This guy is tough

At the 1996 Olympic Marathon Trials, Bob Kempainen, a 1992 Olympic marathoner, brought new meaning to the term "guts" with his performance. Just past 21 miles, as Kempainen pulled away from Mark Coogan and Keith Brantly, he began to vomit. His second eruption staggered him for a moment, but he calmly wiped his chin, gathered himself and incredibly increased his lead. Despite his distress, he ran the 23rd and 24th miles in 4:42 and 4:33 respectively which finally broke Coogan and Brantly. Kempainen, the fastest U.S. marathoner (2:08:47 at Boston in '94), maintained his lead and crossed the finish line in 2:12:45. Kempainen's gutsy effort earned him another trip to the Olympics, a record first place marathon prize ($100,000), a course record and his first marathon win in seven attempts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRvrxqlOSpI&feature=youtube_gdata_player

That is insane - I love the commentary that "dehydration is really for the unfit athlete". Classic....

'Tis true. That is bad ass.

Once saw a dude simply turn his head mid-marathon and rather calmly eject the contents of his stomach onto the street... does that count, too?

I remember watching that on TV, and Nike had an ad about it that I had on my wall in college. I sat behind Kempainen's family in Olympic Stadium in Atlanta. It was cool to see their reaction when he entered the stadium. It can be easy to forget they are people with families too.

I can puke and then accelerate my drinking... I think that's pretty hardcore.

I can't believe I never heard that story before now. Pure guts.

Stan

I remember watching this on TV, and I, too, saw Bob finish in Atlanta (I was on the infield). Bob left his hardcore running career to finish med school and is a doctor today.

A friend of mine ran with Keith Brantley recently in Florida and she remarked that she almost didn't recognize him since those running/racing days. She described him as having "man boobs". Mark Coogan and his wife lived in this area for a short time and you used to be able to catch them at local races. I think they are back out west now, and one of them may have been here for school.

Matt W wrote:

I remember watching that on TV, and Nike had an ad about it that I had on my wall in college. I sat behind Kempainen's family in Olympic Stadium in Atlanta. It was cool to see their reaction when he entered the stadium. It can be easy to forget they are people with families too.

Why? They are gods or sumtin?

That is just insanely AWESOME!!! Definitely the definition of tough.

fostever wrote:

Matt W wrote:

I remember watching that on TV, and Nike had an ad about it that I had on my wall in college. I sat behind Kempainen's family in Olympic Stadium in Atlanta. It was cool to see their reaction when he entered the stadium. It can be easy to forget they are people with families too.

Why? They are gods or sumtin?

No, not gods by any means. Just when you only see someone on TV, etc. you don't get a glimpse of the ordinary parts of their lives. That was back before blogs, social media, and such too, so you didn't get that much exposure to the elites. Also, I was kind of young then and put Olympians on somewhat of a pedestal a lot more than I do as an adult.

Ah, the internet....

I found the Nike ad I had on my wall.

I can see myself doing that puke all over myself and continue to run. My strategy for passing people during a race is a little different I just yell "High on dope get out of my way" and the turn and it's like the red sea parting.