Marc was generous with his time and his mind and his mouth.
His heart showed, too.
From that book I wrote. – JDW
In The Words of Marc Davis (Honolulu 12/10/94)
[Age 25 on December 17, 1994. Originally hailed from Oceanside, California, Home of Camp Pendleton, Northern beach towns of San Diego, went to high school in downtown San Diego. College at University of Arizona. 9/87-5/92. Redshirted 1990 track season after fracturing his foot in the 1989 Pac-10 cross-country championships.]
College started extremely slow. A big wake-up call as far as training and taking on 10,000 meter cross-country instead of 5000 meter. Just being away from home, experiencing new friends, new things to do. Doing whatever the heck I wanted to do. Beer. Staying out. Dancing four nights a week. Worrying about that more than my running and school. [He grabs his throat in a choking gesture.]
My sophomore year, things started to come around. Out of the blue, 19-years-old, I ran 13:32. Went on to win the NCAA’s that year as a 19-year-old sophomore. So, things started to pick up. Unfortunately, in the fall, when everything was starting to come around, I was crushing course records in cross-country, I end up breaking my foot.
The next two to three years was constant nagging injuries, trying to get back into shape. Every time I would get back, it was with reckless abandonment, and usually severe shin splint problems, ankle problems, knee problems.
Finally, everything seemed to come together my fifth, my senior year, my last track season during the spring. I only had one class I had to take to keep eligibility and to graduate, a perfect time to concentrate on my training. Ended up winning the NCAAs in the steeplechase.
No injuries at all in high school, I hardly trained. If it was raining, I wouldn’t run. Even if it stopped ten minutes later, I would just blow off the day. I was doing 20-30 miles per week tops.
[Tape interview breaks off here because I rerecorded over it accidently. Topic had been Davis’ post-collegiate career and 1994, the season.]
Four nights later, came out and ran the steeplechase in Zurich, the meet of the summer, and I ran a race people haven’t seen happen in a long time, where four Kenyans went out and I went after them. I mean, I didn’t care who the hell they were. I didn’t care who Moses Kiptanui was, who was in the race, Julius Kariuki, William Mutwol, I don’t care who these guys are, I went after them. I’m not going to sit back and trying to reel them in, because they ain’t coming back to you. These guys aren’t going to fade. They outkicked me the last 200, but I don’t care. I got 4th place. I ran 8:14. I was on a roll. That was a great high right there.
So I go to Monaco, three nights later after that, and jump into a 3000m flat. Again, I’m a steeplechaser, what am I doing running 3000m flat? I don’t give a crap. I go out with them. Go out in 4 minutes the first mile, and just keep holding on. I run 7:38. My PR was 7:45 or something, even that was a major PR from a 7:57 earlier in the season. Within that one week I had just crushed my PRs as much as six seconds in every single race. This was July 29-August 6, 1993.
I got to calm down for two weeks after that until the World Championships in Stuttgart. It was good, I just went out there. Pow! Pow! Pow! Ran three good races and relaxed going into the WC.
The World Championships were an awful experience. My heat, first heat, not too bad of a heat. Got in there, running really well, Brooks Johnson talks to me a lot still, him and I are still really good friends. He’s telling me before the race, stay out of the way, stay out of the way, run in lane three if you have to, just stay the hell out of the way. I’m in lane three the whole race. The one barrier that’s on a curve, every other barrier is basically on a straight away, even the water barrier is straight, you jump over it, then the track curves.
The one barrier on a curve, a guy from England decides he wants to kiss the track, he does a complete somersault and – to be technical – the centrifugal force of his body throws him out into lane 3 or 4 and so I’m trying to step out of his way and he just sticks his arms as he’s flaring out into my legs like a stick in a bicycle wheel. And I do a tumble that was just ugly. I rolled about 6 or 7 times.
I got up, I almost ran the other way. I’m down 50m from last place with less than a thousand meters to go, 900m to go in the race. I didn’t hurt myself luckily. A good army roll. I’m going, Ohmigod, I just lost everything with hardly any time left, so I just sprint like crazy the next 300m and I get into 5th place. I know top 4 goes. I can see the guy in 4th place, he knows he’s in 4th place, he knows I went down, he knows I’m coming on him.
