SAN DIEGO MARATHON : Runners Satisfied With Qualifying for Olympic Trials

For winning Sunday’s San Diego Marathon, Gary Gargasz got a couple thousand dollars and a new car to drive back to Pennsylvania.

Finishing fourth didn’t greatly enhance the coffers of San Diego’s Steve McCormack--the highest-placing local participant--but his time of 2 hours 19 minutes 47 seconds resulted in a satisfying payoff.

McCormack, 31, beat the clock by 13 seconds to qualify for his third Olympic Trials. After having run with a pack battling for second behind Gargasz nearly the entire distance, McCormack fell behind in the final miles. But with the crowd urging him around the final corner to the finish, McCormack beat the Olympic trials standard of 2:20.

As Gargasz went straight from the finish line to a TV interview, McCormack, a former UCLA All-American, quietly was greeted by wife Theresa and friends.

“(Making) the trials is special. I went in ’84 and ’88 and it’s neat being with 100 guys who’ve run 2:20 or better,” he said.

Gargasz, who works for Sav-on Drugs and has no sponsors, won $1,000 for finishing fourth but said that wasn’t his motivation. He ran his personal best 2:16.54 in the 1986 San Diego Marathon and he’d like to see the event gain more respect.

“The main reason I ran here is I’m local and I’d like to see (the San Diego Marathon) build and keep going,” he said.

“I don’t have any sponsors--I’ve got my wife and my job. I guess I’m a real amateur--I’m not going to the mailbox every month and getting a check from my shoe company.”

McCormack was part of a pack that started somewhat slowly. After two miles, Gargasz told McCormack the pace was too slow and suggested they pull away. McCormack declined, and Gargasz never was caught.

“I thought he was gonna come, but he didn’t,” Gargasz said.

Instead, a tight pack of seven or eight stayed together through 20 miles, hoping Gargasz would drop back. Then that group thinned, and after 22 miles it was McCormack, Miroslaw Bugaj (who finished second) and Tomasz Gnabel (third) battling for second.

“We had a good pack working together,” McCormack said. “I thought one of us could catch (Gargasz) but at 24 miles I knew I couldn’t.”

McCormack, who runs two or three marathons a year, will take a break until Christmas, then begin training for the Olympic trials scheduled for April in Columbus, Ohio.

“The old man’s still got a little bit left,” he said with a weary smile.

Suzi Morris didn’t feel she was running a great race, and the real world intruded in her thoughts.

When the race course came near where she lives in Leucadia, she joked, she nearly turned away and went home.

Elsewhere, Morris, the 34-year-old MBA candidate, thought she saw her San Diego State professor and wanted to ask if she could put off an assignment due today.

She decided to finish the race before hurrying home to do her paper, and placed fourth, the best of any Californian among the women’s field.

Though she already qualified for the Olympic trials in the Chicago Marathon earlier this year, Sunday didn’t hurt her standing. Though she was caught by Karen Gall of Billings, Mont., in the final mile, her 2:44.40 was below the Olympic trial requirement of 2:45.

“I wanted to get motivated for the trials,” Morris said.

A serious runner for only the past 10 years, Morris said she made the big jump into national caliber status in the 1986 San Diego Marathon. Her best marathon before that was 3:03. Qualifying time for the 1988 Olympic trials was 2:50.

Morris ran a 2:46.

“That was my most thrilling moment in running--a 17-minute personal record,” she recalled. “I felt like I accomplished the impossible. I was floating on a cloud for a week.”

Sunday’s race strung out quickly, with winner Mauren Roben of Denver and runner-up Gail Kingma of Seattle breaking away. Roben eventually pulled away in the final two miles to win by nearly a minute. “I never ran with the leaders,” Morris said.

Morris and Gall formed their own pack in a race for third. Morris led most of the way but Gall spurted ahead in the final half-mile to lead Morris by 18 seconds.

Morris said she “seriously” runs one or two marathons annually and won’t do another before the Olympic trials.

“I’ll take an easy week, then start building up again,” she said. “I like to get one good long run in a week, and I’ll try to find another half-marathon.”

But Morris, who is near her master’s degree at SDSU, had more immediate worries Sunday.

“I’ve got to go home and write a paper now,” she said.