Think time capsule. 1995.
A cabin near the Siuslaw river, deep in the woods, no television, no paper, but I had a phone.
Apparently a few long calls and a couple of the real good guys gave me some time and taught me something about running.
Successful distance running is most easily achieved with the assistance of a knowledgeable coach. Good coaches can be just as talented as good runners – knowing how to get the best out of a runner is a unique skill…. Greg Shank is such a coach. He was instrumental in the success of Chris Fox, a five-time U.S. Olympic Trials qualifier in events ranging from 5,000 meters to the marathon. Mike Spinnler was instrumental, too.
If you study how coaches work with their athletes, you will be more capable of improving your own running. That is the theory at least.
And here’s where we update. Coach Shank passed away on Dec. 23, 2018, at age 69.
“Everybody called Greg the running guru,” Mike Spinnler said. “There are so many of us whose lives would be drastically different had Greg not stepped in and helped us out, as a coach, as a mentor and as a friend. It kind of hit me last night, putting on a race in his memory, how much I miss him. He touched a lot of lives while he was here.”
Interview with Greg Shank, Chris Fox’s coach
July 1995
JDW: Prep for Sacramento?
For Sacramento we really had to, I assume you are aware, he had to run a qualifying time at the last minute for Sacramento, so that was only, we lobbied to get that waived, which just doesn’t happen in our federation, so when we had to run the standard, which wasn’t that difficult, but we only had 10 days between, because he had just come off Bay-To-Breakers and we were having some scheduling problems and hoping at the last minute they would waive the 10k qualifying standard. He only had to run a 28:50, but he was having a good night and he just ran by himself, as matter of fact.
When he did that, he was really only had a 10-day window between his 28:18 and the Nationals, so there wasn’t really much to be accomplished at that time. My opinion is, he increased his fitness level that night when he ran the 28:18, which is all he needed for Sacramento. After that race, I knew we didn’t need to do anything else.
There really wasn’t a direct preparation. We were preparing all year long for Bay-To-Breakers, it was a pretty important race for us. We had prepared pretty well for Bay-To-Breakers in May in San Francisco, a road race, the USA championships which he won. Finished 3rd overall, got beat by two world record Kenyans, but won the US champs relatively easy. That was not a breakthrough race, but it was what we’re pointing to all spring. I mean we wanted to run TAC, but you never know about Sacramento and the weather, so we were not that concerned. It was really a bonus as far as we were concerned.
After that it was pretty much let’s see if we can maintain into Sacramento.
Prep for Bay-To-Breakers?
For Bay-To-Breakers… I’ve been with Chris now for eight years, I’ve known him since he was a 13-year-old kid, but we started to do a little bit different than we had in the past. Before we would do more mile repeats, when he was preparing for 10k. Since this year, maybe a little bit last year, we’ve started concentrating on 1000m. 1000m is a good distance for him from a training standpoint, because he can still get good quality speedwork, meaning coming through the 800 in 2:07-08, and try to change gears the last 200m. And that seems to work really well for him. It gives him that balance between long enough interval and quick enough.
Really what we concentrated on for May was 1000m intervals.
TAC was a bonus from a standpoint once we found out what kind of shape he was really in May, all we had to do was qualify and get there. We felt pretty confident once he got there he could make the team.
Now he’s made the team and run 27:53 and he’s going to Sweden for the WC’s. The original plan was Bay-To-Breakers to the marathon.
Bay-To-Breakers to the marathon is still the plan. That is still the goal with some selected road races in between. We always had TAC in the background. I am of the opinion that too much road racing is certainly not good and one of the reasons that he’s been able to maintain his competitive running at this stage is because he hasn’t run a lot of road races.
I also think that on the track, it’s very stressful, mentally stressful more than physically stressful, you must learn how to concentrate, and I think that’s one thing he’s lacked in the marathon. The 10K at the Worlds, and what he’s had to do, he’s run three 10Ks in the last five weeks is really going to help him in the marathon in the long run. From a concentration standpoint.
