Hot to Trot : Senior Runners Eager to Renew L.A.-to-Vegas Relay

In the classic movie “The Wild Bunch,” a group of aging outlaws reconvenes for one last heist before hanging up their guns.

Here in Orange County, Bill Selvin is hoping to bring back some members of another group that, for eight consecutive years in the 1970s, made a well-publicized relay run all the way from Hollywood to Las Vegas.

In those days, the average age of the 10 runners was 70. The new group of 12 that Selvin hopes to assemble, which includes several men who ran with him in the ‘70s, averages 78 years old. Unlike “The Wild Bunch,” Selvin does not see this as one last run into the sunset: he hopes to resurrect the relay as an annual event.

The point is to publicize Selvin’s crusade for senior fitness. The former cross-country coach at Chapman University in Orange teaches senior fitness classes all over the county, preaching his message that active seniors lead fuller lives and stay out of nursing homes longer--which, as he is quick to underline, saves the country money.

Selvin, an 82-year-old Irvine resident, founded a nonprofit organization called Growing Older Gracefully Inc. that spreads the word on senior fitness. He hopes to take the movement nationwide someday, but his immediate project is to train 1,000 assistants in Orange County to teach his fitness techniques to seniors “in every nook and cranny of the county.”

The irrepressible Selvin thinks the Hollywood-Las Vegas run will help raise awareness of his plans, and help him raise money too. For now, though, he is still trying to nail down one or more sponsors for the event, which was backed by the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas during the ‘70s.

Among his needs are two motor homes for the runners, as well as lodging and food for them when they reach Las Vegas. He is in discussions with some potential sponsors, and hopes to hold the event early next year.

In the meantime, he has already contacted 12 runners he hopes will take part in the event. All are over 70, and one is 92 years old. The youngest ones will run legs of 30 minutes at a time, with older runners taking progressively shorter jaunts. Selvin said that for safety, no one will run up Cajon Pass or other steep grades.

Al Clark, who joined Selvin on several of the ‘70s runs, is one of the men who plans to take part in the next relay. Clark, who will run the L.A. Marathon next March, has 130 marathons under his belt.

That’s pretty remarkable for anyone, but the really remarkable thing about Clark is that he didn’t take up running until he was 54. Now 78, the former Orange resident (who now makes his home in Prescott, Ariz.) runs three or four times a week.

Usually, his runs range from three to six miles, but when he trains for a marathon he might put in as many as 16 miles in a single run. His time for the marathon these days averages around 5 1/2 hours, but he’s hoping to get it under five hours.

He ran track in high school, but didn’t take up running again until 1968, when he heard about a masters track club for runners over 40, run by Selvin at Chapman. It wasn’t too long before he was tackling marathons and joining in Selvin’s Las Vegas runs.

Clark remembers the relays as “fun, but kind of stressful. By the time we got to Vegas, we had good appetites, and good appetites for sleep.”

One runner who took part in all nine relays--and plans to run once again if Selvin can get it off the ground--is John Montoya. “I’m 80 now, and I’m still running, and I’m ready to go anytime (Selvin) gives me the word,” Montoya said when reached by phone at his home in Colton.

Montoya called himself a lifelong runner--he remembers running several miles to school each day when he was growing up in Oroville. “In those days, they didn’t have a bus to the schools,” he said. “I’ve had running in my life all the time.”

He joined a masters track club in Los Angeles in 1965, and has run in numerous marathons. He continues to put in an impressive 25 miles a week, usually running about two hours at a stretch.

Clark and Montoya are the kind of people Selvin likes to point to as living examples of his theory that regular exercise will help people stay healthy longer. He keeps statistics on all the students in his fitness classes, which teach a more modest regimen of stretching and movement exercises. The numbers, he says, prove his point that exercise will keep people out of nursing homes an extra 10 to 15 years.

Selvin is well-known in Orange County senior circles, but his hope is to make a national impact, something he hopes the publicity for the resurrection of the Hollywood-to-Las Vegas relay will help him accomplish.

For information on Growing Older Gracefully Inc., call (714) 848-3185.