Old-Timers Heading to Vegas in the Long Run

At 71, Bob Kroger is the baby of the family.

As such, he had the honor of running the first 30 minutes of the Orange County-to-Las Vegas Senior Fitness Run--a trek that eight men over 70 and four over 80 began Saturday morning.

By Monday afternoon, they will be taking their final strides--12 abreast--down the Las Vegas Strip to waiting wives, friends and clicking cameras.

“We sleep, we eat, we horse around” said Bill Selvin, the 76-year-old organizer of the 286-mile run. Each man begins by running half an hour. After that, each runs for 10 minutes, relay style, while the others hang out in two accompanying motor homes.

Fueling Up on Muffins

Selvin, a former track coach who now teaches fitness to seniors in Orange County, said this weekend’s run revives a Hollywood-to-Las Vegas relay he organized between 1970 and 1977 for men over 60.

Bohumil Vlasak, 82, said he decided to enter this run just to stay healthy.

A Nebraska farmer turned cabdriver and dispatcher, Vlasak, whose voice trembles slightly but whose legs rival a man’s half his age, said, “I enter all the races because I don’t want to be suffering on my deathbed.”

For their get up and go, the men ate bran muffins, a change of pace from the protein shakes or oranges that younger runners down before a run.

“Don’t turn down the carbohydrates,” 76-year-old Chick Dahlsten of Los Angeles advised his co-runners. At times, the 12 senior citizens seemed more like a bunch of kids on the first day of summer camp, reunited after a year gone by.

They posed for a group picture-- 5-foot-2, eyes-of-blue Al Clark crouching in front, Selvin striking a coachlike pose with his folder under his arm and a pale-blue sweat suit setting him apart from his bare-legged troops. The Brooklyn native who now lives in Irvine reminded his hearty group not to damage the motor homes that would house them for the next two days.

And like a bighearted camp counselor, Selvin told the gathering that there was plenty of food and beverage on board and reviewed the route from the dusty construction site of the future Freedom Village retirement complex in El Toro to the Hacienda Hotel, the run’s two sponsors. In a private moment, he worried aloud whether everyone remembered their thermal underwear.

“Every fella’s told to wear thermal underwear,” said Selvin, who is still strong enough to run and talk for miles on end. “I wrote on their (instruction) sheet: ‘Don’t laugh, I wear them, too.’ ”

Moment of Silence

Then, a moment of silence for the late Monty Montgomery--who didn’t make it this year--followed by a mighty roar as a predominantly white-haired audience cheered the men to the starting line.

As 72-year-old Bert Williams, the runners’ resident philosopher, observed: “There isn’t too much opportunity for adventure anymore. Getting out at 2 or 3 in the morning under the stars and still, night desert air gives you a chance for meditation.”

As he looked over at the other men, the former Chapman College professor added, “We’re just a bunch of characters.”

No argument there.

There was John Montoya, 75, who runs in his slippers.

And Vlasak, who said he hadn’t been this excited since the time he shot his first rabbit when he was 6.

And Noel Johnson of San Diego, the 87-year-old author of the book “Dud at 70, Stud at 80,” who said he started thinking--and exercising--when his son wanted to put him in a convalescent home 17 years ago. At that point, Johnson said, he was 50 pounds overweight, drank and suffered from arthritis and other ailments.

“I’ve been to every clinic from Los Angeles to New York, and they tell me I’m the only man they’ve checked that’s getting younger every year,” he mused.

Runs 17 Miles a Day

For laughs, the men will look to Walt Stack, the 79-year-old San Franciscan whose daily workout entails a 17-mile run from his house in Potrero Hill across the Golden Gate Bridge followed by a swim in the frigid bay.

“People ask me what I do to keep my teeth from chattering when I swim,” Stack said, his timing as good as any Borchst Belt comedian.

Pause.

“I leave them in my locker.”

Stack says he thinks about women when he runs, or about things at home. Asked for the secret to a long, healthy life, Stack said he subscribes to the “take it easy and be happy” school.

“I think the ‘gene man’ has something to do with it,” Stack said. “It’s strictly good luck. I should have been dead 100 times already.”