Concentration is one of the things we’ve had a problem with. His PRs and everything else doesn’t equate to what he’s run in the marathon. I think that’s one of the issues because when you are out there for 2 hours and 10 minutes, you have to concentrate and make sure that you monitor what’s happening to you and what’s going on around you. Some people need to be taught concentration and I believe the track teaches that.
Concentration may be the difference between some of these really good guys and some of the guys who are really great. I think it will help him in the marathon a lot. Alberto, I’m convinced, when he first stepped on the line in New York, he was so young, but he had just come off a real fast 10,000 he had set up in Eugene. I think that helped him a lot as far as concentration. Not that he wasn’t the kind of guy who could always concentrate.
Alberto is an animal and a maniac; I mean that with the greatest respect.
Exactly.
And I don’t get that out of Chris.
Well, it’s different though. Over the years, if you could see him develop, six, seven years ago, he had the reputation of being a great workout guy and a guy who would have great races, then some not so great races, or maybe some races where he didn’t compete very well at all. He was a nice guy, one of the nicest guys in the sport. I always told him, some of these guys you’re competing with, they aren’t so nice. In some cases. You have to be, I think, confidently cocky, and he has developed that over the last 2 years.
That and the evolution of his physical fitness. He had really matured from a body standpoint, he’s so small, I think all of that is working together.
Right now, he’s not a wild maniac like Alberto, but we did a workout yesterday in terrible conditions, 90 degrees and 90% humidity. He just, he not only ran the workout great, he was very aggressive during the workout, that kind of thing. Which I would’ve never gotten through to him three years ago. He would have put his head down and said let’s do it another day.
He’s been one of the lucky guys in the sport, from the standpoint he’s never been abused. His high school coach, who I just talked to the other day didn’t abuse him. Never ran him in dual meets. Rarely ran him too many intervals, he did the long slow miles back then but everybody was. He didn’t get abused at Eugene, and because he was at Eugene, he wasn’t running on the roads, because those guys didn’t run on the roads. They had a short season, then they went to Europe.
He certainly hasn’t been abused by me. We’ve moved up to the marathon, but we’ve always been very, very careful. He’s never put marathons back to back. We selected one for our year. He’s just been in an evolution process that’s been working out fine for him. He’s been lucky, but he’s also been in a situation where he’s been allowed to develop relatively slowly.
How does he run in the heat?
That was an issue, when he first came to North Carolina from Eugene, he seemed to totally not handle it. I mean when he was coming back from his operation, he just didn’t handle it well at all. But I can remember him being a very good heat runner when he was a kid, not that that always stays the same. And then when he started running some on the roads, he used to have some problems where he thought he could. I would say over the last four or five years, he’s developed into a good heat runner and I believe he can be a much better heat runner between now and Atlanta.
We will get away, change some places where he is going to train. He has some great contacts still down at Auburn, which would be a good place to train. As long as we can get out of here for three or four weeks in January, we’ll go south someplace, maybe Miami, and get some training in before the Trials, just a little bit. Between the Trials and Atlanta, assuming he makes the team, I am sure he can spend some time in Auburn, that area.
Everybody is complaining about the heat, everybody is complaining about the hills, and everybody is complaining about the course and the time of day of the Olympic marathon, but in my opinion it gives Americans a better chance. Certainly it equalizes some of these 2:08 guys. They are not going to run 2:08 there. Probably a 2:12. And I think it opens the door.
Right now, Chris is running as good as he’s ever run, at the most important time in his life. He is the American equivalent to Carlos Lopes, who started coming around again at that age, of about 36 years old. Anything is possible. He’s a very good hill runner, by the way. Always has been. He’s not a great downhill runner, he’s a very good uphill runner. And they are going to run the last 5 miles on the Peachtree course, and there are going to be some tough hills. I don’t know exactly where they are going to come, but they’re going to come between 20-25 miles. He should be able to handle that. Plus there’s not any real steep downhills, there are gradual downhills. The steep downhills are at Charlotte and that’s going to give him a little bit of trouble, but we’re going to work on that this winter. We’re hoping to build his quads up a little bit.
