If you want to become a better runner, you have to run more often. It is that easy. – Tom Fleming
Just looking at this photo makes me feel better.
So, here’s the story. If what I remember of my life is true, I was the road racing editor of Track & Field News for a dozen years. God bless those people. Like all my editors they put up with a lot of late minute crap. But Bert Nelson loved me, I think. Mr. Hill not so much. Anyway, I somehow managed to reach old age without any hard copies of those august times. For running and for me. Great fuckin’ ride is what it was.
Would you believe it? Have fewer than a half-dozen photo copies of the column from just a tiny slice of American road racing history. Photocopied graciously by a guy who was assistant manager of my running store forty years ago. Now a retired college professor. Thank you, Dr. Dave.
But if you are Patti Catalano or husband Dan Dillon or one of her fans like me, you’ll be glad to know all three columns have her kicking some serious ass. Dan kicked a few himself.
Page 32, Track & Field News. April 1981. “The Bible Of The Sport.”
ON THE ROAD
Runners are supposed to stop and take a rest sometime. Particularly road runners, given all that hard pounding on the pavement. Patti Catalano ignores that shibboleth, and just keeps hammering away.
Just like everybody else, she’s getting ready for Boston, but instead of hiding, she’s setting records. Since our last issue she has lowered the American Record for 15km, run the fastest 5M ever, and produced the No.3 10km ever. And it’s only March!
Catalano (Yawn): 15K Record
Jacksonville, Florida, March 14 – Some 6 minutes after Dan Dillon outkicked Jon Sinclair to win the Jacksonville River Run 15K in 43:34, what’s this? Oh, it’s just Patti Catalano breaking another American Record.
Just another day at the office for Catalano as she clocked 49:33, 10 seconds under her own AR set last year in Portland. Accompanied by Joan Benoit until the 1M mark, Patti surged ahead and just kept pulling away.
Catalano, currently training 140+ miles weekly in preparation for Boston, was simply too strong for Benoit, who held 2nd with a fine 50:29. Catalano said,”I even surprised myself.” Probably few others felt the same.
The men’s race was dramatic all the way. After an opening mile of 4:32, the lead pack was comprised of Steve Floto, Benji Durden, Ric Rojas, Jon Sinclair and Irishman Louis Kenny. At 2 &1/2 miles, through a veritable chicane of residential streets, Floto pushed the groove. By 4M, Floto, Rojas, Sinclair and Dillon were alone. Together.
By 5 & 1/2 miles, Floto had fallen back and Sinclair set the pace alongside Dillon with Rojas drafting the duo. At the bottom of half-mile-long Hart Hill at the 6M mark, Sinclair and Dillon upped the tempo to try to break Rojas. He broke. With the leaders passing 10km in 28:45, all Rojas could do was watch them pull away.
For the next 3 miles or so, Dillon and Sinclair hammered one another, with Jon looking much the smoother runner. Fortunately for Dan, road racing is not judged on form, but on who gets there first.
When Sinclair began to go for broke with 75y left, Dillon responded by lowering his head and sprinting as if possessed (sportswriter’s cliche No. 148). He plowed across the finish with his 43:34, 3 seconds up on Sinclair.
Dillon expressed understandable elation. “I’m really happy about this win. It was tough, both mentally and physically, but I was looking for a tough run. This should help me get ready for the IAAF Cross Country race.”
There must be an easier way to prepare.
Other notables mentioned in the agate type included Dick Beardsley, 6th in 44:49, Bob Hodge 9th 45:24 and Benji Durden, 13th 46:06. Can always claim they were playing through.
Can you remember the 1981 Jacksonville River Run 15K, Dan Dillon?
Dan: A couple of weeks prior, Bob Sevene told me that race director Buck Fannin called him and invited me down to compete in Jacksonville, I was slightly surprised. (Buck’s main objective calling Sev was to get Joan Benoit down there.) While I had some decent cred as a cross country runner and a little less perhaps as a track runner, I didn’t yet have any major national road racing success on the resume.
But Sev and I agreed that the race fit very well into my prep for IAAF World XC. In prior years I’d used a local 15K in Swampscott, MA as a tune up around that time of year. My base was fantastic at the time, years of 100 to 125 mile weeks. Years.
My old GBTC training partners Bill Rogers and Bob Hodge had both won the race in previous years and recommended it as “a flat fast course that won’t beat you up too much.” World XC in Madrid a couple of weeks later was my main focus.
Before the race I vaguely remember seeing fellow Athletics West Bostonian Patti Catalano warming up near the start. I didn’t think too much about seeing her there that morning at the time. I knew Patti a little bit from the AW Boston running scene, but since at the time she was married to and being coached by Joe Catalano, not Bob Sevene, we only crossed paths occasionally in those days. Plus, Nike had Patti focused on road racing and I was setting XC and track goals. Roads for me were mostly used as work toward other these goals.
The early pace seemed very easy to me. I was just running by feel, without thinking about pace at all. I was aware Ric Rojas had just set an American Record at Gasparilla a couple of weeks before and remember how I much I respected Jon Sinclair’s impressive National XC win in Pocatello the year before. They both had vastly more road racing experience than I did, so I had no plans to pick a fight early.
When I heard we passed 10k at 28:45, that was the first time that morning that I even thought about the pace. I had a couple of track 10K races between low 28 and 28:30, so I tried to remind myself that the 10k marker might not even be in the right place. I continued to disregard the pace altogether. I just thought it was important that I needed to stay calm.
I do recall the pack had gotten pretty thin.
The old course used to make that wide turn before the Hart Bridge so at that point I was able to get a good look behind me and see that Ric seemed to be weakening, leaving me with just Jon to worry about in the final mile.
Coming off the bridge I remember visualizing some high school relays my coach used to make me run. I’d hated them. Too much pressure, I always thought.
While I enjoyed running miles and two miles, Massachusetts high school rules prohibited a runner from running a distance race double. The quarter, however, was considered the longest “sprint” and was therefore ok. So, every meet I was asked to do a sprint/distance double for the team points. By my senior year I was constantly running my legs in the low 50’s. My coach even made me anchor a few of those darned things. Did I say how much I hated it?
In my visualization coming off the Hart Bridge, I reminded myself of a few times when I “ran out of gas before the tape” anchoring a relay. I decided to wait until I could see the writing on the tape to make my final push so that couldn’t happen.
After the race I seem to recall talking to Jon. He said he could sort of remember someone telling him the story of me outkicking Alberto Salazar to win the state XC championships, but he never really thought much about it again after that. I confided to Jon I had a little experience doing the mile relay in high school and he replied that he wished he knew that while we were going over the bridge.
After the race someone told me that I’d broken Rodgers course record by 63 seconds.
I remember thinking “No way, that can’t be right!”
That was when I started to realize what a special race I’d had.
Did you wait until you could SEE the writing or did you wait until you could READ the writing?
Dan: Very funny you should ask. I wasn’t confident I could read that fast while sprinting, so seeing it had to suffice!
Patti: Oh yeah! Danny was there! Danny won! I didn’t even know it until our first date. I have the trophies up there in the other room.
Dan: But I didn’t even get a headline because Patti broke an American record. I just broke a course record. That doesn’t even really mean anything.
Patti: I only broke my record by a couple of seconds but it was still an American record and they were all, you know, all happy about it, but I didn’t even see anything. I come through the chute, they have my trophy, and Buck Fannin is standing there, and I shake hands.
Right nearby, I mean close, there’s a limousine with the door open and a chauffeur, so I get in the car and they take me to the airport and I get into a private jet.
(To Be Continued)
