You think racing a marathon is tough, try owning a running store. – Jack D. Welch
Seventy-three, It Should Have Been My Year by Rick Bayko
I’d made good progress in 1972, running hard enough to get injured, recovering, running harder, getting injured again, recovering, running harder yet. At Boston 1972 I’d improved my PR by over four minutes with a 2:23:32 and qualified for the Olympic Trials.
Went to Oregon and stayed with Kenny Moore and his wife Bobbi for a couple of weeks and ran a bit with Moore and once with him and Shorter. Rubbed shoulders with Bachelor (OK, my shoulder, his elbow), and was introduced to Pre by Bobbi Moore. Psyched with a capital P.
Although I croaked in the Trials, dropping out with massive heel blisters, once I licked wounds from that I got on a roll. Back at Boston State I upped my mileage and intensity and broke my own school record on the cross-country course, Over the Thanksgiving weekend I went to Philadelphia and won the Philadelphia Marathon by a mile and a half in 2:27:29.5. The winter was as mild as ever happens in New England, with little snowfall and clear roads to facilitate more high mileage.
Indoors, I PRed at two miles with a 9:16.4. Could it get any better?
Yes, it could. In March at New Bedford, Masschusetts, in the New England 30km championship, I had a spectacular day, outrunning Bill Rodgers and Larry Olsen, and breaking Ralph Bushmann’s record that had withstood assaults from the likes of Johnny Kelley, Pat McMahon, Leo Carroll, Willie Speck and Ron Wayne over the years. I felt I had arrived, and a top ten finish at Boston was surely in the cards, perhaps even top five.
Then the tires developed a slow leak.
I figured on winning most of the other pre-Boston road races much as guys like Buschmann, McMahon and others had done the years they had won New Bedford. I never came close. The one second place finish I had was so far behind Amby Burfoot, I couldn’t even see him. I was going stale, getting slower and gaining weight.
Of course, miracles sometime happen, so I wasn’t about to pass up the greatest race in the world just because things were no longer perfect. It would be another year before Boston rolled around again and I didn’t want to wait that long to experience the event. As if things weren’t bad enough, the weather turned sunny & warm….well, for April in New England, sunny & HOT at a humid 79 degrees.
Peter Stipe of the BAA had an apartment a block or so from the starting line in Hopkinton and invited several of us to hang out there to stay out of the heat until the noontime start. My then-wife Danalee took a couple of photographs. You see Stipe, Amby Burfoot, Bill Rodgers, Ray Crothers, Jon Anderson and me lounging around the kitchen.
I’d pretty much given up on a top ten finish by the time the gun went off and started conservatively, trying to feel out the temperature and adjust my pace to something sustainable that would get me the best my body had for the day. Unfortunately one of my feet began to tingle, then burn, and I became depressed.
It was Eugene and the Olympic Trials all over again. My wife was going to be in Wellesley to see my progress before going to the finish, but I doubted I’d make it that far. At about 10 miles, in Natick, my Boston State teammates were manning a water station after having run the Lexington 5-miler earlier in the day. Disgusted, I stopped there and pulled off my shoe to show them the massive blisters I was sure I’d developed, so they wouldn’t think I was dropping out because of simply being a sissy.
To my surprise, my foot looked fine. Huh? Perhaps I’d just tied it too tight and cut of circulation as my feet swelled from the heat. I dunked my foot in a bucket of water to cool it off, put my shoe back on and decided to hobble to Wellesley, so my wife would know I was okay. And drop out there.
Once moving again I began to feel better, and picked up the pace a bit because it felt comfortable enough to do it, and would shorten the misery. Others were fading from the heat and, as I passed halfway, the spectators counting off the runners had me in the top 35.
Back then the medals only went to 35th, making them treasures of silver, with a blue enamel shield and gold unicorn. What kind of person drops out when in medal contention? Not this one.
When my wife came into view, I gave her a sad look, told her I was okay, just having a off day, and trudged on. More runners faded ahead of me and I kept a reasonably steady pace and worked it all the way to 19th at the finish.
My third straight top twenty at 2:28:40, but more than five minutes slower than 1972 and 12:37 behind winner Jon Anderson compared to being only nine and eight minutes behind the winners the two previous years.
The beautiful BAA medal took some of the sting out of my disappointment though.
As a side note, for the third straight year Justin Gubbins and I finished one place apart. He was 18th to my 19th. He was 17th to my 18th the year before, and I was 13th to his 14th the year before that. That’s pretty good company to keep.