Byline: MICHAERL LOPEZ Staff writer
Jo-Ann Spinelli is a walking advertisement for the Freihofer's Run for Women, the national 5K women's championship that throws together the likes of Olympic gold medalist Joan Benoit-Samuelson with competitive local athletes like Spinelli, fitness runners and fund-raising walkers.
Spinelli began running after participating in her first Freihofer's. In the five years that have followed, she has covered a lot of ground: she ran the 100th anniversary Boston Marathon in 1996, weathered two hip fractures, and, as a result, began cross-training in swimming.
Spinelli, now 45, represents a rapidly growing segment of the running population -- women in their 40-plus years. George Regan, Freihofer's event director, points to changing societal attitudes toward women in sports for the change. He credits Benoit-Samuelson's gold medal performance in the first Olympic women's marathon in 1984 for giving women runners greater exposure, and Title IX, the landmark civil rights legislation that 26 years ago barred gender discrimination in education, including athletics.
Races like Freihofer's -- featuring world-class athletes even as they offer events for everyone -- also have made running mainstream, said Ryan Lamppa, a statistician with the Road Running Information Center, the national database for USA Track & Field, the sport's governing body.
Spinelli is understated about her evolution from a sideline sports enthusiast who played an occasional game of volleyball to competitive runner.
``I just started doing it ... I didn't do too badly and it was fun. Basically, it got me started in an active sport. My whole lifestyle is quite a bit different than it used to be,'' said Spinelli, a Latham paralegal.
With a time of 21 minutes and five seconds, Spinelli in last year's Freihofer's finished 246th, which put her in the top 10 percent.
The Freihofer's Run for Women race, which will begin at 10 a.m. Saturday at the Empire State Plaza's South Concourse, is expected to draw top athletes like Benoit-Samuelson, Ruth Wysocki and Lynn Jennings, seven times a Freihofer's winner. While serving as the 5K national championship for USA Track & Field, Friehofer's also sponsors the USA Master's 5K Championship for runners 40 and older, as well as the fitness run. The races run concurrently.
Maureen McLeod, also 45, plans to run on Saturday, as she has for most of the 20 Freihofer's races. She has been running since 1977, when her neighbor -- now her husband and coach -- suggested it.
Her first reaction: ``What a ridiculous sport,'' akin to golf, where you chase a ball you hit. Except when running, ``you're chasing nothing.''
``Needless to say, I got hooked,'' said McLeod. ``I'm pretty much convinced that anybody who goes out and runs for three months straight will never give it up.''
Running provides a certain exhilaration, and time alone, she said. Now the chair of the sociology and criminal justice department at Russell Sage College, McLeod wrote most of her dissertation, on the prosecution of domestic assault cases, while running, thinking as she ran.
Since the mid 1980s, the road-race population has grown 80 percent, from 3.5 million to 6.2 million people, according to the Road Running Information Center.
The number of women and older runners are growing at faster rates than the male population. Of 120,000 marathoners running in 1980, 26 percent were master runners -- people 40 and older; in 1996, master runners represented 41 percent of some 400,000 marathoners.
Women apparently are just hitting their stride. They represented 28 percent of marathoners in 1996, up from 11 percent in 1980, according to the center.
The majority of women road runners, however, run for fun and exercise, rather than competition. ``For most people, it should be about health and fitness, going from Point A to Point B. The attitude of `no pain, no gain,' for most people, is not the way to go,'' Lamppa said.
Top-notch athletes in the 40-plus age group probably eat well and certainly have an easier time retaining the lean body mass that people begin losing after age 30, said Luigi Rende, a certified athletic trainer and director of The Center for Sports Medicine in Schenectady and Clifton Park.
Many older runners run in combination with weight training or swimming, for instance, to strengthen the upper body, Rende said. Such strength training is a key to staving off the bone disease osteoporosis, no matter the condition or age of the individual.
Spinelli said she races at Freihofer's for fun. Last year, she chauffeured invited runners, picking them up at the airport and showing them the Freihofer's course. She calls Freihofer's a class race. ``There aren't so many 5Ks in the country that bring together that many women who are that good,'' she said.
McLeod said running does not take the same priority it did when she was in her 30s; family and work life take precedence. She's also become hooked on track, preferring the 800-meter distance.
``Freihofer's, I'm throwing in, simply because it's Freihofer's,' said McLeod. ``Everybody does Freihofer's, and, to have a women's race is important to a lot of women runners.'' FACTS:GOING FOR THE GOLD
Freihofer's Run for Women attracts Olympic gold and world-renowned athletes for the 5K national and masters' championships, but this egalitarian event also invites fitness runners -- all of whom participate at the same time. The Saturday race is expected to draw more than 3,000 participants. Here's some information on how to join: Freihofer's is still accepting last-chance entries for the 5K (that's 3.1 miles) championships and fitness run. The $30 registration must be submitted in person at the Empire State Plaza South Concourse on Friday between 3 p.m. and 9 p.m. A fund-raiser for more than 100 local nonprofit groups, the Freihofer's Community Walk precedes the 10 a.m. race. The two-mile loop starts at the Empire State Plaza and circles through Washington Park. Registrations are accepted beginning at 6 a.m. Saturday. The Run for Kids, open to children up to age 13, is scheduled from 1:30 to 2:40 p.m. Registration begins at 9:30 p.m. Saturday. For more information, call 273-0267, or visit the race's web site, at www.freihofersrun.com.
