Treacy’s Wife Offered Good Advice : Marathon: She told her husband, ‘You’ve had success in L.A., why not try it there?’

John Treacy was so much younger then, so much more easily swayed by first impressions.

In the summer of 1984, he ran his first marathon.

He ran it in the Olympics.

He ran it in 2:09.56.

He walked away with a silver medal and then he had to wonder: Is that all there is? If that’s a marathon, what’s everybody whining about?

There was no wall.

There were no cramps.

There was no delirium.

Treacy said he kept waiting for it to become difficult.

“Ignorance is bliss, know what I mean?” he says now, eight years older and nine marathons wiser.

It became difficult in Boston, in 1988, when Treacy ran his personal best and set the Irish national record and came in third. It became difficult in New York, later that year, when he finished third again . . . and in Boston, in 1989, where he finished third again . . . and in Tokyo, in 1990, when he finished second . . . and back in Boston last year, when he hit Heartbreak Hill astride with the leaders, suffered a pulled hamstring and was forced to quit at the 21st mile.

“I’d had a bit of bad luck,” Treacy says.

A lot of birthdays, too. Suddenly, he was 34, in his dotage as a world-class marathoner, and he had nothing more to show for his career than that silver stroke of beginner’s luck.

Treacy wanted to win. He would have two chances in 1992: Barcelona and a site to be determined--and Barcelona was a crapshoot at best. “You can name 20, 30 guys who have a chance to medal there,” Treacy says. What Treacy needed was a sure thing, or the next best thing.

What he needed, his wife suggested, was another run at Los Angeles.

“L.A. is lucky for him,” Fionnuala Treacy says. “He wanted to run a marathon before the Olympics and he was thinking about Boston or Japan. But he’s had his heart broken there. I told him, ‘You’ve had success in L.A., why not try it there?’ ”

So Sunday morning, in the seventh Los Angeles Marathon, Treacy tried it here.

Treacy ran 2:12.29, slower than nine previous finishers here and more than two minutes off the course record, but that wasn’t important. Treacy ran faster than all the other finishers Sunday. That was important.

“I only had one attitude in this race: Just win,” Treacy said.

Nothing too original, but he has spent a good bit of time around the Coliseum.

“All I wanted to do was win. That’s all I was concerned about. I won some money today, but I told my wife, ‘I don’t care, that doesn’t matter.’ I just wanted to win so badly.”

Treacy trained for it and he aimed for it. He left his home for eight weeks for some high-altitude work in Albuquerque, some high-temperature work in Phoenix and some high-level competition in Tampa. Two weeks ago, he challenged a field of 30-plus elite runners in the Gasparilla 15K and finished a close second. “It was my best race in three years,” he said. Treacy proclaimed himself ready.

And L.A. was ready for Treacy. This being an Olympic year, with the United States trials scheduled next month in Columbus, Ohio, no American male with Barcelona on his mind was about to set foot on Exposition Blvd. Sunday. They cleared out the field for Treacy.

Treacy was still catching his breath, and his consciousness, when he straightened up for the television cameras and announced, “I knew I should have won this race.” He said he had told his wife, “If I don’t win this thing, I ought to retire.”

No brag, simply a little attempt at humor. For the first time in two hours, Treacy grinned. He claimed he was kidding. The deep crevices that dig into Treacy’s face during a race--he runs with a perpetually pained expression--finally subsided. If he weren’t so tired, he would have winked.

This race was Treacy’s, all the way, but to be sure, he first consulted Mark Plaatjes, winner of last year’s L.A. Marathon. Plaatjes described the lay of the land and told Treacy that the race generally breaks downs between the sixth and 13th. Make your move there and you can bust the race open, Plaatjes told him.

Treacy took the advice and ran with it.

He broke quickly, moved into the lead at the seventh mile, accelerated there and dared the field to maintain the pace. “I’m a very strong uphill runner,” he said, “and I kind of wanted to intimidate everyone there. So I made a move there.

“I knew I’d probably suffer for it later in the race, but if you don’t hurt and you’re not in great pain . . . “

Treacy let the the thought trail off, same as his pace near the end of the race. Sure enough, by the 19th mile, he was reaching back and grabbing his hamstring. By the 23rd mile, he was fading fast, losing ground to Brazil’s Joseildo Rocha with every stride. It was then that Treacy decided to get mental.

“I told myself, ‘OK, I got 10 more minutes of running,’ ” he said. For Treacy, that meant 10 minutes of agony, but for Fionnuala, watching the race on television near the finish line, it was 10 minutes of something much worse.

“I was a wreck,” she said. “I couldn’t watch the last two miles, I was so nervous. I had to walk out of the tent.”

She headed straight for the finish line and when she opened her eyes, she could recognize her husband, still struggling, but still holding off Rocha into the chute.

Treacy staggered across, 25 seconds ahead of Rocha, and collapsed into his wife’s arms. “I stuck in there,” he told her.