Fox is talking about taking chances, chances which seem to contradict his entire career.
Absolutely. He’s been kind of timid, as you know. And again, his reputation, and I am sure it was at Eugene with him and at the ’88 Trials, you know he ran five races and all the guys told me, we never realized he had that kind of guts. He should have made the team in ’88, he just didn’t get to the 10K fast enough. He didn’t know how to run a 10K at that point. He was physically, not quite as good as he is now, but he was good. He just wasn’t tough.
Right now, I can tell you, he’s tough. I am not taking credit for that. I think it was just a gradual improvement in his mental process, how he focuses. He doesn’t care about money anymore, literally doesn’t, certainly he likes to make money. I know he’s been in races before where he’s said, okay, if I make this move I might cost myself a couple of grand. There’s pressure to do that when you are trying to make a living. I might win an extra grand or I might lose two or three, that stuff never enters his mind anymore.
He is just at a different level from a competition standpoint. Very aggressive. Very aggressive.
Right now, he’s a front runner. He had a lot of trouble in Montreal last week holding back early. The rabbit didn’t do a real good job the first mile and Chris was getting antsy, and bunching up behind the rabbit, not a very good rhythm. He didn’t like being there.
Looking forward to the marathon trials, in that race, in the past race at Charlotte until he had some problems at 23M, he’s probably the kicker in that race. He shouldn’t have any trouble outkicking guys in that race, quite honestly. The good guys, like Kempainen, Brantley, Eyestone, those guys, they can’t finish with Chris. Anything can happen in a marathon, but if you were out there on a flat course with 600m to go, whether it was 10M or 26M, people would bet on Chris.
Brantley was scared of his kick last year in the Charlotte race. He made that comment to me right after the race was, ‘all I worried about the last 5M was getting rid of Chris.’ Brantley thought he could outkick everybody else and he did.
Chris ran a 62 to finish his 27:53 – 62, is that not quick?
Quick by American standards maybe, by international standards, no. Which is the one reason the marathon is where he needs to be, because it’s going to take a 57 to medal in the 10,000 probably, even in Atlanta. We all know that, depending upon the pace.
His marathon PR is 2:13 in Columbus. I know he can do 2:10, probably 2:09. I think Chris could run 5K in 13:18-19 right now.
That’s the one thing while he’s on this roll that he’s missing, he’d like to take another shot at the 5000, but we don’t have time for that. It would be a mistake to run a 5K before Worlds. There’s a possibility he could run one afterwards; if for some reason he didn’t make the finals, he could run one afterwards. But if he has to run two 10s, then that’s dumb. He’ll go to Falmouth then, maybe.
Did he run Crescent City this year?
No, and he would’ve won Crescent City, I’m telling you, it was so slow. That was when he pulled his hamstring, that’s why he couldn’t run the 10K at the Penn Relays. He pulled the hamstring at William & Mary in the 5K running with Peter Sherry April 1st. That was what really set us back for two or three weeks.
He never gets seriously injured. Very seldom. He was playing around with Sherry, instead of waiting until 400m to go, he went from 700m. Ran about a 30-point 200, maybe under that, and just strained it a little bit. He got away with it, but it took about two weeks before he could train again.
How does he avoid injury?
Certainly his body build helps a lot, he’s so small. His form is so much better than it used to be, he’s always square all the time. We very, very seldom ever run on the roads. We have paths, dirt paths where he’s at right now as matter of fact, we run on them at least 90% of the time since he’s been here for the last 8 years, he has run on dirt paths, whether it’s on the mountain or along the river. If he’s doing a 10M run, he might run a mile to get to the river. I think that has a lot to do with it.
Fox almost quit running a few years ago. Why?
Emotional. What really frustrated him was the quality. I mean, he knows a lot of people in the sport, you hear a lot of rumors, he knows a lot of people now, and the workouts that he could do versus the workouts he felt his competition was doing or he had heard back his competition was doing. Not that some of those things aren’t clouded a little bit, just made him frustrated a little bit. I think there was a time where he felt, I just can’t transfer this to the competition. And he worked it out. I give him credit for that, he worked it out. We’ve been pushing him hard for a long time, but I think it was a gradual process, he sorted it out and said, like his attitude is today, yeah, I’m going to take a chance.
