Three decades after setting his first world record in the mile and establishing himself as one of America's greatest track athletes, Ryun is still, at 49, "the runner." He likes to get in four or five miles a day, on top of the heavy roadwork of running for Congress in Kansas's second district. "I'm finding that endurance is a really important aspect of campaigning," says Ryun, a conservative Republican and novice politician who makes his living as a motivational speaker. "And running will help me out on that front."
A Wichita native, Ryun became a national hero when, as a high school junior, he ran the mile in 3 min., 59 sec. to became the first American high schooler to break the 4-minute barrier. After winning a silver medal
in the 1,500 meters at the 1968 Olympics, he was favored to win the gold four years later in Munich. But with a lap to go in that year's race, Ryun was elbowed by a competitor and fell hard. He got up and finished, out of medal contention. "It was a difficult time," he says. "But it was also a real character-building experience."
Ryun's partial deafness and hampered equilibrium, the result of a bout with the measles at age 4, may have contributed to his fall. Five years ago he began wearing hearing aids, which, he says, have "changed my life." They certainly help on the hustings, where Ryun's speeches on family values aren't just empty rhetoric: Anne, 49, his wife of 27 years, and his children, Heather, 26, twins Ned and Drew, 23, and Catharine, 21, all pitch in on his campaign. "I want people to meet my family," says Ryun. "If they like what they see, that's what it's all about."
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
