The best sportswear companies are always hiring thoughtful types, someone once said.
Nike wanted my magazine, not me. All other shoe companies lost my number, except Brooks.
Brooks had just hired the first woman CEO in running shoe company history.
So, already thinking outside the box.
With the forthcoming 1996 Olympic Games on American soil, Brooks wanted to know what I was thinking.
What I was thinking – to paraphrase a former boss – there is no box.
Imagine You Are Chris Fox
Hagerstown, Maryland, U.S.A. October, 1995
A fox – a feral dog… renowned throughout the ages for his intelligence.
Imagine you are Chris Fox.
You woke up one day, just a kid, wishing you could play basketball, but you didn’t have the physical tools.
Not for that game.
You loved basketball. Played basketball everyday, even when you ran one hundred miles a week. But you were four-feet-eleven, sixty-five pounds in the tenth grade.
So, you lived running, because you were excited to finally excel at something and because you found a coach who was really into the sport.
You feel much the same way over twenty years later.
You were successful early. Wore the U.S.A. jersey more than once, still a kid. You made the national team in cross-country and helped capture the world championship in Dusseldorf, West Germany. When’s the last time that happened? Ran 8:57 for two miles in high school. You competed for the United States vs. the Soviet Union. 14:21 for five kilometers. Learned the metric system sooner than most of your friends.
In the mid-Seventies, you and your buddies were just a fledging cross-country team. At your school, nobody ran, it was more like you were rebels. You all wore your hair a lot longer than the rest of the kids. You were rebels because you worked hard and proved fairly successful. Cultivated contrast against the teenage stereotype.
You’ve been running one hundred mile weeks since you were fifteen years old. The biggest thing you notice between high school and now, running is easier and more fun today. Seemed very hard for you back then. Even though you were pretty good, it was hard. Hard physically.
Wasn’t such a game, more of a game today.
Running late.
You turned thirty-seven this month and racing faster than ever. This summer’s personal best of 27:53 legitimizes you as a world class athlete. Fifteenth-fastest ten-kilometer runner in U.S. history. Only three guys have gone under twenty-eight minutes in this decade. And you are the oldest American in history to run so fast. Years older.
You don’t count the years.
You don’t count mileage, but you guess you were running about eighty miles a week, the middle of track season. The training is not complicated. You ran a big time track workout once a week, which might mean repeat miles fairly fast. Sub-4:15. Maybe some quick quarters after that, sub-sixty. Nothing very complicated. And then coming back the other hard day with fartlek, speed play, which is very controlled, say, two-minute runs off a minute rest. Or ninety-second runs with a minute’s rest. Track workouts total three miles of hard stuff at the height of the racing season.
Actually, this past spring, you started something a little different, concentrating on a thousand meters. A thousand meters is a good distance for you from a training standpoint, because you can still get good quality speedwork, coming through the eight hundred meters in 2:07, then changing gears the last two hundred meters. That seems to work really well. Gives you that balance between long enough interval and quick enough.
This is the training you’ve been doing for the last eight years. Just an evolution of the same program. Same coach. Consistency in many things pays many dividends.
Known Coach Shank, Greg, since you were a thirteen-year-old kid. Staying with the same coach has been a big help. Surrounded by people who really believe in you. Not just your coach, but four or five good friends who really believe in your running. You have a good support crew and they keep it all very positive. Aces and eight years.
Something else. Three or four people in the coaching world, guys who know, told you to your face that you have all the tools, you just have to get them together.
And it finally has come together over the last year and a half. Shown glimpses here and there, since you ran 13:21 a decade ago, you could run at the level you are finally running at. But never on a consistent basis.
Not like now.
Can’t pinpoint precisely the reasons for the breakthrough, this winning streak of great races you’ve been running. Consistency can be its own reason.
Your form is so much better than it used to be, you’re square all the time. You seldom ever run on the roads. Those paths, dirt paths where you’re at right now as matter of fact, you run on them at least ninety percent of the time the last eight years. Run on dirt paths, whether it’s on the mountain or along the river. Love it out here. If you’re doing a ten-mile run, sure, you might run a mile to get to the trails. But that’s about the extent of your road time.
Think soft surfaces prevent injury.
There was a time or two you wanted to quit. There was a time when you felt, “I just can’t translate my hard work and talent into success in competition.” You knew in your heart you were faster than other guys with better marks.
You worked it out. A gradual process. Give you credit for that, you worked it out. Been pushing hard for a long time. You could have quit but you never did.
