Bloomsday Perennial: Von Klohe has a mother of a race goal to beat

Bloomsday Perennial Von Klohe, 78, has goals. His mother ran several Bloomsdays decades ago, and the year she turned 80, she placed fifth in her age group. When she was 81, she finished even faster.

“In a couple years, when I’m 80, I’ll see if I can match her record,” he said. “I’ve got a goal of matching my mother’s time. She was inspirational.”

Klohe did the race with his mother several times. Once, when she was far back in the pack and had a later start time than he did, Klohe photographed the start and finish of the women’s race. It was 1997, the year Kim Jones won. Then he met back up with his mother and walked the course with her.

Klohe and his family moved to the area in 1962 when his father was assigned to Fairchild Air Force Base. Klohe graduated from Shadle High School, where he played baseball and liked to ride his bicycle.

“In high school, I thought I wanted to grow up and be Willy Mays,” he said, referring to the Hall of Fame baseball player.

But he got recruited to be on the track team and began running, and he kept running while studying at Eastern Washington University. He had done a couple races a few years before Bloomsday.

“The whole idea was just something to do,” he said.

Klohe lived with Gary Berg and Doug Clark, both of whom are still Bloomsday Perennials, those who have competed in every race since the annual event began. They all signed up for the first Bloomsday together.

“We were running then,” he said.

Though he prefers running in cooler weather, Klohe managed to finish the first run in 64 minutes.

“I just didn’t go as fast, I suppose,” he said. “Running in town was terrific. It was the biggest run I’d been in.”

That year, he gave film to several family members and friends, who grabbed cameras and stationed themselves along the Bloomsday route, snapping pictures of Klohe as he ran by.

“I have a whole slide show of the first race,” he said.

Inspired, Klohe got ready for the second Bloomsday.

“I wanted to run a faster time,” he said.

Klohe marvels at what Bloomsday became.

“It was fun,” he said. “Who knew it was going to get to 50,000?”

Once, he decided to take his own pictures of the race.

“One year. I did it from the very back so I could photograph it,” he said. “It was a great community back there.”

He often traveled for his various jobs in the fashion industry and as a ladies shoe buyer for Nordstrom. He said it wasn’t unusual for him to spot runners wearing Bloomsday shirts in Central Park in New York. He was able to set his own work schedule, so he always made sure to keep the first Sunday in May clear.

“Bloomsday has inspired a lot of stuff,” he said. “Hundreds of thousands of people have participated in Bloomsday. Bloomsday has inspired artists. How we have bands all along the course.”

Bloomsday also set the stage for Klohe to begin running marathons. He wanted to be able to run an eight-minute mile and thought longer races would help him accomplish that. He would also end up running 50-mile ultra marathons.

“Bloomsday was an inspiration for that,” he said.

The entire time, Klohe was living with a congenital heart defect. One year, his doctor told him it was time to do surgery to fix it and suggested a surgery date in the third week of April. Klohe said he wasn’t too concerned and still wanted to do Bloomsday.

“I said no, that’s not going to work for me,” Klohe said.

His doctor let him push the surgery, but not far. He had a pacemaker put in the Tuesday after Bloomsday and spent five days in the cardiac ICU.

“I thought, well, maybe this was serious,” Klohe said.

He also herniated a disk one year, but had that surgery several months before Bloomsday so he would have plenty of time to recover.

“I did a lot of physical therapy,” he said. “I did a lot of training in the pool.”

In addition to doing Bloomsday with his mother and friends, Klohe has also done quite a few with his wife, Brenda, and his children.

“There’s some great joys with Bloomsday,” he said. “I’ve been able to do Bloomsday with my kids. That was terrific. Bloomsday has been so wonderful for me.”

These days, Klohe doesn’t worry much about his time. He’s just there for the experience.

“I don’t run at all anymore,” he said.

He’s diligent about staying in shape and tries to get in 10,000 steps a day.

“I walk a lot,” he said. “I try to incorporate hills because, interestingly enough, Bloomsday has hills.”

Beating his mother’s time is only one of Klohe’s goals as the 50th race approaches.

“I figure 50 is just the start,” he said. “If I keep going, I could see 65.”