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 is suddenly as easy as a bird in flight. – George Sheehan
My second favorite running magazine in the world is Mystical Miles in Holland.
New England Runner is in English. And I have known them a long long time.
Mystical Miles is in Dutch. I don’t speak Dutch. Don’t read Dutch. Dutch is Greek to me.
But when Hans Koeleman reached out and said, “anything from your hand,” I couldn’t help thinking, that is so nice, a dream come true, oh my God, yes.
I sent him a bunch of old stuff, what I had just sitting around, looking for some runner love. All of this has appeared somewhere sometimes, mostly, but not in a foreign language.
Don’t know what he used, but this is what I sent him.
Running is not a sport,
it’s not a religion –
as some would have us believe,
Running is an attitude
about yourself
about others
about the environment
that surrounds you.
7/30/1980
Running changed my life and I wasn’t even any good.
I was slow to walk, I was slow to talk. Basically, I was just slow at everything.
Remember when JFK created the President’s Fitness Test? Maybe not. I remember.
So, there I was, a chubby fourteen-year-old, not exactly comfortable in my own skin not to mention completely uncomfortable at school. And because I was so slow, they made me run with the girls.
And I finished somewhere in the middle of the pack.
Not exactly running material.
Not somebody you’d expect to start a running magazine or a running store or finish 91st in the USA National Marathon Championships. Or become a Senior Editor of Track & Field News.
Or become Director of Public Relations for NIKE.
Oddly, for a few years, I even sat on the Governor’s Fitness Council. What seems to me a full circle.
And my point here, I’m not so sure.
Maybe… be open to unsuspected opportunities, that’s the first thing that comes to mind.
Ignore labels.
Hard work and passion can take you far.
Movement is the best medicine for body and soul.
Ask me about running? There’s this one memory.
Early on a Sunday morning, the aroma of hickory-smoked bacon and blueberry pancakes hanging in the crisp air.
We’d go cruising past a bright white church, well-dressed congregants filing in, maybe we’re coasting at seven minutes per mile.
A couple hours later, we’d blast back past at six minutes per. Building to the crescendo make-fun-of-each-other finishing kick.
Same folks would be filing out of church. Some looked at us in incredulous wonderment.
We looked back at them the same way.
How could anybody sit still that long?
The county library puts on an excellent event every February. Nice shirt. Lots of fun, always some guy dressed like a Holstein cow. I may walk it next year.
Don’t mean to brag, I used to be The World’s Slowest Professional Runner. Quite an honor actually on a couple of levels.
Didn’t have any money and I ran for a living. Did you ever love doing something so much you were happy to do it badly.
In my case……….slowly.
Here’s the strange part; if I ran that pace today, I’d be a local star. Which suggests – like I have been telling you all along – the secret of life is timing.
And the secret of timing is luck.
Bottom line?
Better to be lucky than fast.
“The day may come when Jack Welch, the Oregon jogger, and his generation can no longer run. Then they will walk. Says Welch: ‘We’re going to be too old and too beat-up from rock climbing, marathon running and racquetball, but we are still going to want to be outside and look skinny.” – U.S. News & World Report. August 13, 1984.
I started running in February, 1972.
Last two weeks of April, following copious Boston Marathon coverage, I began to run more regularly. Five or six times a week, five miles at a time, usually forty minutes or so.
May 2nd, I set a personal record for five miles in 37:14.3. Indoors at the Kearney YMCA in Danbury. 125 laps.
May 6th, I began keeping a running journal. Already thought of the sport as a seductive passionate mistress. I was twenty-five years old.
We all have memories, and they’re memorable, just because they’re special, just because they are ours, yours and mine. Remembrances about running often sparkle brightly, perhaps because the act itself is so energizing, so invigorating. Running makes us different – better, I think, and the thoughts one conjures about this activity must reflect the joy, the enlightenment that results. We thank running for what we become, and we remember.
I joined the YMCA to play basketball. One noonhour, I paused to watch a short, stocky man in his forties circle the gymnasium floor. Without a conscious decision, I began to follow him. Around and around we went, faster and faster it seemed. He was toying with me, I think; he’d look to his side at each corner, and carefully maintain the distance between us.
Forty minutes, five miles and some one hundred and twenty laps later, we stopped. I don’t know if I quit, or if he just had to go back to work. His name was Joe.
I do know I could hardly walk the next day, and I wanted to do it again. But maybe not indoors.
I’ve been a runner ever since.
When I think about running, which is often, certain words inevitably appear. Clear… clean… pure… fresh… honest… free….
I remember the crunch of the snow underfoot that Christmas morning when I was the first one up. Twenty-three degrees, and not a human mark on the blanket of white which covered the road’s surface. A lean coyote raced across my path looking behind as if someone was chasing him. I ran on, as did he.
I think about the cold showers after a ten-miler in the noonday heat of Connecticut. Joe, Wayne, and Walt, all late getting back to work, all joyous about it. We’d talk about who was tough that day, and who lagged behind. Some days, we’d even let Joe go on ahead, even though he was the oldest and slowest.
Poor Joe, he was so competitive, he eventually had to quit racing. Couldn’t stand all that losing, took it personally.
Does anybody ever forget their first race? I certainly won’t. Took the day off running the day before because I wanted to be fresh. After all, I had started running fifty-three days earlier.
Monday, May 29. Joined the AAU this date. We were forced to. #6019. Eighth Annual Greenwich Memorial Day Five-Miler. 9:30 a.m. and hot. The course can be described as mildly hilly, yet I wasn’t worried, because I had never run up a hill before. How much tougher could it be? Most amazing was the idea of Amby Burfoot and John Vitale running ten miles BEFORE the race, just to warm up.
I looked pretty sharp in my clean white t-shirt, with the arms cut away to simulate a singlet. I was ready. Peed probably nineteen times, and if the damn race hadn’t finally started, I’d probably dehydrated myself. After a word from the mayor, some two hundred of us raced downhill, around cars, over cars, and into cars.
Nervous but felt okay when we finally got going. I was racing!
Not all that fast perhaps, judging by the crowd ahead of me. But there were people behind me, too.
Way to go, Joe.
Here’s the “Training Diary #1” entry for July 1.