I’m just kicking like crazy, but I couldn’t catch him because I had just killed myself to get back up to that point. Got in 5th. Sat around, waited for the other heats. They take the top 4 times from 3 heats, plus the next 4 fastest finishers. 16 to run in the final, Sure enough I am 17th person on the list. I’m devastated, I’m just absolutely destroyed. I could not believe it. I mean, I didn’t do anything wrong, why am I being punished like this?
So, we protest, we protest, we protest, two hours later, boom, I get accepted into the final. My mind is trashed, my body is trashed. There’s no way in hell I’m going to do anything in the final, so sure enough, I get in the final. I go out with the guys, 1000m into it I just fall apart, I just kinda finish, get like 10th or 11th. I destroy my world ranking, I had, like, the 7th fastest time in the world, I don’t even get ranked top ten. Run a pathetic time, I am absolutely destroyed.
I tried to make it up by going to a steeple in Berlin and hopefully finish the season right, get some of that back, but again in Berlin, I’m just absolutely wasted, mentally I’m destroyed. I go out and run another terrible race. I had another race set up and I told my agent, forget it, I’m going home. Tuck my tail between my legs and get out of there before I hurt myself any more. I’ve learned it’s better to not run in a race in Europe, better to pull out than to race bad. A tough ending to a season that started off as an explosion.
I learned a lot. I partied a lot when I was over in Europe. After the Monaco race, I was out until 3 o’clock in the morning, drinking, diving into the Mediterranean buck-naked. Still reckless abandonment. I was still real young, didn’t know what was going on, still wasn’t realizing what I had and what I could do, so I wasn’t doing it properly. That was probably another reason I was tired when I got to Worlds. I was partying, whooping it up, enjoying the limelight, all the attention, the money.
Fall ’93. Didn’t really do much, took a lot of time off coming back. About a month after my return, I started developing a knee injury that had actually begun back in ’91 NCAA cross-country in Knoxville, Tennessee where I dropped out. Again a real big nagging injury when I was trying to come back from that broken foot. Loose cartilage maybe.
Major pain, major pain. I go and run for the U.S. team in the Eikiden in Chiba. Run a great leg, absolutely great 5k leg off of hardly any training. Soon as I got back to the States, I could barely walk. My leg’s destroyed. I go see a couple people. Sure enough, we got to go in and do a scope. They go in there and find out they actually have to go in. My knee caps run out to the side, but because my left leg, my inside leg on the track, has gotten so much more abuse because it runs inside even more, they had to scrape the bottom of the kneecap.
Wasn’t loose cartilage. The bottom of the kneecap was all scraped up from the side bones in your knee, smoothed the bottom of the kneecap, did a lateral release, they cut a small piece of the tendon which released the kneecap to come in a little bit more, so it wouldn’t get damaged in the future.
Originally we were talking a simple scope, 2 or 3 weeks you’re back jogging. I couldn’t run for 2 or 3 months. I was out January, February, March. I had already lost the last half of November as well as December. So I’m out for another 3 months.
Again, I’m back to questioning myself. God, can I come back from this? But a lot of good cross-training. March starts rolling around, I start jogging, I start running, everything’s going well. Hell, I come out a month later and run a 4 minute mile the beginning of April at a meet in Hayward Field in Eugene. I am thinking, God, it’s coming together, but, you know, I’d start being real nice and patient. People are still wondering, questioning what I’m gonna do.
THE ’94 SEASON
Early June, at the Prefontaine meet in the steeple, I bombed. Absolutely bombed terribly. I got crushed. I am thinking, God, what am I going to do at Nationals. Luckily, it was an off year.
I go to Nationals. I get to the starting line, I’m pumped up, I am ready to go. I’m relaxed, I calmed down. First of all I won the semi-finals for some reason. I just kinda sprinted ahead and played around with some of the guys. I had a real easy heat. So, it was no big deal.
I was little worried about the final. My strength wasn’t there. So, right before the gun goes off, I look over at Brian Diemer. I think to myself, this is the man. Wherever this guy is going, I am going. If anybody knows how to run a race when you’re not ready to run a race, laughs, this is the man. I mean, this guy has been able to run beautifully.
So, I just stick on to him for the first mile. All of a sudden, I start feeling good. I just started moving, moving up on people, moving up on people. Next thing you know I am outkicking Danny Lopez for 2nd. Croghan is way out ahead, he’s in great shape.
