just dropped him off at the start, and then waited for him at the finish line and hoped he showed up." Langston, a convicted forger, did show up, some 41/2 hours later. That left him more than a half-hour behind a 16-year-old Salt Lake high school student named Mark Hofmann, who would later undertake Langston's line of work, with similar results.THE FIRST WOMEN (1971). Donna Gookin, Eileen Waters and Lynda Brown became the first women to enter the race. Gookin, a Californian, finished 31st overall with a time of 3:18:30 and "still had the lipstick on she started with," wrote one reporter. Still, women entries were so rare in the early years - none entered in 1970, '72 or '74 - that race officials didn't even keep records of the overall female winners for years to come.
THE GATORADE HURL TRICK (1972 or thereabouts). Hearing that Gatorade was a favorite drink of runners, the Deseret News provided it during the marathon. Unfortunately, it was carbonated Gatorade, and runners threw up all over the parade route.
THE BIG THIRST (1974). Scott Bringhurst, an All-American distance star for the University of Utah, entered his first marathon and came away a winner, even if he didn't feel like one. Ignorant of what later would become standard marathon procedure, he didn't take a drink the entire race and collapsed at the finish, nearly unconscious. There was more bad news for him: although he set a race record of 2:20:24, the course was found to be about a mile short.
THE WRONG-TURN FIASCO (1975). A big favorite in Deseret News Marathon lore. As the seven lead runners approached the end of the race, a cop mistakenly directed them to Main Street, where they encountered a major road construction project. The runners jumped over ditches and climbed over pipes like they were hitting the beach at Normandy before they realized the mistake and doubled back. Meanwhile, back at the Salt Palace finish line, Steve McCalley, a deaf-mute Californian, leaped for joy across the finish line and threw his T-shirt into the crowd, thinking he was the winner. Later, the real leaders strolled up to the finish. One of them tapped sports writer Ray Grass on the shoulder and asked, "Where's the finish line? . . . Did we win?" The runners finally chose the winners themselves - and someone had to find a way to tell McCalley he really finished eighth.
WRONG TURN, PART II (1976). More misadventures. Several frontrunners went the wrong way and bypassed a two-mile loop in Emigration Canyon because a race official didn't get to his post on time to point the runners in the right direction. Later, these runners were told to make up the difference with a loop around the This is the Place Monument. Some runners quit on the spot.
THE FULL COURT PRESS (1976). Mike Newlin, an outstanding guard for the Houston Rockets via the University of Utah, entered the marathon, making everyone well aware that he hadn't even trained for it, determined to demonstrate the fitness of basketball players. What he did instead, according to one witness, was "Put himself through living hell." Newlin was ready to quit at the zoo (19 miles), but was talked into continuing by a friend. When he finally staggered to the finish, he vowed never to run another step again in his life.
THE STATION WAGON CAPER (1976). Another favorite in marathon lore. John Walker of Las Vegas won his second veteran division (50 and over) title with a time of 2:57, but suspicions were aroused when several of his division rivals swore they passed him early in the race. Reportedly, evidence is compiled that Walker managed his victory with the aid of his station wagon somewhere during miles 10 through 18.
THE GREAT TRAFFIC JAM (1978). The start of the race was delayed 90 minutes when buses hauling runners to the start got stuck in a massive traffic jam while trying to turn around on the narrow two-lane highway on Big Mountain. "It looked like the evacuation of Dunkirk," wrote columnist Lee Benson.
THE DASH FOR CASH CONTROVERSY (1983). After years of grumbling, Demetrio Cabanillas, a former BYU student from Mexico, surrendered his amazing seven-year winning streak and sat out the race to protest the Deseret News' refusal to pay appearance money.
THE GREAT LATINO SHOWDOWN (1985). Alvaro Palacios, a Colombian attending the University of Utah, was running in Sugarhouse Park two days before the race when he encountered Cabanillas, who entreated him to run in the marathon by saying, among other things, "If you are with me with 200 yards to go, I'll let you win." Palacios was insulted - "He made it sound like keeping up with him was something impossible," he said - and entered the race. He then proceded to hand Cabanillas his first defeat in eight Deseret News races.
THE RECORD RUN (1987). Cabanillas returned to claim his ninth Deseret News victory - a world record for wins in the same marathon.