Saturday 1 p.m. Ran 6 miles at about an 8-min. pace. Went to Bethel (site of next Tuesday’s race) to run the course. Found it okay but typical me ended up running last half first and first half second. It should be fun. Terrible (4/10th mile) hill at 2-mile mark but worst part will be coming down a half mile and even steeper. So steep I don’t see how I can run down it without falling on my face. And if I try to slow up, it feels as if my knees are slamming into my hips. After that hill, the last 3 miles are relatively easy.
At the moment, I think I’ll just attack the course in its entirety to the best of my ability & hope for the best. I’ll finish it if I have to crawl on my elbows. Since it’s impossible to actually win the race, this looks like a good chance to see what I’m made of.
Here’s the “Training Diary #1” entry for July 4.
Independence Day. Bethel, CT, Six-Miler. Cool… pleasant. Race began at 9 a.m. About 70 runners, don’t really know. [note added later] 88 runners started (according to local paper.) Got a very bad start. (I think this is something I’d better work on. In a steady-paced race, all runners at same speed, at my speed, can be beat if I can get the jump on them; if we run the race at the same pace, I should emerge first. (In my “group” at least.)
At about 2 miles (up the BIGG hill) I caught sight of the young girl (17) who looked to be moving fairly well. I set my mind to eventually catching her, at worse, maintaining the gap between us. I kept after her and finally passed her with 2/10ths of a mile to go. So, unlike Greenwich [my first race] I finished ahead of all distaff runners.
The moral of the story is I became so involved (evidently) with beating this girl, I ran faster than I ever have before. According to my official time of 38:29 for the 5.8 miles, I averaged 6:36 mins. per mile. This seems so fast I have my doubts, but if I can do it again [note added.] I did. See 8/26. I guess it’s correct – I was shooting for a 7-minute average. Perhaps I underestimated myself.
I finished 42nd & received a little circular gold medal with a runner on it, of course, for my efforts. That’s my fourth “trophy” in my life. And it’s love.
The race’s doctor drove along the course in a big green Imperial with his straw hat & his yellow slacks seemingly disappointed not to discover every mile or so a runner having a cardiovascular seizure or perhaps a collapsed lung. Like the Angel of Death, he hovered about the crests of hills and actually appeared to have an orgasmic climax when he finally did manage to coax one limping straggler into his car. The doctor had much the same look as the witch when Hansel & Gretel crossed her doorstep. It was a big car.
The doctor seemed especially concerned with my appearance toward the end of the race. I’m sure that’s just my paranoia.
I made grotesque faces at him and continued on my journey.
My first marathon was the Connecticut AAU Championship on March 4, 1973, less than a year after I began jogging. There were 128 starters and I finished 66th in 3:22:03. I actually have no memory of it, but I do have my journals. I stopped twice, once to piss, once to drink. The goal was to qualify for Boston. The BAA had recently instituted qualifying times (3:30 for me then) because the field in Hopkinton was getting too large.
Those first few years, I just kept getting faster and faster.
I first visited the Boston Marathon in 1973. The BAA’s 77th. The best-selling book was Jonathan Livingston Seagull. I came to run my second marathon, having qualified (3:22:03) five or six weeks earlier.
My training partner was a Connecticut State Senator, so the Senate President greased our way into a couple of rooms at the Parker House. Nice place. The Senator and I started a tradition of going to a nearby movie theatre the night before racing. Last Tango In Paris gave a young husband an entirely new perspective on butter.
That was probably the year Howard Cosell came into the Hopkinton High School gym where we were awaiting the start. “No autographs,” he announced, “No autographs.” Which we thought was odd, because nobody was asking him for his signature. Mr. Cosell seemed needy.
Record number of entrants – 1574, including a record number of women. Twelve.
Jon Anderson and Jackie Hansen won the race.
In her post-race interview, the future world-record holder said, “My hope is that someday we’ll have a women’s marathon in the Olympics.”
Page 28, Volume II of my training diary. Monday. April 16. Patriot’s Day. Wgt. 162 PR 43
Well, today’s the day. Don’t feel bad, don’t feel good. Still feel fat and haven’t taken a decent shit in two days. Which may explain the feeling.
7 a.m. Temp is 50 degrees with southwesterly winds 15-20 mph. Temp expected to near 70 during marathon. Now that’s really something to look forward to. Today was the hottest April 16th in Boston this century. 79 degrees. Seemed hotter. The heat was unbelievable as this was probably the first time I’ve run in temps over 55 since last October. Finished 498th out of 1398 registered starters. (Many started who were not registered.) With bandits, probably 1600 runners toed the line. Which took almost two minutes for me to reach.
I passed 10 miles in 69:45, but began to lose it soon after. Walked part way up Heartbreak Hill, which I reached about 2 1/2 hours out (approx.); just didn’t see any percentage in trying to run up that thing just then. Started to pick up the pace a little at 22m (BIG MISTAKE!) and ran completely out of gas at 24 miles. Struggled in with some walking – quite destroyed. Took me 14 hours to recover from nausea, headache, chills, diarrhea, stomach pain & some other stuff.
Bottom line: I ran a 3:19:43 PR on a scorching day, the first day of a hot summer after a winter’s worth of cold training. And I did it at Boston.
I don’t remember returning to Boston again until 1979. I still have the bib number: 2566. There was not an African runner anywhere to be seen. A 2:25 flat time was only good for 130th place.
Race results have me finishing in 2:53:16. Much faster than years earlier, finishing much further back as the running boom was in full swing. I can still hear the roar as I strode through the estrogen cloud of the Wellesley gauntlet.
A few runners fell into a pile when they slipped on a pile of horse shit. Mounted police did an otherwise admirable job of controlling the huge crowds.
For the next few hours, I walked up stairs backwards, as my quadriceps were too pounded to lift my legs.
In 1981, I arrived Thursday on Northwestern’s Flight 146. Friday, I went to a favorite watering hole and was on my second beer before I realized the joint had become a gay bar.
Saturday, I went for a walk and saw seven different “official” Boston Marathon t-shirts. I bumped into Bill Rodgers as I was leaving the Expo. Warned him not to go in there – it was a three-ring circus. He didn’t heed my advice.
Sunday. More madness, more commercialism, more pastry, more sugar, more pasta. More sun. Less sleep.
Monday. The disgruntled Boston police department had threatened a blockade and the mayor of Newton had denied the proper permit. But the race would happen The Boston Globe printed the names and numbers of all 6845 official entrants. Some 14 helicopters gave Hopkinton an Apocalypse Now ambiance.