So, I get second place. Everybody is saying, God, that’s the most beautiful tactical race I have ever seen. That’s the smartest I have ever seen you run. Oh, my God, they’re going, where did you come from. You weren’t hardly walking two months ago. You were on crutches three months ago. What happened, people were asking.
I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know what’s going on.
Again, we decide to go on the same plan. Good training. Alberto Salazar sets me up at a training camp in St. Moritz, the Swiss Alps. I’m just loving it up there. Dieter Baumann, Yobes Ondieki, Rachid El Basir, all these guys, MAJOR studs, I am training away with them, hammering with them, getting into great shape.
Still, literally this time, absolutely no speed work again. Once again, absolutely nothing. There was a steeple I did in Europe first. Ran like 8:21 in Stockholm. Real relaxed, Went out easy, didn’t try to stay with anybody. Played it smart, that’s what Alberto and I wanted to run right then. I ran Nice, France, steeple. Again, ran relaxed, but ran a little bit better. Ran about, ah, 8:17.
People are starting to go, God, how are you doing this?
How are you just licking times off like this? I don’t know, it’s coming together, that’s all I can ever tell anybody. So, I go into the Goodwill Games thinking, okay, the field is kinda weak, I’ll try to run with Croghan as long as I can. He’ll probably try to take it out. I get out there and I just feel great. I am just running incredible. With 800m to go, I’m saying, forget this, I am taking off now. I go after it and I win. Run 8:14, jogging the last lap, waving to the crowd. Saying “hi” to my friends, waving to the Mayor of St. Petersburg. Had a wonderful time.
Again, things are starting to come together in a short amount of time. Come back home a little bit, go back and I jump in a steeple in Zurich, the meet again. Thinking I ran 8:14 last year, I ran 8:14 two weeks ago, I should be able to run at least 8:10. Go after the AR. Just go after it.
Well, to make a long story short, crappy weather, broken down mentality once again. I just ran a crappy race. Just blew up. I didn’t run very well at all. Kind of disappointed with my steepling. Starting to realize something that later on in the summer I was going to come to a conclusion about… Am I really a steeplechaser, or am I just somebody who is very fast trying to run a steeplechase?
There’s a big difference between the two.
After getting away from the steeple, I jump into a 1500m. I run 3:36. Off of nothing. Literally nothing. I’m thinking, God, where did this come from?
Two nights later, I’ve got the AR in the two mile. All set up for me. It’s right there. I go out with Khalid Skah and again everything comes together. I run away with it.
Who cares about the time? Who cares about the distance? 3,218.23 meters, or whatever the hell the distance is. Doesn’t mean anything. It was a big win against Khalid Skah, somebody that just does not get outkicked. And I outkicked him.
I come back from that to a steeple. Blow up again. Run in Berlin, the infamous site of my final race last summer. Run terrible again. I don’t think Berlin is ever going to want me back.
I sat down and I thought a lot of things about the steeplechase and about what I was trying to do, what I was getting from it, what I wanted from it. I got so wrapped up in going after the AR. I had proclaimed the year before, if I got the AR, I wasn’t going to run the event anymore. Just something I was doing for the heck of it. I wasn’t giving the race its respect, I wasn’t giving it its due, as far as hurdling technique, whatever, like that.
And I got so mentally broke down from one week running 8:14 and the next week running 8:40. The fact I could run 8:12 over two miles, I should at least be able to run under 8:10 in the steeple a week later. I couldn’t even break 8:45. I have a couple bad barriers and my whole race falls apart. I can’t utilize that speed, because I can’t hurdle.
You can work on it. You try to start a career like Croghan was able to do in college. He was a steepler all through college. That’s why he’s great now. I, just for the heck of it, started doing it at the end of college. Croghan has that eye coordination down, he’s got the hurdling technique, he hurdles like Henry Marsh. He’s great, he’s incredible. He doesn’t need to be quick. And he wants to be a steepler.
I don’t want to be a steepler. I just want the AR in the steeplechase. There’s a difference.
As of now we’ve decided we’re probably going to stay away from the steeple. We want to get back to the 5000m. With that 2M time and with what Bob Kennedy has proved can be done, that AR is well within reach.