He’s been doing that in road races. He’s been leading, especially American races, he’s been pushing the pace the last year and a half, every chance he gets.
The last 18 months keeps coming up.
He was very, very short on mileage when I got him, because they didn’t do that kind of mileage out there [read Eugene], it took him a long time to evolve into what I call a long distance runner. He was a 5000m guy and that’s really where he wanted to be, He didn’t like doing anything past that. Then he had some success.
I remember the first time I took him out for an hour and 45 minutes. I mean, I’ve been coaching guys for years, 2:20 guys who ran that far 30 weeks out of the year, and he had a lot of trouble. I mean, he literally fell apart at about 95 minutes. It took him a long time, a lot of years, to where he could handle that kind of mileage. He can now. He can handle, last year, we do things on 10-day periods, not week periods, where he was running 190 miles in ten days. Then backing off, going back to 170, then back up. Today he can do that type of thing with very little stress involved, just the right kind of stress you need.
It’s much easier for him than it was three or four years ago. He’s programmed, he doesn’t have to think about what’s happening, he just does it. Like I said, yesterday, in a workout that he would’ve had trouble with before, he wouldn’t have wanted to do it, based on the conditions, but we were in a time problem here and he didn’t question it at all. Actually seemed to relish in the fact that he had to run in those kind of conditions.
Yesterday, this is just to get him out of the race (last week’s sub-28 10K), we did 3 x 5 minutes of fartlek, starting at 4:45, 4:35, 4:25 pace, coming through the mile in that time, a measured mile path, and we take 2 minutes. Then we did some fast quarters. He still had the race in his legs and we were just getting rid of that race.
What’s it mean to you as a coach to work with an athlete like Chris. Or vice versa?
We have a relationship that transcends merely the coach and the athlete. Maybe because I’m not worried about making money off of him. I knew him when he was a kid, we’re friends. What he gets out of it is he knows I’m not using him for monetary purposes nor am I using him for credit. I mean, I’ve coached a little college and I’ve coached guys here for 20 years and I’ve had all the accolades I need to have from a coaching standpoint, so he knows I’m not using him to get something else or to get recognition or to get 50 guys lining up to coach, because I don’t want those 50 guys. He feels unthreatened that I don’t have some ulterior motive.
For me, it really means, certainly enjoyable. I’ve had 32-minute 10K guys that got down to 30:30, that mean just as much to me as this. It’s a chance to, an inner-personal chance to make sure you feel confident about what you’re doing with other people. I look at it as, I got a big thrill the other night in Montreal, because he worked so hard, but I’ve gotten that kind of thrill, like I say, with 32 minute 10K guys before. And from my college kids. So, I mean, to me, it’s just something we do together. And been doing together. Because we’re, you know, we’re friends. And I draw the line on that one, I have to. I used to have to do it a lot. We used to have to get mad at each other a lot, when he was having these little, I’m-feeling-sorry-for-myself-type periods.
But, recently, [chuckle] he doesn’t have to be pushed much, he has to be held back. And that’s the kind of guy you like to have. To hold him back, not have to make him do more. Or to question his guts. I don’t have to do that anymore.
I’ll tell you, I’ve been sitting two hours before a race, I remember specifically at TAC in ’88, down in Florida in the 5000, knowing he was going to screw up. Not that he wasn’t in good shape, but because he was nervous as a cat, scared to death. Looked like a deer with the lights shining on him. He was laying there on the track with guys he coulda beat. And that was frustrating. He almost quit that night, I can remember. He dropped out, no, he ran 13:55 or something like that.
It’s been a long gradual process. And each time, each year, you get a little bit less concerned that something isn’t going to happen mentally. If you can go in knowing the only limitations you have tonight are physical, that’s a big step. A big step. You can coach the physical, but you can’t coach the mental, in many cases. Takes a long time and they have to do it themselves.