I watched most of the race in Room 1256 of the Sheraton. Two other journalists sat in that plastic room, switching between three television stations and one radio. Both of the other writers were actually somewhat famous. But none of us could get on the press vehicle. Which was okay because this was the first year you couldn’t actually see the race from the press vehicle.
1983. “A ridiculous time,” that’s what a race announcer said when Joan Benoit crossed the finish in a world record 2:22:43. How ridiculous? Well, since WWII, Boston’s men’s race had been won ten times with slower times than Joanie’s. Heck, Amby Burfoot’s winning time in 1968 was only 25 seconds faster.
I had dinner a couple nights earlier with Greg Meyer, who won the men’s race. I don’t remember that dinner, but I do remember Greg picked up the tab for me.
2013. I wasn’t there, but many, many of my friends were. Some had just left the finish line area moments before the bombs’ blasts tore apart dozens and dozens of innocent bystanders. I may have forgotten races run, but this is one race which will never be forgotten by any of us.
As 8-year-old Martin Richard told us after the Newtown massacre, we must “stop hurting people. Peace.”
Somewhere near Phoenix, I came out off the desert, turned right onto a small paved road before we hit the main street that headed into town where the entire population awaited my arrival. I was a wannabe distance god. Not good enough to hang with the elite. Even the sub-elite in my case, but that’s not important. I worked every bit as hard and made all the sacrifices. That’s what’s important. Also, I wasn’t fast. The other important thing.
I saw the least leader – the back of the pack – disappear into a cloud of dust. I wasn’t good enough to keep up with runners with real talent. Turns out not much I could do. Had no-twitch muscle fibers. But I was better than everybody else. Turns out that’s a lot of folks.
I was alone.
It’s called No-Man’s Land. Everybody that was really any good was long gone out of sight and all the runners who weren’t maniacs putting in a hundred miles a week were far behind. Nobody in front of me. Folks came out of their houses along the way, some carrying morning margaritas and big cups of coffee, and cheered me on.
I will not forget the cheers I got, after the lead pack went off course. I saw the least leader disappear into a cloud of dust.
I saw him.
I knew which way to go. A good thing, too, as there was suddenly nobody to chase. Took a look behind me. Nobody there either. Maybe it was me who was lost.
The year before, I ran a race in San Diego. Still can hear those jungle noises. It was early morning and the zoo was just waking up as I raced past the enclosures. I might have been in the lead of a fifteen-kilometer cross-country race and I had no idea what the route was. I remember I would have to stop occasionally to let my competitors catch up, in the hopes they knew which way to go. That’s all I remember.
This time, I was the athlete heading the race on its correct route. And I wasn’t going to stop this time and explain, no, I am not amazing, some better, faster, more worthy guys got lost…
I smiled at the adoring throngs. Big smiles.
I waved at the crowds. And I let the noise fill me full.
Somebody must’ve moved the orange cones. I didn’t do it. Don’t care what anybody thinks. Can’t say I am all that sorry. Loved waving at the crowd.
Hearing the cheers just once.
Just that once was enough.
Whenever I want to remind myself about possibilities, I recall the summer of ’75, sleeping on the floor of the Alpineer a mountaineering shoppe in Flagstaff, Arizona, and taking twenty-four credit hours and maintaining a four-point-oh (4.0) while running one-hundred-and-seventeen (117) miles – in a week – as fast as I could at seven thousand feet above sea level. Flagstaff, when running was young.
That guy! That guy, I want to be that guy again. Whoever the hell he was.
Just for a little while.
Sometimes I can do it in my head.
But that’s another story.
So, I’m discussing footwear with an old, old buddy, – imagine Nike’s second employee – and he asks me, “How do you feel about flashy, colorful shoes?”
“I live for that shit,” I replied.
And then I told him this story. I still remember leaving the host hotel of the Houston Marathon, headed for some country & western meet-market and this bell boy stops me.
“You better not go out like that, sir.”
“Excuse me, like what?”
“Those shoes, sir.”
I looked down at my chrome Nikes with the candy-apple hard, smooth disco soles. The lobby light reflecting like something state troopers might ring a tragic accident at night.
“You’ll get beat up by some cowboy if you go out in those shoes.”
I thanked him and went back to my room and changed.
I Ran By This House Yesterday
All I do is keep on running in my own cozy, homemade void, my own nostalgic silence. And this is a pretty wonderful thing. No matter what anybody else says. ― Haruki Murakami
I ran by this house yesterday
and faded vinyl siding spoke to me.
“You call that running?”
When inanimate objects make fun of you,
the smart move,
find a seat in the shade.
I kept going.
That house’s opinion of me
is none of my business.
Eleven in the morning. A sizzling, steamy Sunday in a scorching summer.
Hot. Humid. Hot. Humid. Real hot. Real humid.
I walk into the house after a ten-mile run. I’m all sweaty, dripping on the hardwood floors. I hear my girlfriend on the phone with one of her confidantes. These are really attractive women. Gorgeous really. Both in their early forties. Both feminists.
I strip out of my wet clothes. My girlfriend throws her head back, laughs into the phone. And then she says, “String him along. Meanwhile, you’ll get your brains humped out, which is all you’re really looking for.”
I get a tall beer out of the refrigerator.
“Cheat all you want,” my girlfriend advises. She jumps to her feet and starts waving her empty hand in the air like a preacher on television.
“What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”
I go take a cold shower. Real cold. Frigid.
Another time, I was at a small race, so small you could look over the milling crowd and basically determine your finishing position before the gun even sounded.
Was thinking maybe low single digits myself, when a long, many-windowed white van came to a sudden stop in a cloud of dust. A coterie of lithe young kids leaped out. Oh, crap, it’s the Tuba City cross-county team.
Suddenly, I am thinking mid-teens, if I have a good day.
Well, I had a good day, a few guys got away and I am running alone, just knowing any minute now a bunch of speedy Native-American children are going to come scampering past, they have no mercy and frankly their talent is scary.
I can hear their footsteps and so I accelerate and when I hit a turn, I surge, trying to get away, trying until I can’t really try any more, all I can do to hold this pace, which is too fast.
I can hear their footsteps, so finally I work up the courage to turn around and see how many of them there are.
And there is no one there.
Early morning Run. St. Augustine beach.
Seagulls sport mohawks.
An old dog moves too slowly.
