Janis Klecker Interview

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Janis Klecker — March, 2022

Janis Klecker won the 1992 US Olympic Trials Marathon in Houston in her personal best time of 2:30:12. She finished in 21st place in the 1992 Olympic Marathon in Barcelona, Spain. Janis won the City of Lakes Marathon/Twin Cities Marathon three times (1980, 1991, 1992), the San Francisco Marathon twice (1983, 1990), the 1987 Grandma’s Marathon and the California International Marathon twice (1988, 1990). She also won international marathons in Norway, Morocco and Winnipeg, Canada. Her extensive marathon racing led to 16 total victories amongst 34 top-five finishes and 27 sub-2:40 performances. Janis set the American Record for 50 kilometers in 1983 and won the 1991 U.S. 5k Road Championship. Klecker did not run competitively in high school and only ran one season of collegiate cross country at the University of Minnesota. She began training in earnest when her mother signed up for the 1979 City of Lakes Marathon and Janis placed third in 2:58:32. She met her future husband, Barney, who won the race, and they began training together. He broke the World Record for 50 miles and ran a 2:15 marathon and helped draw out Janis’ talent. Her progression from novice to top marathon racer included winning the 1980 City of Lakes Marathon in 2:48:11, finishing 14th at the 1981 Boston Marathon in 2:41:50 and a second place finish at the 1981 Grandma’s Marathon in 2:36:47. Her personal best times are: 5k – 15:59; 10k – 32:24; 15k – 51:11; 10-miles – 53:35; 20k – 1:08:24; Half Marathon - 1:11:336; 25k – 1:28:13 and Marathon – 2:30:12. Janis completed Dental School in 1987 and was a dentist throughout her stellar running years. Barney and Janis have six children, including Joe, a 2021 Tokyo Olympian at 10,000 meters. Janis still practices as a dentist while she and Barney reside in Minnetonka, Minnesota with their three dogs.

GCR:

BIG PICTURE As a distance runner you have been immersed in the sport of running for over forty years since your late your teenage years as an athlete, wife of an outstanding runner, parent of six athletes and more. Could you have imagined when you started running how has running would have contributed to and shaped your life?

I tell people often I had no idea what God had in store for me. I would never have imagined it because I didn’t run in high school. I wouldn’t have thought that I would have met my husband. The first marathon I ran was in 1979 and I was running with my mom. We were possibly going to run together. She looked at me and said, ‘If you feel good, keep going.’ Those words ring in my ears. And I kept going. I was third in that race and the men’s winner was Barney Klecker. I think about that when she said, ‘If you feel good, keep going.’

GCR:	At the highest levels of sport athletes set goals to compete in the Olympics or World Championships and to represent their country. Can you describe what it meant then and what it means now to be a member of the 1992 USA Olympic team, to pull on the USA jersey to represent your country and to be, once and forevermore, an Olympian?
JK	I don’t think when I first started running that I ever imagined I would be an Olympian. But those goals were formed as I continued to improve and as the women’s marathon became a part of the Olympics while I was getting into my competitive days. At the time, it was a thrill, and it was the pinnacle of my running career. I have learned to appreciate it a lot more as time has gone by.

GCR:

You mentioned earlier that you didn’t run in high school. Most distance runners, I included, follow a pathway of running the mile and two-mile or their metric equivalents in high school along with 5k for cross country, then longer distances in college before staying on the track or moving up to the half marathon and marathon. Can you describe your unconventional pathway, and does it show that there are multiple roads that can lead to the top of the mountain?

Absolutely – and I try to encourage younger athletes. I didn’t run in high school. I downhill skied. I was active but wasn’t an athlete. I started to run in the morning for total fitness’ sake. We lived on a lake that was one point three miles around. I would get up before school sometimes and run around that lake. That was the extent of my running in high school. When I got to college, I ran for fitness’ sake because I felt like it. I went out on runs just to run. It was my mom that started planting the seed that, since I was running, I could also run races. She wrote me a letter when I was in school at the University of Wisconsin in Madison and told me, ‘I’m thinking about training for a marathon. What do you think?’ I encouraged her and said I thought it would be very cool. She was going to run Grandma’s Marathon. So, I came home that summer and started running and training without goals. We started running longer distances and soon we were on the starting line of a marathon. And I had only run a couple of road races before that. They were 10ks. It wasn’t like I was great right away. My first real goal in the 10k was to break forty minutes. I didn’t hop on the roads and run super-fast times. I ran in the Diet Pepsi 10k race series in Madison and my mom came down to run. I was only eighteen at the time and I won the eighteen and under age group. I won a trip to the regional Diet Pepsi 10k race in Kansas City. Suddenly, I was training with a goal in mind and my mindset changed.

GCR:

How important was it for you and your husband, Barney, to find each other in the sport of distance running and to support each other and could you have achieved what you did without his guidance?

We didn’t know each other when I ran that first marathon. We met at the race which was in early October. Somehow, he called me and asked me out on a date. He will tell you that my mom introduced us or was the one who gave him my phone number. But I don’t believe that because I don’t think that is something my mom would have done. I don’t know exactly how that happened and she is not living anymore to ask her about that. When we met what we did was to go on runs together. And we would go work out in the field house together. We met in October, we were engaged by June, and we got married a year later. And we are still married forty years later. Who would have thought?!

GCR:

Barney and you raised a family of six children that all competed in athletics, primarily in distance running. How exciting was it for your entire family when your son, Joe, and your children’s brother qualified for the Tokyo Olympic team at 10,000 meters and how did it compare to when you made the Olympic team?

