These are the Wild Dog days of summer, fully occupied by the obligation to watch all nine heats of the Women’s 200m. No time to start something new. Seems I was having a similar problem a year ago. When the Oregon Project’s coach came under scrutiny. – JDW
Searching for something to get me started. I have writer’s block, I think. Working on it. But that’s another story.
Maybe I can find something needs reworked. Even better doesn’t need reworked. Anything.
Still looking for the first chapter of that running novel I started twenty years ago. I somehow manage to package disorganization, procrastination and fear into the perfect useless old clod. But I am deaf to such negative self-talk. So, I struggle like an old runner, slow and stiff. But always forward. And in so doing, I come across this historic nugget in one of my reports in Track & Field News. I’m thinking 1991.
Alberto Salazar ran 23:26 to win the Nordstrom 8K (Portland, August 11). Greg Hitchcock finished 2nd at 23:37.
Salazar, retired at age 33 from the restaurant business, is back to being a full-time runner. His goal? A berth on the 1992 U.S. Olympic team in the 10,000m. He sees no sense whatsoever in running a marathon in hot weather.
In a conversation with The Oregonian’s Abby Haight, Salazar confirmed a reorganization of priorities. “I would rather watch my kids playing soccer on a Saturday morning with a cup of coffee in my hand, than be at the track.”
Salazar seems to have put things in perspective. “Things happen. I was on top of the world. I was the best,” the man says, and rightfully so. “And then I wasn’t the best. And I actually was happiest when I wasn’t the best.”
It’s always good to see a great one back in the winner’s circle again
Me and Alberto Salazar must go back at least 37 years. We have flown in little airplanes together. We have run alongside each other. I was in New York when he dusted Rodolfo Gomez in the Marathon. First time I ever had Cobb salad was in his restaurant. We rode together in the same big white van as he coached the Nike Hood-to-Coast relay team to a record-setting victory. Last I looked, that record stands today. Never saw any drug more stimulating and performance enhancing than a cup of coffee. Okay, maybe a Chai Latte, but that’s it, I swear.
Am I going fast enough for you, Alberto?
Alberto Salazar is – Benoit, Decker-Slaney, Prefontaine, too – in the chapter “The Greatest” in When Running Was Young & So Were We. On sale today at https://www.amazon.com/When-Running-Was-Young-Were/dp/1909457167/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1471277576&sr=1-1&keywords=when+running+was+young+and+so+were+we
And when folks ask me about the book, one of the questions I most often get is “Why those four?” None of my older buddies ask me that, of course. Just the new folks. But originally, I never really gave that question much thought. That quartet was obvious to me. They seemed to push the hardest.
And I came across this, or something like this.
I am running alone, just knowing any minute now those fast kids real speedy but still behind me are going to come scampering past, they have no mercy and frankly their talent is scary. I can hear their footsteps and so I accelerate and when I hit a turn, I surge, trying to get away, trying until I can’t really try any more all I can do to hold this pace, which is too fast. I can hear their footsteps, so finally I work up the courage to turn around and see how many of them there are.
And there is no one there.