Kevin Pates is something of an endangered species in the media world. He covers "endurance sports" for the Duluth News-Tribune, as well as this year's NCAA Hockey Champions, the University of Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs. Not many papers have the kind of coverage endurance sports get in the News Tribune and Pates' Rink and Run blog thanks, to a great degree, to the prominence of Grandma's Marathon and other events in the Duluth area.
Today, for example, Pates will write about the Brewhouse Triathlon. Last weekend he covered the Voyageur Trail Ultra. For 33 years he has either covered or participated in Grandma's Marathon. He's such an institution that in 2010 he was honored with a spot in the Grandma's Marathon Hall of Fame. Not bad for a 2:45 marathoner or a guy whose college sport was tennis. Pates did not get involved in running until the mid 1970s when he was working for the Sports Information Department at the University of Illinois.
At the time, Illinois had recruited a local boy out of Lebanon, IL named Craig Virgin who had set the US 2-mile record as a high schooler and would go on to win two consecutive World Cross Country titles, as well as setting an American record for 10K on the track. While Pates had always had an interest in sports, as he followed in the footsteps of his father, John Pates, who was the public address announcer for football and basketball at Kevin's college alma mater, the University of St. Thomas, running was not his thing.
He grew up in the Mac Groveland neighborhood in St. Paul, attended high school at St. Thomas Academy, where he also did some announcing of basketball and football games. But it wasn't until University of Illinois then head track and cross country coach, Gary Wieneke came up to him one day and said: "You kind of look like you should be a runner." He recruited Pates to join the group that ran instead of ate during the noon hour, even got Pates a pair of "these new shoes, waffle trainers."
Pates' real baptism as a runner, however, came when he joined the News Tribune in 1978 and met another staffer there, Mark Stodhgill. Stodghill used a similar pitch as Wieneke: "I'd really like somebody to run with." But Stodhgill would introduce Pates to the extremes of the endurance athlete. Stodgill didn't confine himself to an occasional marathon, but ran one in all 50 states, and is working on completing one on every continent.
The year after Stodghill recruited him, Pates ran Grandma's Marathon, went on to run two Bostons, and, he estimates, about 16 Twin Cities Marathons among the grand total of 25. Running Grandma's was merely a sidelight for Pates, as he saw the potential of the race from Two Harbors to Duluth and helped convince his bosses to not merely cover the race, but to devote the resources necessary for a special section each year.
As tourism became a big economic engine in Duluth, events such as Grandma's became more than just athletic events, and Pates was able to fit in stories of other races between high school and college sports seasons. "Anything endurance," says Pates, "And I've made sort of a cottage industry out of (continuing to follow two of the more famous endurance athletes the area has produced) Scott Jurek and Kara Goucher."
Kara's mother, Patty, seemingly had Pates on speed dial as Goucher rose up the ladder of US female distance runners. Pates broke the story of Kara getting chatted up by one of the NBA basketball stars during the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Games. What has drawn him to the endurance sports, though, is not only the top people, but the quality of the people. They are often multi-dimensional, running at a high level, for example, while going through medical school or some other taxing educational/vocational challenges.
They are the type of people who will see a reporter they know at the starting line of Grandma's and come up and give him a hug, says Pates. Or they are the people who work the event and go out of their way for a friend. The first year he did radio play by play of the race with Dick Beardsley, Pates said, the oft repeated incident of the starting line spill illustrates this point.
Pates and Beardsley were sitting on tiny chairs in the back of the lead vehicle that would be driven in front of the race's lead runners when Beardsley looked around and asked: "Where's my Mountain Dew?" Pates bent over to look under the chairs and, at that moment, the race started and the vehicle lurched forward, tossing Pates off the back. end. Pates did a forward roll and survived the tumble still wearing his headphones with the connecting jack dangling down.
Fortunately for Pates one of the cyclists who has the job of following the lead runners was a friend who saw Pates' predicament, and told him to hop on the bike. Pates was told to get up on the seat, while the cyclist pushed on the pedals to catch back up to the lead radio car. The only dicey moment being when the cyclist noticed the headphone cord dangling too close to the spokes of the back tire and yelled at Pates to take care of the hazard before they both ended up on the pavement.
Friends help friends, and Beardsley has a story that he retells every year, said Pates, of the radio car and the tumbling reporter. While that may be the most often retold tale involving Pates and the race, for Kevin two special memories involve one man and one woman multiple winners. Colorado's Jane Welzel was a top US runner who had been doing well on the road racing circuit, until she was in a car accident and broke her back.
It took more than a broken back to stop Welzel, Pates recalls, as shortly after recovering from the potentially crippling injury, Welzel was not only participating in Grandma's, she won. On the male side, it was an age thing as Mr. Sub 2:20, another name for Michigan's Doug Kurtis because of his long list of sub 2:20 marathons, was a Masters runner, 41, but still cranking out top times. Defeating age and the rest of the field, Kurtis won the overall title at Grandma's.
Pates doesn't run marathons anymore. He runs, snowshoes, or rides his bike on the roads near his condo next to Spirit Mountain. Does his 3 to 11:30 PM shift at the paper, and may play tunes or sift through his Elvis memorabilia. At 61, Pates figures he's a few years from retirement, though he doesn't look the part of a senior citizen.
If all goes to plan, when his last story is filed for the News Tribune, he'll be heading south and west to Arizona with his memories, Elvis, and in search of less icy terrain for his daily endurance exercise.
Photo courtesy of Duluth News Tribune
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