When Larry Bell started out as the first race director for the Pocatello Marathon back in 2000, he had a pretty simple vision for what that job entailed.
“When we first started this, I was under the impression that all you need to do is get a bunch of crazy people, load them on a bus, haul them out in the country and see how long it takes them to get to town,” said Bell. “And there is so much more to it.”
So much so that after five years of running the Pocatello Marathon, Bell, who was opening a new mortgage division at his bank at the time, stepped aside as race director and handed over the duties to Mike Calley — an Idaho State Hall of Fame football player turned veteran marathoner and race volunteer who’d been involved in the Pocatello Marathon since its inception.
That was in 2005, and Calley has been in charge of the marathon ever since. But this year’s race, which kicks off on Saturday, will be his last as race director. The job, however, will stay in the Calley family. Daughter Mary Stenquist, 24, will be in charge after the last runner crosses the finish line on Saturday.
That’s only appropriate. The Pocatello Marathon has been a family affair since the Pocatello Sports Committee started the race at the turn of the century. Bell, now a retired banker, was first brought on board to run the marathon, and the first couple of years of the event, it was largely run by Larry, his wife Kathy and their family. Larry and Kathy have remained part of the race throughout its history, and Kathy is still in charge of race packet pickups and getting runners on the buses to their respective starting lines.
The marathon has also been a Calley family affair during that time as well. Calley brought his experience as a distance runner to the organizing committee from the first race, and his family has been joining him at the starting line at first light of each race day since.
“My family has always been there,” said Calley. “As Mary said when we were talking about her wanting to take over (as race director), ‘I’ve been here for all 24.’ That’s true. They were always out there. They’d come with me in the morning when I left at 4 a.m. and we’d go get the starting line set up at the top of Buckskin. They’d help me out up there. My brother and my sisters and parents, everybody comes to help out.”
What the Calleys and Bells have all come to appreciate is that running the marathon is a lot more than rounding up a few crazy people and turning them loose in the foothills of Pocatello.
For Calley, the biggest challenge is coordinating the timing of everything that has to happen to make what has evolved into five different races – the marathon, half-marathon, 10-kilometer, 5-kilometer and kids races – all run smoothly.
“I think trying to get the timing aspects that everything kind of goes into place correctly as far as the buses arriving, getting the runners to the starting line in the correct amount of time so they can use the porta potty and stretch,” Calley said of his biggest challenge. “Then you’ve got your volunteers out on the course and setting up aid stations, filling cups and getting everything ready for the runners to come through. You get the marathon off and then there’s no time to pause because you’ve got to get the half-marathon started.”
Transporting the runners to their respective starting spots in the right sequence can be tricky indeed, especially when not all of your scheduled buses arrive. Calley noted there was one race when a bus broke down and didn’t show up, and all of a sudden, he realized he still had runners at their various hotels that needed a ride.
“Jason Ballard came through for us that day,” said Calley. “He works for the city, he got a hold of dispatch and Pocatello city came and got us a couple of buses. We were really going to be hurting in the half marathon, because you’ve got about 100 more participants in that race. What a great job by the city to come through for us and help us out in that situation.”
While perhaps not as impactful as a missing bus, there always seems to be some challenging details with each race – many of them presented by the runners themselves.
“The vast majority of runners are very decent people,” Bell said. “There are a few of them that have very high expectations of their experience and they want to push the expectation on you to fulfill it. One year we had a fellow – he is famous within the organizing committee – he called Mike at 3:30 in the morning of the race and said, ‘I’m almost to Salt Lake, can you hold up the start of the race for me?’ ”
That was a “no.”
For the most part, however, Calley is known as a very accommodating race director. He’s worked hard to keep the entry fees among the lowest in the marathon business, he has a very liberal “roll-over” policy for runners who have to cancel at the last minute, and he responds personally to inquiries from runners leading up to the race.
“People would always come up to me at the finish line and say, ‘We’ve got to say thank you for giving us such a nice email back and answering our questions,’” said Calley. “‘But what were you doing up at 2 a.m.?’”
Calley doesn’t get much sleep during race week, and perhaps it was fatigue that led him to announce his “retirement” as race director about 10 years ago. It was on a Wednesday of race week, and feeling the pressure and tension of yet another event, he told a reporter during an interview that this was going to be his last race as director.
Some discussions with the organizing committee – and perhaps a little bit of rest – later, and Calley was back on board as race director. One of the committee members commemorated his change of mind by presenting him with a jersey with the name of Brett Favre, the NFL quarterback who notoriously retired and unretired several times.
Not surprisingly, Stenquist keeps asking her dad, a 59-year-old nuclear engineer at the Idaho National Laboratory, if he really wants to give up the race director job.
“I probably won’t believe it until it’s me running the show by myself next year,” said Stenquist. “When he stepped away the first time, I was kind of upset because I thought I was going to get this. But I was only 15 years old and I thought, ‘I can’t be a race director yet.’ Then, when he came back, I thought, ‘Perfect.’ Ever since, I’ve been attached to his hip, trying to learn all the ins and outs the last couple of years to understand so when I do get this job, I can be in the right position.”
While the race director is the most visual job during the race, both Bell and Calley noted they couldn’t have pulled off all these events over the years without the help of volunteers. Hundreds of people come out every year to set up the course, man aid stations, transport participants, hand out packets and more. Groups like the Idaho State University’s men’s and women’s basketball teams volunteer en masse to help during the race.
And of course, there is no race without the runners. Justin Park of Salt Lake City holds the course record, and comes back every year to compete. Pocatello’s Penny Parish has dominated the women’s race.
“You form certain relationships, whether it’s the person doing their very first Pocatello Marathon and you never see them again, or it’s a person that’s done 23 or 22,” said Calley. “The most rewarding part is the people and the relationships you build there. You’re not going to make everybody happy, but I think we’ve made a lot of people happy over the years.”
While the marathon business has gotten more competitive with more marathons and other events like trail races competing for participants, both Calley and Bell feel like the Pocatello Marathon is in a pretty good position. The race draws about 200 to 250 marathoners, about 300 to 350 half-marathoners, 150 runners in the 10K, 200 in the 5K and about 50 children in the kids’ races. That’s down from the peak of 1,500 runners in 2011, but it’s what both Calley and Bell feel is a sweet spot for the Pocatello race.
Those numbers accommodate the tight starting area for the marathon, and allow runners to board a bus and be at the starting line within an hour’s time. “It’s just kind of one of those little things that’s nice to have for a race our size,” said Calley.
For Stenquist, watching her dad manage the race one last time is going to be an emotional experience.
“It’s kind of bittersweet,” she said. “It’s amazing to see the legacy that he brought to this race and I love watching him at the finish line and all the people coming up to him and thanking him for all he’s done – all the countless hours and sleepless nights and sacrifices.”
Stenquist, a nurse who is married to Tanner and has a 10-month-old daughter Lainey, is confident that after watching her dad manage all these marathons, she can pick up the mantle. After all, like her dad, she has a lot of irons in the fire, but they both seem to figure out how to manage all their commitments.
“I think just kind of being able to balance everything,” she said when asked what’s the biggest challenge of taking over for her dad. “I work, I’m currently going back to school to become a nurse practitioner. I have a family of my own. I like to take on other volunteer activities. But seeing that he can take it on and manage it gives me the power to know that I can do it too.”
Oh, and don’t expect Mike to disappear from the scene entirely, either.
“I know I’ve got it in good hands,” he said, “but I’ll still be a part of it.”
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