Abandoned Frisbee!!!
The first day of Fall. First dawn under seventy degrees since March. Almost feels chilly. Cooler temperatures, sunny skies, blue and clear, hurricanes headed another direction. Life is good.
The old man missed running a couple of days during Irma. Nothing like no sleep and not a little fear and no power and no electricity to take the edge off one’s desire for exercise. The daily run is part of his survival kit.
He was worried about survival. But right now still at that stage where he worried much more about comfort. The old man likes to feel comfortable. And some of you know what I’m talking about, pain is uncomfortable. Constant pain can be managed. The old man managed with routine.
His routine was to hit the road by nine. Run for sixty to ninety minutes. The old runner couldn’t actually run, he was walking as hard as he could. He knew he wasn’t running but it felt like he was running. The hills were still hard to go up, the hills still hurt to go down. That bad left knee plagued him forty years ago, still a pox on his joy.
What was different today is just how much he loved headwinds. A good breeze in your face and you can convince you are actually doing it. Running.
I feel like I’m running, I feel like I’m running, I feel like I’m running….
Running. Once he decided to pursue virtual running, he could hold on to the effort and the pain. Felt like a decent tempo run. Felt like he was running six-fifteens for five miles. He could do that once. Much faster even. Tried to remember what that was like.
The old man could just zone out and pretend to be on a run of his youth. Taken up the habit of thumbing an old diary and looking for a run to replicate. Never a workout. Something fun, something self-captivating.
Sunday, September 30, 1973. Eight weeks in Flagstaff. Weight 159/pulse 40. 1:30 p.m. 75 degrees. Sunny. “FUN RUN” Altitude 7000 ft. At Lake Mary Meadows. Ned [Frederick] and I developed 6.9 miles of cross-country with three not too tough hills, some rocky terrain and very deep dust over much of the course. Anyway, I finished second (of fifteen starters) in a time of 42:08. The winner was a runner from the Northern Arizona University track team in 40:42.
My first mile was in 6:06 (third position) and I was the first off the line and actually was the leader for approximate a quarter-mile. It felt great! Pace for entire race was 6:06.
To be honest, he didn’t remember much about that event. Looking at the journal entry, seems like a good day to pretend to have again. Of course, the entire point of virtual running is the feeling. Movement feels good. Seventy-five degrees and sunny, no need to pretend about that.
I feel like I’m running, I feel like I’m running, I feel like I’m running….
The old man wished the old dog could keep up with him, but he simply had to sniff every bush. No way to cover ground.
What the hell. He imagined a virtual canine trotting along beside him. Both happily panting.
Probably something short-legged.
You learn much about yourself training to run fast marathons.
And injuries can be crazy-making.
What do you do when they say you can’t run anymore? What can you do?
I don’t yet know what I shall do, but I think about it. I think about the day when my too large, too slow body – with knees pointing in different directions and feet twisting in two others – breaks down for that last irreparable time. I cannot forget the pain which dogs my every stride, the anxiety that each step may be the one which signals another acute malady.
I admit I could do more to protect myself. I should lose weight as that would diminish the stress on my knees. But dieting is almost as difficult as not running. After all, I am ten inches taller than I was in the fifth grade but just fifteen pounds heavier.
Okay, so I was a rather larger ten-year-old. Got my start in athletics playing defensive line in football. Not a particular position, but the entire line.
I could certainly do more stretching, although I seem thus to incur injury rather than prevent it. Recent data indicate mine is not an isolated response. A study by the Honolulu Marathon Association found that runners who stretch are more frequently injured than those who do not.
I could probably decide to wear one of my four pairs of orthotics. Each different. Each designed by a nationally renowned sports podiatrist.
I could pray.
I might also divert my maniacal allegiance to another compulsion, another obsession. An alternative to running. Of course, my knees, which have difficulty moving forward in a straight line, seem inherently unsuited for activities requiring almost omni-directional movement. That eliminates basketball, tennis and racquetball – the sports of my youth, my parents and the indoors respectively.
Unfortunately, hang gliding, sky diving and mountain climbing – sports requiring just those attributes I so exude, e.g., coordination, audacity and steely nerve – also demand too much from the knees.
Roller skating is out, because it’s so “in.” I could never bring myself to attempt any sport featured on the front cover of People magazine.
Despite my intermediate life saving certificate – earned at Camp Wahnekeeya under the pulchritudinous tutelage of a boyhood fantasy, she was gentle yet firm – I can’t swim a lick. A recent layoff caused me to dogpaddle a mile while being swamped by arthritic septuagenarians. Old folks have no respect for the inept.
And forget biking. I once did try some semi-serious cycling to maintain my aerobic conditioning, only to find my stress fracture healed before my rear end did.
I have been injured so often I actually considered taking up golf. I really did. Clearly, the stress on my knees would be somewhat less than absorbed by running ten-fifteen miles daily.
And while the fitness benefits of golf may be minimal, the tangential amenities are enticing. The 19th Hole, for instance – golfers can drink hard liquor without guilt. I don’t consume the stuff myself, but I could probably work up to it.
Telvision coverage of golf is infinitely superior to that which running receives. (For that matter, TV coverage of motorized bar stool racing is superior.) I can envision myself sitting in the clubhouse, watching a televised golf match, hoping some chump will shoot a hole-in-one and buy a round of drinks.
Golf. Chasing a little white ball all over a cow pasture. When you catch up with the ball – assuming you find it – you club it with a stick, and off you go again. As Dr. Dudley White said: “Golf is a good way to ruin a walk.” And it certainly isn’t running.
But one imagines golf might possibly replace running. I can imagine myself playing thirty-six holes a day, eighteen in the morning and eighteen at night. On Saturday I could go out early to play three, even four rounds. I could establish personal records for distance off the tee, longest putt sunk, and best eighteen hole score. I might record most consecutive bunker shots, shortest putt missed, fewest mulligans, etc. I could have one pair of shoes for a wet course, another for a dry course. And think about the number of clubs a golfer might have. Or chart the weekly average of holes played. Year after year after year.
There are golf magazines, too, so maybe I could write an article for beginning duffers. Perhaps start a new periodical: The Thinking Golfer’s Magazine.
You now have a better idea of what injury might mean. The alternatives are as depressing as the physical problem itself. When I get injured I get depressed. When I get depressed, I eat, so I get fat. Fat is depressing.
