A very sore Dan Sholesinges hobbled into section meeting of one his Law School classes on Tuesday. Three well-prepared classmates and a professor were discussing the students' upcoming oral arguments Schiesinges sar, silent.

"Dan," the professor asked, "What are your ideas?"

"I have none," he said. He tried to explain. "I haven't had much time. I've been rather preoccupied."

Dan Schlesinger did have one idea--one distant dream--for a long time. It preoccupied him. It took up hours of his time. Schlesinger wanted to be a great runner. And last Sunday, the first-year Law School student saw his dream come true when he beat almost 15,000 runners, to take third place in the New York City Marathon.

Though Schlesinger, a Yale graduate, is so newcomer to the sport of long-distance running, his 2:11:54 third-place finish was the biggest surprise in the largest marathon the world.

ABC commentator Marty Liquori reportedly told the millions watching the nationally televised event: "If you think you have heard of Dan Schlesinger, think again."

But more surprised than Liquori or any of the race's spectators was Schlesinger himself. "I didn't expect to do nearly as well as I wound up doing," he recalls Schlesinger ran for most of the race with the leading pack of 20 or 30 runners. He maintained his pace in the final miles, while others dropped off.

"I will have in the back of my mind the flickering thought I may be able to chase Salazar further."

At about 23 miles, he recalls, "I was nearing Central Park [the race's finish-line] and there I was, running alone, and I was really confused."

New Yor was only Schilesinger's third marathon, and be was shoched to find himself to high to the field with only two miles to go "My worry at this point," Be smiles, "was that I would trip, or that I would be stunned by some unexpected, spontaneous sort of caratclism made me over which I had no control".

But Schlesinger stayed on his feet for the final miles, maintaining the third position, and enjoying what he remembers as "arguably the best feeling of my life."

That's saying a lot, coming from this soft-spoken Raleigh, N.C. resident. Dan Schlesinger has experienced quite a bit in his 27 years. After graduating summa cum laude from Yale in 1977, he studied Japanese language and culture at Oxford for three years as a Marshall scholar.

For the last two years, he worked in a Seoul, South Korea law firm, translating documents from Korean to English. And through all of it--since he was 12 years old--he has run.

Always a highly competitive and dedicated athlete, Schlesinger received little recognition for his efforts before last Sunday. But his list of accomplishments on the road and the track is an impressive one. As a Yale freshman, Schlesinger broke 1972 Olympic marathon champion Frank Shorter's school record for the six-mile event. In his senior year, he took first in the 5000 meter race at the Harvard, Yale Oxford, Cambridge meet Two years later, as an Oxford student, he won the same race.

While he was in Korea, Schlesinger let competitive running slide for a while, until last March, when the first International Seoul Marathon was held. "I thought 'This is it, Dan, this is your last chance to run a marathon,'" he recalls. So the lanky 5-foot-10 130-pound runner dedicated four months to an intensive training schedule, running 10 miles twice a day and 15 to 20 mile jaunts on Sundays.