Ex-Running Star Hulst Dies at 34 : Track: Former standout at Laguna Beach High had brain cancer.

Eric Hulst, one of the best high school distance runners in Southern California history, died Sunday at Newport Beach after a yearlong battle with brain cancer. He was 34.

Hulst, a track and cross-country star while at Laguna Beach High in the mid-1970s, experienced a brief remission earlier this year, enabling him to run up to five miles a day, more than he had run since a knee injury ended his career more than a decade ago.

But his health declined sharply in recent weeks, said his mother, Sharon.

He died at 9:30 Sunday morning with his mother and his sister, Heidi, at his side.

“His passing was very gentle,” Sharon Hulst said. “Just as he was.”

Hulst’s best time, 8 minutes 44.6 seconds, while he was a senior in 1976, ranks Hulst as the sixth-fastest prep two-miler in U.S. history. Hulst’s tenacity, his rivals said, was what made him special.

Hulst, they said, didn’t run for trophies or headlines, but rather for the simple pleasure of seeing how far and fast his body could go. And, even in recent years, he could never understand why other runners, some he didn’t even know, came up to shake his hand.

“He was just pure that way,” said Ralph Serna, a top rival of Hulst’s while at Loara High, and later a teammate at UC Irvine. “It wasn’t for the glory or the records. It was just for the love of running.”

As a freshman at Laguna Beach, Hulst decided to run cross-country to get in shape for tennis, his first love. But he became a running sensation almost overnight.

Hulst ran 9:04.4 for two miles as a freshman, 8:50.6 as a sophomore, and 8:44.9 as a junior. All stand as national class records today. He won three Southern Section cross-country titles, and the world cross-country championship for juniors--19 and under--in 1976.

His training sometimes brought him as much notoriety as his racing. Hulst ran up to 130 miles a week, sometimes while wearing a lead vest or carrying four-pound hand weights he made himself.

“I think Eric was the most prolific high school runner I ever saw,” said Len Miller, who coached Hulst in his early years at Laguna and later at Irvine.

But in college, a knee injury, along with an increasing lack of interest in academics, led Hulst to drop out after his sophomore year. Years later, he reflected on the abrupt finish to his career without bitterness. He developed other interests, such as photography and working with stained glass. He rode his bicycle, sometimes 100 miles in one day.

“Athletes need to understand there are other things,” he said.

A memorial service will be held June 30 at Mariners Church in Newport Beach. The service, at 4 p.m., will be open to the public.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that those wishing to donate do so through the Laguna Beach High School Foundation, care of Laguna Beach High School, 625 Park Ave., Laguna Beach, 92651.