Interview with Greg Shank
September 1995
The World Championships was a good learning experience, something that was a little rich. He [Chris] mentally handled it well, physically no problem. He went to Falmouth two weeks later and beat Todd. So he felt good about Falmouth, even though at Falmouth we could tell he was getting a little tired going in. He went to the lead a couple times there and had to hold back. Then he was pretty much running for American money. Another good experience. We needed to step back.
Since Falmouth, we’ve taken ten days off. Started 70 miles a week, one run a day, one day off a week. Maybe race once or twice in October. Waiting to Nov. 1 to start preparing for the Trials.
Instead of a 10-12 week build-up, we’re looking at 14-16 weeks from October 29. Experimenting at altitude. Like to let him relax for a couple of weeks. He’s put on 3 or 4 pounds. Ballooned.
He’s hungry to train right now. I’m trying to hold him back right now. Make sure he takes a day off. Don’t want him to get stale, go too hard too early.
When you make that commitment, November 1, October 29, whatever that Sunday is, everything from thereon is geared around Charlotte. Don’t want him to make it too early, because I don’t want him to get stale. When we do it, it’s just balls out after that. All it is, is Charlotte, Charlotte, Charlotte, everything we do. Oh, we’ll race a couple of times, but it’ll be all Charlotte.
Can’t tell you any secrets or they wouldn’t be secrets.
We’ll be making sure his diet is better than it’s been in the past. We’ve got some interesting things we want to do from a distance standpoint. We expect to run 30 miles certainly a couple of times, which I think will work well with him. Which we haven’t done in the past.
He’s an old dog and he needs some new tricks.
Our philosophy is, we don’t want to go in merely capable of making the team. We want to go in thinking this is for all the marbles here. We went to Charlotte last year for the Nationals, we were short, we knew we were short, we were supposed to be short. But we’re not going to be short this time. We’re gonna go right on the edge, hopefully, we’ll hit it with a week or two to spare.
I’ve been through a lot with him, and we’re to the point where I don’t have to worry too much about the racing aspect as far as mental. He needs to get himself relaxed for 6 more weeks and then let it go. And when he lets it go, we’re going to push it right to the edge.
We started a little bit of the downhill training, just so it’s not a shock. We’ve got a couple of things I’ve done with a couple of other guys that I know he can handle. We expect that this will not be that difficult for him.
I personally think he can handle this 200-mile ten-day sessions like we’ve talked about in the past and never done. He can handle them a lot easier than he could in the past. He’s mature enough. So we’re going to pull out everything.
Falmouth, he was 10th, the only American in the top 17. He told me, when he went up to the front, about 4M. He was thinking, what the hell am I doing up here? He looked around at just a sea of Kenyans, and he dropped back and happened to bump right into Todd, and he knew Todd was in trouble. Knew he wasn’t racing well. He thought at 5M, hey, quite frankly, Falmouth is a money race, put some away for the winter, so he went for the American purse.
There is only one thing missing, he hasn’t run 2:10:59, like Ed [Eyestone], or 2:11, or 2:12, like a couple of the other guys. But that, to me, is no big deal. ‘Cause when you run 2:13 like he did in Columbus, five or six years ago, that shouldn’t be an issue and we’ve dealt with that.
I don’t think we could be in much better position. In my mind, a well-trained marathoner, if they’re all trained the same, the 27:50 guy is going to beat the 28:10 guy. And that’s where we’re at right now. And we’re happy about it. If everything’s the same on a given day, that guy should beat the other guy. There’s a big X factor in the marathon. But we’re confident.
I’ll be surprised if things don’t go well. We haven’t had too many opportunities where we’ve been in this position and we don’t have to push for time. That’s what we’re looking for, to be able to take our time, we don’t have to rush.
Interview With Mike Spinnler
Why has it taken him sooooo loooong?