This is all very boring, ergo injury must be avoided. Easier written than accomplished. The very nature of competitive distance running seems to demand injury. This is particularly true for those Runner’s like myself, whose bodies simply not built to strike the ground some 50,000 to 100,000 times in a week,
So, what can you do when they say you can’t run anymore?
I, for one, do not let it stop me. I may slow down, but I do not stop. My last good race was two and a half years ago, but I trudge on. Looking for another cure, another painkiller, another shoe, anything which might allow me to run the way I think I can.
I do not really mind not being fast. Years ago, I knew I was never going to be a great runner, but I was getting good. I never won a race nor did I expect to. All I ever wanted was to be as good as I could be. To be as fast as my no-twitch muscles, hard work and desire would permit.
Unfortunately, the very tenacity which allowed me to run faster than anyone could ever imagine, also permitted me to destroy myself as an athlete. I trained so hard then, I can hardly train now.
Moral: Listen to your body. Train, don’t strain. Less is more. You have all heard the litany of advice, and you’ll hear it again. All I suggest is that you pay heed. The greatest athlete in the wo led is ineffective if he cannot run.
And running is only valuable when you can do it. There are no ex-runners… only those who run and those who don’t.
Jump ahead a few months. Running with a barely noticeable limp at A Gathering of Eagles in Eugene, I ran faster than I dreamed.
Leap forward almost forty years, today I am an arthritic septuagenarian. Still not much of a swimmer.
Still going as fast as I can.
Recently got down to my marathon PR weight. One-sixty-nine. Felt proud enough to dig out my 1979 running diary.
Imagine my disappointment – turns out memory not so good – to learn I had actually weighed one-sixty back in the day. 160 lbs. Just as I started carbo-loading for the big race. The Nike/OTC Marathon.
And, of course, a trip down memory vain.
Actual true real notes.
Thursday, September 6 – Arrived in Eugene. Very busy. Dinner, clinics, press reception, drinking, etc.
Friday, September 7 – 5 p.m. Six miles alone on the bike path along McKenzie River. “Easy” run. Feel terrible.
Saturday, September 8 – Six miles. Ran Pre’s Trail with Don Kardong, Herm Atkins, Tom Wysocki & Bob Maplestone. A little faster and a little farther than I cared to run, but the company made up for it.
Sunday, September 9 – Race day. Nice day. 0800. 62-65 degrees. NIKE! First mile – 6:17. 5K – 19:17. Rest of 5K splits about twenty minutes or faster. 10k = 38:32? 15K = 58:28. 1:18:30?
Surged a little at 23-24 kilometers. 1:38+ at 25K. Thirty kilometers in 1:58:54. I think.
Then I really started to push. Next five kilometers in 19-19:15. And the next (35-40) in 18+.
Weakened a little but pushed hard to the finish.
I tried very hard. Very hard.
2:46:07.
My first personal best at any distance since my left knee fell apart two and a half years ago.
PR by 3:16. Feeling a little proud. Super run! Happy and surprised.
Wore Adidas Marathon 80s. Feet blistered painfully at 30k.
Monday, September 10 – Sunriver, OR. 5 p.m. Ran for twenty-five minutes with Benji Durden (2:13:47 PR Sunday) and Mark Anderson (2:15:33 PR Sunday)
Slowly. Stiff.
Tuesday, September 11 – Sold Running magazine.
***********************************
Here’s the story.
Two-Forty-Six-Oh-Seven.
2:46:07. Two-forty-six-oh-seven. Two hours, forty-six minutes and seven seconds.
I ran the Nike/OTC Marathon in 2:46:07, and I am incredulous. I imagine those who have been victimized by my recent grumbling also have some difficulty believing it.
As you might remember, I have discussed – despondently – the injured, overweight, undertrained, wracked-with-pain body that burdened my soul. I was depressed, and I thought I had good reason. I hadn’t run for a week; I hadn’t run a real good race in 2½ years. I was a mess.
Well, thank you for the cards and letters, but you can stop now. Save the postage. I am reborn, revivified.
For a few short hours I became a runner again. I don’t really know how I did it. I was in 2:54 shape at best, aiming at 2:49:59 only because Messrs. Cloney and Semple demand it. I did – honest – dream about running 2:48:44, but that was just a dream.
We went past 5 kilometers in 19:17. We were already 3½ minutes behind the leaders and some 30 seconds ahead of our goal pace. (Okay, if Jeff Wells and Tony Sandoval want it that badly, let them have the win – we’re going to Boston.) We slowed.
We also maintained the pace. I think. I don’t know for sure because I was born in the we-don’t-do-metric USA, before New Math. By the time I divided 5 kilometers into 19:17 minutes, we were at 10k in 38:48. That’s 3.88 minutes per kilometer… there are 42.195 kilometers in a marathon.
You can imagine my dilemma. I began to sense symptoms of mathematical prostration. Could Steinmetz run this pace and do complicated equations? Could Einstein even?
At 26 kilometers I came upon a friend doing the only smart thing to do at a marathon – he was watching. I burst into song, a cappella, of course: “You take the high road and I’ll take the low road.”
I began to accelerate. If one can sing, one can run faster. (Isn’t that a line from a Mike Spino book?)
I was passing people now. My friend and sometime training partner John Frey – imagine Mr. Magoo, running 2:50 – said hello. Most of the rest just grunted. I was careful to express encouragement to the few people I truly enjoyed leaving behind. They knew, and I knew they knew.
They knew, too, I was a runner again. Even I was beginning to believe. Around 30k, I put the pedal to the metal. (If Bill Rodgers is a Ferrari, then I’m a ’72 Pontiac sedan. With a six-cylinder engine.)
I pushed. I hammered. I fought. I struggled, fought some more – a typical marathon.
At 40 kilometers, I began to hit The Wall. But I refused. I was running a personal best… I didn’t have time to slow down.
The digital clock above the finish line read 2:46:07. My wife had that “son-of-a-gun-you’ve-done-it-again” expression. And the pain lightened, falling away like a snake’s old skin.
Release washed over me as the dike of my concentration broke. I began to sob. I could stop running.
But I can’t stop now. I have reaffirmed my runnerness. I may not be the best, but I am better than I ever was. Finally.
That is enough.
For now at least. For now I am content. My legs still hurt. I still avoid hills, hard surfaces, speedwork, and talented training partners. But I am running.
