Monday, September 29, 2003

By Mike Bucsko, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Mike Portogallo hit the ground running yesterday, leaving his Swissvale home about 8:30 a.m. and striding to Squirrel Hill to run this year's Great Race.

He bounded out of Frick Park onto Beechwood Boulevard just in time to join about 60 other diehard runners who were ready to step off from the traditional starting point of the race, unwilling to accept the cancellation of this year's event because of the city's budget woes.

	Related article Schenley Park gives 'Replacement Race' more ups than downs in its first running

Portogallo, 48, got to the starting point at the last minute, but he was the first to arrive at the traditional finish line at Point State Park about an hour later. Portogallo has run in the Great Race almost every year since 1985 and said he went to the starting line "out of curiosity to see what kind of shenanigans were going on."

A varied group showed up to run the unsanctioned race, eschewing the Great Replacement Race going on in Schenley Park. The replacement run, hastily organized after Mayor Tom Murphy canceled the Great Race, drew about 1,300 runners.

Those sticking to the traditional route included a high school basketball team, two groups of family members and runners who didn't want their perfect string of Great Races interrupted by the cancellation.

All were consistent on one point -- maintaining the tradition of the Great Race.

Tim McConnell, 39, brought members of his Chartiers Valley High School basketball team to participate, just as he has for the 11 years he's been the coach. Some of the players thought they wouldn't have to participate this year because of the cancellation. They were mistaken.

"You've just got to keep up with the tradition," McConnell said.

Participants in the unsanctioned race said they had no ill will toward the organizers of the Great Replacement Race -- they just didn't want to run in it.

"You couldn't do that one if you've always done this one," said Mary Jo Kelly, who began the Great Race course with two friends about 8:20 a.m.

Wayne Jacobs began thinking about yesterday's continuance of the Great Race tradition as soon as he heard that Murphy had canceled the event. Jacobs, one of 29 men who have run every Great Race since the event was started in 1977 by then Mayor Richard Caliguiri, contacted others who had a perfect record "just to give people an option."

Jacobs, 55, of Shaler, mapped out a slightly different route for the Great Race to avoid interfering with the replacement race or with traffic.

Most who ran the unsanctioned race followed a route that took them from Beechwood Boulevard to Forbes Avenue, over Morewood Avenue to Fifth Avenue, then left on Boundary Street to the Eliza Furnace Trail, more commonly known as the "jail trail." The runners followed the jail trail Downtown, then went up Grant Street to Seventh Street, cut down Seventh to Liberty Avenue and then to Point State Park.

Several of the veteran runners stopped to touch Caliguiri's statue as they passed the City-County Building on Grant Street as a sign of the attachment they feel toward the race, which was renamed the Richard S. Caliguiri Great Race in 1993.

One of the perfect Great Racers, Frances Walsh, 73, a retired Pittsburgh Public Schools teacher from Brookline, participated despite a lung operation two weeks ago.

"I think next year they'll see what they lost and bring it back," Walsh said.

Allana Covi, 25, was probably the most inexperienced runner among the group of diehards, but she was determined to participate because she was upset the race was canceled. Covi put fliers in various locations on the South Side to try to get people to participate. Though she received a meager response, Covi was at the starting point at 8:30 a.m.

"I'm sure eventually it will end up as the Great Walk for me," she said.

But Covi, a smoker, made it running, albeit slowly. She pulled into Point State Park just over 90 minutes after she left Squirrel Hill.

"I hurt," she groaned.

She quickly added, "I'll do it again. It was fun."

When asked if he thought the support from the diehard runners would help persuade the city to restore the Great Race next year, Jacobs replied:

"I couldn't care less. We're just doing it to do it."

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