ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, April 14, 1996 TAG: 9604150104
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RALPH BERRIER JR. STAFF WRITER
PHIL CARROLL, 62, came out of retirement from competitive running two years ago. On Monday, he tackles the Boston Marathon.
When he turned 60, Phil Carroll's thoughts turned to his retirement.
He decided it was time to end it.
Carroll had been a retiree from competitive running for 38 years before the life-changing event of turning 60 prompted him to lace up his running shoes again two years ago.
``After turning 60,'' he said, ``I felt I needed to do something.''
Two years later, he is preparing for the race of his life.
Carroll, 62, will be part of the largest contingent ever from the Roanoke Valley to compete in the 100th running of the Boston Marathon on Monday. Fourteen other local runners qualified for the Marathon and at least three other Roanokers who did not have qualifying times were selected for the field through a special lottery.
The local runners will be in a record field of approximately 40,000 competitors, not including the ``bandits'' who sneak into the 26.2-mile race without qualifying. The centennial running of America's most-celebrated marathon has brought out four times the number of competitors who usually enter the race.
Carroll will be in 24,076th place - at the starting line. The race begins at noon, but it will be approximately 12:30 before Carroll makes it to the start.
He's waited his whole life for this, so what's an extra 30 minutes? This will be the first Boston Marathon for Carroll, a Connecticut native who moved to Roanoke 28 years ago.
``I'd always thought about'' running the Boston Marathon, he said. However, ``I never had the courage.''
In fact, Carroll stopped running completely after serving with the Marines during the Korean War. He had been a high school track star in his hometown of Greenwich, Conn., where he won a state cross country championship and once ran a mile in a brisk 4 minutes, 25 seconds. He competed in distance runs and steeplechases in the Marines, but stopped racing in 1956.
His cross country days were a long-distance memory by the time Carroll moved to Roanoke with his wife Christine in 1968. Even when he hit the pavement again in 1994, Carroll was content simply jogging around his North Roanoke County neighborhood just for exercise.
Soon, he joined a local running group on its weekly 10-mile runs. By the summer of '94, he was competing again, first in 5-kilometer then 10-kilometer runs. Gradually, like a good runner pacing himself, he worked his way up to marathons.
He ran in the 1994 Marine Corps Marathon (``The one that Oprah ran in'') and in the 1995 Charlotte Observer Marathon. His time of 3 hours, 36 minutes in the latter race was fast enough to earn a spot in the Boston Marathon.
It was also fast enough to impress some veteran runners in the area like Dan Wright, president of the Star City Striders who ran with Carroll in the Charlotte marathon.
``He and I started out together, then he got me going too fast,'' Wright said. ``So I burned out after 17 or 18 miles. He finished way ahead of me. ... He beats a lot of younger people.''
Carroll will be the senior member of the Roanoke Valley contingent. Other local runners heading to Beantown include Ed Layman and Pat Bateman, who qualified in the top 2,000 for the race.
Gary Adkins, Brian Falls, Finn Pincus, Roger Fore, Sue Given, Mike Crosser, Jon Brisley, David Henry, Greg Farnham, Joel Dobson, Byron Yost and Karen Miller are also locals competing in the race. Roanoke Valley residents Jeannine Brinegar, Chris Mills and Cary Winkler were among the 5,000 runners selected through a lottery for an ``open'' division.
Adkins, Pincus, Henry and Fore will form a team in the Masters division for runners over 40.
For the most part, the local folks just want to be part of history, no matter where they finish.
``You feel kind of special to participate in this one,'' Adkins said.
Carroll concurs.
``I don't think it'll be possible to set any PRs [personal records] in that crowd,'' he said, ``especially with 23,000 people ahead of me. I'm going to enjoy myself, just to say that I was there.''
LENGTH: Medium: 85 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: PAUL L. NEWBY II/Staff. 1. Phil Carroll, 62, is one ofby CNBat least 18 Roanokers who will be competing in the 100th Boston
Marathon this year. 2. Phil Carroll will start the Boston Marathon
nearly 30 minutes behind the first runners who cross the start line.
color.