Marathon Man of Iron

SHERMAN OAKS — Chuck Lindsey is an obsessed man.

Each and every day for the past 19 years, he has laced up his Brooks sneakers and run.

Weather hasn’t stopped him. Major surgery hasn’t stopped him. The death of his sister hasn’t stopped him.

What began as a healthy hobby has become much more--a journey that has carried him over 36,000 miles.

The 47-year-old gym teacher has run in grueling iron man competitions, 31-mile ultra-marathons and a host of other long-distance events, including all 12 Los Angeles Marathons. On March 29, he will compete in the 13th.

“Sure it’s obsessive,” Lindsey said, sitting behind an old, sun-bleached desk in his office at the Millikan Middle School Athletic Department in Sherman Oaks. “But it doesn’t change the fact that unless I’m no longer able to, I’m going to run every day until I die.”

It all started in late 1978, when a friend boasted that he had run every day for the past 100 days. “I said, a hundred? I can do that,” Lindsey recalled, stroking his bushy mustache. “He said, no way you can, Lindsey.”

The challenge declared, Lindsey ran the next day after work. More than 7,000 days later, he has yet to stop the streak.

At first, he ran because he liked it and because he knew he needed to stay healthy. The Lindsey men have a history of early death from heart disease. His father died at 66, his grandfather at 51.

Then, in 1981, Lindsey’s sister, Rene Marie, was rushed to the hospital with a brain aneurysm. Her death, he learned, was imminent.

Lindsey went running, for hours that day, all the while praying.

“I promised God, that if he eased her pain, I would never stop the streak,” he said, pausing to wipe a moist right eye with the back of his hand. “On that day, I stopped running for myself and I started running for my sister and for God.”

The next day, his sister died quietly in her sleep.

“I have no right to stop now,” Lindsey said.

At roughly 6-foot-2 and 210 pounds, Lindsey is thin, but would not be mistaken for a 20-something track star. The evidence of his compulsion can be seen in his legs--thick masses of muscle, honed and defined over a lifetime in motion.

Out on the track behind Millikan, across Sepulveda Basin or down Ventura Boulevard, his pace is slow and steady. He keeps his head tilted down and his arms bent sharply at the elbows. The miles tick by on the odometer in his head.

He is a creature of habit. Not only does he run every day, he has worn the same brand of sneakers every day, too--Brooks.

At his home in Canyon Country there’s evidence of what some would say is the madness. Monthly planners and running logs are cast about, the older ones containing the mileage and weather conditions of each and every run during the streak. The newer journals list just the miles.

“That’s the only thing that counts.”

Lindsey doesn’t have a goal except to keep going until he can’t go anymore. In October, that almost happened when he went in for double-hernia surgery.

He went for his run a few hours before the surgery, and, despite warnings from his doctor, he ran again the next day.

“Just two miles. If I didn’t collapse right away, I knew I was fine.”

The streak was still alive.

Support from his family and friends has been as strong as his will, sometimes stronger. On days when he’s tempted to go fishing or spend time with his wife and two teenage daughters, someone is always there to tell him to run.

“They know I’d regret it,” Lindsey said.

So when does all this end? There is no technical reason Lindsey can’t run every day until he dies. But even Lindsey, a former trainer with the Los Angeles Skyhawks professional soccer team, knows that the streak is not a healthy thing.

So does Pat Connelly, a 60-year-old trainer whom Lindsey calls “Coach.” The two have known each other for 10 years.

“Bodies need time to repair,” said Connelly. “I train marathoners, and I make them take at least two days off a week. Chuck doesn’t do it for his health. He’s got his own reasons.” So what happens if he breaks a leg, or for some other unforeseen reason is, one day, simply unable to run?

“Then I put my sneakers away, and I go home,” Lindsey said, looking out at the track from his office window. “But until I can’t physically do it, I have to keep the streak going. I can’t let it die.”