Like your attitude today: I’m going to take a chance.
Imagine you are Chris Fox.
You have been one of the truly lucky guys in this sport, you know it. You have never been abused. Your high school coach didn’t abuse you. Never ran you in dual meets. Rarely forced you to run you too many intervals. Sure, you did the long slow miles back then but everybody else was into LSD. Auburn, no problems worth remembering. You didn’t get abused at Eugene with the legendary Athletics West crowd. Because you were at Eugene, you weren’t running on the roads, those guys didn’t run on the roads. Ran on paths, too. They had a short season, then they went to Europe.
You certainly haven’t been abused by Shank. Greg is a guy, well, he won’t take a dime, he won’t take a dime from you for his help. You see guys gets ruined by agents and everything else. And Greg Shank has never taken a penny. You came to town, and said, “would you help me?” Greg never hesitated. Greg always kept you focused on achieving your long term goals, not going for the quick buck.
Now that you think of it, Greg kinda abused your butt bad with some of those early long runs.
You were very, very short on mileage when the two of you started working together. Took you a long time to evolve into what Shank calls a long distance runner. You were a 3:59 miler, a five kilometer specialist. That’s really where you wanted to be. You didn’t like doing anything past that.
Remember the first time Greg took you out for an hour and forty-five minutes. You had a lot of trouble. Literally fell apart the last couple of miles. Pieces of you all over the road. Took a lot of years to handle that kind of mileage. You can now. You can handle it. Last year, you were running 190 miles in ten days. Then backing off, dropping down to 170, then back up. Today you can do that type of thing with little stress, just the right kind of stress.
Moved up to the marathon, but you’ve always been very, very careful. Never put marathons back to back. Selected just one for your year. You’ve been lucky, but you’ve also been in a situation where you’ve been allowed to develop slowly. That 2:13 PR should be 2:09 at least.
Training, much easier for you than it was three or four years ago. You’re programmed, you don’t have to think about what’s happening, you just do it.
Remember one day last summer, total heat wave, in a workout you would’ve had trouble with before… Wouldn’t have wanted to do it, based on the conditions, which were awful, but there was a time crunch and you didn’t question it at all. You were awesome. That’s what Shank says. Actually seemed to relish in the fact you had to run in those kind of conditions.
You did a workout in terrible weather, ninety-two degrees and ninety percent humidity. Not only ran the workout great, you were very aggressive during the entire session. Three years ago, you would have put your head down and said, ‘”Let’s do it some other day.”
You feel young. Workout-wise, they’ve only gotten better over the last eight years. Just continued to evolve. No setbacks. You never get injured. Maybe it’s because you’re six-feet-one but just one hundred and thirty pounds. Body like a stiletto. Your light and lanky frame has proved a godsend. Unlike bulkier runners, your body has not suffered from the pounding punishment of two decades’ competition.
Last laugh is yours.
You like to think your career has been an evolutionary process that’s working out fine. Never felt like you were slowing down. And you love running. As long as you’re getting better, it’s a lot of fun.
Half a dozen years ago, you had the reputation of a great workout guy and a guy who would have great races, then some not so great races, or maybe some races where you didn’t compete well at all.
Everybody says you’re a nice guy, one of the nicest guys in the sport. Shank always told you, some of these guys you’re competing with, they aren’t so nice. You had to become confident, a little cocky even, and you developed that attitude.
Fear held you back for a lot of years, admit it. But you are not afraid anymore. Fear doesn’t play a role today. Now you are pretty aggressive. You stick your ass right out in front and get into the middle of the fray.
You’re not sure what you were afraid of. You don’t know. You don’t know. Maybe you were afraid to really put it on the line. Whatever that means. You’re not sure. As much as anything, you stopped having those fears when you got a little success. You don’t know, You can’t really tell me. You have always loved to compete, so that wasn’t a problem. Maybe it was just fear of failing.
Lately, you’ve been leading. Pushing the pace every chance you get. Takes a brave man to battle fear for years.
You are not afraid anymore.
Imagine you are Chris Fox.
You woke up one morning this spring in the best shape of your life.
Won the National twelve-kilometer road championship at Bay-To-Breakers in May, staying with a couple of world record Kenyans much longer than anyone, including you and the Kenyans, would have believed. Had the balls to charge, take the lead up the big hill. Impressed yourself a little.
Once you found out what kind of shape you were really in, all you had to do was qualify and get to the national track championships. Felt pretty confident once you got there, you could make the team. A little track success never hurt a good marathoner.
