Daily Inter Lake (Newspaper) - April 4, 2007, Kalispell, Montana I i THE DAILY INTER UKE i Page B1 Phelps the Woods of Big showdown between Sabres Every sport has situations where the premier athletes go on a tear and have a stretch of time where they have ible Maybe one of the best ever in swimming occurred this last week in Mel when Amer icas Michael Phelps or was part five world records in the span of a Its not the first time that weve hear about Phelps There was so much talk before the Olympics in Athens in 2004 about him breaking Mark Spitz record of seven gold He ended up winning with four of them being individual Now 22 years Phelps followed his coach Bob Bowman from the North Baltimore Aquatic Club to the University of Michigan Last weeks performance shows his training for Beijing next year is right on Phelps set the in the 200 and 400 individual the 200 fly and the 200 He was also part of the world record free relay To what did he attribute his amazing perfor mances Water temperature and the depth of the Once the water warmed up to the traditional 80 or 81 the records started instead of the normal 2 meters Olympic This extra meter supposedly favors the stronger as the turbulence and bounce back of water the bottom of the pool is and angle of entry and depth during turns can be different Coach Bowman also pointed out that Phelps hasbeen involved in a conditioning program for the past which has made him heavier but Another American who is heavier and leaner had a tre mendous world and is from the same club where Phelps used to train in Katie Hoff set a new world record in the 400 indi vidual and won another individual and a relay Shes an inch and a half taller than at age and 15 pounds At 17 years shes a veteran and learning from the experience she had in Athens as a She had never been on an inter national flight before taking the trip 2004 her parents couldnt be there because they couldnt afford the airfare at the late and her coach couldnt even be on the pool deck when she Despite all these things against it took her a year to get over her disappointment in her performance A win at the world championships in Mon treal in and a world record improved her For someone who didnt even like to be shampooed in the water as a this is some turned pro and a contract with the longest in the company She drives an Audi has p ness Starbucks designer purge insist that money be invested Even though it wasnt definitely ot some good genes from her Momi a standout at to stay some she dnt even taken all her SATS she in Sydney in The Daily Inter Lake m 1 Craig Inter Lake RICHARD of Whitefish runs on the Rails for Trails in Kalispell as part of his training for the Boston will be com in his third Boston Marathon on April Going the distance Whitefish runner headed to third Boston Marathon Richard Hildner is funning for his The social science teacher isnt being He simply loves and the sport influences his entire Running is a simple yet the process agonizes and puzzles Flathead High School students are particularly baffled that their teacher runs on his own Its just plain Hildner I love the shock value with my students when they Youre going to be gone What are you gorina do And I Im going to go run 26 They want to Why would you do that Hildner is actually going to run 26 385 He leaves April 13 for where he will compete in the Bos ton Marathon on April 16 It will be his third running of the race and his 15th marathon I hope its image that I set for my Im at the age I hear them Youre as old as my And so I hope that when theyre their theyre Hildner has always been but he wasnt always a standout tried to play football in high school and Hildner I Was never very v j v swam and in high school while growing up in right in the middle of the out in He made his first trip to Montana in I started spending my summers out HILDNER and started work ing out here as a log builders and then I ended up graduating from the of I came here full time in 1967 as a smoke and I never went back to Hildner spent two years in South America as a Peace Corps and also lived in working 16 years in the forest ser It was there he embraced the hobby that became his There was a guy 10 years my senior who had seen me and he Im run ning the Portland You should run Hildner And I I cant do and he Yes you So Hildner started training left right The first I couldnt run a said in his 30s at the So I tomorrow lets just see if Ican run a lit tle bit further without And the next thing I I five miles without Hildner completed that first Portland Mara thon in three 25 His fastest marathon came in when he fin ished in v But marathons are long gone for His goal for Boston is finishing in than four years ago I thought maybe there was a 330 marathon still in the but there Hildner My qualifying time for this hours Ki the Unlike New which is a or any of the other big Boston is unique in age and you have to meet a qualifying Boston participants must register a qualify ing time at a certified marathon no more than 18 months before the Though Hildner qualified competing at Boston will be much Boston is a tough first of said one of about 30 Montanans registered for the My first two experiences were that I found it hard to maintain my concentra Theres just so much going on around I like to think of it like this If you took the entire population of Kalispell and put them on buses and hauled them miles down the road and When I yell you run back to and then take everybody in the entire state of Montana and line them up on i both sides of the road thats the field that Hildner usually runs two marathons per He spends the first week after each race then runs 1015 miles per slow ly adding He intensified his training for Boston running 25 miles per week and eventually 50 a or three 1628 miles in the last few months pre ceding a race before scaling back to jaunts to recover inthe weeks immediately before a i also trains on the hill See DISTANCE on Page B6 omen s IV 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