It was very exciting for our whole family because we were all there. It was Joe’s dream come true. He worked so hard and to see what he had been through over the last several years of training, then covid hitting and being a fifth-year senior. For Joe to be able to pull that together was impressive and an answered prayer for him. And it was an answered prayer for me when I made the team as well. It is very different to watch it as a parent. When you do it yourself, you feel like you have some control. But when you are watching as a parent, you feel that you have no control. It is very hard for me to watch Joe race. One of my kids said, ‘Mom sits in the back and all she does is pray and sway.’ I don’t watch much. I put my head down and ask whomever I’m with, ‘Is he doing okay? Is he closing the gap?’ I do have a very hard time watching him race.

GCR:	Then you better get ready because Joe is early in his career and has many years of racing ahead of him.
JK	I know. (laughing) I know.

GCR:

In addition to your top-notch running, you went to Dental School and became a Dentist. How did the ability you learned as a youth and young lady to balance academics, athletics and your social life benefit you as you juggled responsibilities of dental school, work, training for marathons and then parenting children while still squeezing in quality time for your husband?

When I was in Dental School, I was competing quite a bit and became very, very efficient with my time. I was able to train in the mornings. At noon sometimes I would do a track workout. I did my long runs some days after school by running home. My training was like a puzzle every day that I put together. I didn’t have children yet when I was in Dental School. I had my first children, twins, in 1993, the year after I made the Olympic team. My life made me very efficient with time. I look back on it now and it is a blur. Then we started having children and I wasn’t truly ready to let my running go. It took a back burner to my children because I started out with twins. I still wanted to compete, so I did a bit but never was as fast after I had children as I was before. But I did run around a 2:35 marathon after I had John and Mary. I had them in July and ran a marathon the following May. I did run a lot of marathons in my career with many in that mid-2:30s range. I ran a handful in 2:30 and 2:32, but I never broke 2:30.

GCR:

What are fond memories of supporting Barney and cheering for him as he was such an outstanding racer at the marathon distance and ultramarathons?

The one that sticks out first is when Barney set the world Record for fifty miles. That was before we got married. It was ten miles out and back along the Chicago lakeshore that they did five times. I have very fond memories of him racing there. We travelled a lot together when we were first married to run races. We ran in Morocco together and went overseas more than once. We travelled around the U.S. to run races as a young couple and had great fun.

GCR:

FORMATIVE RUNNING YEARS AND GROWTH AS A MARATHON RACER You mentioned running that one point three-mile loop around the lake and doing some cross-country skiing in high school. Did you also participate in middle school and high school sports?

I was on the downhill ski team one year because I grew up skiing with my family. I may have gone out for seventh grade track. That was when Title IX came about to open more sports for girls. I was twelve years old in 1972. There weren’t many sports opportunities, and it certainly wasn’t encouraged for women to be in a sport. It was very different, and I don’t think people today understand that. Even though my path may have been nontraditional, and I ended up making an Olympic team, it wasn’t that unusual at that time.

GCR:	You mentioned starting to run before the 1979 City of Lakes Marathon, how your mom was running and that you were running well in the few 10k races you ran. What type of weekly mileage and long runs were you running as a nineteen-year-old and were you running any speed work on the track before the 1979 City of Lakes Marathon?
JK	I had done a few twenty-mile runs. We used to run around the lakes, and it was ten miles if we ran around the three lakes in Minneapolis. We would run twice around all three lakes for a twenty-mile run. So, I had done that a few times. I had run a few 10ks. I don’t think I ever ran on the track and never did any specific kind of workouts. I would just go out and run however I felt.

GCR:

Will you describe your race plan for the 1979 City of Lakes Marathon as a long training run, how that changed during the race when you were in third place and how you felt physically and emotionally that last 10k as you ran under three hours in your first marathon?

I just did it. I was running cross country that fall with the University of Minnesota. After I transferred from the University of Minnesota from Wisconsin at Madison, I had just started running and I went to the cross-country coach. I asked him if I could train with the team and he said, ‘Sure, you can train with us.’ I started training with them, ran a marathon on the weekend and went to practice on Monday like nothing had happened. I was so naïve that it didn’t dawn on me that I shouldn’t do that. I just kept running and ended up competing for the team one year – my junior year. Unfortunately, I found out I was allergic to grass, so I wasn’t a very good cross-country runner.

GCR:

In 1980 you raced 10ks at under six minutes per mile and then dropped ten minutes off your marathon time to win the 1980 City of Lakes Marathon in 2:48:11 as you were paced by Barney, your future husband. Did you race off the front or pass competitors late to win that marathon and is this when you realized the marathon distance had found you?

I don’t remember but I think I ran in the front most of the way. At that point I started to become motivated by getting faster and improving my times. That was the motivator, and it was something that Barney and I started to enjoy together. That was when road racing was coming into its own. There were a few road races that we could travel to, and I grew with that in that first year in the early 1980s.

GCR:

I remember that time as I was in graduate school in 1980 to 1981 and then was living in the southeast U.S. afterward. You are right as the good runners travelled around. We would run Peachtree in Atlanta. We would go to the Crescent City Classic in New Orleans, the Virginia Ten-Miler, the Orange Bowl 10k, the Maggie Valley Moonlight Race and we all went around and ran the circuit. There were so many good runners, so did you enjoy the great competition?

Yes, it eventuated into this rock-solid group of U.S. runners. There wasn’t much foreign competition at the time. International runners weren’t coming to the U.S. like they do now. It was just starting with Rosa Mota, Grete Waitz, Ingrid Kristiansen and Jill Hunter. We would fly around and see who would be there – Diane Brewer and Kim Jones and Lisa Weidenbach. We would be at a race one weekend and at another race a couple weekends later. We enjoyed racing each other in various races. There was very much a camaraderie, but it was a different feel than it is today. When prize money came into racing in the 1980s, there was more and more momentum.