The original plan was hit Bay-To-Breakers hard, then start getting ready to make the Olympic marathon team in February. Run a few road races. Success on the track doesn’t really impact your marathon plans. The way you look at it, the ten-kilometer just makes you a better marathoner. Strengthens what you already feel about the marathon. The track is only positive and doesn’t keep you from wanting to run the marathon.
That’s your race in ’96.
You can always come back and run the track Trials, since you have an Olympic qualifier. At more than one distance even. You have a real good shot at making the oval team, but your energy and your focus is on the marathon.
Haven’t really begun preparing for the marathon itself. Track races are speed preparation, some might say. You can feel yourself getting stronger and faster. You’ll begin to ease down this month. Get into your marathon training starting about the first of November. You’ll roadrace infrequently from October to December, and then that will be it. You probably will not race in December, maybe run one in January, but it’s not necessary, you don’t think.
You do need to compete to pay your bills. You are, after all, a professional athlete. You’ve made a bit of money this year, and with the support from Brooks… Sometimes you forfeit immediate gratification for the long term and there is some big long-term money at the Olympic Trials this year. One hundred thousand dollars to the winner. Sometimes you have to sacrifice. You’ve never lived the Carl Lewis lifestyle, but you haven’t missed any meals either. Grew up in a pretty simple lifestyle.
Given a choice between 27:29 and driving a Ferrari, you’d take that 27:29.
Bay-To-Breakers to the Olympic marathon is still the plan. That is still the goal with some selected road races in between. Shank is of the opinion too much road racing is not good. One of the reasons you have been able to maintain your competitive running at this late stage is because you haven’t run a lot of road races.
Track is stressful, mentally stressful more than physically stressful. An athlete must learn how to concentrate, and that is one thing you have lacked in the marathon. Concentration is an issue because when you are out there for two hours and ten minutes, you have to make sure you monitor what’s happening to you and what’s going on around you. Some people need to be taught concentration and the track teaches that.
Concentration may be the difference between some of these really good guys and some of the guys who are truly great.
Look at Alberto Salazar, when he first stepped on the line in New York, he was so young, but he had just come off a fast ten-thousand meters effort. That had to help his powers of concentration. Not that he wasn’t the kind of guy who could always concentrate.
Point is, your fastest times at other distances don’t equate to what you have run to date in the marathon. You can go much faster.
Imagine you are Chris Fox.
You say you run best when you are angry. Anger concentrated can prove the focus of a distance runner. The races themselves are more cleansing than anything. Your biggest battles are always about getting there. Maybe that explains the long journey that is your career.
You petitioned for entry into the ’95 National track championships. Officials demanded a qualifying time. Your buddies created a meet.
Called it the William “Buzz” Sawyer Invitational. Seven events and sanctioned. Of course, the highlight of the evening, you churning out sub-seventy second laps by yourself. Three other guys in the race but they were getting lapped left and right.
William “Buzz” Sawyer, in case anybody is interested, was a sub-nine-minute two-miler back when there was only a handful of guys doing track. Used to run the indoor circuit back in the Fifties. Sawyer is the founder of the Cumberland Valley Athletic Club.
Of which you are the most famous member.
You placed second at the Nationals. Still can’t keep up with Todd Williams. Made the World Championship team. But they demanded another qualifying time.
You have never run that fast. But you know you can.
You had to find a great race to run a great time. The London Grand Prix seemed the proper place but Ian Stewart won’t let you into the field. Said you are too slow. You haven’t liked him since he outkicked Prefontaine for the bronze medal in Munich. Stewart said he had thirty-three people who could break twenty-eight minutes and you weren’t one of them.
You fought it. Made all the phone calls you could. You called Steve Cram’s people, Steve Jones made some calls for you. A lot of people went to bat for you. Stewart would just not let you in.
So, you ended up going to Montreal. Angry.
You were a little disappointed because you didn’t come expecting a good race. But Rodolfo Gomez’ group from Mexico showed up, he probably brought ten people, including two pacesetters.
Pleasant surprise, a beautiful night. Probably sixty degrees and zero wind. Like the Penn Relays at night, there were only about two hundred people there, but they were into it. Turned out to be a nice race. The pacesetters were a little slow at first, so you went to the lead in the first mile. Then the pacesetters got on it. You stayed on them, pushing them and talking to them and got them through five kilometers in 13:56. What must those Latin bunnies have been thinking with this gringo hollering at them.
Faster, faster. Beep, beep.