You know, you run under 13 minutes and you’re set. There’s nothing you can’t ask for, there’s nothing you can’t get.
I hate the 5000m. Twenty damn laps. You get 7 laps into it and you’re saying, God, I’ve got another 1 ½ miles to go.
I swear to God, if there was a 3000m flat, I would run it every single week. I’d run 7:20. That’s my distance. Always has been. That was my distance in high school. It was always my distance in college. I mean, I ran great in college indoor 3000. I ran a great outdoor 3000 a couple of times. I have just always ran well in it. I love it. Two miles felt perfect. Just the right amount of distance. I could have kept going another mile at a similar pace and probably run 13 flat, 13:05. I didn’t have much more to go.
I just don’t want to go any further. That’s a whole ’nother four laps. A long ways. There’s some good money, it’s a good distance. I think if I get to a certain level, you run 13 minutes, trust me, it will be over quick enough.
People will come watch me run 3000m, if I am a sub-13 5k performer. You got indoor 3000. Look at Doug Padilla, how he dominated. Steve Scott has the AR indoors. It would be great to go after that.
WAIKIKI MILE
I have been doing 20-30 miles a week the last month and a half. Taking 4, 5 days off at a time. Haven’t done a lick of speed work. Haven’t done a lick of endurance work. Haven’t done any intervals. Did one workout about two weeks ago, in pissing rain, that was my last workout. Couldn’t even walk for two days after that. Hardly doing anything except jogging. Four to six miles a day. Couple of times running hard.
I would get up and I would go do an interval workout and it would be dark out and rainy and I would just walk home. The last two weeks running every other day.
It’s not the coaching, it’s not that I’m not running because I didn’t feel like it. Basically, I couldn’t do it. My heel has been really bothering me. My achilles have been bothering me, which basically led to the heel problem. Your typical fall injuries of coming back after shutting down after a tough summer.
Basically came to have a good time. Not really worried about how I was going to finish, more interested in how this race would show where I was at. If I’ve lost a lot of strength over the last month or so, because of a little heel problem. Basically crappy weather in Oregon.
You know, you go in, you have a couple guys help you out in the race, next thing you know… I mean, Christ, I ran 3:57. My first legitimate sub-four mile. Obviously, I’ve run the equivalent to it. It’s on the roads, so this is not legitimate either, when you think about it.
It was a really really big surprise. Everybody else seems to think it was something that was supposed to happen. Alberto swears it was supposed to happen that way. My girlfriend swears it was supposed to happen that way. A couple of the guys thought about it. They call me ‘ The Doc.’
Two or three days before the race I get a head cold, I’m all stuffed up. I’ve been traveling all around the place. Can’t even breathe. I’m all achey, definitely not feeling well. So, I was basically blowing the whole thing off. But you know, maybe the adrenalin from your body fighting the cold. The incentive to go under four minutes. I guess we just kinda went after it.
It was a perfectly set up race. I had 58 at the quarter, about 2, 2:01 at the half. I did not lead until a 100 meters to go.
“I used and abused every person out there. They all know it. I know it,” Davis explained, dripping from a post-race plunge. “Nothing they could do about it. Not a damn thing. Somebody could’ve taken off with a quarter to go, I would’ve gone with him and still sat on him. The biggest surprise in my life. I just decided I wanted it more.”
[Undertrained and undaunted, Davis took home a check for $12,000.]
This is my off season if from June to August. This is all just candy to me. July and August is the roast beef.
Alberto’s been coaching me since I moved to Oregon, right after the summer of ’93. I moved up there and started working with him right away.
“I’ve run more than he has,” his girlfriend interjects.
I was talking to Shorter about this last night about my lack of training. ‘That’s all we need another Bill Rodgers,’ he said. [Davis laughs.] Some guy who doesn’t know what he’s doing, doesn’t even do it, and goes out and kicks everybody’s ass.
There are some guys who are elitists, they won’t give you the time of day. There’s some guy who sit there and just talk smack about other runners. You know, I’m gonna kick this guy’s ass, I’m gonna kick that guy’s ass It never comes true.