GCR:

In 1981 you continued to drop your marathon times, racing to 14th place in Boston in 2:41:50 and finishing second in the Grandma’s Marathon in 2:36:46. How exciting was racing in Boston with the crowds and tradition and, after Grandma’s, did it sink in that you were now one of the top U.S. marathon women?

That Grandma’s Marathon put me in second place behind Lorraine Moller, but she ran 2:29. It was not like it was neck and neck. I love Lorraine Moller and after the race she came up to me and said something in the best way. She said,’ You’ve probably run as fast as you can on the type of training you are doing.’ I thought that was such a great remark. That was a week before Barney and I got married. He ran a 2:15 that day. There was a lot of enthusiasm and excitement at that race. To finish second was a thrill as was running 2:36. I would have to look back at my training logs to see what type of training we had put together. I’m sure hill repeats had started along with fartlek runs and mile repeats and training like that. But it was still loosely organized.

GCR:

In 1982 you raced three marathons in the 2:43 to 2:45 range before bouncing back in 1983 to finish fourth in Houston in a PR 2:35:44 and then to score a one-second PR to win the San Francisco Marathon in 2:35:44. What caused the steps backward in 1982 and what did you do to right the ship in 1983?

It could have been the weather or courses in 1982. Also, I had started dental school in the fall of 1982. On top of that, in my biochemistry lab I found out I was anemic. I diagnosed myself. My dad was a pathologist and I told him we had to do this experiment where we found our iron level and hemoglobin. Mine was very low so I went to dad’s lab and had it checked. I thought that either I screwed up the experiment or I was truly anemic. In fact, I was anemic. From 1982 to 1987, I was in dental school and trying to simultaneously manage running at a high level. There was a period where I had six stress fractures within two years. I was always burning the candle at both ends. I was in school from eight o’clock in the morning until four or five o’clock every afternoon. It was very much like having a full-time job. The ebbs and flows of my racing during those years were very dependent upon what was going on with my schooling.

GCR:

In late 1983 you raced a couple marathons in the 2:50s before setting the American Record for 50 kilometers in Tallahassee with a time of 3:13:50. Did you enjoy racing the longer distance and how did it feel tacking on five miles to a fast marathon?

I don’t know how we ended up running that. I think Barney was planning to run and he thought it would be a good long training run for me. That race was interesting because it was a 5k loop in Tallahassee. We would run the loop and get our time. ‘You are 6:12 pace for this loop.’ Then I would come around again and hear, ‘You are 6:14 pace for this loop.’ I ran a very steady pace and did enjoy it. I did not go into it thinking I would set the American Record. That was not the goal. There was no goal except to finish the race. There was an interesting article in Ultrarunning magazine a few months later about that race which described different runners’ strategy in the race. I was the ‘Steady Eddie’ because I didn’t change my pace much while others started fast and faded or started slowly and speeded up. The race was only done for a training effort because I was getting ready to run the Olympic Trials in May of 1984.

GCR:

In 1984 you raced four good marathons, all in the 2:36 to 2:38 range for great consistency, but how disappointing was it to incur a stress fracture before the 1984 Olympic Marathon Trials and to not be at your best despite a top thirty finish?

It was disappointing as I had pioneered a part-time plan in Dental School that year. I went to the Dean of Academic Affairs and asked if I could cut back my course load for a period so I could train more during the day. I got a stress fracture in a metatarsal and it happened six weeks almost to the day before the Olympic Trials. The fact that I was able to race was a small miracle in and of itself. I transferred all my training onto a stationary bike, and I trained so hard and so disciplined. I didn’t try to run until the week before the Trials. I could run pain-free, and I thought I was going to go and at least start the race, go with it and be happy with whatever happens. I wanted to be a part of the race. I ran 2:38 and, at the time, my PR was 2:35, so I was thrilled to be a part of the race and that is as much as it was for me.

GCR:

In the ensuing seven-year period after that race and up until you won the Olympic Trials in 1992, from 1985 to 1991 you raced twenty-five marathons which meant you were doing three or four per year. You also were racing about ten shorter races each year. Could a lighter schedule possibly have led to some faster results, or do you feel that this frequent racing kept you always race sharp?

We would run through some races as training efforts to get ready for more important races. We had some method to the madness. But if I wanted to run a race, I would go run it. When I look now at my son, Joe’s, training and how cyclical it is, mine wasn’t like that. I would say, ‘I want to run Houston’ and ‘It would be kind of fun to run Boston’ and ‘Yeah, I think I can be ready for Grandma’s Marathon.’ And so, I would run a marathon in January, one in April and one in June. Could I have been faster? I don’t know. My training would have had to be different. I would have had to do more intervals on the track and train with a different mindset. I was in shape a couple times to run under 2:30, but it never happened. It’s an unfinished chapter in my life. And it’s just going to be that way. One year I ran the Grandma’s Marathon and was so disappointed in how I ran that the next week I ran the San Francisco Marathon and won. It was unplanned and I hadn’t scheduled the next day off from work. So, after I ran the marathon, I took the red eye plane flight home and had to go straight to work. That was all in one twenty-four-hour period, and I told my dental assistant to closely watch everything I did that day.

GCR:

As the 1992 Olympic Trials grew closer, you raced some very fast times in 1990 at shorter distances such as winning the 1990 New Bedford Half Marathon in 1:10:41 and a 10k in Des Moines, Iowa in 31:44, before you won the 1990 Sacramento Marathon in 2:30:42. Were you doing anything different or was it just ten to twelve years of training and everything was coming together at the right time?

