They’re Running Every Which Way

About three years ago, Albert (Big Al) Freese ran the grueling 100-mile Western States 100 in Northern California. Afterward, he said to himself: “Well, I’ve done it all now. What else is there to do?”

Then it came to him. The 41-year-old Seal Beach resident has been stuck in reverse ever since, he said Friday. He now runs all of his races backward.

In Sunday’s Los Angeles Marathon, Freese will be trying to make a place for himself in the Guinness Book of World Records as the fastest backward marathon man. The current Guinness backward record was set in 1982 by Anthony Scott Weiland, who ran the 26.2-mile race in 4 hours, 7 minutes and 54 seconds.

That’s His Purpose in Life

“I’m going to go for it,” said the 5-foot-8, 145-pound Freese. “That’s my purpose in life.”

Freese is one of several hundred Orange County residents who are scheduled to run Sunday in the second annual Los Angeles Marathon, which is expected to draw about 18,000 entrants.

The Orange County contingent will include a former All-Pro offensive lineman for the Los Angeles Rams, a San Clemente man running in his 123rd marathon in 10 years, a 74-year-old retired dentist running in his 17th, a Mission Viejo couple who combined to lose more than 180 pounds by running a few years ago, a Fullerton couple celebrating their seventh wedding anniversary and a San Clemente man who plans to cross the finish line in a gorilla suit.

Most of the Orange County runners have similar training techniques, loading up with carbohydrates and running 30 to 50 miles a week, but their reasons for entering the race are different.

Former Rams lineman Doug France, 33, who is in real estate and lives in Laguna Hills these days, said he has slimmed down from his football playing weight of 300 to 320 pounds and now tips the scales at a trim 254. And he says he feels great heading into his first marathon.

Terri Lee Ives, 50, of San Clemente said he failed to finish in his first attempt to run a marathon 10 years ago but since has completed 119 of 122 that he has entered.

Buzz Farwell of Corona del Mar said that, at 74, he feels as if he were representing the old who are young at heart.

“At my age, you have to take the challenges. If you don’t take the challenges, you dry up of old age,” Farwell declared.

“My wife gets perturbed because I don’t want to play golf,” he said. “(Golf) is fine if they walk, but if they ride a cart, they might as well stay home.”

Richard P. Stones, 35, and his wife, Kathy Jo, 31, are representing the formerly overweight who decided to do something about it because they were missing out on too much fun.

“I used to weigh 280 pounds three years ago; now I’m 180,” Stones said. “My wife was 200, and she now weighs 114.”

Stones started running in 1977, and his wife joined him the next year. On Sunday, they will be running in their first marathon. Their next goal? “An iron man triathlon,” he said, adding that he already has participated in three mini-triathlons. The triathlon consists of a 26.2-mile race, 2.4 miles swimming and 180 miles bicycling.

Not too many people can say they’ve run a marathon, and even fewer can say they’ve run a marathon to celebrate a wedding anniversary. But that’s what John Cleveland, 30, and his wife, Genevieve, 29, of Fullerton plan to do.

Cleveland, who starting running during his lunch hour a few years ago, will be participating in his fourth marathon Sunday, while it will be the first time for his wife.

Genevieve said she plans to celebrate after her first marathon by “collapsing with my husband.”

The most colorful character in the race Sunday just may be Michael Daly, 45, of San Clemente, who plans to run the last quarter mile in a $600 gorilla suit that he said he bought 13 years ago to mark his first anniversary as a reformed alcoholic.

“You got to have a sense of humor to do something like this,” he said.