Marathoner Kline goes for No. 41 at DCM

Oct. 9—Though he lives in the Lone Star State, Scott Kline is no stranger to the Land of Enchantment.

"We (he and his wife, Michele) love New Mexico," the Dallas resident said in a recent phone interview. "We've spent a lot of time in Albuquerque, a lot of time in Taos, a lot of time in Santa Fe."

As well, he and Albuquerque native Gail Rosenblum, whom Kline met when he was working as a journalist in his hometown of San Antonio, Texas, are close friends.

Thus, as Kline was planning his calendar this year in his ongoing quest to run a marathon in each of the nation's 50 states, he was surprised to realize he had yet to enter a race in New Mexico.

"I never would have thought," he said, "that I would have ended up doing Montana, Idaho and Vermont before I got to Albuquerque."

Kline plans to remedy that situation on the morning of Oct. 16, when he lines up for the Big 5 Duke City Marathon. The DCM will be No. 41 on his itinerary.

Many runners have undertaken such a project, and the DCM has provided many a checkmark along the way. But Kline's quest is unusual, if not unique, in that he wrote in an email to the Journal, "I don't love running (like I really don't love running)."

To clarify, he said later by phone, "When I say I don't love running, it's really more the training."

What Kline does love about the process he's undertaken, though, is "the way we've seen the country and the people we've met."

The germination of his quest, he said, was his early retirement from a legal practice at age 50 (he's now 59) to help care for a son with a learning disability.

"When my son Andrew was in school (during the day), I was pretty alone," Kline said. "But I couldn't take on a new full-time job because once he got home he needed my full-time attention. None of my friends were retired. My wife was still working."

So, what to do?

A half-century before, while in law school in Boston, Kline had run the Boston Marathon.

"I was 25 then," he said. "So I decided that since I was 50, this would be an appropriate time to try another one."

Despite his natural aversion to running, he said, "I thought marathon training would be something I could do on my own to stay out of trouble for several hours a day."

So, in December 2013, Kline ran the Hoover Dam Marathon in Nevada. Not pleased with his performance, he decided to enter another. And another and another.

Not quite hooked, not yet focused on a 50-state quest, he took a year off in 2018 and discovered he missed marathoning. Having at the time run marathons in nine states, with his wife now retired as well, he decided to go for the half-century.

Normally, Kline is not overly concerned with his marathon times. "My good races are a little over four (hours), right in the four range."

He believes, though, that the DCM's relatively flat, fast course might provide him a chance to get a qualifying time of 3:50 or better for the 2023 Boston Marathon.

Altitude? Yes, Kline admits, that's a concern. That's why, for race No. 40, he selected the Colorado Springs Marathon, featuring elevations from 6,000 to 6,500 feet, on Saturday, Oct. 1.

As for training in general — the part he hates — the frequency of his marathons has made one race the principal training run for the next.

"It's almost like if I was doing a regular running program and it would say 'You need to go do a 20-mile run this week,'" he said. "Instead of doing that, I'm just doing another marathon as training for the one after that."

Thus, viewing the Colorado-Springs event as a training run for the DCM — and encountering a wardrobe malfunction along the way in the form of a snapped waistband — he finished in a leisurely 5 hours, 15 minutes. But, as he has done throughout his marathoning tour of America, he finished.

Between races, Kline has adopted a regimen that involves no more than 25 miles a week and three days of strength training.

"That's kind of new," he said, "so I guess we'll see, with these races coming up, if it works."

Next, after the DCM, No. 42: the Marshall University Marathon in Huntington, West Virginia on Nov. 6.