A run shared by brothers stretches far.Byline: Bob Welch There are a number of famous people of this name including:
When Kevin Hartman Kevin Eugene Hartman (born May 25 1974 in Athens, Ohio) is an American soccer player, who currently plays goalkeeper for the Kansas City Wizards of Major League Soccer. He is known by some as "El Gato" (Spanish for "the Cat"). left Eugene last May for Fort Dix Fort Dix, U.S. army training center, 32,000 acres (12,950 hectares), central N.J., SE of Trenton; est. 1917 as Camp Dix and named for U.S. statesman John A. Dix. In 1939 it was made a permanent garrison and renamed Fort Dix. , N.J., and, ultimately, Iraq, it was life, interrupted. He said goodbye to his wife of only two months, Andrea. To the rest of his family, including brother Scott, who had been the best man at his wedding. And to the Northwest that he loved so much, its allure manifested in the Hood to Coast The Nike Hood to Coast Relay is a unique long-distance relay race held in the U.S. state of Oregon, annually in late August, traditionally on the Friday and Saturday of the weekend before the Labor Day weekend. relay that he would miss. For the first time, he had planned on running the Aug. 24-25 event, this quintessential Oregon race that twines the best of the state: running, so deeply rooted here, and the outdoors, the race stretching from Mount Hood's Timberline Lodge Timberline Lodge is a mountain lodge and National Historic Landmark at 6,000 ft (1,800 m) elevation on the south side of Mount Hood in Oregon, USA, about 60 miles (95 km) east of Portland. to Seaside. Alas, war got in the way. His Oregon National Guard unit arrived in Iraq Aug. 8 and Hartman, a 28-year-old former KVAL news producer, was assigned to a public affairs Those public information, command information, and community relations activities directed toward both the external and internal publics with interest in the Department of Defense. Also called PA. See also command information; community relations; public information. position near Tikrit, about 90 miles northwest of Baghdad. He'd wake at 4 a.m. and it would be 90 degrees. By the end of the day: 120. "I went for a run once, about a mile," he says. "It sucked." He thought about home, about the rain - "I actually missed it" - and about the Hood to Coast that his brother and 11 others would be running without him. By then, though, an idea had sprouted: Why not run the race from Iraq? Vicariously. On a treadmill. Indoors. "The captain of our relay team had heard about this astronaut (Sunita Williams Sunita Williams (born September 19 1965 in Euclid, Ohio) is a United States Naval officer and a NASA astronaut. She was assigned to the International Space Station as a member of Expedition 14 and then joined Expedition 15. ) who ran the Boston Marathon Boston marathon famous 26-mile race held annually for long-distance runners. [Am. Pop. Culture: Misc.] See : Endurance while aboard a space station," says Scott, who had never run a race with his brother. Kevin loved the idea. In fact, during the long, hot days away from home, it's what kept him going. He trained. Coordinated plans with members of his "Truth Sneakers sneakers Noun, pl US, Canad, Austral & NZ canvas shoes with rubber soles sneakers npl (US) → zapatos mpl de lona; zapatillas fpl " team to run the three legs of the race in Iraq that Scott would actually be running in Oregon. Taped a photo of Mount Hood to one side of his treadmill and Haystack Rock Haystack Rock is a 235-foot tall monolith (or sea stack) on the Oregon coast in the northwestern United States, the third-tallest such structure in the world. A popular tourist destination, the rock is adjacent to the beach and accessible by foot during low tide. to the other. And waited for the "go" sign. Finally, the phone call. It was about 3 p.m. Friday in Oregon, 2 a.m. Saturday in Iraq. Kevin hung up the phone, headed for the treadmill and, mentally taking the "baton" - a magnetic wrist band - from the previous runner, began his 5.7-mile relay leg, visualizing twisting his way down Mount Hood from Timberline Lodge. From 7,000 miles away. Most of the 12,000 Hood-to-Coasters take the weekend off from work to concentrate on the relay. Kevin, a staff sergeant staff sergeant n. 1. a. Abbr. SSG A noncommissioned rank in the U.S. Army that is above sergeant and below sergeant first class. b. Abbr. SSgt A noncommissioned rank in the U.S. , could not. With his run over, he slept on a couch in the fitness area for four hours, then showered, shaved and started videotaping a general's statement and sending it to satellite feed. About noon Saturday Iraq time, he made contact with his teammates - whose runners and two vehicles had made their way to Portland's warehouse district, north of downtown, along the Willamette River. He set his treadmill for 6.1 miles and started Leg Two. "It would have been great had I been able to use a cell phone with a hands-free device so I could have talked to people more, but cell phones are few and far between here," he says. He went back to work, edited a military newscast, then, about 9 p.m., after communication from Oregon, ran his final leg - a 5.8-mile stretch near Mist. "My brother and I are really close," says Scott, who had a hard time seeing Kevin leave for Iraq. "When I wasn't hurting during my runs, I was thinking of him." In the male open division, Truth Sneakers finished 241st out of 292 teams, in just over 29 1/2 hours. But that's really beside the point. `It was just awesome to be able to run `with' my brother,' Kevin says. "He's been trying for years to get me to do a race, and now we've finally run one together, kind of." Let's hope that, at next year's Hood to Coast, the brothers can run it together again. Without the "kind of" that war necessitates. Bob Welch can be reached at 338-2354 or at bwelch@guardnet.com. |
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