Then Silva Guerrero moved up with you and another Mexican, Jorge Marquez, and you broke the rest of the field. Kept nailing 66s and 67s the rest of the way. You got in a little trouble just past five miles. You backed off and gave those guys about five seconds.
Then you kicked in. Last mile was about 4:21, the last quarter was only like a sixty-two, but it was good enough. You ran 27:53 for third place. 13:56. 13:56. Even splits.
You were racing. You like to race. Trying to win the damn thing. No denying you were aware of the times, because you had to run 28:08 to qualify for the World Championships.
You enjoy racing people. You don’t enjoy running against the clock.
During this little hot streak you have going, you spend the entire race thinking solely about how the hell you can win the thing. You were a little more aware of splits this time than normal, of course. You just wanted to make sure the pace stayed hot, that’s why you went to the lead four or five times. Just to keep it honest. You went into the race REALLY wanting to break twenty-eight.
Felt like you could go 27:40 next time. I mean, you had to work Montreal. You had to help the rabbits and you had to help after the rabbits. You’d like to get in a race where you don’t have to do a thing, and see what happens. Of course, if there are Kenyans running 27:30’s, there comes a point where you are just holding on. We’ll see. Who knows?
You like to think you can be in the race.
Imagine you are Chris Fox.
You were never in the race.
You got into the wrong heat at the World Championships. The first heat, Todd Williams ran 14:20 for the first 5k, before qualifying in 28:13. Talking numbers off the top of your head, but real close. Which is what you had expected in both heats.
But in your heat, you got caught up in a little African war, between a couple of different tribes, and they just went at it. They reached the half in 13:40 something and then it only got quicker. All you could do is watch. You had run four 10ks on the track just to get there and face it, this was difficult. Before you started the race, Shank told you all you had to do was finish twelfth. If it was under 28:15, you’re okay. Which is what you expected. They just went out hard and you were right there for six thousand meters.
Never saw two heats so different. Heat Two, your heat, won in 27:29, was the deepest final in the event’s history. The twelfth finisher clocked 27:54 and he didn’t make the final. You were next. This event is changing right in front of your eyes.
If you had gotten through the first round, you could’ve been in the top ten, just about like Todd. Todd looked like he was on the way down and you, face it, were right on the edge yourself. Just got in the wrong heat. Hell, took you a half dozen hard races just to get here.
It was a good learning experience, something that was a little rich for a marathoner. You mentally handled it well, physically no problem.
Already put it behind you.
You wanted to run one more road race, so you went to Falmouth two weeks later and beat Todd over 7.1 miles. Not making the WC finals made you a little fresher. Found yourself again adrift in a sea of Kenyans. Still you went to the lead a couple times. So you felt good about Falmouth, even though you were already showing signs of fatigue going in. First American finisher, only U.S. runner in top seventeen, placed tenth in 32:27, only seventeen seconds off the pace.
“I’m not satisfied with just being the first American,” you told the press. Said you weren’t as hungry as you should have been. Still pushing yourself.
Eight of the nine guys ahead of you were Kenyans. You are going to have to find a way around these guys.
Can’t tell us any secrets or they wouldn’t be secrets. For sure, your diet is going to be better than it’s been in the past. Got some interesting things you want to try from a distance standpoint. Expect to run thirty miles certainly a couple of times, which you haven’t done in the past.
You’re an old dog and you need some new tricks.
After Falmouth, you took ten days off. Put on three or four pounds, ballooned. Started seventy miles a week, one run a day, one day off a week. Had it in your mind you wanted to race a couple more times, but Greg talked to you about that and eventually you came around to his way of thinking. You’re hungry to train right now. Coach trying to hold you back. Shank making sure you take a day off. Don’t want to get stale, go too hard too early.
You’re looking at fourteen or sixteen weeks of serious, concentrated dedication. When you make that commitment, November 1, October 29, whatever that Sunday is, everything from thereon is geared around the ’96 U.S. marathon Trials in Charlotte. February. When you start getting yourself ready for the biggest race of your life, it’s just balls out after that. All it is, is Charlotte, Charlotte, Charlotte, everything you do.
It’ll be all Charlotte.
The philosophy is you don’t want to go in merely capable of making the team. You want to go into the Trials thinking this is for all the marbles here. You went to Charlotte last year for the Nationals, You were short, you knew you were short, you were supposed to be short. But you’re not going to be short this time. You’re gonna go right to the very edge.
Imagine you are Chris Fox.
You are going to shoot for the moon, because this is probably your last Olympic shot. Realize this is the antithesis of everything your career stands for but you are going to turn up the volume for the marathon.
