Running STP is elementary
STEVE MAYNARD; The News Tribune
While bicyclists huff and puff and pedal their way from Seattle to Portland this weekend, they’ve got nothing on Ed Barney of Federal Way.
Barney, 55, is running the 200-mile journey on foot. After starting Wednesday afternoon in Seattle, he expects to hit the Rose City on Sunday.
“I’m tired,” he said Friday afternoon, slowing down enough to talk on a cell phone. “We’re just outside of Chehalis right now.”
Barney laced up his jogging shoes to raise money for elementary school track programs in the Federal Way School District. And he’s racking up miles to raise awareness of the importance of exercise, especially for children.
Barney said he was “doing all right” in Friday’s 80-degree heat, after running from Federal Way to Tenino in cooler weather Thursday. “The legs were a little rubbery after 50 miles,” he said.
Barney started Wednesday afternoon with a shorter jaunt from the Seattle Center to his home in Federal Way. At 6:30 a.m. Thursday, he headed out from Federal Way’s Celebration Park, then along Highway 99 and Highway 7 in Tacoma.
From Spanaway Lake, he switched to the same route for the Seattle to Portland Bicycle Classic (STP), which takes place today and Sunday.
Some of the 10,000 STP bicyclists will start passing him today.
“I know I can do it,” Barney said before the trip. “It’s just a matter of if my body can hold up for the whole 200 miles. It’s the constant pounding on the concrete that breaks the body down.”
He hit one hazard Friday, fell and resumed running. “I think there’s only one pothole in Chehalis and I found it.”
M.J. Kelly, a spokeswoman for the Cascade Bicycle Club which produces the STP, said she’s never heard of someone running the course. Registration is for cyclists.
Still, when a reporter told her Barney’s reasons for running, she said, “That’s great.”
Barney expects to raise at least $3,500 in donations.
The money will support elementary track programs at each of the district’s 23 elementary schools.
Barney worries the district will someday cut its funding for elementary track as budget cuts deepen.
“We were fortunate this year,” Barney said. “We don’t know what’s going to happen next year.”
“If you kill the elementary program, ultimately you end up killing the entire track program,” Barney said. “That’s where kids really get the taste if they want to be runners.”
Barney’s wife, Barbara, is driving ahead of him in a friend’s motor home. Son Mike Barney was bicycling Friday and daughter Kim Barney was running with her dad.
There are five children in the family, all of whom graduated from Decatur High School.
Barney said he planned to run in three-hour stretches up to 15 hours a day. He sleeps in the motor home.
An avid runner since attending high school in California, he said he’s been training since October before and after work. He teaches job skills at Deseret Industries in Federal Way.
He ran a marathon in June.
He also is running for re-election to a third term on the Federal Way School Board.
He was school board president for several years. During some of his years on the board, it made headlines over aborted attempts to ban flip-flops and iPods in schools.
Speaking of iPods, Barney said he planned to wear one to keep him motivated while running to Portland. Big band music is fuel for his tank. Frank Sinatra, too.
“You get into the zone and you just go,” he said.
“You can accomplish anything if you just put one foot in front of the other, one foot at a time.”
Steve Maynard: 253-597-8647
steve.maynard@thenewstribune.com
More online
For more information on Ed Barney’s Seattle-to-Portland run, visit
www.crazy2run.com or call 253-946-5664.
