Always Finishing but Never Done

Ed Rasky came home from school this week, dumped his books on the living room floor and headed out for a run.

With muscular legs that could belong to a man 20 years younger, the 73-year-old ran two miles Wednesday and another two Thursday.

On Friday, he rested. Come Sunday morning, the retired high school English teacher plans to step up to the starting line with more than 20,000 others for the 14th annual Los Angeles Marathon.

Besides the great personal satisfaction they’ll derive from the endeavor, Rasky and dozens of others will be running the 26 1/2-mile route to raise money for people with illnesses, mental health problems and physical disabilities.

Rasky, of West Hills, has regularly run three miles a day for 57 years. He plays tennis three times a week and still hikes the rugged trails of the High Sierra each summer.

He is among an elite cadre of 412 runners that has finished all 13 Los Angeles marathons. Yet the long-distance runner still gets jittery when he approaches the starting line.

“I always get nervous,” he said, cracking a wide smile. “On Saturday I will just relax and listen to symphonic music.”

On a lone mission--this is no organized effort--Rasky collects pledges from sponsors to help children with cancer attend Camp Ronald McDonald for Good Times in Idyllwild, at a cost of $500 per child a week.

McDonald’s contributes 11% to 15% of the camp’s annual budget, but volunteers and fund-raisers have to scrounge for the remainder.

In the past 11 years, Rasky has raised more than $70,000 for the camp, said Executive Director Susan Franklin. This year, Rasky expects to raise close to $6,000 in pledges from more than 400 sponsors, as long as he finishes.

Rasky’s face is craggy and weathered from years of outdoor sports, but as he runs down a neighborhood sidewalk, his strikingly blue eyes flash with determination. When he allows himself to relax, his face breaks into a toothy, warm smile.

He said he runs marathons for kids with cancer for a simple reason: He loves children.

He and his wife, Sunny, have three grown children but no grandchildren. But they serve as surrogate grandparents to two local children whose grandparents live out of state.

Rasky taught in the Los Angeles Unified School District for 36 years before retiring in 1991. He continued to substitute teach part time, and when the state called for teachers to come out of retirement a few years ago to ease a shortage, Rasky returned full time.

He now teaches four English classes at Sherman Oaks Enrichment Center.

He was inspired to run for sick children while working at summer camps.

“I used to think, if I had a horrible disease at an early age, what would I want?” he said. “And I thought . . . a camp. So when I heard about it [the Ronald McDonald camp], I thought, ‘This is what I am going to dedicate the rest of my life to.’ ”

He also volunteers a week each summer at the camp teaching archery.

“He is one of our absolutely top individual fund-raisers,” Franklin said. “And he brought people, volunteers, in as well--not just money.”

The high-energy senior citizen campaigns tirelessly for his cause. He hits up every group he knows for money--his partners at the Calabasas Tennis Club, his fellow teachers, even his poker buddies.

A relentless promoter, he has even caught the attention of marathon President William Burke, who said he plans to use Rasky’s image on a marathon billboard standing beside the Santa Monica Freeway.

At least part of him, anyway. As a cost-saving measure, marathon officials plan to replace only part of the billboard, which was damaged by water. Rather than change the entire sign, they plan to replace just the heads.

“We are thinking of putting Ed’s head on someone’s body,” Burke said. “We’ll have to check his body out, to see which body it matches most closely. “We definitely won’t put him on a woman’s body.”

Rasky has run the marathons with shin splints, tendinitis in his knees, a heel spur on three separate occasions and several sprained ankles. “He ran 19 miles of his first marathon on a pulled muscle because he didn’t want to disappoint the kids,” his wife said, shaking her head. “He was on crutches for three weeks.”

Days before the race, he jogged through fumes of auto exhaust on Fallbrook Avenue, limping slightly on his right side. He had been struggling for a week to overcome a cold.

With his head lifted, his stride lengthened and his pace slightly accelerated, he thought about the kids. “From the moment they get to camp they forget they have cancer, and they have the greatest time of their lives,” he said. “This is what makes it all so worthwhile.”

* SURVIVING THE MARATHON

A guide to the race and a map of the course. B8