No longer do local runners ask, “Didn’t you used to be a fairly good runner?” When queried about my marathon PR, I can now answer with different numbers.
Numbers, times. They don’t really mean much. Tony Sandoval (2:10:20 PR) and Dick Quax (2:11:13 PR) told me a couple days after the race that my personal best was every bit as valuable, as meaningful, as their own records. Perhaps as amazing, too. They saw little difference.
The numbers are different, but… it’s the feeling. Flying down towards that finish, seeing nothing, missing nothing. It’s THE FEELING, a sensation so intense, so consuming, so unlike any other that it defies my limited command of the English language.
The feeling that comes when your body, your mind, your very soul… the feeling of attempting more than you can possibly do, and then actually doing it.
The difference perhaps between living and being alive.
I hope you understand. 2:46:07. Damn.
Jerome Ghost Town Hill Climb
The old runner drove up the hill and up the hill and up the hill. Then he got out of the Jeep. And invented a new sport – high altitude standing.
“It’s all I can do, honey. You keep shopping.” And he sat down.
The past hour, he’d been telling total strangers about his last visit in 1973. Place hadn’t changed much. Still high up. Still sparsely populated. Officially, two-hundred residents.
Packed now with tourists. Last visit, one place to get a cup of coffee, another place for a beer. Pottery. Hippies in a hazy daze curbside selling each other handmade baubles.
Galleries now. The young redhead, a.k.a. “The Jewelry Monster”, disappeared. Expect a up-blip in the local economy.
The old runner had been telling tales about this race – 1973 Jerome Ghost Town Hill Climb – for decades. Even faded by time, the recollections remained vague but consistent.
“I’d been in northern Arizona just a month. I remember fighting for second and third place with this guy in dusty high-top Converse sneakers.
“I couldn’t keep up.
“After the race, saw the same guy leaning up against a big old Toyota four by four. He was smoking a Lucky Strike.”
The old runner couldn’t find his notes from last week. But….
Actual contemporaneous diary entry. September 3rd, 1973. Labor Day Monday. Weight 161/Pulse 41.
10 a.m. Ran the Third Annual Jerome Ghost Town Hill Climb. 5.1 miles.
Finished 11th of 25 finishers in a time of 37:10. Temperature at start approx. 85 degrees.
Climbed from about 5,000 feet to almost 6600 feet above sea level.
Walked two or three times for short distance. Did not push at all until the last mile. Felt kinda bad, headache and chills at finish.
Race has the greatest scenery! What views!!
The old runner was still sitting on the bench outside the fancy bauble store.
Something ironic, having originally moved so many decades ago to Flagstaff for altitude training.
And now he couldn’t get off the bench.
Opening lines to my 1981 Boston Marathon Diary.
Thursday, April 16. As Northwestern’s Flight 46 entered its approach pattern over Boston’s Logan Airport, the pilot’s voice crackled – in the obligatory Texan accent – “The temperature in Boston is currently fifty-five degrees, with winds from the west gusting to thirty miles per hour.”
Does Rodgers really think this weather will hold until 2:15 p.m. Monday? Does Seko care? (Seko must care, as he is said to be considering withdrawal if the temperature is higher than 68.)
Friday, April 17. The area around the Prudential Center begins to fill with Midwestern attorneys wearing polyester suits and running shoes. Overpriced magazines, published especially for this race, discuss the fact Grete Waitz “almost certainly won’t even run [Boston] this year.”
Another magazine confides that Alberto Salazar “is not expected to run because of a prior commitment to compete in the USC-UCLA-Stanford track & field meet on the West Coast.” Something about that doesn’t seem right.
Lines are already forming outside Dunkin’ Donuts and The Spaghetti House as carbohydrate-deprived runners embark on a vein-clogged rationale for all those winter miles.
A favorite watering hole has become a gay bar since last year’s race and a male runner is on his second beer before he notices there are no women to fantasize about.
The weather is still great for marathon racing.
Decades later. Early January. A cold front blows down from the north. About global warming, the old man wasn’t certain but he was convinced climate change was real. Snow storms didn’t used to have names.
The young redhead tee-peed his bikes with yellow crime scene tape after she heard about his herniated unit. Heal quick, honey, she’d said with a wink.
Didn’t do quick much any more. But what a glorious day. He headed into the wind, uphill, feeling fresh, like the breeze washing him clean. At the crest, looking down a long empty straightaway, two words came to mind: RACE DAY.
What he would give to run a marathon personal best just once more. Make an excellent old television drama. Probably explode at the finish line. Oh, wait, this is better. There is no finish line, so you can’t set a PR. You just keep running off into The Twilight Zone.
The old man walked, face lifted to the sun.
There are days, his mother had said, when, if you don’t look in the mirror, you would have no idea how old you are.
Cold. Overcast. Good day for a runner to explore. The old man leaned into the wind and remembered another race day. 10th Annual Trail’s End Marathon. Seaside, Oregon. February 24, 1979.
He was tall and he was lean and he was fit. Needed a qualifying time for Boston. At his age, needed a sub-3:00-hour marathon. Sorta out and back, sorta real flat, he’d run the race before. 2:59:59 shouldn’t be much of a problem.
Remember waking. Dark stinging darts, sheets of lateral rain and strong, strong, gusty winds from the south. Race heads north and everybody takes off like a bat out of hell from the gun. Oh, yeah. Sweet tailwind. Remember thinking, those poor bastards have never run that fast before. You’re gonna have to turn around halfway. Save some energy.
Nobody listened. He ran negative splits, faster into the headwinds. Felt like Prefontaine, racing through a crowd of stumbling zombies. 2:59:44. Good for 214th. Okay, he had to push some the last ten kilometers. Didn’t leave himself much cushion.
He remembered sitting in a hotel room, next to the finish line. Beer in hand, showered and dressed in full-length red nylon by Frank Shorter Sports, he scanned out the big picture window. Which rattled. His initial wife chose this race day to run her first marathon. She made it. One of the slower zombies. He was so proud of her. They divorced shortly thereafter.
The old man was listening to Brave New World. Remembered enjoying the book in college. What’s not to like about ubiquitous sex and drugs and STABILITY.
“Ending is better than mending…. The more stitches, the less riches.”
All the book meant now was a prescient warning, apt and current.
He walked on.
