Fast Couple -- Duprel, Carpenter Trying To Keep Date With Greatness

How to describe the relationship between Renee Duprel and Ken Carpenter . . .

They're dating - but not often. And they're not seeing each other - much.

They are together. But only for a week this time. Even that will provide little quality time.

Then they part again. For different parts of the world.

Describing the relationship may be easier than keeping it together.

"It's working real well. We spend the racing season apart," Duprel said. "Then you just focus on yourself.

"When it comes to racing, you have to be pretty selfish, unfortunately."

They are two of America's top match sprint cyclists, perhaps the most talented couple in the sport. That means they are a couple that must often be apart, spending most of the year speeding around bicycle tracks in different parts of the world.

They know it must be that way. Which may be why they are together - sort of - after four years.

"I can't imagine anyone understanding me the way she does," Carpenter said of his girlfriend.

The depth of Duprel's understanding will be tested this week during the U.S. track cycling championships, which open tonight at 7, at Redmond's Marymoor Velodrome. Carpenter is staying at the Duprel house in Bellevue during the weeklong nationals.

"She's a little more easy going before a competition. I get to be a bit of a grouchy bear," Carpenter said. "She definitely puts up with me more than the other way around."

One of the few things that challenges their relationship more than being apart for most of the year is being together during the racing season.

"It's really hard because we're both sprinters, and we have the exact same competition. We're under stress at the exact same time of the year," Duprel said. "And we worry about each other. I guess it's because you feel helpless. When you watch somebody else ride, you can't do anything."

So there is relief in distance. And there is a lot of distance in their training and competition schedules.

Duprel, a graduate of Forest Ridge High School in Bellevue, lives and trains in Trexlertown, Pa., during the racing season, while Carpenter sticks to the San Diego area, where he grew up.

"It's worked out pretty good the last couple of years," Duprel said. "Like this year in Europe, his team went for six weeks, and mine went for only one week. He prefers to be in San Diego, and I have a couple of coaches I work with out there (in Trexlertown). think it works out well for both of us."

Said Carpenter: "For competition, it's better to be apart. However, there are times I miss her greatly. . . .. You have to make so many sacrifices for the sport."

If success on the track is the payoff for the sacrifices, the Carpenter-Duprel partnership has formed a booming business.

Carpenter, 26, is a heavy favorite to win his fourth straight men's national sprint cycling championship. He took third in the Goodwill Games sprint championships, and he was a member of the 1988 Olympic team.

Duprel, 24, won her first national sprint title last year (although six-time champ Connie Paraskevin-Young didn't compete), and finished second to Young in the world competition, losing by inches in the third of their best-of-three matches. Duprel also was third in last year's Goodwill Games and second to Young in the '89 nationals at Marymoor.

This week is the second time in three months they have been together. And there is little time for togetherness.

"When we get out to the track, we do our own thing," Duprel said. "It's not like we try to ignore each other, but you have to get ready. You have to prepare for the event."

Said Carpenter: "Any traveling now at this point is all business. Anytime you go anywhere it's for competition."

The reprieve from their near-constant separation comes in the fall when Duprel moves to San Diego, attends San Diego Community College and spends time with Carpenter mountain biking, weightlifting and practicing.

When it comes to spending "quality time" together, Duprel and Carpenter are different from most couples. "We go out to the track and time each other," Duprel said.

U.S. CYCLING CHAMPIONSHIPS -- WHAT - Six-day track cycling competition serving as selection trials for Pan-Am Games and World Championships.

-- WHEN/WHERE - Tonight through Sunday, Marymoor Park Velodrome, Redmond. Tonight's competition begins at 7.

-- SCHEDULE - Tonight, 7 p.m. for men's kilometer time-trial final; kierin exhibition; tomorrow, 9 a.m. men's sprint qualifying, pursuit quarter-finals for men and women and second round of men's sprint; Thursday, 10 a.m. Pursuit semifinals for men and women; sprint qualifying for women; men's sprint quarterfinals; 7 p.m., pursuit finals for men and women; men's sprint semifinals and second round for women's sprint; Friday, 10 a.m., quarterfinals for women's sprint, tandem-sprint and team-pursuit qualifying; 7 p.m., finals for men's sprint, women's point race, team pursuit and women's sprint semi-finals; Saturday, 7 p.m., finals for women's sprint, men's point race, team pursuit; Sunday, 6 p.m. finals for tandem sprint, Madison.

-- LEGEND - Women: sprint (best-of-three, two-lap match races), kilometer time trial (individuals take turns racing one kilometer against the clock), individual pursuit (3,000-meter match race in which rider starts opposite her opponent on the track and then tries to gain on her), points race (as many as 50 riders sprint for points every five laps over prescribed distance). Men: sprint, kilometer time trial, individual pursuit (4,000 meters), points race, team pursuit (same as individual pursuit, but contested by four-rider teams), madison (two-rider, tag-team-like points race), tandem sprint (best-of-three, four-lap match races using two-man tandem bicycles), exhibition kierin (popular in Japan, mass field is paced by motorcycle, which accelerates until pulling off track to allow riders to sprint to finish).

-- TOP RIDERS - Men: Ken Carpenter, U.S. sprint champion; Erin Hartwell, U.S. kilometer champ; Marty Nothstein and Paul Swift, national tandem sprint champs; Jim Pollak, Goodwill Games points champ and national points champ. Women: Bellevue native Renee Duprel, national sprint champ; Connie Paraskevin-Young, world sprint champ; Karen Bliss, national points champ; Dede Demet, junior world road champ; Janie Eickhoff, Goodwill Games pursuit champ and national pursuit and points champ.

-- TICKETS - $5 children; $7 general admission; $12 reserved. Details, 389-5825.