I think I was finally able to train at a high level without getting hurt. My orthopedist used to tell me I was like a 747 engine in a Cessna plane and my musculoskeletal system was finally catching up with my cardiovascular system. I could train at a level that was getting me ready to run those kinds of times. I thought they were there before. But now I was out of dental school. I was practicing part-time. I didn’t have any kids. I was able to put together good, solid training with rest and all the pieces came together to allow me to run well.

GCR:	After many strong races in 1991 at the Red Lobster 10k, Jacksonville River Run15k and Cherry Blossom 10-mile, you won the Twin Cities Marathon that fall in 2:30:31. How did that race play out in terms of your effort and strength in the latter stages and did you know you were ready for a strong performance at the upcoming Olympic Trials?
JK	I don’t remember exactly what the competition was at the Twin Cities Marathon. I remember running, feeling good, and being behind the pace car most of the way. It was a beautiful day. My mom ran too which was fun. That was a confidence builder as I was getting ready for the Trials. I also ran the Orange County Marathon four weeks later in 2:35 – looking back, how much sense does that make?

GCR:	Four weeks after the Orange County Marathon, you came to Orlando and ran the Citrus Bowl Half Marathon in 1:13:16 for fourth place. What do you recall of my hometown race that I have run many times?
JK	There were a group of women who were all getting ready for the Trials. The effort at Orange County had been a training run to get ready for the Trials and so was this half marathon.

GCR:	1992 OLYMPIC TRIALS, OLYMPICS AND THE WORLD STAGE What was your race strategy for the 1992 Olympic Trials Marathon and how did the first half of the race play out in terms of pacing and the number of runners in the lead group as Nancy Ditz took off around the 10k mark and the rest of the lead group had to decide to respond or let her go?
JK	I don’t think anyone would have picked me to win that race. I went into it very confident. I knew I had some very good racing under my belt. I felt calm and in control. I had a sense of confidence that I had trained the best I could for that day. I knew that, if I was going to make an Olympic Team, this was when it was going to happen.

GCR:

You slipped on wet pavement at a water stop around mile fifteen, falling to the ground, and Cathy O’Brien came back to help you. Did it flash through your mind that you could be seriously injured, did you get right back up to speed and how neat was it to receive help from a competitor?

There was a group of runners all going for water bottles, we got tangled up and I went down. Cathy was there and kind of turned. I don’t recall exactly what she said but it was something like, ‘get back on your feet.’ We just kept running. My hip hurt, so I knew I had some abrasions. It didn’t occur to me to stop. I’ll never forget that about a half mile later we were getting back into our stride and Lesley Lehane was running right next to me and she said, ‘Come on Janis, get back in the race.’

GCR:	Over the next four to six miles, as the contenders narrowed to five runners – Cathy O’Brien, Lisa Weidenbach, Maria Trujillo, Francie Larrieu Smith and you with eight or nine miles remaining, how were you feeling and what was your plan for the last stretch of the race as there were five of you and only three could make the team?
JK	There was such a sense of determination. I was thinking, ‘We can make this happen. This can happen today.’ I was going to be the one that persists.

GCR:

After Cathy O’Brien pulled away, what was it like after you pulled away from Francie as you were tracking Cathy down and then you caught her in the final mile to take the lead?

The way the course was set up is we were coming in and there was a very sharp turn into the finish. I came around that last turn with maybe a few hundred yards to go first and that feeling of knowing I was going to win the race was incredible. My parents were there, and Barney was there and there were a handful of others who had been my support system all along. That was a thrill and an answered prayer.

GCR:	Even though the top three finishers all made the Olympic team, what was it like to cross the finish line as an Olympian and the Olympic Trials Champion?
JK	There are no words. ‘Oh my gosh. This just happened.’ It was very, very emotional. It settled in after a while. I was so thankful and so grateful to have the body I had to put this training together and then to have it happen on the day that I wanted it to happen. Any runner who aspires to be at a higher level knows that so many things must go right to pull that race off.

GCR:

How amazing was it that your teammates were Larrieu, who had raced in her first of five Olympics twenty years earlier in the 1,500 meters as a nineteen-year-old when that was the longest race women could run in the Olympics, and O’Brien who was ninth in the 1984 Trials as a sixteen-year-old junior in high school, and made the marathon team in 1988 when she was only twenty years old? And then here you are who didn’t even start running until you were in college?

Three of us, in very different ways, put together a race that put us on the team. It was very amazing. It’s a dream come true. It’s the pinnacle of my athletic career. It was a life-changing day. It frames things in a much different way. It gives more credibility to your words if you are an Olympian and are speaking from a platform of experience. People think, ‘Well, she must know what she’s doing.’

GCR:

At the Barcelona Olympics, how tough was it being from cool weather Minnesota to deal with the heat, humidity and air pollution as you didn’t have the race you wanted and ran 2:47 for 21st place?

The goal we all had was our Gold Medal prayers. Once the gun goes off, we are grateful to be there and to be healthy. My goal that I thought of was that maybe on a good day I could be in the top ten. After the halfway point, I started to fade. It was so hot and the air so polluted. I have asthma and the air was so hard for me to breathe. I faded and was thankful to finish. I was not going to drop out of that race. I kept running along. Once we got to the last 5k when we were climbing up Montjuic, it was getting better as the evening came and it was getting cooler with less air pollution on the tree-lined streets. It clearly was not the race of my life and that’s what I learned. You don’t necessarily plan for the race of your life. They are gifts from God when they happen. Yes, you prepare for it but you can’t always predict when it is going to happen. Even though it wasn’t the race of my life, I still learned a lot from it. The race was a life-changing event. As the years have gone by, I have learned to appreciate it more and more and more.

