He’s Ready for a Trial Run : Olympic Marathon Hopeful Ebiner Has Earned a Ticket to Columbus

Matt Ebiner savors the opportunity to visit faraway and remote parts of the world. He also finds satisfaction in sharing those experiences with his geography students at El Camino College.

Ebiner, 31, has climbed volcanoes in Guatemala and Japan, hiked mountains in Honduras, Burma and Paraguay, and cruised the Amazon River.

The West Covina resident has traveled on six continents and 34 countries. One summer, he rode a bicycle across the United States.

“Half my life is learning more about the world,” Ebiner said. “The other half is to motivate learning and see people get excited about the world. I guess I relish challenges and like to meet and overcome them.”

It was the challenge of qualifying for the U.S. Olympic Trials in the marathon that attracted the 6-foot, 145-pound Ebiner to the 26.2-mile race in 1984.

Seven marathons later, Ebiner is set to compete in his second Trials Saturday in Columbus, Ohio. The top three finishers will qualify for the Olympic Games in Barcelona.

Ebiner, who has a personal best of 2 hours 18 minutes 45 seconds and finished 77th in the 1988 Trials, is hoping for a top-30 finish in Columbus.

Ebiner missed two weeks of training after straining abdominal muscles while mountain climbing in Mexico in late December, but he says he is back to full strength.

“A lot of guys will be going for top three or nothing,” Ebiner said. “I think I can run a respectable race if I run conservative and pass guys during the second half of the race.”

Success came early for Ebiner, who has twice finished in the top 20 at the U.S. World Cross-Country Trials.

Ebiner ran 9:08.0 for two miles as a junior at Bishop Amat High in La Puente and finished ninth in the 1978 state track and field meet.

He went on to compete at Mt. San Antonio College, where he placed fourth in the state cross-country meet and fourth in the steeplechase at the state track meet as a sophomore.

At UCLA, he was a member of the Bruin cross-country team that finished ninth in the 1982 NCAA Division I championships.

Still, Ebiner, the eighth of 15 children, was often overshadowed by his siblings.

Joe, 33, and Frank, 32, had faster two-mile times than Ebiner in high school. Joe was the runner-up in the 1977 state community college cross-country meet for Mt. SAC, and Frank was an All-American in cross-country at Humboldt State in 1980.

His sister Therese, 29, held the sophomore state record in the two mile and was fourth in the 1979 state meet. Sister Kathleen, 27, was a two-time qualifier for the Kinney national cross-country championships.

Ebiner, however, was the only one in the family to continue competing after college.

“I respect them a lot, and I’ve followed their paths,” Ebiner said. “They have had as much early success and talent, but they have had more commitments than me, and I’ve had time to train. I feel an obligation to carry on the family name, and I wanted to give myself a chance to realize my potential.”

Ebiner does not believe he has reached it yet.

Based on his times for 5,000 and 10,000 meters, where he has run 13:54.3 and 28:54.7, Ebiner said he is capable of running in the 2:15 range for the marathon under ideal conditions.

Ebiner, though, said his training conditions are far from optimal. Nevertheless, he runs 80 to 100 miles a week despite teaching a full load of classes and an hourlong commute to work.

Ebiner put in much of his mileage with the Mt. SAC track and cross-country teams, where he was an assistant for nine seasons until he resigned last year because of increased responsibilities at El Camino.

Although he now trains alone, Ebiner, who competes for the Gardena Reebok running club, is eager to return to coaching at either Mt. SAC or El Camino in the fall.

“It feels like I’m taking a redshirt year of coaching,” Ebiner said. “I gained a lot of motivation being around those athletes. They keep me going. It’s a lot harder to run by myself even on easy days, and I really have to force myself to get my runs in.”

Ebiner had similar feelings after his first attempt at the marathon. He did not try another for three years.

He dropped out of the 1984 Long Beach Marathon at 22 miles after being on pace to attain the Trials’ qualifying standard of 2:20. Ebiner gave up running marathons to concentrate on graduate work at UCLA before finishing 15th in the 1987 L.A. Marathon in 2:23.02 in his second attempt.

Ebiner said his performance in the L.A. Marathon renewed his drive to make it to the Trials. He missed qualifying by 45 seconds at the Holiday Bowl Marathon in San Diego in December, 1987, but ran his personal best to qualify in Las Vegas two months later.

“It was really, really exciting and special,” said Ebiner, who ran 2:19:50 at the California International Marathon in Folsom in December to qualify for this year’s Trials. “That probably ranks up there as one of my memorable races.”