The Speediest Paper Chaser

A very sore Dan Sholesinges hobbled into section meeting of one his Law School classes on Tuesday. Three well-prepared classmates and a professor were discussing the students' upcoming oral arguments Schiesinges sar, silent.

"Dan," the professor asked, "What are your ideas?"

"I have none," he said. He tried to explain. "I haven't had much time. I've been rather preoccupied."

Dan Schlesinger did have one idea--one distant dream--for a long time. It preoccupied him. It took up hours of his time. Schlesinger wanted to be a great runner. And last Sunday, the first-year Law School student saw his dream come true when he beat almost 15,000 runners, to take third place in the New York City Marathon.

Though Schlesinger, a Yale graduate, is so newcomer to the sport of long-distance running, his 2:11:54 third-place finish was the biggest surprise in the largest marathon the world.

ABC commentator Marty Liquori reportedly told the millions watching the nationally televised event: "If you think you have heard of Dan Schlesinger, think again."

But more surprised than Liquori or any of the race's spectators was Schlesinger himself. "I didn't expect to do nearly as well as I wound up doing," he recalls Schlesinger ran for most of the race with the leading pack of 20 or 30 runners. He maintained his pace in the final miles, while others dropped off.

"I will have in the back of my mind the flickering thought I may be able to chase Salazar further."

At about 23 miles, he recalls, "I was nearing Central Park [the race's finish-line] and there I was, running alone, and I was really confused."

New Yor was only Schilesinger's third marathon, and be was shoched to find himself to high to the field with only two miles to go "My worry at this point," Be smiles, "was that I would trip, or that I would be stunned by some unexpected, spontaneous sort of caratclism made me over which I had no control".

But Schlesinger stayed on his feet for the final miles, maintaining the third position, and enjoying what he remembers as "arguably the best feeling of my life."

That's saying a lot, coming from this soft-spoken Raleigh, N.C. resident. Dan Schlesinger has experienced quite a bit in his 27 years. After graduating summa cum laude from Yale in 1977, he studied Japanese language and culture at Oxford for three years as a Marshall scholar.

For the last two years, he worked in a Seoul, South Korea law firm, translating documents from Korean to English. And through all of it--since he was 12 years old--he has run.

Always a highly competitive and dedicated athlete, Schlesinger received little recognition for his efforts before last Sunday. But his list of accomplishments on the road and the track is an impressive one. As a Yale freshman, Schlesinger broke 1972 Olympic marathon champion Frank Shorter's school record for the six-mile event. In his senior year, he took first in the 5000 meter race at the Harvard, Yale Oxford, Cambridge meet Two years later, as an Oxford student, he won the same race.

While he was in Korea, Schlesinger let competitive running slide for a while, until last March, when the first International Seoul Marathon was held. "I thought 'This is it, Dan, this is your last chance to run a marathon,'" he recalls. So the lanky 5-foot-10 130-pound runner dedicated four months to an intensive training schedule, running 10 miles twice a day and 15 to 20 mile jaunts on Sundays.

The result was an impressive ninth-place finish, and a 2:17:59, ranking Schlesinger in the elite group of sub 2:20 marathoners.

"You get to a point," Schlesinger says, "and you realize that this is it. So you push yourself." And when he returned to the States this summer, he pushed himself to a sixth place finish at the Falmouth Road Race, the most competitive 15-kilometer footrace in the world.

And he pushed himself some more six weeks ago, when he completed the Nike Marathon in Eugene, Oregon, in 2:13:59.

In a mere eight months, Schlesinger had risen to the ranks of the top marathon runners in the world. But he had more on his mind than racing and his 20 mile-a-day training regimen. He had growing responsibilities in his first, intensive year at the Law School.

"I thought maybe you run Falmouth, you run Nike, and then you stop running," he says. "After all, law school must have some kind of precedence."

But only two weeks before New York, Schlesinger cancelled his retirement plans. His father called the race's organizers to see whether Schlesinger's trip to the Big Apple could be financed. "If they had not offered to pay, I would not have run," he says. "I would have stayed home and caught up with my work."

"My worry was that I would trip, or that I would be stunned by some unexpected, spontaneous cataclysm inside me."

The race committee was offering free transportation to any entrant whose qualifying time was under two hours and 14 minutes. "I was 2:13:59," Schlesinger smiles. "I couldn't resist a free trip to New York."

The aspiring international lawyer will never regret his decision to fly to the City last Friday to run the race that threw this unknown translator of Korean languages into the limelight of international sports.

But a few days and 26 miles, 385 yards later, Dan Schlesinger is still not satisfied. While he has accomplished many of his goals in the sport, after each race, he sets his sights higher. After his performance on Sunday, he is close to the top of the running world.

But there's somebody Dan Schlesinger would like to catch the tall native Cuban that Schlesinger followed for most of the New York Race, undefeated marathoner Alberto-Salazar.

"I'm certainly not one to regard Salazar as anything less than a god," says the matter-of-fact Schlesinger, who pulled up alongside the champion for a few moments in the race's sixteenth mile.

Schlesinger is looking forward to encountering the deity of the roads again this April, in the Boston Marathon. "I may approach the next race differently," he explains. "I will not absolutely concede [to Salazar] I mean, I will have in the back of my mind the flickering thought that I may be able to chase Salazar further," he says.

Schlesinger adds that he has growing hopes of making the marathon team for the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. "There are no guarantees, but there are hopes," he says.

As he recovers from his blistering performance last Sunday, hobbling around his apartment, shoeless, answering calls from congratulatory relatives and acquaintances, and trying to catch up on his law school assignments. Dan Schlesinger will have plenty of time to think about his hopes for the future. He has always had high aspiration in life and in running. "Now," he says, "I'm prepared to dream a little more."