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Below is the article from the Las Vegas Sun - Thursday February 3, 2000 in the Sports Section.
Marathon man goes the distance
There
was an old Saturday Night Live bit in which Billy Crystal and Christopher
Guest - in the guise of custodians or night watchmen or some other
working stiffs - would reminisce about household tasks that had
gone awry.
Crystal would start by saying something like “You ever try to hang a picture... and...”
“Crush your tongue with a ball-peen hammer?” Guest would chime in.
“Yeah,” Crystal would say. “I hate when that happens.”
They were the quintessantial gluttons for punishment - that
is, until a 53-year-old massage therapist-turned-masochist named Jerry Dunn from Spearfish, S.D., wandered along.
Dunn will run in Sunday’s Las Vegas International
Marathon, which is an admirable feat unto itself, although hardly unique in that roughly 5,000 others will do the same.
But what does separate Dunn from the pack is that he also ran the 26.2 mile course on
Tuesday. And Wednesday. And he plans to do it today, Friday and Saturday too. And then next Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday...
In fact, Dunn said he’s not leaving town until he runs the course on 17 consecutive days. By that time, he will have logged 445.4 miles. That’s more than the Winston Cup guys do when
they pass through town, and they’re in race cars.
Before you label Dunn a lunatic, consider he’s going to reprise the 17 marathons-in-17-days
routine in 12 U.S. cities (one per month) this year. That will give him 204 for 2000, obliterating his own record of 104 in a single year.
“Lunatic” doesn’t begin to do Dunn justice. He’s nuttier than a fruitcake at Rip Taylor’s house.
Forrest Gump you may have just met your match.
“Yeah, I would say there’s some lunacy involved in it,” concedes Dunn.
“But I’m very durable.”
Now there’s a revelation.
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