Bronfenbrenner, Huyck run to tough victories in wind

Monday, Feb. 3, 2003 | 9:35 a.m.

The first-timer won it, the mail man from Canada had difficulty with the sand, and the overall conditions of the 37th Las Vegas International Marathon on Sunday eventually proved comical to Linda Huyck.

"I had to laugh," said Huyck, the winner of the women's division.

David Bronfenbrenner, a 24-year-old chemical engineer from Pennsylvania who once won the Patriot League's cross country title at Bucknell, prepped for a true cross-country run by winning his first marathon in 2 hours, 33, minutes and 34 seconds.

"We should have run from here out to Jean," he said. The marathon started in Jean and is known for its decline, primarily an 800-foot drop between the ninth and 18th miles.

Besides, Bronfenbrenner said, the wind was a foe even for the short time it was a tailwind, near the finish line at Sunset Park.

"The wind at your back hurt almost as much, because you didn't want to go that fast," he said. "You just grit your teeth. I got ready for this by running in zero- and five-degree weather, in a foot and a half of snow with ice all over. It snowed every day."

Michel Lavoie treks six to seven miles a day as a mail carrier for Canada Post, and he trained for Sunday's Las Vegas International Marathon with regular tune-up runs in inclement weather in Quebec.

"I practiced in snow, not sand," he said. "I couldn't see today, so it wasn't good. It was very, very hard. This was tough. With the wind, it was crazy."

A howl that reportedly hit 45 mph thrashed at the runners, and Lavoie endured the torture to finish second in 2 hours, 40 minutes, 54 seconds.

Huyck won in 2:57:48, taking the horrible conditions in stride.

"I don't think I've ever run in wind like that," Huyck said. "I was in a big pack, and we all laughed about it together. Mentally, this was a great challenge. But at some point, you just had to laugh."

That would have been the natural response from any onlooker, watching either the man who attempted the half-marathon on crutches and with a broken arm, or the scores of lean runners leaning cartoonishly forward to offset the wind.

Sunday was so challenging, none of the elite runners who Bronfenbrenner heard were aiming to run between 2:12 and 2:15 made an impact.

They either quit, to regroup for another marathon in the next few weeks, or struggled and straggled across the finish line like the majority of the record 7,901 registered entrants.

Seven friends ran with Bronfenbrenner. Two joined him in the marathon, and one, former Bucknell teammate Scott Sehon, will attempt a cross-country run in three weeks, from New Jersey to Oregon, with Bronfenbrenner.

"I figured I'd come to run sub-2:22:, thinking that would get me a top-five or top-10 (finish)," Bronfenbrenner said. "I think a lot of the guys who came here to run fast, with the headwind, just kind of decided they would not kill themselves. It almost got to the point where you didn't think about, just put one foot in front of the other.

"Because I'm running cross-country, I was like, 'Whatever.' I'll just continue running, and finish. I'm pretty shocked, and excited. I don't know what I'm going to do now. But I'll stick around (Sunday) night, so it should be fun."

Bronfenbrenner and his pal figure it will take more than five months, at about 20 miles a day, to run from ocean to ocean.

"We have always thought about it, and we're at a point in our lives where it's now or never," he said. "Nothing is tying us down."

Anything not tied down Sunday wound up in Arizona.

Bill Frawley, of Philadelphia, won the half-marathon (1:08:53), followed by fellow Philadelphia resident Bryan Berner (1:09:45). Christina Blackmer, of Bronxville, N.Y., took the women's side of that event in 1:16:59.

Las Vegas resident Frank Plasso Jr., who set the men's marathon record (2:12:37) in 1986, has four health food stores in Salt Lake City and one here. Sunday, his legacy stretched to 17 years.

"He will definitely hold it for God knows how long, as long as they run a Las Vegas marathon," Frank Plasso Sr., who trained his son for three rigorous months before that blistering '86 run, said Sunday night. "We had him really ready."

The winds, stirring up the worst weather conditions that Al Boka has witnessed in the 20 years he has directed the event, kept Plasso in his perch. They started swirling Saturday afternoon, and by bedtime Huyck was edgy.

"I was hopin' and wishin' and prayin'," she said of her desire for a perfect running day that proved elusive. "It didn't even matter which direction it was coming from. There was no escape."

Huyck, 30, teaches 11th- and 12th-grade English at River Ridge High School in Lacey, Wash., outside Olympia, and she's just as proud of her speedy skills as a waitress at O'Blarney's pub and restaurant.

"Best burger in Olympia," she said.

Huyck set a goal of 2:48:00, which would have earned her a spot in the next U.S. Olympic trials. About halfway, she was on a 2:43:00 pace. But the wind kept knocking her left leg into her right, nearly toppling her over a police officer's motorcycle at one point.

"I missed that, but I'm not at all disappointed," Huyck said. "If I can't qualify for the Olympic trials, I might as well win."