Ron Kantowski tries to find some answers to what would make runners participate in a marathon

Saturday, Dec. 9, 2006 | 7:09 a.m.

What: New Las Vegas Marathon

When: 6 a.m. Sunday

Where: 26.2 miles around Las Vegas, course starts and finishes at Mandalay Bay

On the Web: www.lvmarathon.com

Somebody asked me if I thought marathon runners were crazy. I said I prefer to call it "intelligence challenged." Why else would you choose to run all day when you could take the bus?

Here are 26.2 additional reasons the entrants in Sunday's New Las Vegas Marathon march to the beat of a different drum.

1. It's cold at 5 a.m.

2. It's also dark.

3. Just how much pasta can you eat in a week?

4. The taste of Red Bull in the morning.

5. The chemical smell of acetone on your breath at mile-marker 20.

6. Long Woodstock-type lines at the Port-a-Potties.

7. Runner's bibs nowhere as cool as throwback jerseys.

8. Strategy of following a runner with an attractive backside can easily backfire if said runner hails from someplace like New Jersey and answers to "Hank."

9. Body gel more important to one's success than Gatorade.

10. Do you know of anybody on your block who has ever out-run a Kenyan?

11. The Wall. Might have worked for Pink Floyd, but try running out of glycogen at the 18-mile mark and see if you don't hit it like a ton of bricks.

12. Then there's the bleeding nipples.

13. And the blisters.

14. And the blackened toenails that sometimes fall off.

15. And passing the 22-mile marker, only to encounter the Energizer Bunny stalled on the side of the road with a dead battery.

16. I have never seen marathon trading cards. And if they exist, I'm sure you would get four Waldemar Cierpinkis for every Frank Shorter. And that something made of soy meal would be substituted for the slab of pink chewing gum.

17. "Chariots of Fire" theme gets stuck in your head like a Captain and Tennille song.

18. The euphoria of passing the 13-mile mark - and then remembering there are 13 miles still to go.

19. Delusions of grandeur replaced by illusions of Rosie Ruiz.

20. The potential of being lapped by an Ethiopian.

21. The potential of being lapped by a Canadian.

22. Super Bowl champs flown to Disneyland; marathon winners asked to run there to cut down on expenses.

23. Receiving shouts of encouragement from your Crazy Uncle Sid while you're hallucinating like Dr. Timothy Leary and he's sitting in a chaise longue wolfing down a Quarter Pounder with Cheese.

24. If you're lucky, you can find your name in the newspaper the next day with a magnifying glass under the category "Also Finished" while celebrities such as Matt Damon receive 25 inches of copy and a two-deck headline despite finishing 45 minutes behind you.

25. Runner's high lasts about three seconds; runner's low about three hours.

26. Two words: Stomach cramps.

26.2: The point-two at the end. As if 26 miles weren't far enough.