GCR:

While in Barcelona, did you participate in the Opening or Closing Ceremonies, watch other track and field events, attend other sporting events, and get to do a bit of sight-seeing?

I was there for the Opening Ceremonies because we arrived a couple days beforehand. Track and field events don’t start until the second week of the Olympics, so I had an entire week before the race. I had time to get a little bit acclimated to the conditions. I was staying with my family, so I stayed at a hotel right outside the Olympic Village. I was able to go in the Olympic Village. We would go in and play, ‘Guess your Sport’ with the different athletes. It was very cool to be a part of that. I met athletes and did march in the Opening Ceremonies. We went to some events, but it was so unbelievably hot that it was hard to sit at the track to watch. It wasn’t easy to get tickets to go to other sporting events. I could go to as much track and field as I wanted, but I couldn’t just go and hang out and watch gymnastics or swimming and diving. The venues were not within walking distance and the logistics of getting around the city were challenging. We did do a lot of sightseeing. It was a lovely trip, and my parents were there. I had intended to stay until the Closing Ceremonies, but we kind of were ready to go. So, Bernie and I took an overnight train, left a couple days before and spent about another ten days on Europe travelling. When I came home, I had a little withdrawal.

GCR:

After the Olympics, you jumped right back into ‘Janis Klecker Racing Mode,’ won the Twin Cities Marathon in 2:36:50 and six weeks later raced to a seventh-place finish in Tokyo in 2:34:25. How neat was it to win again at Twin Cities and then race strong in Japan before Barney and you started your family?

After the Olympics, I had had my fill of running marathons. I was somewhat discouraged after the Olympics and was wondering, ‘What do I do now?’ I knew Barney and I wanted to start a family. I didn’t want to end my racing on that note. But when Twin Cities came around, I ended up hopping in the race. I thought I was going to go and have fun with this. I ran an even-paced race and I happened to win. That was fun. It was my hometown. It was a beautiful day, and the city was on display. That was a joy. Then I was contacted to run the Tokyo Women’s Marathon. I was tired but they said I could bring my coach. We decided my mom was going to be my ‘coach.’ I thought, ‘If the price I have to pay to go to Japan for ten days with my mom is to run a marathon, I’ll do it.’ My goal was to run respectably and to have fun. I did with that 2:34. It was a great trip, and my mom and I had fun. My mom was also a good runner. She ran a 3:14 marathon in her fifties. I crossed that finish line and thought, ‘I’m done.’

GCR:

As you transitioned from elite runner to mom, you still raced the 1996 Olympic Trials Marathon in 2:45:08 with three young children and qualified for the 2000 Olympic Trials Marathon with a sub-2:50 time though you declined to race. What was it like taking a break from training, resuming training after giving birth and then racing at a very respectable level while raising quite a few young children?

I got pregnant with my twins right after that Tokyo Marathon. I had them and ran a handful of races. I was very disciplined from what I had done in dental school and would get up early to train before they got up. We figured it out. Barney was very, very supportive. My parents were very supportive. I had a lot of recovering to do because I was on bed rest before I had my twins and lay in bed for eight weeks. I also had an emergency C-Section, so it was not ideal. They were born in July, and it was October or November before I started running again. So, I went for a long time without running a step. But when your body has been there it knows what to do. I got ready and ran a marathon in May and the twins were less than a year old. How that exactly happened, I don’t know. I ran a 2:39 in Cleveland, but once I started having children, my training and racing were very much up and down. I got pregnant not long after that with our third child when my twins were thirteen months old. I was at a New Year’s Party, and they asked us to write down a goal for the next year. I put down that I wanted to have a child and qualify for the Olympic Trails in the same year. Our third child was born in May, and we had three children under age two. And I qualified for the Olympic Trials in November that year at the Columbus Marathon.

GCR:

You won sixteen marathons amongst a total of 34 finishes in the top five. Were wins in Winnipeg, Norway and Morocco standout victories and are there other top finishes that were memorable?

At that time to be able to travel and do something I loved to do was a thrill. My first trip overseas was to Yokohama, Japan where I ran the Ekiden in 1984. I had no idea what God had in store for me when I started running. I was invited to run a marathon in Marrakesh, Morocco and thought, ‘Yes, I’ll do that.’ My mindset wasn’t that I couldn’t do a race because it didn’t fit into my training plan. I saw interesting opportunities coming my way.

GCR:

We discussed many of your races from your entire running career. Are there any top races that we missed where you beat a tough opponent, came from behind with a great kick, ran a big personal best time or all three that stand out?

A very memorable race for me is Grandma’s Marathon in 1987. I had graduated from Dental School and taken my Dental Boards. It was anticlimactic because we had to take our Boards right after we graduated, and I think they were three days long. They are very rigorous. Patients come in, we do procedures and are graded by instructors. It’s a very stressful situation. I graduated, did my Boards, drove up to Duluth and told Scott Keenan I’d like to run the race if he would let me in. Then I won the race. And I didn’t lead until the last quarter mile. I passed Jan Ettle. We are friends but people would like to have made us ip as rivals. Her full name is Janice, so it was Janice Ettle and Janis Klecker. And so, I won the race, and it was the peak of my efforts for two years to become a dentist and to win. Grandma’s Marathon was also the U.S. Championship that year. That was the pinnacles of my two careers coming together.

