They Are Inspired by Quake : L.A. Marathon: Despite problems caused by Jan. 17 temblor, four say they will give it their best on Sunday.

The four were pounding toward a single vision when the dark rumblings of Jan. 17 nearly stole everything.

It took their walls. Their furniture. Their memories. Their composure.

But upon sifting through the rubble, they each realized the Northridge earthquake had left something behind:

Their running shoes.

Sunday morning, Dave Callahan is going to fulfill an annual pledge to run in the Los Angeles Marathon even though he has not run anywhere since the morning of Jan. 17.

That is when he sprinted from the window of his Northridge apartment and directly onto a parking lot that used to be 15 feet below.

Les Spitza is going to keep his promise by walking in the marathon with disabled friends, even though the only place he has walked recently is to the refrigerator.

Stress eating, he said. Fifteen added pounds in six weeks, he figures. Something about compensating for the discomfort of spending 10 days in his front yard in a tent.

Sandy Jett told herself last summer she would run in the marathon, and so she will. But she said friends waiting for her at the finish line will be carrying a stretcher.

Those are some of the same friends who have helped her endure life in a tarpaulin-covered house, where the earthquake was followed by a flood.

Juanesta Holmes vowed to run her first marathon when she turned 30, and she’s been 30 for five months, so she’s not quitting, either.

She simply never dreamed she would be running without a home address or phone or any trace of the calmness required to complete 26.2 miles.

Their friends say they are foolish. Their sensibilities tell them to think about it. Their bodies cry for more time.

But these four, like dozens of others from earthquake-ravaged areas, will line up at the Coliseum Sunday morning to complete what they have started.

For them, a race which once was frivolity has become necessity. They need the Los Angeles Marathon to convince them of what nobody else can.

That life goes on.

When asked if they had considered dropping out, their answers were polite, but short. Typical was the response of Callahan. He needed three words:

“No, no, no.”

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To understand the dozens who will run in the ninth annual marathon despite suffering tremendous losses in the recent disaster, it helps to understand those who will not run.

Randy Green is a 40-year-old real estate executive. He owns his own company. He has run in four previous marathons, including Boston.

He is disciplined enough to awaken at 4 a.m. every day to train. He had paid his $25 entry fee. His runner’s bib was in the mail.

Then one morning two weeks after the quake, running at 4:30 a.m., at a dark corner near his Northridge home, he stopped. “I said, ‘I’m done,’ ” Green recalled. “I decided, no marathon this year.”

He was exhausted from trying to sleep with the television set blaring. After the quake, his frightened wife would not sleep any other way.

He was exhausted from living for 10 days without running water.

He was sluggish from gaining 10 pounds after eating boxes of the only thing that tasted good while their refrigerator was inoperable--dinosaur cookies.

He was exhausted from handling more than $50 million in escrowed real estate that had been affected in the quake.

“If I couldn’t do my best, and I know I couldn’t, then I didn’t want to run at all,” Green said. “Other people can do that, but not me.”

*

If a model runner like Green drops out, what chance does a 37-year-old rookie like Sandy Jett have?

Her entire running resume consists of one 5K, and she’s already decided she will have to walk part of the marathon course.

She recently saw a marathon commercial on television and said nervously, “Oh, God.”

But faced with an impending divorce last summer, she decided she could only handle the stress by running through it. And those runs, she vowed then, would culminate Sunday.

“Everybody thinks I’m crazy, they all say I’m never going to make it,” Jett said. “But if I have to crawl, I’m making it. If it takes me two days, I’m making it.”

For those such as Green, and there are several, marathon organizers have agreed to refund their entry fee and grant them free entry into the race-day 5K.

For those such as Jett, psychologists say their reward will come after the race.

“After a natural disaster, you lose control of so many things,” said Dr. Eric Denson, sports psychologist at the University of Delaware. “By sticking with a marathon, these people are proving to themselves that they still have control over something. This feeling is very important.”

*

Dave Callahan, a dialysis technician, thinks about control every time he climbs into his rented Chevrolet.

His own car, a 1987 royal blue Camaro he treated like a child, remains crushed under the rubble of his apartment building.

Considering that he lived across the parking lot from the deadly Northridge Meadows apartment complex, he considers himself lucky.

But considering that he stopped all training for a month after the earthquake while searching for a place to live, and now runs only two to three miles a day, he knows there are more aches in his future.

“The marathon is going to be painful for me,” Callahan said. “About halfway through the race, I’m really going to start hurting. This is going to take me more than six hours, I am sure.”

Callahan, 35, might have made the decision to remain in the marathon while riding his bike through damaged Northridge streets on the morning of the quake.

He came upon a section of a street that had cracked and burst into flames. Sitting on that crack was the burned-out shell of a car.

“I thought to myself, ‘Man, I’m alive,’ ” Callahan said. “And now I’m going to live out my commitment.”

*

Les Spitza’s commitment was to more than just himself.

Spitza, 47, a supervisor at the Crippled Children’s Society, was cheering runners at Mile 3 last year when a retarded, deaf friend approached. “He said he wanted to walk next year, and I said, ‘Fine, I’ll walk with you,’ ” Spitza recalled. “People heard about it, and pretty soon, 13 or 14 individuals signed up to go with me.”

What they may not have heard is that their leader is still recovering from the memories of kicking down a door and rescuing his daughter on the morning of the quake.

The 5-foot-7, 230-pound Spitza is also recovering from late-night meals following aftershocks. “For a long time, after every night tremor, I couldn’t sleep,” he said. “I would get up and go into the kitchen for something to eat. I was thinking like, that may be my last meal.

“I admit, I have thought about calling it off,” said Spitza, his voice rising. “But I don’t want to disappoint all these people. I just will not let this earthquake keep interfering with my life.”

*

Juanesta Holmes knew her life had been disrupted the moment she looked up from behind her bed in Northridge on the morning of Jan. 17. Instead of a bedroom wall, she saw a parking lot.

Holmes had planned to get up in an hour and drive to Venice Beach for her usual run. She didn’t make that drive for another 12 days.

“Running is a mental game, and with all that was happening, I just couldn’t bring myself to go out there,” she said. “I was just a nervous wreck.”

She is still living in three places. The only way to reach her is via electronic voice mail. There are times she still doesn’t want to be alone.

But, she will have plenty of company Sunday. Not merely from the thousands of runners and spectators, but also the hopes of thousands of earthquake victims still searching for ways to cope.

“When I’m done with this, I’m still not going to have a place to live,” she said, pausing. “But I will have accomplished something.”

The tone in her voice made it clear which she considered more important.