Scooting and Running: Non-Racing to Fitness

Non-Racing to Fitness

Should Sunday morning, October 2, find you wandering the streets of Copenhagen wondering where all the people are, I can tell you where you'll find at least 100,000 of them. They're invading the Deer Park north of town. Hie thee to Fortunen and join the merry throng.

Just follow the thousands sporting jumbo numbers on their shirt fronts through the big red gate. A hail of sound advice pours from loudspeakers overhead. Tension mounts as the clock creeps toward 11. TV cameras zoom in and a hush falls.

Then a wiry old cardiology professor holds a pistol high in the air and fires it. The sharp crack starts great waves of these number-bearers bobbing as the scene breaks into a happy three-hour mass migration. Europe's biggest "condi" (for conditioning) race, the 15th annual Eremitagelobet, has begun—and whether or not you're in it with me, it's really something to see.

Ages 10 to over 90, these people come from all runs of life. Clubs, school classes, whole families take part. Foreign embassies field delegations. Runners come from  many countries in Europe and beyond. Com-petition is deliberately played down. The 13.27-kilometer event, named after an 18th-century hunting castle in the historic park, is less than a third as long as a marathon.

A younger heart specialist at the microphone—the man behind the race—keeps urging us to start slow and not press. There's little choice. Minutes pass before the long, broad column loosens enough for some 15,000 runners to stretch our legs.

Out running          

"We wanted to get the Danes out running in the streets and parks, and we did," says Peter Schnohr, 42, father of Eremitagelobet. Since 1969, adds Dr. Schnohr, who's the secretary of the Danish Heart Foundation, 131,386 have completed the E-race. Hundreds of thousands more have started regular training. Three days a week, year round, flocks of joggers are shepherded over the Deer Park course by Heart Foundation trainers. Other communities have taken up the idea. Nearly every big town now holds its own version of the "condi" race.

But there's a lot more to E-day than running. Stubby, silver-haired Jens Jensen, Denmark's most famous veteran runner, calls it "a folk festival where thousands gather just for the fun of it." People line the great figure-eight route to wave flags and yell encouragement; later many spread picnics under the Norwegian spruce and beech trees. "Jens," as everybody calls the 78-year-old former district physician, points out what makes this race different: "The elite are welcome, but so are old fat ladies—with the greatest courtesy and warmth."

Back in 1971, Danish housewife Laura Hansen told her family she was just going out to join the onlookers. "If I didn't finish, at least they couldn't laugh at me." At age 68, Mrs. Hansen completed her second E-race.

Marie Lynnerup, now 69, of the Copenhagen suburb of Gentofte, does more than finish. "The world's fastest grandmother," a local newspaper dubbed the E-race veteran last year, after she flew over and won the New York City marathon in her age category. "I don't battle against anybody except myself," says slim and trim Marie, who has finished 13 marathons (42.105 kilometers each) since she started running in 1972.

Eremitagelobet (The Hermitage Race) can take credit for at least one occupational victory as well. In October, 1980, two Copenhagen policemen put their E-race training to work after a couple of teenagers held up a grocery store in suburban Albertslund and fled on foot. Spotting them from their car, the patrolmen leaped out to give chase. "Even though the thieves tried to run away, they were no match for the top-trained officers," reported the daily Politiken.

The Eremitageløbet in Copenhagen, where more than 15.000 runners and walkerswork at not competing. Fitness is the prize, not record-breaking fame. 

Take It Easy

By no means everybody runs the E-race, however. A number walk it. In 1975 a Danish metal worker, Kristian Midjord, swung through it on crutches. He was out to prove that "even with a handicap, one should not give up." The 29-year-old Midjord, born with spastic paralysis, crossed the goal in 2 hours, 2 minutes, 55 seconds-32nd from last among the men.

Last year was my tenth E-race. At 57 I'm still a competitive soul, and my own goal as usual was to run the 14 kilometers (the course has been slightly shortened this year) in an hour. The day was quite muggy and I didn't. But my time of 1:07:51 was about 15 1/2 minutes faster than back in 1972.

The real hero last year was still another doctor (those M.D.s have this race sewed up), Keld Johnsen, then 31, of Skive, Jutland. The E-race record holder-0.42.39 in 1981—was delayed by fog over his local airport and arrived at the starting line a half hour after Professor Anders Tybjærg Hansen fired the pistol and joined the race. "The question is," asked the race's cosponsoring newspaper B.T., "whether [Johnsen's] zig-zag run past 12,000 runners, hopping over ditches, tree stumps and nettles, and a finishing time of less than a minute after the winner, is not one of the greatest feats in the E-race's history?" Late-starter Johnsen placed third out of 14,472.

For Peter Schnohr and his athletic wife Britt, and their friends and race cofounders Kirsten and Svend W. Carlsen (he's a Copenhagen dentist and runner), the greatest thrill lies in the general improvement in "condi" and finishing times over the last 14. years. Women of all ages run dramatically faster; among men it's the over-50ers like me who have stepped up their pace most markedly.

Upsetting work physiology theories of the late 1960s, says cardiologist Schnohr, "This race has proved that women are much better runners than we thought, and that older people have a far greater capacity for running than for other forms of exercise."

The 13.27-km. (84-mile) Eremit-agelobet starts Sunday, October 2, at 11 a.m. inside the Fortunen gate of Jægersborg Deer Park. (Take the C train to Klampenborg at least 1 1/2 hours before.) Entry forms for anyone aged 10 or over are obtainable from Eremitagelobet, Postbox 1123, DK-1009 Copenhagen K. Or phone Anita Mork, international 45-1-14 12 34, extension 329. Entry fee: 45 Danish kroner. State name, address, sex, age.