Extensive Interview with Kyle Heffner - 1980 Olympic Trials Marathon 3rd in 2:10:54; just ran 1:20 half at age 57

Nice interview with someone I knew litle about when he came from 'nowhere' to finish third in the 1980 Olympic Trials. Amazing he still has the fastest third place time ever at the Trials. And still running fast in his late 50s!

That was a really good read. Thanks for posting it.

Yep, really good interview. I did quite a few runs with Kyle in the '70s and '80s, although he was normally way in front of me in races, especially after he got serious about the marathon. The whole Rocky-like success story of heading into the mountains with a goal and piling up tons and tons of uphill and downhill miles should be an inspiration for anybody who's got a dream of their own.

Was that transcribed by a machine? Those things have a hard time spelling people's names. Just for accuracy's sake, here are the correct spellings of a few names:

Stann Vernon (double n in Stann)

Fred Torneden (with en at the end)

Ben Moturi (not Mature)

Toshihiko Seko (i instead of e in the first name)

Kyle's daughter's name is spelled Sara (no h)

Anyway, really nice piece there. Covered a lot of stuff. Good job.

Thank you for the kind words about the interview and for pointing out those few corrections. It was a very lengthy interview which I transcribed and Kyle was supposed to review. Unfortunately, he ran short on time, said to go ahead and post it and he'd take a look for any small corrections - you beat him to it! These interviews can easily take 15 hours or more with research, formulating questions, conducting the interview, transcribing, editing, formatting, finding pictures, etc and I am a 'one-man show' doing it for no compensation so any help is appreciated!

Great article, but I thought Quenton Cassidy finished 3rd in the Olympic Trials marathon that year?

+1

I never go to his website exactly for that reason.

Nice thorough interview - it's amazing how little respect Heffner gets even though no one has ever bettered his third place time of 2:10:54, even in the 'loaded' year of 1984 on the same course. Yes, I know Bill Rodgers skipped the 1980 Trials, but almost everyone else was there and, from reading Kyle's thoughts, he may have caught Benji Durden if he'd had to to get third place. I guess we'll never know - thanks Jimmy Carter (NOT!!!)

Hobbyjogger Subsubsubelite wrote:

Great article, but I thought Quenton Cassidy finished 3rd in the Olympic Trials marathon that year?

Yeah, I'm a bit confused here.

CoachB wrote:

Hobbyjogger Subsubsubelite wrote:

Great article, but I thought Quenton Cassidy finished 3rd in the Olympic Trials marathon that year?

Yeah, I'm a bit confused here.

Yes you are confused. It was Kyle who was 3rd.