GCR:

TRAINING Since your husband, Barney, was your coach, except when your mom ‘coached’ you to the 2:34 marathon in Japan, did the two of you separate the coach-athlete relationship from the husband-wife bond or did it come naturally between the two of you?

It all came naturally. When someone says that Barney coached me, I usually say that we consulted. I would say ‘I think I’m going to do hill repeats today’ or ‘I’m going to go to the track, and I think half-mile repeats will be a good idea’ or ‘I like this treadmill workout and would like to do it today.’ It wasn’t a typical coach-athlete relationship where Barney would write all the workouts out and I would follow them to a ‘T.’ It was not like that at all.

GCR:

Barney was a great runner with a 2:18 and 2:15 in your first two marathons and that American Record 50-mile in 4:51. What are the primary concepts of mental and physical training that you learned from Barney that molded your development as a runner?

A lot of it was a certain tenacity and work ethic that Barney had. I think I had it innately and we kind of figured out how to bring that out. I had a lot of trouble with injuries for a while and had to learn how to train and cross-train to maximize the amount of running I could do. I think that fact that I was willing to transfer all my training onto a stationary bike, do two-and-a-half hours on the bike and do intervals on the bike to get ready for the 1984 Olympic Trials was something that some people might not see as an option.

GCR:

How much cross training did you do, not when you were injured, but to add extra cardiovascular strength while minimizing injuries in your normal program?

I cross trained a lot because I soon found out that I was not one who could run twice a day. I almost always worked out twice a day. I usually would run my first workout of the day and cross train the second workout. I was either on a bike, a Nordic machine, on snowshoes, in a pool aqua jogging, climbing stairs or doing some sort of club workout for a second workout almost every day. My mileage never went much over a hundred per week.

GCR:	That leads into my next question as to what was your typical weekly training mileage during your two decades as an elite marathon runner on only one daily run?
JK	I didn’t do the second run of five to seven miles several days each week. I tried to but couldn’t. I maxed out around a hundred, but not very often. It was more likely to be seventy-five to ninety miles a week.

GCR:

How long were your long runs, how often did you do them and how much slower than your race pace? Did you run a minute per mile slower than marathon race pace or negative split long runs?

My long runs would go anywhere from twenty to thirty miles. Sometimes I would go on a twenty-mile run and end it with a half hour aqua jog. Or I would run some over distance runs of thirty miles. I don’t know what pace I was running. I never ran with a watch. I would go out and run hard and how I felt. Sometimes I would look at the clock when I left and then when I got back, and I would see I ran around 6:30 or 6:45 pace. But I didn’t know while I was running and there wasn’t anything very calculated for my long runs.

GCR:

What were your favorite workouts for strength, tempo and speed?

I used to do a workout on the treadmill where I would warm up for a couple miles and then run a 5:20 mile and a 5:50 mile, 5:20 and 5:50. I would go back and forth like that and work up to where I could do eight sets like that. So, that was sixteen miles of work. Once I got that workout in, I knew I was ready. We used to do hills. There is a hill close by us where we would run repeats. I’ve never broken seventy seconds for the quarter mile, but I have run 4:51 for the mile.

GCR:

Was weight training, chiropractic care, massage, yoga or stretching a part of your routine through all or part of your running career and maybe more so as you got older?

I lifted weights a few times a week. I had a woman who worked with me doing massage. I didn’t get much Chiropractic care back then because it wasn’t as readily available as it is now. My mom was a nurse and then she went to massage school and became a massage therapist, so she helped me a lot. I cannot say enough how pivotal my mom’s help was in my running career. Not only did she spur me on, but she was so supportive along the way. So was my father. He ran a 2:48 marathon, so he was a good marathoner. The fact that my parents each ran was a huge motivator for me. My mom and I had so much fun running together. We never trained together, but we would go and run races together. Much of my training had weight training but it wasn’t specific. One day I might work on my hamstrings, on another day my quads and a third day my arms. On another day I would work on my core. But it wasn’t outlined in a specific way. I got a massage every week from Dorothy, my massage therapist. If I was going to run a race on the weekend, she would come over and massage my legs before I left for a race.

GCR:

WRAPUP AND FINAL THOUGHTS When you won the 1992 Olympic Trials, you weren’t a full-time runner, but a 31-year-old dentist. How excited were your patients for you and have you wondered how your running career may have been different if you weren’t working full time?

It was very fun to be in the working world and an Olympian as well. Would I have been a better runner if I had not been pursuing something else? Part of me wants to say ‘yes’ but part of me thinks I was a better runner because I am a dentist. I think running can get to be too big and can start to consume who you are. It always felt good to me to have something else that I was doing. I didn’t have all my eggs all in one basket.

GCR:

All six of your children are athletes, with five running cross country and track distance events while the sixth hurdled and played football. How much fun was it watching them all train, compete and develop the characteristics that athletes learn like teamwork, camaraderie, overcoming adversity and striving to reach your potential that set them up for life?

That is a thrill. That warms a mother’s heart. We pray that our kids grow up to be good, solid individuals with work ethic and that they love what they do. To see each develop in such a different way is neat. One ran for a DIII college, one ran in DII, three ran for DI schools and our one son plays football for a school that was DIII and has now changed to DI. To see what an important role running has played in their life and then how it is important, but their lives don’t have much to do directly with running is outstanding. My oldest son is going to defend his dissertation on May fourth. He is getting his PhD in Chemistry. It is an extension of the persistence it took for him to run in college. To see Joe do what he does as a professional runner, but he is still motivated to get his master’s degree. He has goals beyond his running. Sarah, who lives in Portland, works for Nike. She was never a standout collegiate athlete, but she was a good, rock-solid runner. Now she trains with the Bowerman Track Club Elite team and Elliott Heath coaches her. At twenty-six years old she is still training at a high level after moving to Oregon and getting her master’s degree in sports product design. Seeing each of them use the tools they gained through running to make their lives richer is so fascinating to watch how it speaks to each of them in a different way.

