SEATTLE — It’s been two years since a heart attack opened Kingston resident Marc Sather’s eyes to the grim possibilities of a lack of activity. Rather than stew about the decline, Sather got back up on his bicycle.

Last weekend, Sather, 47, who recently got back into cycling after a post-college hiatus, joined a mass of 9,000 men, women and children who biked 202.25 miles from the Emerald City to the City of Roses as part of the 27th annual Group Health Seattle to Portland Bicycle Classic.

“I have two boys ages 6 and 8 years old and the heart attack made me realize that I need to take care of myself in order to see and help them grow up,” Sather said of his sons Tor and Haden. “The STP creates a goal for me and motivates me to keep in good shape.”

The 2006 event marked Sather’s third year riding in the Classic, which sends cyclers down the length of Western Washington before crossing the Columbia, and entering Portland.

“This year was even bigger,” said Carry Porter, marketing director for the Cascade Bicycle Club which helps run the event. “Folks come from everywhere for this ride.”

Riders came from across the United States along with a select few from foreign countries for what Bicycling Magazine designated as one of the most prestigious bicycle tours in America. The STP Classic is also the largest bicycle tour in the Northwest, according to the CBC.

Participants came from far reaches with many different incentives for taking on the challenge. Before the tour July 14, Sather said his motivation was clearly set on finishing the 200-mile trek in a single day.

In his first whack at the feat in 2004, Sather couldn’t meet the finish line before the moon met the sky. Then two months later he suffered a heart attack. In 2005, he was miraculously back in the pack, but once again he fell short of his time frame goal.

“This year, I am hoping my heart is in tip-top shape, and I will cruise into Portland in one day with a healthy heart,” Sather said before the race.

Though his healthy heart carried him from the Puget Sound to the Columbia River in 2006, Sather still could not complete his self-directed feat.

“I was so darn close, I just couldn’t manage those last 50 miles,” he said.

Sather trekked along with the 9,000 other riders being dispersed in groups of 10 from the University District in Seattle down past Kelso on a route that slithered the Interstate 5 corridor. Sather made it across the Oregon border before he ran out of gas.

Refueled on the morning of July 16, he rolled into Portland with a smile.

“Riding all that way makes that beer taste extra great,” Sather said, noting the celebratory Mack and Jack’s Amber Ale he gulped with pride upon his arrival. “About three quarters of the way through I was thinking, ‘This is the last time I’m doing this,’ … then at the end it is all worth it.”

When Sather’s wife Karen arrived in Portland to shuttle Marc back to Kingston, she offered him words of wisdom which no one who just finished riding 12 hours, sitting on what sometimes seems like a two-by-four on it’s end wants to hear … “Maybe next year,” she said.

“She always says that,” Marc said.

Regardless, Sather said his plans are already in the works for the STP Classic in 2007. He even started out right Monday morning, biking a 65-mile round trip commuter trip to Redmond with the mantra echoing in his mind, maybe next year.