Everyone Invited to Join Heritage on Her Last Mile
April 30, 2004

SEATTLE (April 30) – After 46 years of running the world’s roads, trails and tracks, Doris Brown Heritage is approaching her last mile, and everyone’s invited to join her.

Seattle Pacific University’s longtime coach of cross country and track & field will be honored with a ceremonial race, the Heritage Mile, as part of the May 15 Ken Foreman Invitational meet at West Seattle’s Southwest Athletic Complex. Race time is 12 noon.

Heritage, the two-time Olympian and five-time world cross country champion, is scheduled to undergo hip replacement surgery in June. That procedure will relieve her pain but also prevent her from pursuing her lifelong passion of running.

Her friends, former teammates and SPU alumni runners are invited to join her on the starting line on May 15. For a minimum $25 tax-deductible contribution to the Doris Heritage Scholarship endowment, each jogger/runner gets a commemorative T-shirt and an up-close opportunity to see Heritage pull away from the field one more time.

Heritage, 61, will continue to run 2-7 miles daily until her surgery.

“If I’m feeling good that day, a 6-minute mile is possible and 7 minutes will be acceptable,” said Heritage, who once held U.S. and world records for distances from 440 yards to 3000 meters.

She has no estimate on how many miles she has run, but notes that in the prime of her competitive career she averaged 100 miles per week. Afterwards she cut back to 35-70 miles per week. Her last major title was the 1989 U.S. Masters cross country championship.

Heritage won five consecutive IAAF (world) cross country crowns from 1967-71, and represented the U.S. at both the 1968 and ’72 Olympic Games. She has been recognized for her pioneering feats in women’s distance running by being inducted into the U.S. Track & Field Hall of Fame, U.S. Cross Country Hall of Fame and Seattle Pacific’s Falcon Legends Hall of Fame.

Doris and husband Ralph Heritage are longtime residents of West Seattle. She is serving her 38th year as a member of the SPU coaching staff, including the last 25 as head coach of men’s and women’s cross country. The Doris Heritage Scholarship benefits SPU men and women track and cross country runners.

To register for the Heritage Mile, contact the Seattle Pacific athletic department by phone (206) 281-2085 or email (simone@spu.edu). Entries will be allowed up to 30 minutes prior to the race.

Directions to Southwest Athletic Complex

• 1) From Interstate 5, take Exit 163A (West Seattle Bridge / Columbian Way) and follow directions to West Seattle Bridge. Continue west on bridge for 1.6 miles.
• 2) Bear right on exit ramp for Delridge Way SW / SW Spokane St to South Seattle Comm. Coll. and follow directions to Delridge Way. Continue south on Delridge for 3.0 miles.
• 3) Turn right on SW Thistle St and go west for 0.3 miles to 25th Ave. SW. Look on left for signs for entry into Southwest Athletic Complex.