GCR:

We discussed many of your races and some of your competitors. From your many years of racing, who were some of your favorite competitors when you lined up due to their ability to give you a strong race and bring out your best?

Someone I remember the most is Kim Jones. I don’t know if I ever beat her, but she always pulled us along to a good race. There is a woman named Diane Brewer, who was Diane Bussa at the time. Gail Kingma and Lisa Weidenbach and Nancy Ditz stand out. There were a handful of us. Sometimes I think it would be fun to see what these people are doing now. I’ve crossed paths with Lisa Weidenbach who is Lisa Rainsberger now. I have such fond memories of us travelling around and running races. There was a group of us and, if I thought long enough, I would probably come up with a list of about twenty people. But those are the ones that I have off the top of my head that, if we toed the line, we were going to pull each other to a good race.

GCR:

You raced several strong races in your early forties as a master’s runner in 2001 and 2002 as you ran a 1:24 half marathon in Duluth and you were still breaking nineteen minutes for 5ks and going sub-39 minutes for 10ks. Did you enjoy racing as an age-grouper, and do you have any desire to do so again as a sixty and over runner?

I don’t really want to again. Sometimes I think it sounds like fun but then I start training and there are limiting factors like a hip or hamstring that limit going fast. I do still run six or seven miles with the best of them, but I don’t have any goals. Most of those races I ran in the early 2000s I ran because one of my kids was running. I ran Pikes Peak a couple times because my one daughter said, ‘I want to become a peak buster.’ So, I trained and ran Pikes Peak with her a few years ago. In the same way, I ran Grandma’s Half Marathon because one of the kids was running. That was more of a motivator than anything – to be fit enough to be able to do things with my children.

GCR:

What is your current fitness routine and some of your goals for the future in terms of staying fit, working with the running community, your professional career, charitable work and potential new adventures?

I’ve always told people that you need to become more creative as to how you stay fit as you get older. I do yoga, get in the pool and swim and run depending on the weather. In our winters I get a little wimpy. I might be doing more cross training in the winter, but run more in the summer, mostly to stay fit. I do stuff with my kids. I’m a grandma. I have a one-year-old grandson. I take care of him quite a bit. I want to be able to keep up with him.

GCR:

Based on your experience with your six children, what advice would you give parents who would like to encourage their children to run and youngsters who are in the early stages of running?

We never told our children to run. It was very much in the whole fabric of our lives. My children saw Barney and I running. Even when they were little, I would get back from a run and one of them would say, ‘Okay, Papa, now its your turn.’ It was very much in the fabric of our home, and they saw the joy we derived from running. I think that, if you want your children to run, show them the richness that it brings to their lives. They participated in many sports when they were in grade school. We had soccer players and basketball players. They all skied. We did a lot of downhill skiing as a family. We encouraged them to be fit and I would talk to them about how to be fit so they could do what they wanted to do in life and how it opens more doors. And then they just kind of started running. It was in sixth or seventh grade and each of them, on their own, figured out what running was going to be like for them. We encouraged them and were very supportive.

GCR:

When you are asked to sum up in a minute or two the major lessons you have learned during your life from the discipline of running, balancing life’s components and overcoming adversity, what you would like to share with my readers that will help them on the pathway to reaching their potential athletically and as a person that is the ‘Janis Klecker Philosophy of How to be Your Best in Life?’

One thing I share is that I have a picture someone took of me when I had a newborn baby and we had six children who were age seven and under. I look at that picture and I laugh because I thought all my training had to do with running fast. And it just is so much about how we can handle life as it goes on. It gives us the ability to be able to be adaptable and disciplined and to look at the big picture. It helps us look for silver linings and the goodness in life. My running has helped me keep a very positive perspective on my life. When I was in dental school, people asked me why I ran so much. I was in the thick of dental school and I would say, ‘It keeps me in touch with reality. I can get out of dental school and go out and run and think and be away from the stress of school.’ And then when I was practicing dentistry and running at a relatively high level, people would ask me, ‘Why do you still practice dentistry?’ I would say, ‘It keeps me in touch with reality.’ It was in two completely different scenarios, but it was true. I believe it is important as we become runners that we stay in touch with that other side of us. That is what I’ve encouraged in my kids. There needs to be more, and I am grateful that I had a career that I nurtured alongside of my running.

