26 | DECEMBER 12 • 2024 
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N

I

t’s not easy to stay awake for near-
ly 21 hours. Evan Kline did that 
while running 100 miles on a hot 
day and night in mid-September.
The 36-year-old Troy resident 
accomplished the feat in the inau-
gural A Day in the Park 100-mile 
endurance race at Miller Ecological 
Park in Lebanon, Ohio. 
Kline finished the race in 20 hours, 
55 minutes and 38 seconds. He was 
the first runner to complete 100 
miles, and it was the first time he’
d 
run 100 miles in a race. He fell short 
by 38 miles in 2023 in another 100-
mile race.
“I started A Day in the Park at 7 
a.m. Sept. 21 and finished just before 
4 a.m. Sept. 22,
” Kline said. “The 
recovery was difficult. I felt afterward 
like I’
d been hit by a truck. 
“But this was one of those times 
when you ‘savor the pain’ because you 
knew you accomplished your goal, 
that all your hard training paid off.
”
Kline brought along ice cubes, ice 
packs and plenty of food, including 
peanut butter and jelly rollups, and 
he went through 3½ gallons of liquid 
during the 100 miles. Most impor-
tantly, he had his father Mitch Kline 
as his cheerleader and crew.
“The (1.05-mile) course was a loop, 

so I saw my dad on every loop 
I ran,
” Evan said. “He was great. 
He gave moral support to other 
runners, too.
”
Evan said his father has been 
his lifelong work ethic role 
model. That work ethic pushed 
him through the grueling 
race, Evan said, which was the 
crowning achievement so far of 
an ongoing four-year effort to 
improve his health and challenge 
himself by running long races.
He’s achieved another major 
goal by qualifying to run in the 
2025 Boston Marathon.
“When I was growing up, my 
dad emphasized two things to me,
” 
Evan said. “One was you can do any-
thing you want to do if you put in the 
work. The second was ‘Klines aren’t 
quitters.
’
“That phrase popped into my head 
a couple times during the A Day in 
the Park race. When I hit the 70-mile 
mark and realized I still had 30 miles 
to go, I needed a lift and that was it. I 
wasn’t going to quit.
”
Evan and his wife, Lisa, have two 
children: Henry, 6, and Harper, 4. On 
June 30, less than three months 
before A Day in the Park, the phrase 
played a major role in what became a 
memorable day for the Kline family.
In his first bike ride without train-
ing wheels, Henry fell off and took 
quite a spill. Undaunted, he got back 
on his bike and finished the ride.
When he got home, Henry had 
something he wanted to do. 
He wrote, “Klines aren’t quitters” 
on a piece of paper, along with a 
smiley face and a star, in a presenta-
tion that definitely had the mark of a 
6-year-old.
“I was touched that my son 
remembered something I had told 
him, which is something my father 
had told me,
” Evan said. 
“You know, just when you think 

With his father’s support, Troy resident 
Evan Kline proves on a long, hot day in 
Ohio that ‘Klines aren’t quitters.’ 

100 Miles, 
One Great 
Cheerleader

STEVE STEIN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

SPORTS HIGHLIGHTS

ALL PHOTOS HAVE BEEN SUBMITTED

Evan Kline and his 
father, Mitch Kline, 
after Evan ran 100 
miles in just shy 
of 21 hours in an 
endurance race in 
Lebanon, Ohio.

The entire Kline family — Evan, 
Lisa and their children Henry 
and Harper — participated in the 
Halloween-themed Frightful 5K 
in October in Troy. The kids were 
pushed in a double stroller by 
Evan for most of the race.