Saturday, May 06, 2000
Locals make run at Olympics
Sence, Lentz at Olympic marathon trials
By John Fay
The Cincinnati Enquirer
John Sence and T.J. Lentz have spent four years preparing for the what they hope will take two hours and 12 minutes Sunday morning.
Sence and Lentz, local runners and training partners, are among the 114 runners who qualified to run in Sunday's U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials in Pittsburgh.
Sence comes in as the 12th seed; Lentz is 26th.
Both would be considered long shots to earn one of the three spots on the U.S. team. In Lentz's case, that's because of his seed. In Sence's case, that's because no one is sure how healthy he is.
Sence, 30, hurt his hamstring while training in Colorado. He's been able to train through the injury, but it has limited his quality workouts. He didn't decide until last week whether he'd run and hasn't talked about the injury to the media.
“He's hoping it will loosen up,” said his wife, Lori. “He doesn't know if he's kept his fitness. But he wants to give it a shot.”
Lentz said Sence will be OK.
“I hesitate to say he's injured,” Lentz said. “He's been cautious because of it, but he's trained through it. I still think he's one of the favorites.”
A Runner's World's panel of experts picked Sence seventh. He won the USA Running road-racing Grand Prix in 1998 and has won back-to-back national titles at 25-kilometers.
But he's been injured quite a bit leading up to the trials. He had foot problems over the winter, then the hamstring injury.
His qualifying time of 2:15:40 is only two minutes out of the top three. He won the Las Vegas Half Marathon in 1:02:56 in February. That's the equivalent of about a 2:10 marathon.
Lentz, 33, is hoping to run 2:14, the Olympic qualifying standard.
“Some of the times I've run in shorter races indicate I can do that,” he said. “This is the trials. You don't want to leave anything to chance.”
Lentz has dropped his marathon time nearly eight minutes over the last 11/2 years. He ran 1:03 and change in Vegas, a personal record by five minutes, so he expects to run considerably faster Sunday than his 2:17:51 qualifying time.
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