Normal for httpd processes to be running for 10+ minutes?

Hi:
I'm trying to track down why the server load would climb all of a sudden until it crashes, with a reboot fixing things immediately for a few hours (until same thing again). Firstly, it is normal for a httpd proccess to be running several minutes, like 10+? For a normal HTML based site, shouldn't httpd processes only last for a few seconds? For example, here is a "top" I ran while the load is higher than normal (sorted by total run time):
Code: 
top - 02:42:14 up  9:18,  4 users,  load average: 0.57, 0.49, 0.29
Tasks: 194 total,   1 running, 193 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
Cpu(s): 31.9% us,  4.0% sy,  0.0% ni, 63.8% id,  0.0% wa,  0.3% hi,  0.0% si
Mem:   1003356k total,   832572k used,   170784k free,   102296k buffers
Swap:  5116692k total,        0k used,  5116692k free,   208396k cached

  PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND
 2626 nobody    15   0 22080 9.9m 5492 S  6.0  1.0   0:11.28 httpd
 2769 nobody    16   0 22060   9m 5560 S  6.0  1.0   0:09.54 httpd
 2621 nobody    16   0 22140  10m 5524 S  5.6  1.0   0:13.76 httpd
 2633 nobody    15   0 22444  10m 5556 S  5.0  1.1   0:18.57 httpd
10256 nobody    15   0 22104 9.9m 5508 S  2.3  1.0   0:04.31 httpd
 2723 nobody    15   0 22048 9.9m 5492 S  2.0  1.0   0:11.65 httpd
11725 nobody    15   0 22160   9m 5488 S  1.7  1.0   0:06.41 httpd
24476 nobody    15   0 22008 9.8m 5484 S  1.7  1.0   0:02.22 httpd
 3803 root      16   0  4800  900  620 S  0.7  0.1   2:26.11 watch
    3 root       5 -10     0    0    0 S  0.3  0.0   0:01.32 events/0
 2627 nobody    15   0 21960 9.8m 5492 S  0.3  1.0   0:08.37 httpd
 2906 mysql     15   0 32952  13m 2072 S  0.3  1.3   0:55.97 mysqld
 3752 root      16   0  3520  992  728 S  0.3  0.1   1:27.02 top
    1 root      16   0  2512  460  392 S  0.0  0.0   0:30.00 init
    2 root      34  19     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 ksoftirqd/0
    4 root      12 -10     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 khelper
   16 root      15 -10     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kacpid
   83 root       5 -10     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.07 kblockd/0
   91 root      15   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 khubd
  147 root      20   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 pdflush
  148 root      15   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.01 pdflush
Just wondering if the problem might be runaway processes by looking at the above...

 

 

 

 

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