“Your toughness is made up of equal parts, persistence and experience.
You don’t so much outrun your opponents as outlast and outsmart them
and the toughest opponent of all is the one inside your head.”
When I asked Joe Henderson to be in the first handful of Original Gangsters Of Running, he said, “Happy and honored to be included. I’ll certainly “qualify” as the slowest and least decorated of these OGoR’s.”
I told him, “Your How They Train was inspirational and seminal. Green & white. Bob Deines.”
He said I was wrong. “That would be Road Racers and Their Training. Fred Wilt wrote How They Train in 1958, and it was my first big inspiration — as a runner first, but with a more lasting influence as a writer. Wilt recommended keeping a running log, which I did immediately and which evolved into a writing journal that continues today.
My first book was Long Slow Distance. Bob Deines was part of that one, as well as Road Racers & Their Training.
Of course, sure, that’s the book I meant. Just because I forget your name, doesn’t mean you didn’t change my life.
I looked up Joe’s first book on Amazon and saw a One Star review.
This book really shows its age. Written before the running boom, when a 2:50 marathon was a pedestrian amateur pace, a 3:44 marathon isn’t considered even running and you were dripping with fat if you weighed 180 at 6 feet tall. Oh, also, run 120 mile weeks and 35 mile long training runs for marathon prep. No mention of women either. Not really relevant any more, for better or worse. I say for the better.
That is the actual real true review, you can look it up yourself. “Written before the running boom” should be a clue. “No mention of women.” Yeah, ’cause there were none, lady. And I’ll tell you why – Joe Henderson wrote the stories that we lit the match to.
Somebody had to provide the powder to go boom.
Just love how the reviewer doesn’t even recognize a seminal work about a sport that once preached excellence. Hilarious. Don’t get me started. There was actually a controversy about whether eight minute per mile pace could be called ‘running.’ Jogging, maybe, most of us thought. Especially anybody running thirty-five minute 10Ks in training. I kept a running journal. I was six-foot, three and felt bloated at one-seventy. I maxed out at 117 miles in a week but it was at high altitude. Busted my ass to break 2:50. That’s what it means to be an OG.
I reminded Joe, you bought my first piece of running writing.
You’ll have to refresh your readers on when-where-what this was, Joe said. “I’m sure you weren’t paid what you deserved. I’ll belatedly and partly make up for that by buying you a meal sometime.
I still have the letter around here someplace. Joe said it was the best thing he’d seen in a long time and had made a bad day much better. Or words to the affect. Effect. Whatever. Think we got $75, which I had to split with Dr. E.C. “Ned” Frederick, who basically did all the work. Only seemed right.
Told Joe, yours was the first name I thought of when we – Ned Frederick again – sold Running to Nike.
The history of your magazine is a story in itself, maybe a series. It’s for you to tell.
That’s what Joe Henderson said. Wish I knew what happened.
That’s when it dawned on me, Joe Henderson and I, we have never run together. We should go for a walk some day soon, I told him..
Here’s a typical response from a modest guy. “I couldn’t have kept up with you in your glory years. It’s all walking for me now, and I doubt my short legs could match your long strides.”
More modesty.
“My first timed mile came in May 1954, a week after Roger Bannister first broke 4:00. At half his age and size, and none of his training, I hoped to run twice his time — that is, sub-eight-minute mile. The time was 7:23, and it was another four years before I forgot how bad that felt, and raced my first official mile. It was a DNF, followed a week later by the first official finish — a 5:25. Improvement eventually stalled out, in 1964, at 4:18.”
The guy ran a 4:18 mile. I couldn’t do that if I fell from a 5280-foot-high building.
Seems like Joe had told me about walking a marathon a few years back. “I never purely walked a marathon, but the last two (and note here that the word is “last,” not “latest”; I doubt there will be another try) were mostly walked. The first was Yakima River Canyon, the second in Newport, Oregon, at ages 70 and 71. Both allowed early starts for the slow. Both took between six and seven hours to finish.
“My longest walk-only event came this year, a half-marathon on my 75th birthday weekend. Why walk, not run? That’s a long story that has little to do with leg failure from long-term wear and tear . I’ll explain only if you ask specific questions about that.”
I told Joe the truth about myself. Which I like to keep secret. I stopped running for a decade. Lifted weights, gained weight, blew out my guts & tweaked my back. Lost fifty-five pounds. Decided to renew my running, which you know I truly love.
