Running past the century mark

Published 9:00 pm Monday, September 11, 2006

BURLINGTON – It wasn’t an easy race.

A marathon never is. It’s 26.2 grueling miles.

When you finish one, you want three things: water, a massage and never to hear the word “marathon” again.

You hurt from your head to your feet.

That is, if you’re still breathing.

The first guy to run a marathon dropped dead at the end of it.

Nobody died in the 29th Skagit Flats Marathon on Sunday, but it was painful just watching runners slowly and agonizingly reach into an ice-filled tub for bottles of water at the finish.

An elderly woman came to the aid of one guy who looked as if he might never get up if he leaned over too far. He sucked water down like he’d just crossed the Sahara.

Michael Dutton finished with a smile. Despite the stomach ache at mile 20 and the leg cramps at mile 23. Other than that, he felt splendid.

For Dutton, 36, a chef at Anthony’s Woodfire Grill in Everett, it was a milestone moment. Twelve years ago, he ran his first marathon.

“I was only going to run one,” he recalled recently. But he finished first in his age group, won a trophy and he was hooked.

Three weeks later, he ran another one.

He never stopped.

Sunday, back on his home turf – he graduated from neighboring Mount Vernon High School – he completed his 100th marathon.

You’d have thought he’d just won an Olympic gold medal, such was the crowd that greeted him at the finish line.

There were about 20 people in all, including his wife, Magdalena, and their three children, and there were hugs and kisses and handshakes and pictures, and several of the relatives wore light blue T-shirts that read “Celebrating Michael Dutton’s 100th Marathon” on the front and his favorite races on the back.

Though he didn’t crack the 4-hour goal he had set for himself – he ran a 4:01 and finished in the middle of the pack – he did win a medal and a T-shirt recognizing him as a new member of the “100th Marathon Club.”

To anyone who has ever run just one marathon, what Dutton accomplished is an Olympic feat.

Non-runners might contend it takes a brain cramp to go out and do 26 miles.

OK, marathoners are different.

They’re tough. They’re gutty. They’re committed (some think they should “be” committed.).

And maybe it is hard for some to understand why anyone would ruin a perfectly delightful September day such as Sunday was by running up and down country roads in picturesque Skagit County.

Maybe it’s unexplainable. Maybe you just have to do a marathon to understand what makes it what it is.

But why in the name of Pheidippides – the original marathoner – would anyone do 100 of them?

(Or nearly 400, which, one of Dutton’s good friends, Bob Dolphin of Yakima, is approaching, and Dolphin, 76, didn’t run his first one until he was 51).

Because, Dutton maintains, it has made his life better.

“After I come in from a run, the world is a beautiful place,” he said. “It helps put everything in perspective.

“Running has made me a better person, a better husband, a better father, a better chef.”

Any stress he might have felt when he stepped out the door is gone, he has had time to think and make a plan for the day, and he just feels better about everything.

Running cleanses his soul.

Someone once suggested that if we could get all the leaders of all the countries of the world to run, there would be no more wars.

Dutton took up running because he was warring with being overweight. After playing football at Western Washington University – his career was cut short by tendinitis in both shoulders – he weighed 265 pounds. “At that time, my self esteem and confidence were at all-time lows and my brother thought that running could be just what I needed to help bring me up,” Dutton said. “He sure wasn’t kidding, and since Terry is now a doctor, I guess the doctor knew best.”

Dutton put on his sneakers, hit the streets, changed his eating habits and dropped 80 pounds in a year. He’s still a lean, mean 190.

It’s not like he starves himself. But he is careful about what he eats. “A lot of seafood, chicken, salads and fruits and vegetables,” he said. “Being a chef, I pretty much try everything. I want to make sure everything is right for our guests.”

Then he burns up the calories on the roads.

While most of his races have been in the Pacific Northwest, he has ventured outside the U.S., racing in Canada a number of times – he has done the Vancouver, B.C., Marathon 10 times – and going as far as England for the London Marathon in 1997.

That, he said, was his most memorable marathon because he went with his good friends Bob and Lenore Dolphin “who have been like grandparents to me,” and to run with Bob every step of the way “is something I’ll cherish forever.” That, incidentally, was the 200th marathon for Dolphin, who pushed his total to 390 with the Skagit race on Sunday.

Dutton has completed every marathon he’s started – except for one. Food poisoning – “not at Anthony’s, mind you” – KO’d him in the King Day Classic in Tacoma one year.

In 1999, he put off having knee surgery for a day so he could do the Capitol City Marathon in Olympia. “I had a torn MCL (medial collateral ligament) and I was on crutches when I went to see the doctor,” Dutton recalled. “That was the anniversary of my first marathon and I’d never missed the Capitol City.”

He finished the race. On guts. And grit. “Very excruciating,” he said. “I tried to keep weight off the knee as best I could.”

For the amateur marathoner, there is no glory in running the race. There is just the feeling of self fulfillment, of knowing “I can do this,” of challenging oneself.

Dutton has put himself to the test 101 times. He has passed all but one.

He has pushed his son “Miles” in a jogger for an entire 26 miles. He has worked a 12-hour shift, driven to Portland, been at the starting line 20 minutes later and completed a race in 4 hours and 12 minutes. Then driven back to Everett for a 3 p.m. shift to help prepare 300 dinners, finally closing the restaurant at 1 a.m. To set up the 100th run on Sunday, he ran his 98th and 99th on consecutive days in mid-August.

That is commitment. That is passion.

That is – you say – nuts.

Whatever.

He has run in Portland, then driven to Cannon Beach so he could soak his feet in the ocean.

He has run Crater Lake in Oregon and been bowled over by the beauty of the course. “I almost felt like I was in heaven,” he said. “That’s where I want my wife to throw my ashes.”

All this is fine and dandy, but the big question remains: Does he have it in him to do another 100 marathons?

“I truly believe,” he said, “there’s nothing I can’t accomplish if I set my mind and heart to it.”

Bum knee or not.