Try a few different things. Although maybe you don’t have to go to the extremes you originally thought you did, because you are not going to extremes now and you are getting results. So, you’ll stick to the same program and the same coach, but increase your mileage ten to fifteen percent.
Take a couple of chances. Nothing nuts. You’re not going to get hurt. Your big thing is, you never get hurt. That is your big thing. Yup. You never get hurt. Knock on wood. Any luck, you could be the Carlos Lopes of Atlanta. Already as fast as Frank Shorter.
Shorter was always ran smart. You ran an ignorant race at the ’92 Olympic Trials marathon. Faded in the heat and humidity, finishing seventh.
The ’96 Games will be different. One thing Atlanta does, it equalizes the talent a little bit. Comes down to running really smart. If it were perfect conditions, and you had Kenyans and you had Ethiopians, umm, it might be tough, tougher, to medal. Dangerous weather, too dangerous for the biggest race of your life, this makes it easier to medal. Because maybe on a ninety degree day, somebody is going to get a medal with a 2:17 or 2:18. Somebody running smart. Somebody who’s not Kenyan.
Charlotte, the Trials. The weather will be good, you’re sure of that. Typical U.S. selection process, get a trio of athletes who can perform great when the conditions are perfect then send them to a heatstroke death march. And wonder why they don’t perform. Won’t be hot in Charlotte in February. Won’t be anything like the Olympic marathoners are going to experience in Atlanta in August.
You have run the Charlotte course. Very hilly. You are a very good uphill runner. Teaching yourself to a better, more relaxed downhill runner between now and that race. Have to do it. That’s all there is to it. You didn’t prepare on downhills at all and your legs weren’t ready to take the downhill pounding they took. You didn’t realize the course was as tough as it was. But now you do and you’ve made adjustments.
You are not afraid to give it all you’ve got for just one shot. Not afraid. Here’s a question. Would I rather run superfast for a season or two or would I rather have a somewhat slower time and a career which goes on for decades?
If you are Chris Fox, you’ve had that debate quite a few times with your running buddies. For the last twenty years, if you had to be honest, you guess you admit you chose the long and winding track. But now you are getting a taste of the other end of the equation, the fast times.
Before hanging up your spikes, you would like to have both. Maybe a medal, too.
Imagine you are Chris Fox.
What you have just read, think of it as a time capsule.
Not all your athletic dreams came true, sure. All of us are stuck with that last PR.
But you went on to a distinguished coaching career.
Positively impacted hundreds of young people while teaching the sport of running.
Which is all about the value of a running life.
Still living it.
But, I have to ask, Chris Fox, do you ever imagine how fast you could’ve gone in these Super Shoes?
REEBOK INTRODUCES THE REEBOK BOSTON TRACK CLUB
Former Syracuse Cross Country Coach Chris Fox Named Head Coach, and Former Syracuse All-American Justyn Knight is First Founding Member of New Elite Track Club
BOSTON, Mass. – July 23, 2018 – Today, Reebok announced the formation of the Reebok Boston Track Club, a new pro running club which will compete in elite running competitions around the world and play a key role in the research, curation and innovation of future Reebok Running product. Highly accomplished running coach Chris Fox will lead this new elite running unit.
In addition to unveiling the new club and Fox’s stewardship, Reebok also announced the signing of former-collegiate All-American runner Justyn Knight as a foundational member of the team. Knight, a distance runner from Toronto, Canada, was the 2017-18 NCAA Division 1 Cross Country and 5000-meter champion for Syracuse University – under the tutelage of Coach Fox. He was selected as an All-American seven times throughout his career.
“Reebok has a long history in Running and is a brand that has always helped athletes push the limits of performance,” said Knight. “It’s an honor to be the first member of the Reebok Boston Track Club and be part of the Reebok family. I obviously know Coach Fox well and I’m excited to work with him to develop and hone my skills on the track in the years to come.”
In addition to competing in the top running competitions around the world, the Reebok Boston Track Club will play an integral role in the research, curation and innovation of future Reebok Running product. The team will build on Reebok’s long-held, pioneering roots in the running community and bolster the brand’s drive to transform the category through hands-on research and bringing new innovation to the market.
“I know the value both of great coaching and ground-breaking technology. I had an inspiring coach myself when I was developing as a runner, and I look forward to guiding the Reebok Boston Track Club” said Fox, a West Virginia native with more than 30 years of experience coaching college athletics at elite programs around the country.