I think I’m one of these people who says basically, ‘hey, look, I am going to do this.’ With the understanding it may not happen, but I am going to do everything I can. I will probably guarantee, 95% of the time, I will do it. The rest of the time, I say, ‘look, this is me, black and white. There’s no gray area there. This is how I am. I am not saying I am better than you. I’m just saying this is how I am. I am not saying I am a great miler, and you’re not as good as me, or you’re not a great miler, I’m just saying, this is how I am. If you want to beat me, bring it on.’
I encourage anybody who wants to go.
I never go into a race thinking any of these guys are ever going to beat me. I don’t care if it’s Joe Schmoe or Khalid Skah. I am going to the starting line saying, ‘he’s just a guy, I’m just a guy.’ Come up to me, talk to me, don’t think I’m not going to talk to you just because you expect me to do the cordial thing. Forget that. I’m going to hang out, go out partying every once in a while, hang out in the lobby, talk to people, rap with them, go out for a run with them. Never be shy around me.
I remember one time, I could see these people wanting to approach me, I said, ‘come over here,’ and they said ‘we didn’t think you’d talk to us.’ Gimme a break.
I go to parties and I introduce myself as another person. People hear my name and they go, ‘ohmigod,’ like I’m a celebrity. I hate that.
I go up to them, stick out my hand and say, ‘Hi, my name is Chuck.’ Two hours later, they may figure it out by somebody saying, ‘do you know who that is?’ It’s great, it’s flattering, but let’s be serious.
When I’m on the track or when I’m on the roads or the golf course racing, that’s a totally different person. When I’m off, I’m Chuck. I’m Chuck, I’m just hanging out in Hawaii, drinking coffee, having a whiskey sour, watching Love Boat, not doing anything.
Also ran a 2M in Portland, we tried to go after the American Record there. Nobody was in shape. I absolutely bombed again, trying to outkick somebody for 11th place. I am running 8:50 for 2M. Who knew what was going to happen two months later when I was running, heh heh, a little bit faster, needless to say.
[The “conversation” turned to Pre.]
‘Ladies and gentlemen, we’re seeing the next Steve Prefontaine here,’ a track announcer once said. Alberto tells me that. That’s a real long story. I mean, living in Eugene, that’s a real easy trap, especially moving to Eugene, not being from there, not going to school there.
You get moved there and everybody thinks, oh, great, another asshole coming here and he wants to be the next Prefontaine. I hear guys like Todd William say, he wants to be the next Steve Prefontaine. Hey, I’m gonna be the first Marc Davis. If he wants to be the next Steve Prefontaine, that’s fine. But I’m going to be the first Marc Davis and that’s all I wanna be.
Steve, you know, it was a sad story. When it really comes down to is a sad story. I hate to see some people look up to him for the antics and some of the things he did off the track, because it’s really scary to think about. I’ve heard some of the stories of the things that he had done and it’s scary to think about that.
But all the same time I admire the hell out of him for his charisma and what he gave to the sport and how he brought people into the sport. He brought “The People” into the sport.
I think that’s what it takes, it takes somebody crazy enough to run a mile, walk onto the beach, scream at 30,000 people, ‘anybody want to join me in the water?’ and take a flying flip into the surf. In front of everybody. I could give a crap what anybody thinks. People say he’s crazy, he’s out of control. People that I beat are saying, he’s an asshole, look it, he thinks he’s better than us.
How do they see that? If I’m in the water saying, I’m better than you, you guys suck, I’m number one, if I’m saying, you suck Marcus, you suck Bob, you suck Todd, if I’m doing that, fine, they have every right to stand there and say every bad thing about it.
But if I’m in the water, saying, ‘YES! I love Hawaii, I love this, everyone is great, I love you all.‘ How they could have the right to look at me in a bad way, to say I’m cocky?
I’m just loud and obnoxious. I never do it to piss anybody off, and that’s what Pre was like. Pre was cocky, he was obnoxious, he was confident, he was bold. He never did it to say, Hey, look, I’m great and you suck.
Never once really said that. Never flat out. It was all, this is how I am, I believe I can do anything. I’m not saying I believe you can’t do anything, or that you can’t do anything I can’t do. All I’m saying is, hey, if you want to do it, bring it on. That’s all it is. Simple.
Like Pre did. It was never against anybody, it was for himself. It was the way he was.
I was only six years old when Prefontaine passed away. I didn’t even know who Prefontaine was until my sophomore, junior year in college. I started running when I was in 10th grade in high school, because I sucked at everything else.
