Mike Rouse plans to park his Lexus near the Mission Bay information center early this morning. In the trunk, a cooler will be packed with sandwiches, chips, cookies, Gatorade and water.

This, though, will be no picnic.

Rouse turns 56 today. To celebrate, the Clairemont resident will jog 56 miles, running seven 8-mile loops around the bay. Rouse started the run-your-age birthday tradition when he turned 35 and has failed to maintain it just once.

In 2005, trying to load a 1,200-pound steer into a trailer, the steer stomped on his left foot, breaking two bones, plus exacting ligament and tendon damage.

CHRIS BOHANNON Clairemont resident Mike Rouse, who turns 56 today, is celebrating his birthday by jogging 56 miles around Mission Bay.

“I'm going to do it 'til I can't do it anymore,” Rouse said of his birthday custom. “That day will come, obviously. But it's not now.”

Of all places, the first step in Rouse's running fixation unfolded in a prison yard. Convicted of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine in 1985, he was incarcerated at an Oklahoma minimum-security federal prison for nearly 14 months.

A one-time collegiate golfer and top amateur tennis player, Rouse said he had a “huge” cocaine habit for three years. He is 6 feet tall and normally weighed 150 pounds in the '80s. When he was imprisoned, he weighed 125.

“I didn't want to sit there and waste my life away,” Rouse said. “I might as well get my health back.”

Rouse thought he'd start with a three-mile run.

“I ran a quarter-mile and thought my heart was going to explode,” he said. “I had to stop and walk.”

By the time Rouse was released in February 1987, his run was up to 10 miles. That December, he ran his first marathon.

A Texan by birth who talks fast, runs long and says he admits he lives life all out, Rouse is not reluctant to talk about his checkered past.

“I'm an open book,” he said.

His cocaine addiction started when he was depressed after going through a divorce. He said he probably never would have started running had he not been imprisoned.

Now, his life revolves around it. The director of sales for Vista-based Zoot Sports, which specializes in multi-sport apparel, Rouse has worked in the running-shoe industry for 20 years. He met his wife, Kim, a world-class amateur triathlete, via running. A tattoo of a runner graces the inside of his left ankle.

His racing log: more than 200 marathons and 17 100-milers, plus three finishes in the Ultraman triathlon in Kona, Hawaii. The three-day triathlon breaks down as follows: Day 1, a 6.2-mile swim and 90-mile bike; Day 2, a 171.4-mile bike; Day 3, a 52-mile run.

Asked what moves him to push the endurance envelope to mind-numbing distances, Rouse paused for a long time, gazing outside a coffee-shop window.

“I just have this internal drive to do what I've set my mind to,” he said. “It probably sounds somewhat egotistical, but I thrive on being able to do what no one else can do.

“People have done things I can't do or I haven't done. Speed-wise, I'm not the fastest guy in the world. But if it just comes to endurance, for my age, I want to think nobody can do what I can.”

Being incarcerated left Rouse wanting to help others less fortunate than himself. He started a nonprofit corporation that helped ex-convicts integrate into society.

In the 1990s, Rouse created another nonprofit that helped Iraqi Kurds become assimilated in Dallas.

“What makes me so special that I was born in America to a middle-income family?” he said. “And these people, through no choice, were born in the mountains of Iraq with a dictator who wanted to kill them?”

As to how his body withstands the rigors of his endurance feats, Rouse said genetics, listening to body and wearing thin-soled running shoes play factors. (He thinks foot muscles develop better by wearing thin-soled shoes.)

He said the influence of his late father, a successful home builder, played a role in his can-do attitude. Rouse remembers a couple years ago when he was sitting at his father's home, watching a Dallas Cowboys game.

Reuben, then in his late 70s, couldn't understand how Emmitt Smith failed to escape an open-field tackle.

“I wouldn't have been brought down,” Reuben said.

Said Rouse, “He meant it. And he didn't mean when he was in his prime. He meant right then, in his 70s, the guy couldn't tackle him.”

Which reminds Kim Rouse of a story. Husband and wife were vacationing in Kona, Hawaii, when Mike noticed the sign on Alii Drive that designates the start and finish of Ironman Hawaii.

“Kimmie, I'm going to do this one day,” Mike said.

“Yeah,” she replied. “you can't even swim across a pool and don't even own a bike.”

Less than eight months later, Rouse, stepping outside his running comfort zone, completed his first Ironman.

Memorial tribute

A tribute to honor Barbara Warren will be held 4 p.m. Sunday at the Mission Bay Hilton hotel. A renowned local endurance athlete, Warren died in August, after being left paralyzed by injuries suffered in a bike crash. She was 65.

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Don Norcross: (619) 293-1803; don.norcross@uniontrib.com