He has good reason to go extra mile

By Lauren Peterson

March 2, 2007 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

As the runners, one by one, crossed the finish line at last year’s Los Angeles Marathon, Terry Reyna waited for her husband, Raul, to join them. But there was no Raul, and each passing minute fueled her uneasiness.

“He was going for the five-hour mark. At about 1 p.m., I knew he had to have been in by then,” she said. “It’s easy to get lost in that crowd, though, and I was just about to go to try to find out where he was, when I got the phone call.”

Raul Reyna, 53, a veteran LAPD detective, had collapsed two miles from the finish of the 26.2-mile race. Instead of establishing a personal-record time in his fifth marathon, as he had hoped to do, Terry Reyna’s husband of 32 years was dead, one of two runners to die last March 19.

On Sunday, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Malcolm Kennedy will run in the 22nd annual marathon, trying to complete what Reyna started.

“How uniquely and sadly tragic,” Kennedy said. “What are the odds of two law-enforcement people dying in one race? It’s a needle-in-a-haystack kind of thing.”

The other marathoner was Jim Leone, a 60-year-old retired Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputy from St. George, Utah, who died of apparent cardiac arrest after collapsing in the third mile.

Since those deaths, race officials have taken steps to try to prevent such tragedies this year.

Marc Eckstein, medical director of the Los Angeles City Fire Department, said there were about a dozen automated external defibrillators -- portable machines that restart stopped hearts -- along the race route last year. This year, 26 additional defibrillators will be available, including one at each of the race’s aid stations, along with at least two people trained to use them. There will be aid stations at one-mile intervals. Eight mile-marker stations also will have emergency equipment on hand.

“We’ll probably have close to 40 AEDs out there, and not one cardiac arrest, which is what we hope for,” Eckstein said.

Luis Pagan is proof that defibrillators can save lives. Running in last year’s race, he suffered a heart attack while passing the Convention Center, which has a public-access AED. Now 81, he has been training for this year’s marathon.

Other medical preparations for the race are unchanged, including six fire department paramedics roaming the route on bicycles; three “Gators,” which are green golf carts used to transport ill or injured competitors; and a fully equipped paramedic rescue unit.

For Kennedy, 53, Sunday marks a return to the L.A. Marathon, this time competing in the memory of Reyna and Leone.

And when he crosses the finish line, Kennedy has arranged for Terry Reyna and Leone’s widow, Carol, to be presented the same commemorative medals that were given to every 2006 finisher.

“Every time I’ve run a marathon, there was either a challenge involved, or I had some other reason out in the forefront for me to do it,” said Kennedy, who works at the San Fernando Courthouse. “You have to attach some sort of significance, some reason to go out and do it, and I think this is a good one.

“I see it as a service. Both Jim Leone and Raul Reyna had a mission, and my attitude is, I’m going to finish it.”

The L.A. Marathon has had only one other known death: William McKinney, a 59-year-old runner from Altadena, who suffered a heart attack in the 1990 race.

“You don’t want these things to happen, but unfortunately, they do happen,” said Dr. Rudra Sabaratnam, the marathon’s medical commissioner. “You prepare as much as you can.”

Added Eckstein, “You never know what kind of curveballs you’re going to get thrown, though.”

No one knows that better than Terry Reyna.

Come Sunday, she will again be waiting at the finish line, and then she, Carol Leone and Kennedy will meet for the first time.

Said Kennedy, “It’ll be an honor.”

lauren.peterson@latimes.com

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Los Angeles Marathon

SUNDAY’S START TIMES & LOCATIONS

Acura L.A. Marathon Bike Tour

6 a.m. -- Coliseum

Emerald Nuts 5K Run/Walk

7:30 a.m. -- Staples Center/L.A. Convention Center