Couldn’t do it. Tried everything. Hoka shoes. Elliptigo. Nothing worked.
The pain was too great. Turns out I really am completely arthritic, and every stride was a hammer hit to my skeleton.
I became a walker because I realized walking was as fast as I could run.
When did you know it was time to stop?
Joe said, “I never made an abrupt switch. This happened gradually since the turn of the century (no, not the 1899 to 1900!). First came walk breaks added to what were still mainly runs. Then the walking amounts gradually increased until… five years ago it became mainly walking with short run breaks. This year, I’ve almost entirely walked because I had little choice.
“A medical condition supposedly unrelated to running made each running step intolerable. It was a urinary blockage that finally required surgery. Through it all, the walks were sanity-savers. They allowed normal mileage, just slower — but not dramatically so. Running had slowed a lot and walking had sped up a bit over the years, until the paces were closing in on each other.”
How did you feel about it?
“I’ve long since made my peace with this. ‘Walk’ hasn’t been a four-letter word for a long time. To use a modern buzzword, walking is sustainable in ways that running the old way would not have been. I couldn’t have run more than a few steps in this year’s half-marathon, or more than 10 percent of the last marathon.”
It was right about here where I told Joe, Forgive me in advance if I ask you a question, which might seem, umm, stupid or stupid. I have forgotten more than I ever knew.
Joe said, there are no stupid questions, only dumb answers. And the latter are mine to give.
“You didn’t ask about my first and fastest marathon. Both came the same day, at Boston 1967, with the 2:49:48 that I never bettered.”
He offered to answer more questions, so I asked.
Can training with a dog make you faster?
Our last dog was a Greyhound named Buzz. This born sprinter never challenged me to a race but was content to WALK alongside me until he got bored with my pace and signaled he wanted to stop. A slow mile was his limit.
Toughest opponent and why?
Myself, always. I learned early that no one could beat me but ME. A little voice inside always pleaded or demanded slower, shorter, stop, don’t start.
Most memorable run and why?
Let’s limit this to races. My favorite memory from more than 700 of those is Boston 1967. It was my first and would forever remain my fastest, more than a half-hour better than my training should have allowed. This planned “one-and-done” led to a career in writing about road racing.
Favorite training tip?
Jack Foster (who ran a 2:11 marathon at 41): “I don’t think of running as ‘training.’ I just go out and run each day, and let the racing take care of itself. It has to be a pleasure to go for a run, looked forward to while I’m at work. Otherwise, no dice.”
Biggest disappointment? Why?
Not being much of a team player in college. I rebelled against the coach’s training methods, and doing so separated myself from my teammates who could have been my best friends during those years and beyond.
What would you do differently today?
Little, if anything. I’ve been blessed to go so many places in this sport and to do so many things, for so long.
Favorite philosopher? Why?
For runners, George Sheehan. No contest.
Do you have a particular Dr. Sheehan quote?
A favorite, among many: “For every runner who tours the world running marathons, there are thousands who run to hear the leaves and listen to the rain, and look to the day when it all is suddenly as easy as a bird in flight. For them this sport is not a test but a therapy, not a trial but a reward, not a question but an answer.”
Any songs from your early running days?
I’d say Johnny Cash’s “I Walk the Line.” Though I was dozens of years from accepting walking as acceptable, the words rang true then and still do: “I keep a close watch on this heart of mine/I keep my eyes wide open all the time…”
Favorite comedian?
In running, Don Kardong. His writings consistently brought humor into a sport that often takes itself too seriously. I miss reading him.
Why don’t more Americans run better times today?
I don’t know. I was never a speedster, didn’t write for them and now don’t coach them.
My first editorial in a running magazine read: “Instead of 10,000 people sitting watching one runner break four minutes in the mile, I’d rather have 10,000 running eight-minute miles with no one watching.” Today, a single 8:00 mile is the stuff of dreams for me.
He’s like a guru really. Which he will completely deny.
This book is an early example of Joe Henderson’s natural, modest writing style. For over twenty years, I have been inspired by this advocate of long, easy runs. “Nature,” he writes, “in all her wisdom, has provided us distance runners with a means to compensate for the speed she denied us. That is endurance.”
Henderson’s endurance as a writer, I believe, is equally impressive.
katdunn