The look of recognition on his face was reward enough for getting up at 4:57 a.m. on a Sunday morning.
But the rest of Father’s Day was also an excellent adventure. Bill Rodgers and I first raced together nearly a half century ago.
We didn’t know each other.
I wasn’t yet famous and neither was he.
At Boston ’73, we both went out too fast.
One of us was stupid and one of us finished. Me.
Eventually.
One of us was thinking about victory and unprepared for the heat – Billy DNFed. He improved to 14th the next year and, well, you pretty much know the rest.
I was better prepared for this five kilometer ‘death match.’ Started carbo loading Thursday. Samuel Adams beer and blueberry granola.
No, not at the same time.
I was injured, for the first time in over two years. Falling into the trap of… Oh, I’m getting fitter. I think I’ll just push harder.
When I tell Billy about my shin splints, I get little sympathy, just “ice, tennis ball, swimming.”
Which, by the way, seems to be his advice for most injuries. Anyway, the “gun” goes off.
The event was self-seeded, so, of course, I was in the second row.
I think Bill was still in the announcers’ tower; I managed to stay away until midpoint, right before the water stop.
I watched to see if he’d break stride. He did, taking two cups, not used to the Florida heat, and I made my move. Would’ve caught him, too, but then he began running again. Can’t even catch him when he’s stationary.
As I watch him prance away, I can’t help thinking… the bastard still runs on his toes. The event was untimed and I forgot my watch, so I put my time for five kilometers (3.1 miles) at between twenty and forty minutes. Somewhere in that range. Maybe 39:59. Bill was waiting for me at the finish line. I graciously congratulated him. (see photo below.)
I was kinda hoping he’d DNF again.
My last cross-country race. Inverness, Florida. 8 a.m. in the morning. Hot and humid in the shade.
We can now close the books on The 15th Annual Citrus Summer Showdown 5K Cross Country Run.
“One of the Best Off-Road Races in Florida. Whispering Pines Park offers a course of mostly nature trails under a tree canopy that provides nice cool shade. This Mid-Summer event allows High School Cross Country hopefuls a chance to scope out the competition and see who’s going to be hot in the upcoming fall season. Divisions include Elementary, Middle, High School, College, and Open (Adult).”
Started my taper a few days earlier after a 5K on the treadmill at Gold’s Gym. Lite beer and an hour on the spin bike. Feeling lean, too. Don’t even have to carry my car keys, I figure the extra weight can’t help. Not to mention all that infernal jingling.
My Temporary Use Exemption (TUE) was approved for rheumatoid Arthritis, so I can take the Prednisone. But I lost my appeal on varicose veins. Still wearing knee-high compression socks. Sue me. Decked out otherwise in heat-absorbing black, I look like a ninja stork.
Felt good until the race started. Barely got out of sight of my wife reading a Scott Turow novel when this buzz-cut young lad comes up alongside me. He’s at that age I don’t particularly enjoy, somewhere between ten and twenty. “Are you okay, sir?” Obsequious-like. Figure he must have heard my breathing and looked at my white hair and started thinking about how if I drop dead, he could get a merit badge out of the deal. Seemed like that kind of kid. “Fine, doin’ fine,” I wheezed. “You go on ahead.”
But he didn’t. Followed me like I was Alberto Salazar and he was that investigative reporter guy from The Guardian. Figure the kid didn’t want to leave me alone and miss all the excitement. At The 15th Annual Citrus Summer Showdown 5K Cross Country Run, the males, men and boys and the odd geezer, get a seven-minute head-start, which I think is a great idea.
Well, you don’t need to be much of a mathematician to swiftly realize I was soon being passed by glistening little lasses in skin-tight Lycra. Not a bad thing. But I was not alone.
Behind me as each female passed, I heard… “Lookin good! Way to go! You’re doing great!!” Some variation of the same shit. So I’m guessing that makes him somewhere between twelve and his first real girlfriend. I only saw their backsides, but the kid was jogging at an angle so he could see them coming and going. They looked good going. If I wasn’t so busy watching for the helpfully spray-painted fluorescent orange tree roots, I might’ve told him he was getting on my nerves. In between images of a cold beer and a meat lover’s omelette at Cinnamon Sticks… I’m thinking… he sounds just like Justin Timberlake at a Miami Beach rave. Maybe Jeffrey Epstein.
I’m also thinking – got a lot of time to think at this pace – five kilometers used to be a warmup. And now I can’t break my 10K personal record over half the distance. “Way to go! Looking good. You’re doing great!!” Okay, so a lot of Lycra might’ve passed me.
“Go get’em, kid,” I told him.
And he did.
Tickled, I must confess, to be the first over-sixty finisher. Maybe even the oldest, but I only check those who finish in front of me. Even hung around for the award ceremony because I forgot there were no old guy divisions. I don’t get many chances. I’ve seen the guys in my age group. They’ll show up next month and run in the twenty-one-something’s for five kilometers. Faster even. Meanwhile, I am literally half as fast as I once was when I was young. Or twice as slow. Whatever.
The toughest part of racing at my experience level is probably awaking at 0530 in the morning. Know I’m not going to run fast. And it hurts, but not a fun hurt. Best part is breakfast with the wife at some nice restaurant afterwards. Then a cold beer. And my recliner.
Running remains young, even if I don’t.
Early May, Spokane. Participated in the Bloomsday 12K, maybe my first race in seventeen years. Kardong a good friend and he let me in for free.
Marching in step, chanting, platoons of soldiers passed me. Little girls in pink tutus passed me.
June. Father’s Day in Tampa. Boston Billy comes to town to brag about his prostate cancer. He used to be somebody and he always will be.
Only slower. He is still – gosh, gee, golly – still funny. We went to dinner at the Columbia in Ybor City.
I join the Red Mule Runners, the local running club. It’s like a drug. The first hit is free and then sloooowly – no pun intended – I am dragged back in.
Gonna join a club, find one sponsored by a pub. Some guy has a twenty-three-year streak going. At least a mile every day.
Dawns on me, I have my own streak going – have raced two months in a row. Consecutively.
And wouldn’t you know, Saturday, there’s a trail run just up the road. Set the alarm for 5 a.m., awoke at 4:38.
Can’t tell if it’s excitement or fear, prevents sleep. Tell you the truth, can’t much feel the difference anymore between excitement and fear.
Doesn’t really matter, both strikingly energizing. And I’ll deal with it, whichever.
