Mexico's Cruz Has Been in Fast Company Before

By JIM HODGES

March 28, 1998 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

He wanted to be a soccer player, because in Mexico soccer players can be heroes. But his ability was hardly heroic.

“Ahhhh,” says Alejandro Cruz, wiggling his right hand from thumb to little finger and back in the universal sign of mediocrity.

Baseball? No.

And then he saw the announcement on Mexico City television. A foot race. A marathon, actually, and he decided to run as a 17-year-old bandit, because he didn’t know how to enter, might not have had the money if he had known.

He also didn’t know how to train.

“About a month and a half,” he says of his preparation, and it was a month and a half without form or substance. He just ran . . .

. . . and finished fourth in his age group, in “about 2:40.”

Three years later, he was running for the money to keep his mother, father, four brothers and a sister eating. Running in his first international race, in what proved to be the fastest Los Angeles Marathon ever.

It was 1988.

“I was sixth,” said Cruz, who ran the race in 2 hours 13 minutes 14 seconds, well behind Martin Mondragon’s 2:10:19 that stands as the race record.

In the years since, Cruz has run in races around the world, and won in places as disparate as Cancun and Chicago. Sunday, he will be back in Southern California, seeded sixth but with a personal best of 2:08:57 and a throng of relatives who will form a personal cheering section that says he can be a factor among runners that organization President Bill Burke calls “the best field in the history of the Los Angeles Marathon.”

It’s a field in which Kenya’s Simon Lopuyet is the top-seeded runner, with a 2:08:19--run at Rotterdam--the best time among the men. And one in which Lornah Kiplagat is the top-seeded woman runner as the defending champion.

It’s a field with 25 “elite” men, 11 of them Kenyans, among them Patrick Kiptum. He and Marco Ochoa, who calls Alamosa, Colo., home but who hails from Anaheim, are the rabbits, whose job is getting the field to the halfway point of the 26-mile 385-yard race in 65 minutes.

And it’s a field with 10 “elite” women, two of them Kenyans. One of them, Kiplagat, became the winner of last year’s race when Russian Nadezhda Ilyina was disqualified for cutting the course. Also here is Maura Viceconte, a 23-year-old Italian whose 2:28:16, run last fall in Monte Carlo, is the fastest personal best among the women.

They will run for $30,000 first prizes--one for men, one for women--in a total purse of $150,000. The men’s and women’s winners also will get $24,150 cars. And there are performance bonuses that dwarf the $3,000 or so many will receive in appearance money.

A sub-2:10 run earns $25,000. Eight of the men who will run Sunday have run sub-2:10 marathons.

“I think Marie’s going to be writing some of those checks,” said Burke of his partner and executive vice president, Marie Patrick.

Cruz will be happy to take one, thank you.

He has run with a coach and without, and now runs with Tadeusz Kempka, a Pole who has worked with Mexico’s best for a generation and who was Mondragon’s coach.

He has trained on Mexico’s famed volcano trails and away from them.

“It’s erupting now, so I stay away,” Cruz says of Popocatepetl, laughing.

Months after he ran in Los Angeles in 1988, he was in Chicago, winning its marathon, and the next spring he was in Rotterdam, finishing second on the world’s fastest marathon course.

He has run 25 marathons in all, including Boston, in which he finished fourth in 1991 after leading the race for a while.

Cruz has run well and he has run so poorly that he has come close to giving it up. Almost a year ago, he decided his running had run out and he began seeking a degree in civil engineering.

And immediately began running better.

He’s a 30-year-old student, but after starting school, he won at Cancun, so he became a running student.

“It’s special training,” he says. “It’s different from other athletes. I train by myself because I have a job [in the classroom]. It’s difficult to train by yourself.”

And the family, well. . . .

“They grew up,” he says. “They support themselves.”

Now he supports a wife by running, training in Mexico City to be close to school, and he knows it can end at any time. When it does?

“I’ll just work as a civil engineer,” he says simply, reflecting a maturity earned running on the world’s roads, including those of this city in 1988 in the fastest Los Angeles Marathon.

THE CITY OF LOS ANGELES MARATHON

The Facts

* WHEN: 8:20 a.m. (wheelchair), 8:45 a.m. (general) Sunday.

* START/FINISH: Begins at Figueroa and 6th and ends at Flower and 5th.

* TV: Channel 13.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

LOS ANGELES MARATHON: THE ELITE FIELD

MEN

*--*

No. Runner Country Best Time 2. Simon Lopuyet Kenya 2:08:19 4. Manuel Matias Portugal 2:08:33 5. Philip Chirchir Kenya 2:08:56 8. Charles Tangus Kenya 2:10:38 9. Zebedayo Bayo Tanzania 2:12:12 10. Alejandro Cruz Mexico 2:08:57 11. Lucketz Swartbooi Namibia 2:09:08 12. Tena Negere Ethiopia 2:09:04 14. John Kipkosgei Kenya 2:09:56 15. Paul Yego Kenya 2:10:49 16. Isidro Rico Mexico 2:09:14 17. Zack Kunyiha Kenya 2:15:25 18. Benson Lokorwa Kenya 2:15:04 19. Jonathan Ndambuki Kenya 2:14:51 25. Benson Masya Kenya 2:12:35 27. Mustapha Filil Morocco 2:14:19 30. Daniel Kihara Kenya 62:40 (half) 31. Boubker El Afoui Morocco no time 37. Hector De Jesus Mexico 2:12:10 38. Carlos Tarazona Venezuela 2:12:03 40. Peter Fonseca Canada 2:11:34 41. Anders Szalkai Sweden 2:14:45 42. Mohamed El Hattab Morocco 44:13 (15K) 50. Patrick Kimtum Kenya Pacer 51. Marco Ochoa U.S. Pacer

*--*

WOMEN

*--*

No. Runner Country Best Time F1. Lornah Kiplagat Kenya 2:33:50 F3. Hellen Kamaiyo Kenya 2:29:45 F4. Maura Viceconte Italy 2:28:16 F8. Valentina Enaki Moldova 2:31:22 F10. Svetlana Zakharova Russia 2:33:14 F11. Irina Kazakova France 2:30:40 F12. Albina Galimova Russia 2:31:12 F14. Irina Safarova Russia 70:03 (half) F15. Marina Beljaewa Russia 70:12 (half) F16. Ityana Ivanova Russia No time

*--*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

BY THE NUMBERS

Runners (approximately): 19,800

Medals for runners and cyclists: 35,000

Eight-foot tables on course: 1,000

Safety pins: 185,000

“No parking” signs: 40,000

Pounds of ice: 17,000

Yards of barricade tape: 6,700

Feet of rope: 22,050

Portable toilets: 470