Published: April 26, 2016
Running with pain
1999 Slinger graduate wins full marathon
Daily News
David Krall, who grew up in Slinger but lives in Madison, was confident
with his chances to win the seventh Adrenaline Race Series full
marathon Sunday.
He wasn’t as confident as to whether some nagging injuries would force him to drop out of the race.
“I’ve got Morton’s neuroma in my foot,” Krall said.
According to www.mayoclinic.org, it’s a “painful condition that affects the ball of your foot, most commonly the area between your third and fourth toe.”
It’s like having a pebble in your foot.
“I ran once in the last week, which is really strange for me because I’m used to running every day,” Krall said.
If there was any pain, Krall didn’t show it.
The 35-year-old finished the 26.2-mile race along the Eisenbahn trail in nearly record time — 2:46:42.9.
“It’s a good time,” he said.
The record, according to Richard Dodd, one of the race’s organizers, was set in 2013 by Michael Borst, Jr. (2:43:40.3).
Last year’s winning time was by Dan Bessette with a 2:59:21.6.
Krall’s best time in a marathon is 2:39:31.
Sunday’s victory was Krall’s sixth in a marathon, but first outside of
the Madison area. He’s won the marathon in Middleton five times.
“I just went out and went by feel,” Krall said. “See how fast I could go, I guess. I didn’t really have any sort of a goal.”
The women’s overall winner was Mychelle Ehli of Waukesha. Ehli is the
assistant track coach at Catholic Memorial High School in Waukesha. Her
time was 3:20:47.2 and was 10th overall — men and women.
Ehli is a former cross-country competitor at Catholic Memorial, graduating in 2004.
“I actually didn’t train for this one,” she said. “But definitely a better start to the year than last year.”
The other winners were: Thomas Breitbach
(men, half marathon), Mina
Dermarco (women, half marathon), Jim Thierfelder (men, quarter
marathon), Nikki Cahen (women, quarter marathon), Robb Johnson (men, 5K)
and Lisa Johnson (women, 5K).
Cahen was the women’s full marathon winner last year.
“A big success,” Dodd said. “Total number of runners up by 10 percent, with great funds and awareness raised for our cause.”
The race started outside the Rivershores YMCA on the Eisenbahn trail.
The full marathon run to the southern edge of Campbellsport and turned
around.
It shouldn’t be
a surprise Krall is good at running. His dad is longtime Slinger
cross-country and track and field distance coach Terry Krall.
David was constantly reminded of it, too.
“Coaching legend Terry Krall’s son,” David said as to how he’s often described at races.
Terry also taught David and his other two sons in chemistry class.
Coaching his sons was never awkward — being their teacher was.
“I thought about transferring,” Terry said, adding he didn’t want any possibility of favoritism to show.
It was something he never worried about as a coach because he, his sons and all the runners had something in common: running.
“It was fun,” Terry said of coaching his sons.
In addition to his continuing coaching duties at Slinger, Terry enjoys watching his sons compete.
David, who’s competed in about 30 marathons, graduated from Slinger in
1999. He was an All-Conference performer and a conference indoor
champion in the 3,200meter run.
“There was never anything awkward about it,” he said. “I was just another guy on the team.”
He claimed he wasn’t a great runner in high school.
Terry said he didn’t have a lot of standout runners. But together with all the guys on the team, they were a solid team.
On Sunday, David said he felt good until about the 22 1/2-mile mark when he began to cramp.
“Other than that, it felt pretty good,” David said. “I just tried to make it comfortably hard the entire way.”
His biggest concern?
“That I’d DNF, because my foot would be in excruciating pain,” David said. “Luckily that was not the case.”
He added he felt some pain throughout the race, but nothing unbearable like he thought he might.
David’s time is fast enough to compete in the 2017 Boston Marathon if
he chooses. He’s done it four times previously, but not since 2012.
“Boston is a great race, a lot of fun, but it’s kind of hassle,” David
said. “It’s a lot of fun, but it’s not something I need to do every
year.”
Like David, Ehli wanted to learn something about herself.
Three years ago, she was an avid marathon runner. Then she gave birth to a son and has since changed jobs. It’s been a slow buildup to get back into the flow of frequent marathon training and running.
She thinks she has it figured out now and it shows with an ambitious schedule this spring, summer and fall.
In 2012, she did eight races. In 2013, the year her son was born, she did three.
One of the events she’s considering doing this year is a half Ironman. She’d also like to do the Pewaukee half-marathon in May and go to the Twin Cities in June.
That much she’s sure of.
Last year, she did one full marathon and two half marathons.
“Training has been a little rough this year, but I definitely felt a
lot better,” Ehli said. “I just wanted to do this to see where I was,
set goals for the year.”
Reach sports editor Nicholas Dettmann at ndettmann@conleynet.com.
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