John Bozung Is Marathon Man

John Bozung ran his first marathon 25 years ago and swore it would be his last. Good thing he wasn’t under oath.

When Bozung finished the Malibu International Marathon in five hours, 20 minutes on Nov. 10 it marked his 300th official marathon and 353rd race of marathon distance or longer — not too shabby for a Palisades High graduate who quit the cross country team his senior year.

“Back then I was more of a track and field guy,” Bozung says. “I did the high and low hurdles, the 440 relay and long jump. I had a typical high school mentality back then and I said to myself ‘Why run two or three miles when the longest I run is 180 yards in the high hurdles?’ So I stopped running cross country to concentrate on weight training for track.”

After graduating from PaliHi in 1971 Bozung ran track for one semester at Santa Monica College before doing a two-year Mormon mission in Kentucky and Tennessee. He enrolled at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, in 1975 and when he graduated in 1982 with a degree in archeology his running days were seemingly behind him.

All that changed in 1985 when his brother in law said he was training for the Palisades-Will Rogers 10K and Bozung agreed to join him.

“I ran it in under an hour and beat him,” Bozung recalls. “He was really mad because he’d been training for months.”

Over the next three years he did a few 5Ks, 10Ks and short triathlons and in December 1987 he heard about the Los Angeles Marathon and decided to try it, even though the race was in early March.

“I hadn’t even run a total of 100 miles in preparation, but I went ahead and did it and afterwards my first feeling was “Wow!” and the second was “Ow!” since I was pretty sore. I said I’d never do another one, but that’s what everyone says.”

That was merely the start of what has become more than a hobby for 60-year-old Bozung. Running has been a “fountain of youth” that has allowed him to stay in shape and travel the world at the same time.

In his first five years after the 1988 L.A. marathon he did seven more and when he turned 40 he ran all four of the biggest marathons in the United States — Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago and New York — and did a total of seven in seven months. In the process he realized his legs weren’t hurting him anymore — so he vowed to keep running — and this time he wouldn’t break it.

Bozung began doing a marathon a month and has gone 223 consecutive months running a marathon or ultramarathon (longer than 26.2 miles) — a span of 18 1/2 years. The streak would be almost 20 years except he missed one month the second year and had to start his count over.

His personal-best time is two hours, 52 minutes at the St. George Marathon in Utah in 1993. The next year he ran his first ultramarathon, in 1996 he completed 26 marathons and eight years ago, at the age of 52, he completed 52 in one year.

“The best advice I can give is don’t start out too quick,” says Bozung, who resides in Orem, Utah and works as a window installer in Salt Lake City. “Don’t train more than five days a week. In fact, I only run 26.2 miles a week. That’s my secret. Each race is preparation for the next one. That’s why my body hasn’t broken down.”

Bozung has done marathons in all 50 states plus Washington D.C. and in 1997 he became the first person to complete marathons on all seven continents in the same year, tackling the Antarctica Marathon in February, the Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania in June, the Nanisivik Midnight Sun Marathon in Canada and Maritone Liberator Marathon in Venezuela in July, the Noosa Marathon in Australia in August, the Athens Marathon in Greece in October and, on that same trip, the Mt.  Everest Challenge Marathon in India, which is the only marathon he’s ever won.

“It was in the Himalayas at 13,000 feet and after 10 steps you’re sucking for air,” he remembers. “The altitude made it extremely tough.”

Bozung prefers races at sea level like Malibu, which he has now done five times and describes as “a pretty course along Pacific Coast Highway that’s really flat for the first 19 miles. I’m not in as good shape as I used to be so, my average time is four and a half to five hours. My best times are behind me — now it’s more meaningful to help others run.”

The oldest of four children, Bozung grew up in Rustic Canyon on the corner of Hilltop and Latimer across the street from Rustic Canyon Park, where he played Red Rover and Capture the Flag with his friends. His siblings also graduated from PaliHi and his brothers Bill and Gary live near him in Utah while sister Sandi lives in Paradise Cove in Malibu.

Bozung met his wife Marcy at the St. George Marathon and proposed to her three months later at the finish line of the Walt Disney World Marathon in Orlando.

“I had the ring in my fanny pack and 10 yards before the finish I stopped her and popped the question,” he recalls.

Also a race director, he organizes three annual running events in Utah — the Kahtoola Bigfoot Snowshoe Festival in January (a 5K, 10K, 25K, Marathon & 50K); the Squaw Peak 50-Mile Trail Run in June; and the Kat’cina Mosa 100K Mountain Run in August.

Bozung was back in Southern California last weekend to extend his streak at the High Desert 50K in Ridgecrest and assist with services for his mother Wilma, who died last Tuesday at the age of 90. A viewing was held Sunday at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints on Los Liones.

“I have friends in their 70s and 80s who still run marathons,” he says. “So I’ll keep going as long as my body says I can.”