Why did it take Chris so long to get to this level? Hmmm. Interesting. I have known him since we were in high school together. Personally, not to put him down, I always thought it was a confidence thing. I always thought he had the physical tools, it was just mentally he felt, you know, he was lacking something. He doubted himself a little bit. I thought since the early ’80s he would run 2:09 and sub-28 for 10000m. He ran well, and he had a great career throughout the ’80s and the early part of the ’90s, but it seemed like a confidence thing.
It seems like he’s really starting to believe in himself. What I saw up there in Montreal was a Chris Fox I had never ever seen before. Two laps into the race, he’s putting his hand on the rabbit’s hip and pushing him forward and yelling at him to go faster. And then when the rabbit wouldn’t be pushed, Chris just took over by himself for a couple of laps. Actually, he pulled them through the first 1600 in 4:28.
I think it’s just a mental thing. All about confidence. I think he really finally believes he’s as good as these guys.
Wouldn’t it be interesting to ask that Hispanic bunny what was going through his mind?
I talked to the other fellows we went up there with and I said, “That is not a Chris Fox we had ever seen before, that would do something that aggressive.”
He was normally the type of guy who’d say, okay, this pace just isn’t fast enough, maybe we will pick it up later. He just wanted to make things go, right then and there. I think he really had something to prove. I don’t know if it was such a, you know, maybe… He told us, he says, he runs good when he is motivated by anger. I don’t know who he was really angry at. I’m sure he’s angry at the organizers in London for not letting him run there. But he was definitely angry on the track in Montreal.
That, with his newfound confidence, finally, he just believes in himself.
I am interested in the concept of fear as a barrier, as an opponent to be defeated. Dellinger said Pre was afraid. I had never heard anybody use the words Pre and fear in the same sentence. Got my attention. What I have noticed as a man and as a writer, I have been basically afraid all my life. Obviously, when you see people who are successful, it’s not really talent, they’re not afraid. Success is to be not afraid.
Well, you’re right. I have to agree with you. Maybe he’s just stop fearing. Maybe he just finally realized, and I am not saying this is what he told me or anything, but it just seems like he got to a point in his career where there is no sense being afraid.
He’s already done… he’s doing more at his age than anybody ever expected him to do. We all thought it was over in ’92. At the ’88 Trials when he didn’t make the team, we thought he can move up to the marathon and give it a good shot in ’92. But, after ’92, I know for a few months, it was like, well, where do you go from here? You’ve got to go on with the rest of your life. It’s folly for you to think you are going to make the Olympic team when you are 37 years old.
But he is physically gifted and he has taken advantage of all those physical tools, he hasn’t abused his body. And he is probably the most consistent trainer that I have ever heard of or seen in my life. I’m sure that has a lot to do with it.
But the big thing I think mentally he thought, I’ve got nothing to prove to anybody and I want to ride this thing out just as far as I can.
At this point, jeez, he peaked. I’m not so sure but he’s the American version of Carlos Lopes. Maybe he’ll run his lifetime bests at age 37, 38. Who knows, even maybe beyond that. He’s not putting any boundaries on himself. Like I’ve got to be done with this when I’m 39. Who knows, he may be 40 years old and running 27:30. I am not predicting, but I wouldn’t be surprised at this point if he does.
Given the current crop of distance runners in this country, he could be making the team at 44. What an embarrassing phenomenon. A friend started coaching after a 20-year retirement because he noticed today’s top women are running the same times as his girls did in the early ’70s. Ruth Wysocki, years retired, was sitting on her couch watching television and reading Track & Field News Top Ten and knew right then she could still run with these kids. Placed 4th at The Nationals six months later.
Not that Chris is one of those guys who came out of a five-year retirement or something. He’s competed every year except the year he had his ankle surgery. He lost the ’85 season. But every other year he’s been out there, banging the roads, banging the track.
You can go back to ’77 when he was on the U.S.A. World Junior team. That is quite a long tenure at the international class level.
He’s a very quiet guy. Very modest. That’s been his claim to fame up until now, he’s been the guy who was ranked in the top 10, ranked in the 10000m, top 10 ranked in the marathon, but never a big star, but always consistent. Year in and year out. Named Mr. Road Racer.
