Printer-friendly versionSend to friend

By ALAN HOSKINS, Kansan Contributor

The call came in.

“Hey, I thought you should know Joe Mundt ran in this year’s New York Marathon and did pretty good.”

So how good is pretty good? Incredibly good as it turns out. In fact, on the edge of unbelievable.

A personal trainer in the Wellness and Fitness Center at Kansas City Kansas Community College, Mundt finished 69th out of, get this, approximately 43,500 marathoners including numerous professionals.

He was 65th among male finishers (four female professionals finished ahead of him) and 29th in the race officially designated as the U.S. Marathon championship.

If you do the math, Mundt finished in the top one-tenth of the top one percent in arguably the world’s most prestigious marathon.

His time of 2 hours, 31 minutes and 41 seconds in the 26.2-mile race would have almost won the 1970 New York Marathon, which was won in 2:31.38.

Making it even more incredible, it was only the second marathon for the 25-year-old Mundt. His first came just a little over a year ago when he finished 53rd out of a field of 11,000 in the Twin Cities Marathon run in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

That finish guaranteed Mundt entry into the New York Marathon.

“If you’ve run under 2:55 within the last two years, you’re guaranteed entry,” says Mundt. “Otherwise you have to enter a lottery and last year, 104,000 signed up for the lottery and they took 40,000, which means 64,000 were unable to run. And I’d guess it was more this year.”

Mundt started competitive running in his hometown of Chariton, Iowa, where he ran cross country and track and played basketball (he’s 6-4 and 175 pounds), earning all-state honors by finishing ninth in the state cross country meet and qualifying for state in the two-mile and mile in track.

He continued at Central Missouri State University in Warrensburg, earning All-MIAA honors in cross country three times and All-Region twice.

“Our team went to the national cross country meet all four years and my last year was the end of a stretch of qualifying for the national meet of 14 straight years which at the time was the second longest streak in Division II,” says Mundt.

He also earned six all-conference honors in track, two each in the 1,500 and 3,000 meters and two in relays before graduating with a BS in Physical Education with emphasis on Exercise Science. 

As fate would have it, a personal trainer position opened at KCKCC just as he was graduating in the spring of 2007.

“It was very nice to have a job in the first month after college plus at KCKCC, which is a great place to work. I really like it here.”

Mundt’s preparation for the New York Marathon peaked this fall at 80 to 90 miles of running a week, most of which was with the Kansas City Smoke running club which does the bulk of its training evenings in Mill Creek Park in the Plaza. 

As a member of the Smoke, he also competed in several half marathons including the Hospital Hill, Trolley Run and Kansas City Half Marathon, where he finished sixth; the St. Louis Half Marathon; and the U.S. Track and Field Outdoor Club Championships on Randall’s Island in New York City, his first trip to the Big Apple.

“One shock with running my first marathon came when I went through the half-marathon point and it set in that I was only halfway done,” says Mundt. “Running a marathon was more difficult than I expected. I never had to push myself through anything like that. It’s not really stress compared to college where running a 5k really put stress on your body. A marathon has more discomfort that has to be dealt with.”

Mundt was up at 4:30 a.m. the day of the race, which is held annually on the first Sunday in November. He caught a subway to Manhattan, where he caught the 6 a.m. Staten Island Ferry to the starting area although his start time was not until 9:40 a.m.

“I was ready to get it over with but that’s how it is with so many runners,” he said.
   

Starting on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, the 43,500 runners were sent off in waves. The bridge is divided into three lanes and runners stayed in their assigned lanes for the first eight miles when all merge.

Runners receive two times, one when a huge cannon shot starts the race and the actual running time when a sensor on each runner’s shoe kicks in at the starting line.

“There are check points along the course where the sensor gives you splits and makes sure everyone runs the course,” says Mundt.

From Staten Island, the 26.2 mile course takes runners through all five New York boroughs and finishes in Central Park.

“It’s quite an experience,” says Mundt. “They said 2½ million spectators line the streets and people are constantly cheering. I’ve never experienced anything like it. I was wearing my Kansas City Smoke shirt and I must have had 10 or 15 ‘Go Kansas City’ cheers.

There are always points where you feel like stopping or walking but the people really, really helped me to keep going and kept me from doing either. You constantly have someone watching.

“Finishing felt good although I think it was mostly relief.  But in both marathons, I felt I had accomplished something,” said Mundt, who received a gold 40th anniversary medallion for finishing along with a special marathon T-shirt.

Runners also received metallic emergency blankets, food and water upon finishing – and heaps and heaps of adulation. “I must have walked another mile to get out of the finish area and there were probably 20 emergency stations along the way and at everyone they were saying congratulations, just a flood of congratulations for finishing.”

While he’s eligible, Mundt probably won’t return to New York for the 41st Marathon in 2010. “I probably will at some time but there are some others I want to do, the major one being London but that may be very difficult because I would be an international runner and they take only so many.”

Meanwhile, his 69th place finish will get him into any U.S. race including the Boston Marathon, where Mundt’s co-worker, Jeremy Hammer, will be competing next spring.

Mundt’s ultimate goal is the Olympic Trials, which has a minimum qualifying time of 2:19. “I’m just a little over 12 minutes from qualifying which doesn’t sound like much but that’s a big hunk of time to take off,” he says. “I may never achieve it but that’s the ultimate goal. I know I can do better.”