A Mass of Slow-Twitch Muscle Flies for the Nationals

Bob Kempainen '88, distance runner extraordinaire, is one of Dartmouth's bestkept athletic secrets. When he was a lowly freshman on the school's outstanding crosscountry team, he recalls having to overextend himself to maintain his team's fifth position in each race. He knew that if he failed to hold on to that spot each time, he would jeopardize his team's chances of winning. Now, as a junior, he is expected to finish first in each meet, and rather than jeopardizing his squad's chances for victory, he steadfastly ensures them. How things change.

Last fall, the six-foot, 150-pound Kempainen finished fourth in the country at the national championships in Arizona over a slow and hilly ten-kilometer course that featured long, open stretches of beach sand. At that same meet, he led the Dartmouth team to a second place overall finish. Pretty impressive, huh? Wait a minute: he also runs track in both the winter and spring, went to nationals last spring in the 5k, and will captain the men's cross country team next fall. Last fall he attained NCAA AllAmerican status for his accomplishments in cross country.

Many things, then, have changed for this introverted young man since that memorably tough freshman experience. The one thing that has remained a constant in his life is the pressure to excel at what he does best: run. Or fly, depending on how you want to look at it.

Though many people may consider a three-term athlete - especially one who exclusively runs long distances - to be a bit masochistic, Kempainen succinctly asserts, "I like what I do." In other words, he enjoys skipping over rigorous cross-country courses in the fall, pounding Leverone track over distances of 1,500, 3,000, and 5,000 meters in the winter, and gliding over outdoor tracks in the 5k and 10k in the spring. He contends that cross country remains his favorite and his best season, though he continues to stand out in nearly all of his other events.

According to assistant coach Jim Sapienza '85, Kempainen is "an especially solid runner and most importantly, a runner who performs consistently year-round." Kempainen's personal bests in the outdoor 5k and 10k stand at 13:57 and 29:08, respectively, both of which are about a half-minute off Dartmouth's record pace. Not too shabby for events run in his "secondary" season.

Though Kempainen maintains this grueling running schedule during the school year balancing this dedication to sport, nonetheless, with a biochemistry major he claims to take a summer respite from his normally fast-paced existence. He continues to run, but tones down his ordinarily harrowing workout schedule in June and the beginning of July, confining himself to one or two competitive local road races. Meanwhile, he passes his time with what he calls "Bill Murray-type activity on the golf course." Golf furnishes him with much-needed relaxation during the early summer months prior to the exhausting training he must endure during the dreadfully warm month of August. While "hacking away" on the links, he even tries to resist the temptation that ever-so-gently prods him to dash, or simply jog lightly, to each of his shots.

Though you wouldn't know it from his spring performances, fall is Kempainen's favorite athletic season for close to 45 individual reasons, reasons that work together in nearly perfect sync to make enjoyable what you and I would look upon as physical hell. He relishes the camaraderie and fun-loving nature of the closely knit cross-country team. He asserts that in track, unusual emphasis is placed upon individual performance. With cross country, on the other hand, he senses a genuine team spirit. "Whereas some of the big scholarship schools have only ten guys on their teams with stress placed on individual training and performance, we have 45 guys who help each other along every day."

Kempainen sees this fall's contributions of both the '89s and '9os (totalling as many as 20 runners) as key to a repeat of last year's team performance. He believes that the nationals are once again a very obtainable goal if the team can work to beat potentially strong eastern squads like Boston University - which is losing several key runners to graduation - and Bucknell. But Kempainen casually insists that they take the path to such an encore slowly, step by step. And thus far, winning the Heps is his primary goal for next fall, as it is for both the winter and spring track seasons.

Aside from setting such lofty team goals, Kempainen also establishes a nice little set of personal goals for himself, both in track and in cross country. The blond-haired phenom from Minnetonka, Minnesota wants badly to repeat last year's trip to the nationals this spring. Last year, he finished tenth in the 5k at the championships, and this spring he expects to "keep improving." He is also getting geared up to break the 29-minute barrier in the 10k this season. As far as the fall goes, don't be surprised to find Kempainen finishing even higher than last year's fourth. That is, of course, if the team can again make it past the Heps and IC4As.

After graduation, Kempainen's plans remain "up in the air." The Olympics in '88, maybe? "Naah," he grunts. But somewhere in the farthest reaches of his mind, this Dartmouth junior, meticulously wired with masses of slow-twitch muscle, could be dreaming of the possibility of '92. No one really knows, for he would never say so. But don't completely discount this seemingly remote possibility. For as cross-country captain Ron Snow '87 quips, "Bob Kempainen definitely runs fast."

Not a lonely distance runner: Bob Kempainen leads 45 potential runners.