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Monday, May 01, 2000 By Lori Shontz, Post-Gazette Sports Writer
David Scudamore thought he was ready to retire. Really, he did.
He had had earned all-state honors as a runner in high school, then All-American honors at Stanford University. He continued to train when his college career ended, juggling his workouts with the first two years of medical school, which he spread over a three-year period.
For the past three years, the UPMC Health System/City of Pittsburgh Marathon has hosted the U.S. men's national championship. All three of the champions crowned in Point State Park will run here again this week in the U.S. Olympic men's marathon trials. Today, the Post-Gazette catches up with each of those champions: David Scudamore, Alfredo Vigueras and Keith Brantly.
Vigueras to make one last stand here
Brantly hopes to rekindle magic
Neighborhoods gear up to cheer marathoners on their way
Nagging injuries hindered his progress; he hadn't enjoyed a pain-free season since he was a college junior in 1992. Scudamore figured it was time to put his competitive running career behind him.
But he couldn't. Not without giving the marathon, an event he had never run, just one try.
So Scudamore entered the 1997 UPMC Health System/City of Pittsburgh Marathon, which happened to be the men's national championship. And then the craziest thing happened.
He won. The victory guaranteed him a spot on the U.S. team for the 1997 world championships. His one-marathon-and-out plan was ruined.
"Going to Pittsburgh and running really changed my thinking about the sport," Scudamore said. "I wanted to stay in a little longer. Compete a little more. It was a good experience, and then I had a lot of fun going to the world championship. Suddenly, there were new goals to set."
But Scudamore had his old goals, too, which he didn't want to let go. So he didn't.
For the past three years, he has continued his juggling act -- training and medical school -- and even added an additional responsibility on Oct. 26, 1999, when he became a father.
"I've probably had a tendency, always, to overcommit myself," said Scudamore,30, who lives in Davis, Calif., with his wife, Jennifer, and their six-month-old son, Harrison. "I've always had a lot of interests and a lot of things I've wanted to do. It seems like I'm usually balancing several things at once."
Scudamore doesn't have a coach, but he is advised by Stanford Coach Vin Lanana, his coach during his senior year in college. The two meet periodically, but mostly Lanana dispenses advice by phone.
"Dave is a very bright, mature guy," said Lanana, who also coached Bob Kempainen, the doctor who won the 1996 Olympic marathon trials. "He has really been able to organize his own schedule. ... He presses himself very hard. He's very demanding, and he expects the best out of himself. "
Scudamore's athletic breakthrough came at a crossroads in his academic life.
He had enrolled at the University of California-Davis medical school because the dean of student affairs agreed to a flexible schedule, allowing him to take time to train for the 1996 Olympic track trials. Each semester, he took only two-thirds of the curriculum.
"Probably equivalent to a regular undergraduate curriculum," he said.
So after three years, Scudamore was at exactly the halfway point of his medical training. He had finished the preclinical years, mostly classwork and lab work, and was preparing to spent the next two years working in the hospital, gaining practical experience and learning from residents and attending physicians.
"You can't really be on two-thirds of a clerkship," Scudamore said. "Everything goes in two- and eight-week blocks as you work with the doctors in their different specialties. You can often be working 80 hours a week plus reading and other assignments you do during those blocks."
Which certainly isn't conducive to marathon training.
So Scudamore and his advisers devised a plan in which he could alternate training and schooling. Twelve weeks or so in the hospital, then 12 weeks or so on the roads, preparing for races.
"It's not ideal, certainly," Scudamore said. "I think it can work, but you're also taking some risks. You're increasing your training really quickly as far as increasing the intensity and the mileage and the quality of training. When you do that, you risk injury."
Possibly as a consequence, Scudamore has struggled through a variety of nagging injuries, primarily to his Achilles tendon. He hesitates to blame his schedule because he had similar problems throughout his collegiate career.
And anyway, he actually thinks his crazy lifestyle has benefits -- at least for his education.
"I get these breaks from school, and I think I come back to school with a lot of enthusiasm to get back into it," Scudamore said. "You do burn out when you've gone months and months with working that hard. And it's not like I ever get that far away from the information. I keep up with my journal reading."
Scudamore comes into Sunday's Olympic trials with three marathons to his credit -- Pittsburgh in 1997, which he won in 2 hours, 13 minutes, 48 seconds; the 1997 world championship in Athens, which he finished 13th in oppressively hot weather; and the 1998 New York City Marathon, in which he ran his trials qualifier of 2:18:20. He had wanted to run a spring marathon last year but couldn't because of Achilles problems.
A month after the trials, Scudamore will begin his residency in pediatrics ... although he also has plenty of non-formal training because of his son. He even got to deliver Harrison-- he had done one delivery in medical school, and the midwife promised he could do this one unless complications developed -- after Jennifer went through 54 hours of labor.
"We were both so exhausted," he said, "and I was too tired to be nervous anymore."
Scudamore still gets tired. But he has worked hard to focus on the Olympic trials.
"It's going to be my last race," Scudamore said. "I'd like to go out with a good race."
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