Here’s my premise. Let’s just say, fear has never held him back but it’s never let him get ahead. So, finally after 20 years, the guy finally puts it together. He goes to the World Championships and God only knows what happens there. That’s probably the end of my story because I am running out of time. I would like to know how he overcame his fear. He didn’t quit.
I think his hook-up with Greg Shank in ’87 was a real great plus. And one of the reasons his career has been as long as it has, I think he might’ve been quits on the sport, if it hadn’t been for Greg and, of course, the support he got through the shoe companies. I think the network of guys he’s trained with when he came back here in ’87 to where he grew up. It was like, one last year, blow it out until ’88 and then you go with your adult life.
Then we made the decision not to do that. He got a lot of positive reinforcement instead of negative reinforcement. Other people weren’t coming down on him, like you’ve got this Peter Pan syndrome, or whatever. It was like, yeah, Chris, you’ve got the ability. You are one of the best American runners and who says you can’t do it in ’92.
I know he was very discouraged in ’92. When he went off to Columbus for the marathon Trials, we all thought, this was his time. We knew he was every bit as good as Steve Spence. We thought he was better than Steve Spence. Steve is a great guy, we like him, you know, we love him, too. He lives about 17 miles from here. It was just something that really bothered Chris. Here’s a guy I know I am physically more talented than he is. Steve got to see his dream come true and once again Chris had his dream crushed.
So, sometime between then and 1995, he just must have gotten taken tired of being second-string. And went after it.
At the ’94 Penn Relays, up until what I saw him do up in Montreal a week and a half ago, those Penn Relays was the most impressive thing I’ve seen him do. Even though it wasn’t a major international breakthrough or anything, He ran 28:22 up there and he led that thing from the gun. It was a pretty decent field and John Sheer hung on him and outkicked him the last 300. That was the beginning of the new Chris Fox. That’s when I first saw him go to the lead with a bunch of guys who were his equals, his peers, and just, say, dammit, I’m just going to run hard and if I die, I die.
It was a different Chris Fox than I had seen in a long time.
He said, hey, I want to run fast here and I am going to run fast here. I’m not going to sit in here and just get a qualifying time for the U.S.A. Track & Field Championships. I want to run fast. With no rabbits or anything else, you know. He went at it for 24 laps. He was cranking out the 67s and the 68s.
He might be changing. He used to pride himself on being a fast finisher. 3:59 flat in the mile, but that’s a dozen years ago now. He sees himself as someone who can really put the pressure on you and hurt you.
That was his plan when he went to Sacramento. When Todd Williams went, he was going with him. He didn’t know if he could go with Todd the whole way. But he figured when he did break, he was going to have a good enough gap on those guys behind that he wasn’t going to have to worry about kicking. Actually, it worked out exactly the way he planned.
Everything except not getting the qualifying time out there. For which the weather wasn’t too conducive.
Normally, before the ’94 Penn Relays, he’s the type of guy who tries to go with the pack and if the pack kinda whittles down… Like at the ’84 Trials, he ran the 5000m final. It was like the pack whittled down and then he went to the fore with a mile to go, hoping to break things open. And, of course, it didn’t work out perfect, but he still ended up finishing 5th.
But here was a guy two laps into it… AND RIGHT NOW. Dave Bedford style. Now. I am going to go.
Maybe it’s a foolish thing. But it’s aggressive, angry, not so young man.
Not too smart?
Maybe that’s the way. I’ll tell you, when he was a high school kid, and this is a zillion years ago, and I’m sure there are a bunch of stories like Chris‘. He just went out at the gun and simply ran free-form. And they did better that way than they did when they’d sit in a group and you know watch things whittle away and play chess with the guys. I’m not saying he goes out and runs stupid, but if the pace is “smart”, I think he is better off going to the front and doing it on his own.
When I look at Chris, I see him as a Ron Clarke-type guy. Not that he’s not a good competitor, but I see him as some guy who can go out front and do it on his own.