	Inside Stuff
Hobbies/Interests	I like to down hill ski. When my kids were little, I taught skiing and got them all on skis. I do a lot of yoga. I’ve gone through teacher training of yoga, and teach some yoga, though I do it very sparingly. We have three dogs and I love my dogs. And honestly, there are no words to describe how much I love my grandchild. There is an abundance of love for my grandchild, and I spend a lot of time taking care of him
Favorite movies	I don’t see very movies. We were at a trivia night a couple weeks ago and were very bad. I think the last movie I saw was ‘Marly,’ about a dog that died. I do still remember as a kid when ‘Snow White’ came out
Favorite TV shows	‘Hogan’s Heroes’ and ‘Gilligan’s Island’ that I watched in reruns after school
Favorite music	My favorite type of music is contemporary Christian music
Favorite books	I start a lot of books, but don’t finish many. The one I’m reading right now is called ‘Atlas of the Heart’ by Brene Brown
First cars	My first was a Mazda 626. A fun fact is that when I ran the San Francisco Marathon and won the race, I won a Mercedes. I didn’t run very fast, but Mercedes was one of the sponsors and, if you won, you got a Mercedes. I was able to order a little Mercedes 190SE. I drove that, but not long enough and traded it in for a minivan when we had our third child
Current car	I currently drive a Lexus 450 Hybrid. It is good to have with high gas prices except it takes premium gas which is a bummer
First Jobs	I was a waitress at a Walgreen’s soda fountain. I lied about my age when I was about fourteen. But I probably told them I was sixteen. They just wanted employees. I worked as a waitress at a few different places when I was in high school
Family	I grew up in a family of five. My first children are John and Mary, who are my twins. Mary has a master’s degree in Strategic Communications and works in a school district as a communications specialist. Her twin brother, John, is getting his PhD in Chemistry. Mary is the mother of our grandson. Sarah ran at the University of Minnesota and that was important to her. She has her master’s degree in sports product design. Then there is Joe, who has his degree in Biochemistry and is running professionally now. He is thinking about pursuing degree while he is working on his running. Then there is Elizabeth, who goes by ‘Bit.’ She is a fifth-year senior at the University of Minnesota. She runs track and cross country, works as a graphic designer and has her own photography business. Our youngest is James and he is a junior at a small college here in Saint Paul. He is a Business major with a Data Analytics minor. They are all athletic to a certain degree and are doing what they like to do so what more could I ask?
Pets	I grew up with a dog, but no cats. We have a cockapoo named ‘Maggie’ and she is fifteen. She is my best buddy. You know how they say owners began to look like their dogs after a while? She and I kind of look alike. We have a little Shih-Tzu Poodle named ‘Mudge’ and he is ten years old. My daughter, Bit, bought him when she was in sixth grade. She decided she needed her own puppy. We have another Shih-Tzu Poodle named ‘Pongo’ who is three. So, we have three small dogs
Favorite breakfast	Bananas with Greek yogurt
Favorite meal	Avocado toast. I wish I liked salmon, but I don’t. I don’t eat very much meat. That is just my preference – not anything more than that
Favorite beverages	I love to meet a friend for a glass of Chardonnay and to talk and catch up. I drink coffee. Everyone in our family drinks coffee. I now own an expresso machine, so coffee is a big deal in our family
First running memories	In Elementary School, for the President’s Award, we had to run six hundred yards. That was very hard. That is my first running memory and how I was dreading doing that. Then, years later, probably because my mom was running, I started running when I was a senior in high school. I was jogging around the lake where we lived. When I was a freshman in college, I started running on my own because I wanted to stay fit while I was in college
Running heroes	Lorraine Moller, Joan Benoit, Grete Waitz, Ingrid Kristiansen, Dorothy Rasmussen and Kim Jones
Greatest running moment	Winning the Twin Cities Marathon in my hometown, winning Grandma’s Marathon the week after I graduated from dental school and winning the Olympic Trials Marathon. Winning the Trials is above the other two
Tough running moments	There was one year, in 1991, that I felt I was very fit. I had run the New Bedford Half Marathon in 1:10. I remember getting a call suggesting that I should run the Boston Marathon. But I had already told Scott Kennan that I would run Grandma’s Marathon. So, I went there to run, and it was very hot and humid, and I faded. I went through the half in 1:15 and I ended up running 2:38. That was a very hard race for me. And one year I went to Shanghai in China to run a marathon and had to drop out. Mostly they were the races I didn’t finish, and I didn’t drop out of many races. But I struggled to finish a handful
Childhood dreams	I thought I wanted to be an eye doctor, an ophthalmologist. I had a very wonderful upbringing and loved to ski. That was a big part of my life when we were growing up. I grew up in a wonderful family of five kids with three brothers and a sister. Other than being a doctor, I don’t know
Funny memories	When I went to Japan with my mom and ran that marathon, I was the only U.S. runner in the race. When we were at the prerace event, they were introducing the athletes’ coaches. I was sitting in the front row, and they called up all these coaches who were wearing their athletic outfits from adidas or Nike or another company. Then they called up my mom. She went up in a sweater and a skirt. She was standing up there and was laughing so hard, while she was trying to hide that she was laughing. And I was in the front row laughing. We were shaking as we were trying to hide our laughter and she was being introduced as my coach. If she was still living and we started talking about that, we would both be laughing again. It was hysterical. What a great trip. They treated her like a coach the whole time. She rode on the coaches’ bus and was in the coaches’ reception area to watch the race. I am forever thankful that we went. Barney coached me to a 2:36 to win Twin Cities and she coached me to a 2:34 in Japan and a higher level (laughing)
Embarrassing moment	In a race, I remember crossing the finish line very nauseated. It was in a race up north and I was throwing up as I crossed the finish line. There are pictures of it. That was a long time ago. As I won the race, I remember them announcing me and saying, ‘Janis Klecker is coming to the finish and, oh, she doesn’t feel very good.’ That was an embarrassing moment
Favorite places to travel	My favorite foreign country I have travelled to is Switzerland. I have run the Swiss Alpine marathon three different times. It is a lovely trail race at the end of July. I ran one year with Barney, went there one year with just my mom and then the last time with Barney and my mom and dad. I love that race. I went back there to Switzerland with my daughter, Sarah, when she graduated from high school, and we hiked a lot of the trails that my mom and I had hiked together. My favorite place for us to travel to in the U.S. is to Colorado. I have such good memories of us going there as a child and skiing. Barney and I took our young children there. We would drive from Minnesota in a day and ski