Great lady. Great athlete. Estimable human being. An excerpt from critically acclaimed, non-bestselling When Running Was Young And So Were We. Available on Amazon and most surviving bookstores. Track & Field News, early 1988. – JDW
Lynn Jennings seems to be a runner of the old school. I don’t mean Princeton, from which she graduated in ’83 with a degree in history. I don’t mean high school, where she was three-time Massachusetts cross-country champion.
I mean she reminds me of a saner time in this sport, when improvement was more important than a shoe endorsement, when running was not a social phenomenon, when Doris Brown could beat anyone in the world.
The greatest cross-country runner in America today (Pat Porter aside), Lynn Jennings races the roads like Bo Jackson plays football – it’s a hobby.
“I want to be a track runner,” Jennings states. “That’s who I am.”
Jennings’ periodic forays on the road have been successful enough to rank her No. 1 in the U.S. “If I run four or five road races a year and I beat up on people,” Jennings points out, “you seem to think that’s enough.”
It must be more than enough for her competitors. Jennings doesn’t race often, but she does race year-round.
“I’m very selective, but I run track, road and cross-country,” explains Jennings. “If I wanted to make money, I wouldn’t run cross-country. I do it because I love it. It’s a labor of love.”
What Jennings appears to love most about running is improvement. Her goals for 1988 are simple – “stay healthy and improve.” She’s looking for personal records at every distance from 1500m – 10k. With a 4:10 best in the metric mile, Jennings knows she must become quicker to go faster.
“It’s not good enough to break 32 [for 10k],” she says. “To be competitive at a world-class level, my times at the shorter distances have to come down. Those Europeans are great at all distances.”
After finishing 6th at the World Championships, Jennings has some sense of what it might take to win a 10k medal at Seoul. She learned a lesson at Rome.
“There comes a point in an intense distance race where you have to make a decision,” she notes, “and I made the wrong decision. And I know why. First, I had no idea what pace I was running. I thought I was running 33:00 and I was discouraged. Secondly, it was an error.”
The next time the lead pack tries to pull away from Jennings, she’s going right with them.
“I’ve learned,” Jennings confides, recalling Ingrid Kristiansen’s back growing smaller. “It’s just so rare to run a top quality 10k with women. It’s a different feeling racing with traffic all around you all the time.”
Jennings learned something else at the ’87 World Championships. “I learned I could run a 10k on Monday morning,” she says, “in hot weather, and come back four days later to run another quality 10k. That experience will be invaluable this year.”
This year is an Olympic year, and Jennings knows her options are many. “The 3000 looks wide open. Too bad there’s not a 5k. I think the 10k is wide open, to be honest… in an Olympic year, everything is wide open.”
One of the reasons, one of the main reasons for such wide open spaces, is the intensity and dedication required to fulfill the Olympic dream. It don’t come easy.
Jennings has a plan. “I spent nine months getting ready for that one day last year, the World Championships,” she explains, in a tone that makes you believe she gave it her best shot. “I made some mistakes, but I know where I can improve.”
Jennings doesn’t rely too much on the watch. (“Because then you start questioning yourself.”) She sets up a schedule, plans where she wants to be, then improvises as she goes.
“I play with my own ideas,” she says. “I’m self-coached and I train alone. And I’m definitely woman enough to take two easy days in a row if my body requires it.”
Jennings definitely makes sense. She has no plans to run a marathon. “I ran Boston in high school,” she remembers, as if speaking about another life. “I feel I have plenty of time. Maybe when I’m 32 or something like that. I haven’t even begun to achieve what I want to yet on the track.”
Jennings begins to achieve each time she slips on her running shoes. That marathon back in 1978, no more than a childhood lark, was a 2:45. Gives one pause.
Today, Jennings is still much the child. She’s queen of the gang in her neighborhood, one of the guys on a street lined with the homes of numerous first-graders.
“I consider myself very young athletically,” Jennings offers. “I didn’t really have a collegiate career in the sense of scoring points in major meets. I’m still a neophyte.”
Jennings uses words like that. Still much the woman, she points out that “improvement is definitely the runner’s aphrodisiac.”
There’s that word again. No, the other one, spike-breath! “Improvement.” Jennings seems to use it more than an egomaniac uses the first-person pronoun.
She finished out of the money at the ’84 Trials. What’s the difference in her ability today? “Light years.”
Jennings continues. “First and foremost, I wasn’t fit… I deserved everything I got. That’s why I’m a very hungry athlete, very hungry.”
A vegetarian, Jennings points out that in the last four years she has “worked on everything I can work on… mental fitness and physical fitness and all the parameters in between.”
So, what about Ingrid and what about the next time the World Champion makes her break?
“I will race very aggressively,” Jennings says slowly in a voice that reminds me of Gary Cooper in High Noon. Next time I’m gonna go. And I am going to prepare myself for that specific eventuality. When it comes time to do it in the Big Banana, I’ll be ready for it.”
Jennings will get ready by finding competition that demands her best, even when she doesn’t know what that is. “I can find that competition at 3000m. And I’m planning on racing some 1500s. There are plenty of people in this country who can outrun me…” – she pauses to correct herself – “who have better 1000m times than mine. I plan on finding those people and racing guts-out.”
It’s a simple philosophy. No secret formulae. Consistency, discipline, quality mileage in the mid-60 range weekly. In her own words: “There’s no masseuse, there’s no psychologist, there’s no handmaiden to carry the spikes. There’s no Team Jennings.”
It’s as simple as can be for Lynn Jennings. She gives no quarter and she asks for none in return.
“I let everyone do what they want and when they show up at the starting line, I race ’em.”
Just like the old days.
Soon thereafter I received a handwritten note…
7 March 1988
Jack,
Silly me. I had assumed all along that women had the perceptiveness market all to themselves. You’ve forced me to change my opinion.
Thank you for a flattering and honestly written story. I feel honored.
Lynn
