Friday, May 07, 1999
GOP chief running race of his own
BY JIM KNIPPENBERG
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The way Buck Niehoff sees it, all his races are alike, and never mind that he runs some with a pack of Suits in paneled offices and some with a pack of sweaty jocks on city streets.
Niehoff, chairman of the Hamilton County Republican Party, is charged with the job of getting Republican candidates elected. Meaning he runs races along side of them, directing strategies and policies even as he trains them for the long haul.
Those are the ones he runs with The Suits.
He's also a runner getting ready to take to the streets in his sixth marathon.
Those are the ones he runs with a pack of sweaty jocks.
“I've been doing two races a year. This will be my sixth and I know it sounds crazy, but there's not that much difference between the races I run.
“In a political campaign you work months and months, just like in a marathon, where you train months and months. Then, the day arrives and it's out of your hands. In politics, it's in the hands of the voters; in the marathon, it's in the hands of variables — weather, the course, your training, surprises along the way, how well you feel that day.”
Niehoff expects to feel well enough to come in under 4 hours. With that kind of a finish, he says, “I'm going to personally annihilate Bill Cunningham's relay team. Embarrass him. Really embarrass him.”
Niehoff and Cunningham have a friendly bet where the loser has to contribute to the other's favorite charity.
3,000 WHAT????? The Cincinnati Flying Pig Marathon, Inc., board of directors was baffled as all get-out a couple weeks ago. That would be the day executive director Boylan sent them this e-mail:
“We have 3,000 virgins in the race.”
“Huh?” said one board member.
“Somebody's lying here,” said another.
Well, no. Turns out Boylan was referring to first-time marathoners in the Flying Pig — slightly more than 3,000 of them.
And maybe you'd like to know some of he responses the board members sent back?
Yeah, we just bet you would.
CUTTING IT UP: Not all the marathoners are actually running a marathon. Some are running pieces of a marathon.
That would be nearly 250 relay teams, gangs of four who run one leg each — 6.2, 6.9, 5.6 or 7.5 miles — then call it a day.
Like Channel 12 morning anchor Cammy Dierking: “I just ran a marathon in Honolulu in December and it nearly killed me. I'll run more later, but this one's too close to the last.”
So she, like 1,000 others, joined the relay contingent.
Dierking's team, calling itself 3 Blonds and a Guy even though some of their friends call them 3 Blonds and a Stud, consists of Dierking and sisters Joey Westendorf and Wendy Campbell.
And the Stud, er, Guy? Dierking's husband John.
Oh yeah, and there's this confession, just to prove that blood isn't thicker than water, at least when an uphill run is involved: Dierking admits that “I was the organizer, so I got the form first and took the easiest of the four legs. The other three can fend for themselves.”
Meanwhile, among the other relay teams, you'll find some pretty ripe names: 3 Men and a Babe; G.I. Tract Team; 3 Pigs and a Bore; 3 Sows and a Boar; Pork & Beings; 3 Girls, A Guy and a Stretcher.
PARTY ON THE HOOF: Everyone says it: Running is a lonely sport — like the old film Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner and all that.
Not so for Sandy Magness and her group of six walkers from White Oak. It's been a party since they started training.
And it likely will remain a party up through race's end.
Here's one way you'll know them when you see them: They'll all be dressed alike — purple tops, purple and teal print shorts — with “Our names on our shirts. We want people to yell for us,” Mangess said.
Here's another way you'll know them when you see them: Their husbands have promised to show up at all the water stops with 6-packs of Bud Light. The walkers won't drink it then, Mangess says — “They'll be using it to entice us to the finish line.
“Hey, we're all first-timers. We need to be enticed.”
Flying Pig Marathon Guide
