Kent State Ashtabula "The Legend"

I ran for Kent State Ashtabula in 80 and 81 and that was our home course. It was ran at Geneva State Park. The lunatic (and he takes that as a compliment) who masterminded the whole shindig was Bob Dulak. He is since retired from KSUAC but still lives in the area. The course is still alive, but I'm not sure if they had the race this past year or not. It was usually held the second Saturday in October.

It was an amazing race with 2-3 steeplechase-like jumps in the middle portion and a bunch of trail running. But what really made it exciting was crossing Cowles creek twice in the last mile. The creek was an inlet from Lake Erie and depending on the tides of the lake could reach as high as 3-4' high necessitating a swim to the bank on the East side which was a sheer drop of about 10'. Most years you had to climb up the bank by pulling on tree roots. After navigating that twice and running on the beach you then ran through the middle of a cattail filled swamp to the finish.

The course record "back in the day" was Jeff Wilhelm from Lorain CCC (who later ran for Malone College) at about 27:00. I think the best I ever ran there was 28:40 or so and that felt like a 25:00 8k cc race should feel. It's my understanding that Jeff also had the record for the fastest last mile on that course at 6:00. That was a guy who ordinarily ran in the high 24's for 8k cc.

There is a small bridge over the creek where the runners cross and that and the two banks would be just packed with people wanting to see the runners go underwater.

To this day I'm amazed we didn't come out of that race with dysentary, trench foot, bubonic plague or some similar illness. In 81 after I ran it, I ended up in the hospital a couple days later with flu and strep hooked up to an IV for two days. Fun times baby.

that sounds badass...

Anyone know who the new KSUAC XC coach is?

I'd really love to find out if they are holding the event this year.

They no longer have cross country so there is no coach to contact.

Bob is the meet director so he would be the one to contact. He coaches cc at Saint Paul-Saint John in Ashtabula (Urban Meyer's alma mater) so I would try there.

http://www.ohsaa.org/members.asp?SCHOOL_ID=1356

I beleive Scott Gill was pretty tough back in the day. I think he ran for KSU-A for a year or so and may have one of the quicker times on the course. Scott was "very old school" and could knock back more than a few cold one as well.

I ran in the race with Jeff Wilhelm. He indeed did run 27:00 in the fall of 1978. I believe he was presented with a picture from the year before of him diving into the water.

I finished third in a little over 28 minutes behind another runner from Lorain, where Wilhelm was from. I also think his father was the coach at Lorain.

It was a great course. They always had a picnic afterward.

Great memories!

What ever happened to Kent Roosevelt? They were the icon back when I was a runner in Ohio in the early 1980's.

its a total scrub school now. its were schools from the surrounding district send their pregnant students, or so i hear

Take this as somebody who coached there in 2 different eras. I also have two kids, one of which has graduated from Roosevelt and another who is a freshman there now. I coached there in 87 for CC with Chuck Lucas who was the coach of the 2 state championship teams and again for track just a few years ago. Back in the day, Lucas would have those kids running in the morning and again after school. He pushed the kids hard and didn't put up with any crap. Fast forward to recently and there is a big change in the overall culture of the school. If you had two a days now, you'd have parents crawling down your throat and you'd have nobody in the administration on your side.

Add that to the fact that Kent can't decide if it's a Lacrosse/soccer school or a ghetto town(which is most certainly is not). For a school of their size, they offer way too any sports. See:

http://www.cdab.org/members.asp?SCHOOL_ID=1326

I'm hoping that the rebirth of the football team's success will encourage kids to be more athletic by choosing to run track in the spring. In the Chuck Lucas/Art Edwards era, you had teachers who were able to get kids out for CC/track and an administration that had a backbone and would tell the helicopter parents how it was going to be there. It will help when the superintendent and the AD move on and they realize that having a spine won't mean that school levies won't pass.

Is the Legends still being run? I am a former athlete of Bob Dulak & would like to run the course.

I don't think there are any more races being held there. When the Lodge at Geneva on the Lake went in and the State Park was renovated/expanded, much of the old course was built over with the new marina, a paved trail and some cabins. While all of that has been a boon for tourism, unfortuantely, it spelled the end of a great course. I often wish someone would have filmed a race on that course, it was truly something special.Were we team mates?

RunnerGuy2015 wrote:

Is the Legends still being run? I am a former athlete of Bob Dulak & would like to run the course.

KW,

Thanks for the reply. I ran for Dulak towards the end of his coaching career as a high school athlete and have heard countless stories about the race and cant believe what I missed. Too bad that the race is no more... It seems like it was pretty fun.

I was just telling my kids about this race. In HS I went to a summer cross country clinic with Coach Dulac. The culmination of the camp was running a 5K version of The Legend. It was awesome!! (Plus I beat my younger brother..) My son is only a 6th grader, but I wish hewould have a chance to do something like that one day.

Someone mentioned wanting to see video footage of this race. I just so happen to have some...

I recently found an old VHS tape from my Community College days. I had it digitized and uploaded to Youtube this week. We filmed every race that season (1996) and one of them was "The Legend". Here is the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUsQxbJmWUM&t=3459s

There's a brief course walk through and then a little of the women's race followed by a bit more of the men's race. All starts at around 41:00 into the video. Race ends around 59:00 and then there's a little post race stuff but nothing worth watching.

Quality is pretty poor but you can see some of the better parts of the race. Enjoy!

Awesome!