Pedaling Past His Limits : Long Beach Cyclist Is State’s Top Entrant in National Championships

Cycling’s cruel demands have whittled Randy Marrs to where he has the fragile look of his severely thin bike. “I’m kind of on the skinny side; that’s why I like hills,” Marrs said Monday at Cal State Long Beach. Beneath his tight black shorts and purple and gold jersey was a body with just 4% fat.

But Marrs’ look, in a sport survived only by the strong, deceives. He has pedaled hard up mountains and rolled through the limits of endurance to become the No. 1 college cyclist in California.

Marrs, 24, a senior and member of the Cal State Long Beach Cycling Club, will ride this weekend in the national collegiate championships in Colorado Springs. He won only one race this season but had enough high finishes to become the state’s top qualifier.

“I won one race but I’m going to win the important ones this weekend,” he said. “I don’t mean to be arrogant. Confidence is important.”

Two Events Saturday

Marrs and three other riders from the Western Collegiate Cycling Conference, in which the 49ers hold membership, will form a team for a 15-mile time trial Saturday morning. In the afternoon, he will compete in a 77-mile road race that involves a 6,000-foot climb. On Sunday, he will participate in a 40-mile flat-course race.

Marrs trained for the high altitude and cold last weekend. He finished third in a race that covered 100 miles in two days from Death Valley to the 8,360-foot level of Whitney Portal in the eastern Sierra Nevada. “One guy started shivering so bad that his bike began to wobble,” Marrs said. “I moved away from him real fast.”

Flying down a steep hill, his ‘50s-style hair tucked in his helmet, he reached 62 m.p.h. “Very scary,” he said.

Marrs compared cycling to running, his former sport.

“This is more grueling,” he said after riding his bike around the campus track for a photographer. “You burn 6,000 calories a day. I can’t get enough food. In fact, I’m starving right now.”

6-Foot-2, 154 Pounds

He eagerly accepted a banana from cycling club president Dave Mallette, who sat with him in a little grandstand. “You can’t just eat broccoli, you have to eat red meat; it’s hard to keep the weight on,” said Marrs, whose 154 pounds are stretched over a 6-foot-2 frame.

Marrs was a distance runner at South Pasadena High School and a cross-country all-American in the mid-1980s at Glendale College. “I was decent but never got enough first places,” he said of his track career. “So I changed sports.”

In 1986 he rode with a bicycle racing club in Griffith Park. “Right away I was riding with the fastest guys,” he said. That year he won $1,500 in races sanctioned by the U.S. Cycling Federation.

He also races for the Cycles Veloce Club in El Toro, the largest California team of USCF riders in Category 2, just below the Category 1 pros. A pro, who can earn unlimited money, usually belongs to a team that pays him a salary. An amateur can stay one if his winnings do not exceed $3,000 per day of racing.

‘Thought They Were Jerks’

While a runner, Marrs had an unflattering perception of cyclists.

“I never understood what they had to go through,” he said. “In Griffith Park they were always in the way. I thought they were jerks. It always looked like they were coasting. I never thought they had to pedal uphill.”

Many of the cyclists Marrs used to see were recreational riders. “They never have to push themselves beyond the limits,” Mallette said.

“The limits can get ugly,” said Marrs, who passed out after racing up Mt. Baldy in April. “You reach the end and have nothing left. You get off the bike and start to walk and can’t.”

This is called “blowing up” or “bonking.”

“In a road race you’re going at a 25 m.p.h.-pace and all of a sudden you can’t do it anymore,” Marrs said. “You can turn the pedals over, but not with any force. The group (of other riders) rolls away from you, and you can’t do anything about it. It’s terribly frustrating, You wonder what you did wrong. You have to get off, sit and eat, and by then you’ve lost the race.”

Lose Control

A rider who bonks will lose control of his bike. He will be unable to shift fast enough. He will get a frantic look on his face.

“Guys like that are dangerous at the end of a race; it can be scary,” Marrs said. That is when the cyclists are packed together, sprinting for the finish line.

He recalled a race at Redlands two years ago: “We were on a downhill and a guy in front of me was thrown up in the air--he’s upside down and looking me right in the face. He had the look of death on his face; his eyes were wide open like a scared cat. He landed on somebody and was OK. That was a famous crash (because) there were numerous broken bones and bike parts spread over the road.”

Marrs crashed three times last year, breaking bones in his elbow and wrist. “I worry about crashing but I try not to think about it,” he said. “You have to concentrate on being fearless, aggressive and remaining confident.”

To prevent bonking, Marrs will focus during the 100-mile grinds on what he has to do--whether to follow a certain rider, when to make a move. He will also whistle obscure songs. And he will remember to eat and drink.

“During a climb the food in my pockets moves around, reminding me to eat,” he said. He takes grapes, fig bars and nutrition bars, and drinks plenty of water. “Water is important,” he said. “You need to bring someone with you to hand you water in a feed zone. It’s hard to find someone to do that.”

Marrs hinted that someday he will turn to something safer, such as golf, but for now racing provides too much satisfaction.

“I do it because I like beating people and I like going fast . . . but not 62,” he said.

His goal is to make the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona. He has no long-term ambition to be another Greg LeMond, the most famous American racing pro. “The idea of making a million dollars does not seem as appealing as the Olympics,” he said. “Maybe that sounds weird, but I want to be the top amateur. If that goes well, maybe a pro.”

But chances are that Marrs, a biology major, instead will return to Cal State Long Beach to pursue an advanced degree in exercise physiology.

“I’m a barely known,” he said. “But I’ve come a long way in a few years. Bike racing is not known here (at CSULB). The stars are the football and basketball players.”

The 49ers cycling club has no sponsor and has never been host to a race. It travels to other campuses for weekend meets. Mallette said that some of the money the university gave the club for uniforms will be used to pay for Marrs’ trip this weekend.

300 Miles a Week

Marrs, who trains more than 300 miles a week, plans to graduate next spring and attend USCF Olympic training camps. He will try to earn money by winning races, but knows that finding a job that will allow him to train all the time will be difficult. “If you train for six to eight hours you need six to eight hours to recover,” he said.

When he returns from a long training ride and goes to class, he understands nothing that is said. “The teacher might as well be speaking Chinese or gibberish,” he said. “You are totally depleted. Your brain is screaming for food.”

So Marrs, who spends more than $125 a week on food, eats all the time, even snacking in the back rows of classrooms. He sometimes spends four or five hours in a restaurant. He said he eats slowly.

“He can put Sizzler out of business at the all-you-can-eat salad bar,” Mallette said.

It was mid-morning and the subject of food lit Marrs’ eyes beneath their bushy brows and reminded him that he was still starving. He left for the Student Union to get a taco salad. He knew it would be a big one because the people who make the salads always feel sorry for him when they see that fragile looking body.