Trail Runner Magazine July 2002 article

At the starting Line of the Angeles Crest 100 miler, Mike Malinin blends right in -- short hair, an athletic six-foot, two-inch frame, and a handsome, confident smile. Like many of the ultra-runners beside him, he has trouble balancing his training schedule and his career. What with the world tours, appearances on late-night TV shows and a gig at the

Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City... You see, the 34-year-old may be a trail runner by day, but by night he's the drummer for the Goo Goo Dolls, a hit-list band belonging to a genre one MTV reviewer called "post-punk power-pop." While many of his business associates are enjoying the rock and roll lifestyle into the wee hours of the morning, he usually goes to be early, conserving energy for his training runs. "I'm lucky in that I get to run in a different city every day when my band is on tour," he says. He recalls an "unbelievable" run near a small town in Sweden, and nice riverside trails in Bosie, Idaho, and Lansing, Michigan. But his favorite strips of dirt are right out his back door in Big Bear, California, on the Pacific Crest Trail.

Last year, Malinin managed to log enough miles to complete both the Angeles Crest 100-miler in California and the JFK 50 miler in Maryland. Much of the training was squeezed in while his band toured between the two coasts. "We usually play a show, get on the bus, and drive overnight to the next city," Malinin says. " Usually I'll run after sound check, sometimes in the morning." If he's lucky he'll get in 10 to 12 miles, most often it's more like 5 or 6. "Mike runs because he has way too much time on his hands," asserts Michelle Roche, a former housemate and occasional training partner. "He's such a proficient drummer that he can finish things up way ahead of time." Roche also admires his various talents. " He's a good skier, long-distance biker, and probably has a genius level IQ" she adds.

Malinin has been hiking trails since he was a kid, and competed in cross country and track for his high school in Miami, though, he admits, "not very well." In his mid-20's he started running again on the horse trails in Griffith Park in Los Angeles.

An article about trail running legend Ann Trason inspired Malinin to start running the ultra-distances. "I was never all that fast," he says, "so I figured that if I was going to run races that I had absolutely no chance of winning, I should challenge myself by running longer distances." His first ultra was the Bulldog 50k in 1996, and he was immediately hooked. He followed that Southern California race with a 40 mile run around Lake Canandiagua in upstate New York and the JFK 50 in 1997.

Then his job eclipsed his training for three years. The band spent long hours in the studio for the 1998 release of "Dizzy Up The Girl," and subsequent two-year world tour. Within a year of it's release, the album hit triple platinum, selling more than 3 million copies and increasing the band members' rock star status. Still, he told an MTV interviewer that the highlight of the "Dizzy Up The Girl" tour was a run up a mountain. When the band was playing in Phoenix, Malinin's friend, Greg "Happy" Durnin, invited him to race up Camelback Mountain. "The trail is short, only about 1.2 miles, but it's steep with a lot more scrambling up rocks than running," Malinin recounts. Durnin said the record to the top was about 22 minutes, a time that Malinin committed himself to beating. He did exactly that, with about 10 seconds to spare. That night Happy came to the show and presented Malinin with a homemade "certificate of achievement" award (the other band members got cartons of cigarettes). "I was proud," says Malinin who still keeps his certificate in his living room.

Malinin's Goo Goo Dolls cohorts have never joined him for a run. "I'm not sure what they think of my running," he says. "I think they, like most people, don't understand why anybody would want to run through the mountains for over 24 hours. Oh well."

At the AC100, his first 100-miler, Malinin ran through the mountains for 29 hours and 41minutes. "I thought I was going to cry when I got to the finish line," he says, "It was a great feeling of accomplishment." Despite the three-year hiatus between ultras, Malinin had become a better runner, according to John Dunn, Malinin's brother-in-law and pacer. "He has some problems during the first JFK (in 1997) and had to lay down at one point," says Dunn. "His (2001) pace was much faster and his spirits were up." He finished last fall's race in 8 hours, 43 minutes (10:29 per mile), 41 minutes faster than his 1997 effort.

Roche says Malinin dreams of someday running across the U.S. to raise money for the Rails to Trails Conservancy. In his grand scheme, he would be sponsored by Taco Bell and Motel 6 using them for pit stops along the way. More realistically, Malinin would like to break 24 hours in the 100-mile distance someday, and three hours in the marathon. To hear him talk, you'd think Malinin was just another internet-browsing, per-mile-pace calculating, ultra-running geek. But, read the eggnog story posted on a fan's website (www.boyleworks.com/fabfay), and you'll get a glimpse of this rock star's other side.

It was almost Christmas and Malinin was at a party after appearing on Late Night with David Letterman, when it seemed like a good idea to jump into the bowel of eggnog. He later said that the only thing he regretted was not taking his wallet out of his pocket before the plunge. It smelled noggy for weeks. And you thought sweaty polypropelene smelled bad.