A busy weekend was well worth it for Southeast Missouri State University first-year cross country and assistant track coach Eric Heins.

Heins put in plenty of time Friday and Saturday coaching Southeast's athletes and helping with various aspects of the meet during the school's 23rd annual Gatorade Classic.

After the meet was over, he drove to St. Louis Saturday night -- and Sunday morning he romped to victory in the St. Louis Marathon, finishing the 26.2 miles in 2:25:42 and winning by more than seven minutes.

"It was pretty busy, but the fact we had a home meet really allowed me to go up there the night before and get ready," he said.

Heins, 26, is a former collegiate standout who specialized in distance events at the University of Cincinnati. He began to dabble in marathons several years ago but said he took about two years off before competing again Sunday.

"It had been a while," said Heins, who had been training for this marathon since January.

Heins, who was competing in his fourth marathon but had never previously won, was fairly confident of a victory after seeing last year's winning time. But never did he expect to finish so fast.

"I looked at the results from last year and it didn't really surprise me that I won since the best time was like 2:40," he said. "But I was kind of surprised with my time. When I first started, my goal had been to run about 2:26, but I thought it might be hard since nobody really pushed me. It was a three-minute PR for me, so I was pretty happy."

Heins, a native of Zanesville, Ohio, who was an assistant coach at Northern Arizona before coming to Southeast prior to the cross country season last fall, wants to continue with marathoning to see if he can qualify for the Olympic marathon trials in 2008.

"That's my goal," he said.