Original Gangsters Of Running (Jerry Jobski)

We was young and we was dumb, but we had heart. – Tupac Shakur

Been asked by interviewers why exactly I wrote When Running Was Young And So Were We. 

Okay, one interviewer.  This is what I told him.

Somehow, sometime, I must’ve thought, you know, there was a time when Americans were great, when Americans were fast, when Americans ruled the roads, when even normal people, even average athletes like me, ran fast.  Before the festivalization of running, before the East Africans, we were great.  There was a moment.

I love the East Africans, I love the festival, but I want today’s runners to know about the first running boom. I wanted today’s runners to know… it’s okay to go fast.  At least it’s okay to try.  We used to party – trust me – but we partied after the race, not during the race.

When I started running, I ordered years of bound back issues of Track & Field News.  Think I got a half-dozen years’ worth.  1965-1971.  Maybe seven years.  Black & white photos of men excited about breaking a half hour for a six-mile run.  Good times.  Wasn’t all Vietnam and protests.

I think of those athletes of the Sixties and Seventies and even the early Eighties as the Original Gangsters of Running.  They didn’t open the door so much as break the door down.

I cannot remember exactly what first drew my attention to Jerry Jobski.  Remember thinking he looked like a skull with a Mohawk.  Sunken cheeks.  Tough, relentless, not the most gifted runner, a journeyman of sorts.  You looked at Jim Ryun or Lindgren and never thought, I could do that.  Jerry Jobski made running look like, if you were just tough enough, you could make a mark.

He made a mark. – JDW

TOUGHEST OPPONENT AND WHY

Gerry Lindgren……He had the ability to punish himself and punish his opponents in the process.  First time I raced against him was at the NCAA meet in Berkeley in 1968.  I did not have a lot of experience at racing longer distances at that time but I was to race both the 10k and the 5k in that meet.  It was the only time I got to race at the NCAAs because the WAC conference had gone against NCAA policy and allowed us to compete as freshmen.  As a result I lost my eligibility for the NCAA Championships for my Senior year.  The rule had even been changed before my Senior year but in all their combined wisdom the NCAA overlords did not allow it to be retroactive.

Anyhow, back to the question.  Lindgren was tough…he had the ability to hurt himself, hurt you and laugh…all at the same time.  I think I was about the only one who tried to stay with him early in the race and he made me pay for my foolishness.  He started surging the straights after about three miles and I started moving back one place at a time.  Lindgren won in 29:40 and I was 7th in 30:15.  I just looked at my diary for that race and the entry that caught my eye:  “I didn’t feel very good after 4 miles…”  probably the understatement of the year.

I did exact some revenge about a year later running the 6-mile at the National Track and Field Federation Meet (remember them?) in Kentucky.  I had spent a lot of time deciding what to do, when Lindgren started surging.  I decided the best thing was to answer with another surge.  When he would return to a normal pace after a surge, I would surge again and pass him.  I beat him for the first time that day and it was very satisfying, even if it was another year in the books.

https://www.jackdogwelch.com/?p=14418

MOST MEMORABLE RUN AND WHY

During the winter of 1969 after winning a bronze medal in the steeplechase in Mexico City, George Young ran and won a two mile race at the Sunkist Meet indoors at the Sports Arena in Los Angeles.  Sports Illustrated did a feature article on the meet that focused on George.  He indicated that he was interested in running across the Grand Canyon.  They titled the article “Warmup for the Canyon Run.” 

Later that spring George decided that he needed to take some time off from running and would probably end his racing career.  However, early in 1970, he was working on his doctoral degree in Flagstaff, Arizona and decided to start training again.  Late October, I received a call asking if I would like to run across the Grand Canyon with George.  I declined.  

Chuck LaBenz got involved and talked me into thinking it might be a good long training run.  Chuck also assured me that it would just be a friendly training run that happened to cross the Grand Canyon.  The night before we were supposed to do the run, I decided to go.  We drove to Flagstaff and spent the night….at 4 a.m.  George came to our motel and along with a couple of the runners from NAU (to drive the car back to Flagstaff) George, Chuck and I headed for the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.Even though I had grown up in Arizona, I had never been to the Grand Canyon, had never looked over the edge until that November day in 1970.  I kept repeating to myself, ‘it’s just going to be a training run.’ 

After a bit of a problem contacting our coaches on the South Rim, we were using walkie-talkies provided by the Forest Service, we finally started together down the North Kaibab Trail.  I was enamored by the dramatic scenery and, as we approached the bottom, I tripped and fell while glancing at Roaring Springs.  Chuck stopped to get me back on my feet…..George kept running.  George was the only one who had made some allowances and carried a water bottle.  This was in the days before the running boom and there weren’t any water bottles commercially available. None.  George had rigged a spray bottle with a towel looped around his neck.  