I don’t have your idols. I met Billy Mills when I was in high school, never even heard of the guy before. Guys talk to me about other runners and their PRs, Steve Coe Cram Ovett, whatever their names are, I don’t know who these guys are. I admire people that have idols and someone to look up to, and I’m not saying these heroes aren’t worthy enough for me to look up to, I just don’t know enough about the sport to be a track fan or geek or whatever you want to call somebody like that. I don’t get into it. I’m just me.
It’s real basic, black and white. I probably would’ve honored Pre. I would’ve been a Pre geek, if I’d had the chance. I didn’t have the chance, nothing against him.
I paid my respects at the anniversary of his death this year, I went up at midnight, the rock where it says, REST IN PEACE. PRE 5/30/75, the rock is starting to deteriorate, breaking apart, fading. So I went up there with some white paint and a little tiny paint brush and just neatly filled in. I didn’t change it, I didn’t put anything else, just cleaned it up. I sat there and paid my respects. Wasn’t like I sat there and I prayed. “Oh, my God, you’re the god of all running, I wanna be just like you.”
I don’t want to be just like him. People know what Pre was like and nobody wants to be just like him. People want to have the charisma and the enthusiasm that he had. That’s the one thing that you have to keep a hold on, that you have to cling to, that’s the one thing I’m sure his family clings to.
I met his parents, and that’s the one thing I am sure they cling to, the spirit inside of him was incredible. The spirit is still well alive in his family, in his sisters. I mean, his sisters are just a riot. They’re great.
It’s really wonderful to have somebody out there, that people compare me to him. That’s great and fine and dandy, but don’t call me the next Prefontaine, Mills, Salazar, Chapa, whoever, Steve Scott. I don’t wanna be the next anybody. You want to find similarities, fine, but I am me. I’ll pay my respects to who I can. It’s my time and I am going to do what I can do.
What’s the big deal about Pre? His times weren’t all that great.
[A reliable source repeated secondhand from an unreliable source that this country’s most frequently compared heir to Steve Prefontaine was present when these blasphemous thoughts were uttered. I asked Marc Davis his thoughts. Like Pre, Marc is as quick with a quip as he is with his feet. Here he struggled a little.]
“If Prefontaine was running today, he would be destroyed just like a lot of runners. Some of the times he ran were respectable but there were also people back then running a lot faster. People saw Pre as somebody who could crush anybody. Hey, he got beat a few times.
Especially after ’72, things weren’t coming around as often as they were before the Munich Olympics. When he was killing everybody. I don’t know if I really meant to say he didn’t have fast times. I just meant to say it’s not like its records I’m going after.
The only record I know Pre has is the American Junior Record in the five thousand meters. And I missed that, not by time but by two weeks. When I ran 13:32 at 19, unfortunately, I was turning twenty December 17th of that year.
I don’t know who said that. It probably just meant he was a great athlete. I would rather just look at him as a great athlete, not as somebody who ran a certain time. I like to look at his charisma more than anything.
I don’t even know what his PRs are. That’s the way I like to be compared to Pre. Off of no speed work, somebody has ten meters on me like O’Sullivan almost had the other day, for me just to reel him back in. Knowing, I don’t care what I have or haven’t done or what the guys in front of me have done, I want it more.
That was Pre’s attitude. He wanted it more than anybody. Didn’t matter, if for some reason, they wanted it more. He didn’t believe in that. There’s no reason to believe in that. I mean, I go into a race, saying, I want it more. I don’t care if somebody says, no, I want it more than you.
How can you, I, say that? Maybe they do want it more? I don’t know anything about maybes. Or what ifs. I want it more and that’s the end of it.
That’s what happened against Skah. Nobody outkicks Skah. I wasn’t supposed to outkick Skah. Skah was supposed to run away from me. It wasn’t supposed to happen the way I made it happen. Tough luck. I wanted it more and if I want it more, I’m gonna have it. Whatever he’s gonna give me, I’m gonna give him back.
That’s a big part of me and I think that was a big part of Prefontaine. He didn’t care who was in front of him, or how far ahead they were, he was going to want it. If it could happen, it was gonna happen.
And even if it couldn’t happen, most of the time, it was gonna happen. That’s the philosophy I like to live by.