LOS ANGELES MARATHON : BLISTERED : Though He Was Feeling Well, Plaatjes’ Feet Give Out on Him

In 1981, Mark Plaatjes entered his first road race--the 56-kilometer Johannesburg to Pretoria run--at age 18.

Ill-equipped with simple sneakers and misguided confidence, he stayed with the leaders for 15 miles before falling back because of painful blisters.

Still, Plaatjes finished the race.

After that 35-mile ordeal, he took off his shoes and socks, and his toenails ripped off.

“My feet were one big mess of bloodied blisters,” he recounted.

Though Plaatjes has sensitive skin, he has been careful to avoid repeating that painful experience and had become South Africa’s best marathoner.

But Sunday at the Los Angeles Marathon, Plaatjes, despite careful preparation, fell victim to the one aspect of running he could not control.

Blisters.

This time, however, the pain was too great and the stakes too high. Sunday, he dropped out soon after passing 18 miles.

Plaatjes, who renounced his South African citizenship to establish a new home in the United States last year, was in second place and closing on then-leader Gidamis Shahanga of Tanzania when he suddenly stopped.

Standing in the street, his look of bewilderment mirrored Plaatjes’ pain, not from swollen feet, but from the emotional effort.

“I wasn’t even thinking of dropping out,” he said, taking off his shoes and rubbing the reddened soles of his feet. “I really thought this was my day. My family had the flu all week and I didn’t get it. My training was superb. . . . “

His voice trailed off.

Plaatjes, who runs only two marathons a year, was emotionally spent.

Because he puts so much focus on an individual race, the pressure Sunday was great.

Last November at the Columbus (Ohio) Marathon, he ran into a 28-m.p.h. head wind and won in a disappointing time of 2 hours 12 minutes. He was happy to win, but still felt he had not shown his best.

It seemed as if every time in the past year he tried to prove himself, something went wrong.

Sunday’s race was to be his opportunity to establish himself after arriving in America last year with a girlfriend, their daughter and little else but a desire to run.

His is not solely a struggle of marathon running, but of the frustration of growing up in a country where opportunities are afforded according to the color of one’s skin.

Plaatjes, 27, formerly of Johannesburg, is designated in South Africa as a colored--half black and half white.

Though a national hero there because of a world-class marathon time of 2:08:58, Plaatjes did not enjoy the privileges of South African whites.

He was better off than many of the country’s minorities, but then he was often harangued by blacks for not being more politically involved.

He was a man in the middle of a volatile political situation over the South African government’s policy of racial separation.

So Plaatjes gave up his successful, but uncomfortable life for the chance to train in peace in the United States.

It has been difficult for him, Shirley, now his wife, and their daughters, Gene and Luz, who have lived a vagabond existence, shuttling between the homes of friends in Illinois and Colorado.

For all the support he has received, Plaatjes has been grateful. He wanted to run well Sunday to show his thanks in the best way he knows how. He wanted to show Americans that this citizen-to-be was a winner.

And when his feet started to pester him 11 miles into the marathon, he had no intention of quitting.

“He was on the right pace,” said Glenn Latimer, his adviser. “He was running consistently.”

Said Plaatjes, who hadn’t had blister problems since that 1981 race: “I told myself, ‘I can run through this.’ I thought I had control of this race.”

But then in the 17th mile when he was battling Colombia’s Pedro Ortiz for second place, the doubts surfaced.

“I asked myself, ‘Why am I letting Ortiz get away from me? I’m not tired at all.’ ”

Plaatjes dropped out of only two other races in his career, both in the United States. He no longer runs through the excruciating pain after learning the hard way in his first road race in South Africa in 1981.

At the 20-mile mark in that race, he stepped in a pothole and tore a thigh muscle. Instead of quitting, Plaatjes completed the final six-plus miles.

“It was the dumbest thing I’ve done,” said Plaatjes, a physical therapist who was a medical student in South Africa. “It took me almost a year to recuperate.”

Sunday, he was so determined to finish that he ran almost seven miles with sore feet. This time, however, he came to his senses.

“I thought, ‘This is ridiculous,’ ” he said. “There’ll always be another L.A. Marathon. It wasn’t worth risking a serious injury. I didn’t want to take six months to recuperate.”

The mental anguish, however, will linger, said Shirley Plaatjes.

“But he’ll come back,” she said. “He’ll be more aggressive next time. He’ll be more hungry to prove to the people he is not a dropout.”

Plaatjes said this race, which was won by Canada’s Art Boileau in 2:13.01, will stick with him for at least a month.

He then picked up his shoes and looked inside.

“Normally, I take out the sole support and put my own in that has an arch support,” he said. “I didn’t do it today. You don’t think of small things before a race.”

Not when the consequences are so great.