Since I had a mouth full of trail dirt and was pretty cut up from the fall, I caught up with George and asked for a bit of his water.  He said no….”if you thought you needed water you should have carried some.”  I was pissed.  George took off across the bottom of the Canyon and the race was on.  Chuck wasn’t in the kind of distance shape that George and I were in.  I figured I was in better shape than George since he hadn’t raced since indoors of 1969 and I had just finished racing a cross country season.  I caught George as we crossed the black bridge on the South Kaibab Trail and started up towards Yaki Point and the South Rim.  He asked if I needed water….I didn’t answer him, then I made an effort to power on up the trail.  I ran 3:08, George was 3:12 and Chuck was 3:42.  

Within a year or so of our effort, the Park Service started actively discouraging groups from running across the Canyon but it has become quite a popular thing to do with the long distance crowd.  Our times stood as fastest known times for many years but with the advent of ultra-running and different running strategies, they have been lowered considerably in the past few years.  I believe the fastest known time is now something like 2:53 and there has even been a South to North and back to the South crossing (known as rim to rim to rim) done in 5:55.

FAVORITE TRAINING TIP

Learn to take some easy days.  I did not learn this lesson until I was running as a master many years after college.  We always thought we had to go out and hammer when we were doing endurance work.

BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT

Getting injured and having to stop training in the fall of 1971.  So many things went right in 1971 and so many things went wrong.  I had raced well at the National AAU meet (PR for 6 miles in 27:58) and was selected as an alternate for the Russian/American meet….I didn’t get to run but figured that I had this long track racing stuff figured out.  I was in Berkeley over the 4th of July for the meet and went home with a promise that I would be on the team to go to Europe for the second group around the first week of August.  A younger brother was involved in an accident at my dad’s service station and died on the 28th of July.  I never went to Europe and stopped training for about 6 weeks.  

When I started training again, I was running hard and piling up mileage.  Ran a couple of cross-country races in October but woke up one morning with a case of tendinitis.  That was about the end of my racing career.  It took some time to get past the tendinitis and, with everything else going on in my life,  I just stopped training and racing.  I interviewed and got a job teaching in one of the junior high schools in Mesa, Arizona.  Didn’t start training again until I moved to Lake Tahoe and Tom Von Ruden talked me into training for some masters racing.  When I look back now and realize I had just turned 27 in July of 1971, I feel I never raced or trained during what should have been the best years of my running career (late 20s and early 30s).

WHAT WOULD YOU DO DIFFERENTLY 

I believe my favorite training tip encompasses what I would do differently.  I would not spend every training session trying for a new PR, or spend every week being certain I got over 100 miles.  We were pioneers on the distance scene.  There had been some success with Bob Schul, Billy Mills, Lindgren and, of course, Jim Ryun but it wasn’t until 1966 and on that the greater numbers started to train….we were all learning together and experimenting.  Coaches were just starting to learn about distance running training.

FAVORITE PHILOSOPHER 

The writer and novelist Kurt Vonnegut.  A man who spent time as a prisoner of war and witnessed the destruction of Dresden.  He has written many novels with a comedic approach but if you search behind the comedy you will find a brilliant essayist who taught a humanistic approach to the excesses of mankind.

FAVORITE COMEDIAN 

I had the pleasure (actually sheer terror) of dealing blackjack to Robin Williams early in his career.  This was during the time he was establishing himself as a brilliant comedian with the television series “Mork and Mindy.”  As a stand-up comedian, I loved most of the routines that George Carlin performed….he was amazing. 

PERSONAL RECORDS

I don’t have all of my training diaries….only kept 1968 and 1969….have a habit of cleaning house and throwing stuff out to my regret at some later time.  I did that when I got out of the army….had kept a diary for three years and burned it a couple of days after getting home from my tour.  Weird huh?

PR’s400……training 52.5 with a running start

800…..157.5 relay leg after running a open 6 mile earlier in a relay meet.

Mile….4:10.0 (Several times between 4:10 and 4:10.5) in my defense, I was always doubling when I ran the mile.  We raced far too many races and I was always saving for a two-mile while trying to secure team points in the mile.  Don’t think I ever ran a mile when I didn’t have to come back on a double.

2-mile…..8:46.5  1969

3-mile….13:30.0  1969

5,000….13:54 (?)..1970

6-mile….27:58  

Marathon…..64:45  1970

Marathon…..2:24:17 (Fiesta Bowl) although I ran a 2:26:45 at the Tucson Marathon on a course that was re-measured to be exactly a mile too long.  There was a construction project on one of the roads leading to the finish, so they just routed around it by going to another exit……didn’t move the start or finish.  I felt that would have been close to a 2:20——2:21 effort.

50K … back-country trails in Northern California….3:14:20….as a Masters runner.

And here’s more testimony from Mr. Jobski.

Pre Can’t Be Stopped. Not Ever.