AVC COACH'S DAILY RUN A COVERT OPERATION BURBANK HIGH GRADUATE TURNS OBSESSION INTO NATIONAL RECORD.

Byline: KEVIN CONNELLY Special to the Daily News

Thwack, thwack,thwack ...

About the time when newspapers begin thwacking on doorsteps and driveways across the Southland every morning, Antelope Valley College cross country and track and field coach Mark Covert's alarm goes off.

Covert awakens, shuts off the alarm, and minutes later is fully clothed with the rubber soles of his running shoes bouncing off dirt and pavement.

Thwack, thwack, thwack ...

This is how Covert has spent his mornings for the past 38 years and 23 days -- a period in which he has run at least one mile every morning and more than 130,000 miles total. The consecutive-days running streak, which began the year he graduated from Burbank High in 1968, is the longest of its kind in the nation, according to U.S. Running Streak Association, Inc.

Covert, 55, earned the distinction last month when he surpassed Bob Ray, 69, of Baltimore. Although Covert admits to having slowed since he was a NCAA Division II cross country champion at Cal State Fullerton, he still averages more than seven miles a day, and had run at least three miles a day for more than 36 years before surgery on his knee limited him to a mile per day for a week.

``The streak becomes more fun on the days I'm either hurt or sick,'' said Covert, who suffered a compound fracture in his foot in the early 1970s. ``It's not as much of a challenge to get up and put your shoes on every morning when you're perfectly healthy.

``Outside events don't really affect (the streak) either, because I'm usually finished with my run by 5 a.m. Getting up that early is not something that bothers me. Running is something I thoroughly enjoy doing, and will continue doing until I can't anymore.''

In addition to running through various injuries and ailments, Covert has run despite extreme temperature conditions and on personally monumental occasions, such as his marriage in 1979 and the births of his four children -- something that impresses even them.

Covert's eldest child, Chris Covert, 24,

is an avid runner himself whose longest personal streak of six months ended when he ran for his dad at Antelope Valley.

``Running is a huge deal for us. A lot of families are into football on Sundays, but we ran,'' said Chris Covert, a cross country and track and field coach at Southern Connecticut State who also ran at Cal State Fullerton.

``I don't think I really understood how impressive his streak was until I got a little older. He's strong -- definitely stronger than me. I think there will have to be some major injury before he's done. I don't see this streak being like a Cal Ripken thing, where he just decides to call it quits one day.''

Put in perspective, Ripken's streak of 2,632 consecutive games played for the Baltimore Orioles -- the most widely known barometer of durability in sports -- trails Covert's mark by more than 11,000 days.

Ripken also had days off between games and an offseason to recover from nagging injuries, while Covert has not.

But unlike Ripken's streak, which is nowhere near being threatened, Covert's hold on the record is much more tenuous. Covert is being chased by his close friend Jon Sutherland, 55, a West Hills resident who met Covert in 1968 when they were teammates at L.A. Valley College.

Sutherland, who calls Covert ``tougher than anybody'' he has met, has run more than a mile for 37 years and 82 consecutive days. Although not as competitive as Covert in college, Sutherland now averages more than 12 miles per day and has run more than 171,000 miles during the streak -- nearly 40,000 more than Covert.

``Covert was such a hard worker in college. He inspired me,'' said Sutherland, a Granada Hills High and Cal State Northridge graduate. ``I love the guy. I've been going to a party at his house every five years to celebrate the streak, so it's not as if this is something that is competitive between us. I'm rooting for him.''

Sutherland, a former freelance writer with Runner's World Magazine whose first assignment was on Covert, says he has made 20 ``dumb runs'' during his own streak, including running on a fractured hip, and getting out of his car on a 14-degree day in Atlanta to run in a parking lot.

A naysayer might doubt the credibility of the streak because there is no way to substantiate how far someone runs every day besides the runners' own accounts, but Sutherland says the records reported to USRSA president founder John Strumsky Jr. of Millersville, Md., are respected by those in the running community.

None of the records are more respected than those of Covert, who realizes that his streak will come to an end one day in the unforeseeable future.

``I'm getting to be an old guy now,'' he laughed. ``I don't run as fast I did before so everything moves by a lot slower now. I can see the trees and the leaves on them a lot better.''

But Covert persists, as does his streak, and that very familiar sound of his shoes resonating with the ground ...

Thwack, thwack, thwack.

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CAPTION(S):

3 photos, 2 boxes

Photo:

(1 -- color) COVERT

(2 -- color) Mark Covert started his streak in 1968, the year he graduated from Burbank HIgh.

Courtesy of Mark Covert

(3) SUTHERLAND

Box:

(1) RUNNING MAN

- Antelope Valley College

(2) RUNNING FOR THEIR LIVES

- U.S. Running Streak Association