The course, well marked, heads deep into the forest, dangerous roots painted a florescent orange.
All my life seems like I have been running alone and today is no different. I hear loud, wheezy breathing, it’s me.
I am tiring and want to check my watch. No, I tell myself, wait until you get to the one-mile marker.
My idea of a wilderness experience is the produce department at the local grocery. And now I am deep in the woods.
Doesn’t help I watched three episodes of The Walking Dead last night. I am thinking about biters who walk like heroin addicts.
I am thinking about diamondback rattlesnakes. I am thinking about ticks.
Poison oak.
I think I heard a noise.
Oh, it’s just the lead woman. Apparently, a ten-minute headstart wasn’t enough for me. Not long later, a little girl gently announces “left” and passes by.
At least she is not wearing a tutu.
I am still thinking about snakes.
I wait a long time at the finishing chute. My wife looks like she’s been bit.
Maybe ticks.
Turns out a course monitor had asked her, “Are you the last one?” Lucky she didn’t take a swing at him. Her first race ever and – NO! – she’s not the last one. Thank you. Very much.
She’s proud. I’m proud. We’re all proud.
I would’ve gone much faster, she notes, if you hadn’t made me carry your phone & wallet & keys.
“And don’t forget my allergies.”
I am somebody else. I am somebody new.
So is she.
Monday, she took her bib number to work.
The old runner could tell you the exact spot where the idea came into full blossom.
A narrow roadway, just crossing between the sixth hole and the seventh tee. Headed due west. Away from the morning sun. No traffic.
Felt like a door opening, opening wide. Imagine you’ve died and now you are going up into heaven. There was a bright light.
A Big Bright Light, pulling him skyward. And he didn’t even have to die to see it.
Right then the old runner realized he could replicate the feeling of running. Even if his body could no longer reproduce the actual motion.
The first day, he just imagined he didn’t hurt. Felt lighter. He imagined he was going faster. The breeze picked up or so it seemed.
The old runner could see himself running along the lanes, waving at the cranes and ibis and tortoises, a wide smile spread across his face.
He fantasized about catching up to a golf cart, surprising senior citizens racing to the pool for aquarobics. Or not.
The second day. If you are going to practice virtual running, why stay home? Been running these same roads for ten years now. Once you’ve seen a blind man pitching horseshoes, there’s not much else to watch out for. Go somewhere new in your head.
Hell, why not re-visit some favorite runs? Why not, indeed.
The old man surprised himself. First image: he suddenly found himself trailing the lead pack at a small college cross-country race at leafy Bush Park in Salem, Oregon. Chuck Bowles let him sneak in, because the coach thought he might be able to keep up.
He could almost keep up, chasing, chasing, the rubber band never breaking, only until the memory faded away.
Before he realized, he was curving down off the mountain, the back half of an observatory run west of Flagstaff, Arizona. Motoring at high altitude, beard in the wind. 1974.
Man oh man oh man.
The old runner noticed – so far – he had only virtually run his fastest days.
Thinking maybe tomorrow he’d try to stay with the lead pack.
Hard road rarely flat.
Old man’s pavement never soft.
I must keep going.
Age wrinkles the body. Quitting wrinkles the soul. – Douglas MacArthur
He had decided upon awaking just this early dawn that every morning he woke was a victory. A win worthy of celebration.
The old man celebrated by going for a run.
Walter Elliot offered, “Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after the other.”
Each day had become just that, a short race.
He was moving as fast as he could. One foot in front of the other. Day after day.
Looking forward to the next waking morning.
Another starting gun.
Running is an art, a craft, a method of expression. Running is science, an experiment.
A race is a performance. Becoming a runner is an invention of one.
This is my “problem” with becoming the best runner I could have been.
I could never find my role, my balance, just the right ingredients. The correct recipe. The right equation…
If I had to do it all over again, I think I might be more scientific.
Odd perhaps – I knew more about the science of running than most anybody back then. Not that there was all that much to know really.
Remember steak before the big game?
So, I decided to be more scientific. But any equation which starts with ‘Broke-down Old Guy’ seems unlikely to = fast times.
Questioned myself.
When runners are old, how do they keep going?
They struggle.
What was your biggest disappointment?
Getting slow before I was done getting fast.
What would you say to your younger self?
Waste less time. Because it runs out.
What advice would you give?
Never surrender.
Walking helps everything, the old man believed. Even with the pain. Hell, if you are going to hurt all the time, might as well get some benefit out of it. Getting Mike Manley lean.
Last weekend he had consumed two gallons of Triple Chocolate With Extra Nuts And Fudge Swirls ice cream topped with a smattering of chopped walnuts. Quart of spinach & artichoke dip. Managed to bulk up a couple of pounds.
Epiphany!! Once he realized he could claim he was running, ’cause nobody was watching. No one had a stopwatch, as the old man covered unknown distances in random times. If you people can cover 26.2 miles in six and a half hours and call yourselves marathoners, then I am a runner.
The old man came to this realization when he working to get up a hill, pushing, using his arms. Except for speed, felt the same. We kid ourselves every day, right?
Guy next door is in his eighties. A cancer survivor fifteen years ago. Well, it’s back. The chemo baldness, heads to the mail box without a hat, looking like Telly Savalas. Man’s an inspiration.
Humpback lady down the street planting trees by herself. In between cigarette breaks. Her, too.
He put his weights next to his recliner, might be more likely to make an effort. Still couldn’t see himself using them. Maybe when he was older.
***
The old man never thought about racing. Never thought about those days of competition. Maybe if he had ever won a single race.
What he thought about were headwinds on a loop around the Danbury airport. Bush Park. Lake Mary Meadows. Terwilliger & Leif Erickson. Pre’s Trail.
He could still recall the smells of breakfast – bacon and eggs – wafting through chill air of a Flagstaff neighborhood.
The conversations. The explorations. The discoveries. But not really that either.
Miss the guys. But not really that either.
Miss the motion. Air moving past. You moving fast. Miss that.
Walking as fast as I can. That will just have to do.
I think cutting back is a tactic I shall take at this late stage. Which is about time. Finally.
When you are young, you think ‘I’ll run through it,’ ‘it’ll go away.’
When you are old, you think ‘This might not go away. Oh, no, this could be permanent.’
When I was young, I was in a hurry.
Now I am old and see the wisdom finally of taking my time.