Heart of America Marathon
Labor Day heart2.gif (4940 bytes) Columbia, Missouri

1969 Report

Tim Hendricks from Omaha, Nebraska, now of the U. S Navy, 23 years old ran about as even a pace as possible to win the tenth annual Heart of America Marathon, not taking the lead until about the 23 mile mark. The winning time was eleven minutes off Barry Crawford's record set in 1966. It's said that a good marathoner will run the second half of a marathon as fast or faster than the first half. Of the leaders, only Hendricks was able to do that, running the first half in 1:22:54 and the second three seconds faster. This enabled him to overtake a host of runners. He was 21st at 3 miles, 1:18 behind first, 13th at 6, 1:22 behind, 4th at 18, 2:06 back, 4th at 21, 1:10 behind, and at the top of the hill at Memorial Stadium, the 24 mile mark, he was first by 12 seconds, driving on to the finish by a margin of 2:24 over Brian Harrington, U. S. Army, Ft. Hood, Texas, otherwise from Wilmington, Delaware. Harrington's first half was in 1:20:13, the second in 1:27:56. Carl Owczarzak, who had won four of our races this summer, had a first half of 1:21:09, the second in 1:29:07. Lou Fritz was 1:22:58 the first half and 1:27:32 the second. Of the local people, Sal Citarella and Joe Duncan ran together for the first 18 plus miles; Sal paused momentarily for water then caught Duncan walking up the big hill just before the 20 mile mark. Sal moved on to complete his first marathon finishing eleven minutes ahead of Duncan who was in his fourth marathon. 51 year old Murrel Jackson beat his last year's time by twelve minutes. Joel Dickinson's strength carried him to a marathon finish in his first try after he had spent August in Montana, having run only thirty miles in that time. Don Granberg, on the Sociology faculty at MU, newly arrived in Columbia the day before, didn't wait to unpack. His method of unwinding after a 400 mile moving trip was to run the marathon.