Originally from Track & Field News, March 1986. – JDW
Mark is #12, racing a marathon with Charlie Spedding and Thom Hunt.
Life is sometimes nothing more – perhaps nothing less – than a jigsaw puzzle. You just put the pieces together without much of a guarantee about the result. Consider these pieces.
The City of Brotherly Love. A major league event. A collection of world-class competitors seeking a big payday. A flat, fast course. Temperatures in the low 50s with little wind. A strong early pace that never abated. And Mark Curp.
Those pieces all came together at the Philadelphia Distance Run last September as Curp passed ten miles in 46:31 to beat Mike Musyoki and Nick Rose with a clocking of 1:00:55 for the half-marathon.
“It was just one of those days,” Curp recounts. “One of those days when all the ingredients were there.”
After the race one thing was missing; gone was Steve Jones’s month-old WR of 1:01:14. Curp, the quintessential Midwestern farm boy, was suddenly a world record holder, a force on any given day, and now he is the 1985 Men’s Road Racer of the Year.
In 1985, Curp, representing the New Balance Track Club, lost more races than he won, but he was beaten by only a handful of Americans. He displayed good range, racing over a variety of distances. He placed highly at many of the circuit’s more prestigious events. In a year where no Americans stood out, the 5-9 Curp stood tallest. His performance at Philly was the prime reason.
“I didn’t expect it to go that fast. I was running scared the last half mile, because I’ve been outkicked before in other races. But I was able to get up on my toes the last quarter mile.
“I will say one more thing about Philadelphia,” continues Curp, so polite he wouldn’t even say “Philly.” “I actually dropped off the pace for a brief period right before 10k. I fought back, and that’s something I’m proud of… I felt my best during the last three miles. Fortunately, that’s a very good time to feel good.”
Curp felt good about Philly in part because he hoped it presaged success in his first marathon. “I wanted a sub-1:02 to help me towards my marathon debut,” Curp explained at the time. “With this result, I’m definitely positive.”
Curp is still thinking about it. Last October, he arrived at Chicago, hopefully recovered from a cold which had plagued him for days. Fifteen miles at sub-5:00 pace proved his illness remained. The result was a DNF and a disappointed, if wiser, Mark Curp.
“Chicago gave me a sense of appreciation for the distance,” he explains. “I thought I was over my cold, but it was obscured by medicine. I wouldn’t approach the marathon differently in the future, but now I know for a fact that you can’t race one well at less than 100%. It takes 110% to run the marathon the way it’s meant to be run.”
Curp has always given 100%, even 110%. He doesn’t possess the pure talent to do otherwise. As a senior (1977) at Polo High School in Polo, Missouri – a town whose population has grown to 583 – Curp was only 5-2, 105 pounds. Nonetheless, he played wingback for the Panthers. He also ran track, recording a 4:35 mile and 9:58.2 for 2M.
When it was time to go to college, Curp didn’t have many scholarship offers. “Only a couple of schools were interested in me,” he recalls. One school that was interested was Central Missouri State. Curp repaid CMSU’s confidence by becoming an All-American in both track and cross-country. When he graduated with two agri-business degrees, his times had improved to 4:13, 8:52, 14:02 and 28:14.62.
While progress was considerable, so too was the room for improvement. And that has come with maturation. Now 27, Curp is 7” taller than he was in high school and some 30 pounds heavier. He’s also a family man, married to Linda for three years and father of Jonathon, born May 22, 1985.
Curp’s training is nothing special. There are no secrets. During a race week, Mark will cover 10-12 miles in the morning on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, with a shorter run in the afternoon. On Tuesdays, Curp runs 11 miles, mostly in the 5:08-5:20 range. He’ll do fartlek on Thursdays, holding, for example, 4:30 pace for three minutes, followed by a one-minute jog, then a five-minute run at 4:50 pace.
“I tend to do my hard runs in the morning as most of my races seem to be early in the day,” notes the self-coached Curp. “I do all my speedwork on the roads unless I am preparing for a track race. Basically, I try to be flexible.
“I try to be flexible about my training and my racing. I think it is very important simply to listen to your body, especially if you race a lot.”
Curp’s philosophy seems to have worked. He’s improved his mile time to 4:07 (“that’s unofficial – just a time trial on the track”); he has also run 2M in 8:47, 5k on the track in 13:40.65, and a track 10k of 28:01.02. He’s logged a 15k in 43:02 and, of course, there’s that 1:00:55.
There is still room for improvement, and some of his goals are obvious. “Well, I definitely want to go under 28:00 for 10k and run in the 42s for 15k,” Curp concedes. “My main goal is to do my best and to compete as long as possible, as long as I’m still competitive. I’ll always run, even if I live to be 100.
“I don’t even plan on concentrating on the marathon,” he says with feeling. “I am quite confident I can run it well; I just don’t want to do it more than once a year. I think it takes a lot out of your body, and I’d like to race for a long time. I think if I concentrated on the marathon, I’d shorten my career.”
His career seems much like the man. There’s a steadiness, a calm, a strength that moderates the ebb and flow of adversity and triumph. There’s a reason.
“God has blessed me with talent,” Curp believes. “I’m a Christian. If God blesses me with a gold medal, that’s great. If He doesn’t, that’s great, too. I wouldn’t have accomplished without Him. I never forget that.”
Mark Curp won’t forget. He really won’t. Mark Curp knows that He knows how the puzzle works out.