Running In The Rain 1,150 Brave The Weather To Run In The Coeur D’Alene Marathon

The guy with the Canadian flag britches and the Irish accent had just become a celebrity.

Throngs of folks were gathering around, asking questions or trying for a handshake. And Joe Cleary, all white beard and bright eyes, was happy to oblige.

No, the 57-year-old didn’t win Sunday’s Coeur d’Alene Marathon. But it was his 150th long haul, and completing an Idaho race made it official: Cleary has conquered a marathon in every state.

Anybody can rack up the races, Cleary reasoned. But all 50 states - plus Washington, D.C.? “That’s the trick,” Cleary beamed.

But on Sunday, he was just one of 430 marathoners and 720 half-marathoners who took to wet Lake City streets, braving the rain to make sure the race was run for the 20th year. It would have been the race’s 21st, but Mount St. Helens had other plans in 1980.

Unlike Cleary, Robert Davis was just getting into the marathon thing. “This is my marathon medal,” he said, holding up the round memento. “My first.”

How was it? “After 20 miles, my quads were shot,” he said. “… I’m going to get a massage.”

The whole crowd was amazingly mellow. Then again, they were probably half asleep. Some ran for about four hours.

Joseph Ippolito made up for it. The 5-year-old bounced up and down alongside the finish line, pushing his pipes to yelp as loud as they could go.

“C’mon 107! Whoooohoooo!”’

His mom, Christine, already had run.

Past the finish line on the North Idaho College campus, Tom Petty music was playing. Folks chowed down on bagels. Everyone seemed to be wearing those goose-billed running caps.

A guy who works for a company that makes energy snack bars sliced up free samples for passers-by. “It has an antioxidant power core,” he explained.

Someone who works for Rainbow Racing Systems, a company that makes race number tags, confessed to a marathon official: His number 601 was bogus. He just slapped on a prototype tag and hopped in the race.

“I’ll send a late fee,” he promised.

Some just kicked back and took the whole spectacle in.

Heather McLaughlin, 25, had plopped down on a tire. Resting. She had taken second place in the women’s half-marathon.

“It’s fun to watch the marathon people,” she joked. “They’re limping.”

Registration director Steve Pierce said the turnout for the race shot up six years ago after officials added the half-marathon. But Pierce said he thinks that’s as far as they’ll go.

“I don’t think we want to have anything any shorter,” he said, adding that it would take away from the whole marathon mystique.

That mystique certainly wasn’t lost on Cleary, the Irishman who now lives in Ontario. Ten years ago, he never dreamed he ever would run a marathon at all, much less 150 of them.

“That’s the neat thing,” he said, hamming it up for his still-growing fan club. “I was smoking 100 cigarettes a day.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: RESULTS Race results, stories on Pages C4,5.