When he had to run this 11th hour qualifying time… The USAT&F wouldn’t let him run in the Championships without a qualifying time, so he had to go out and get a qualifying time. We put this all-comers meet together. And he basically had to do all the work by himself. This guy ran 28:18 on a little high school track. Probably kind of reminiscent when Steve Prefontaine set that American Record for 2000m on his little high school track. I mean, it was an amazing performance. He was out there in a pair of racing flats, wasn’t even wearing spikes. I started thinking to myself, this is the kind of thing Ron Clarke used to do. Just him and the stopwatch. Breaking his own wind. Pushing his own barriers back.
In high school, Chris and I weren’t teammates, but we ran in the same conference. We ran for the same summer clubs, so I’ve known him since ’74.
What’s he like as a man?
He is very considerate of everybody else. You always hear that kind of stuff… couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. With Chris, you hear that a lot of places. I’ll tell someone I’m from Hagerstown, and they go, oh, do you know Chris Fox? He’s running great and it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. But he’s really like that. He is very concerned.
Maybe to the point where, you know, umm, he has a hard time transferring over from his regular-life guy, being really nice and really concerned about everyone’s problems, to situations where he has to say, dammit, I am taking the lead and I am going to kick the crap out of you in this race. I think finally he is able to make that transition.
Where he is looking at these guys, and saying, enough is enough, these guys have been taking what’s mine for all these years…
But as a person, he really is… He’s always been the kind of person he’s always been, these are all cliches, but he is an easy going guy who doesn’t have a temper and if guys start going at each other, he’s the guy who’s the mediator and has a way of getting them laughing.
In a way, he’s a man and he’s very mature, but there a kid in him that’s never grown up, maybe that’s one reason he is doing so well still in the athletic world. It’s still fun to him. He’s kind of avoided a lot of the things that chased a lot of guys out of the sport.
The secret of his longevity?
Number one, he is very gifted. He’s 6’1”, 125 lbs. Not that he doesn’t work very hard to keep that physique, but he hasn’t taken the pounding maybe a guy who weighs 145 lbs. would’ve taken over the same 20 years of competition. He literally hasn’t. He’s like a ballerina. He’s smooth as silk.
He’s been gifted with very good concerned people who thought about his long term. Not just say, well, I’m gonna use this kid to try to win the state championship. Or we’re going to try to be an All-American here. His high school coach was not abusive. I am kinda foggy on how things went for Chris down at Auburn. But I know he had a very good experience and he is still very close with them down there, so I imagine that was good for him. But I know his high school and post-collegiate guidance has always been excellent as far as getting advice.
He does a lot of running on soft surfaces, which I know the Europeans have been doing forever. I always thought the Americans were nuts to run on the roads as much as they do. In Hagerstown, we are lucky enough to have the C&L Canal pass run right through our county. He’s on that on a daily basis.
He’s really been conscious of keeping the machinery running right. Maybe this has always been his whole plan the whole time, thinking he was going to be someone who was going to have a 20-year world class career.
After ’84, it was like, okay, now I’ll coach. And he did that for a while. And tried to keep his running going. Maybe there was always that allure, I didn’t run nearly as good as I possibly could.
Eventually, if he does go into coaching as a career, he’ll be super. He’s helping a lot of open people as a advisor. After the ’92 Olympics, thinking maybe it’s time to go do that, he coached at George Washington for a year.
His running has always kept him back.
I think so. Seems every time he thinks, well, now I’ll get a regular job and keep running whenever I can, all of a sudden, he’ll start running super again. Maybe he just has a sense, I have to know.
Why hasn’t he broken through sooner? I expected a long time ago, I thought when he was running as well as he was that first year or two out of Auburn. He graduated in ’82, then he ran that 13:21 the summer of ’83, I thought it would happen there. Maybe not ’84.
You know, he had that setback, he had that cyst in his ankle joint that cost the ’85 season and most of ’86, ’86 was like a rebuilding year for him, that had to set him back some. Maybe it would have happened in the mid-’80s, if it hadn’t been that year and a half lost.
We were all pleasantly surprised to see his name show up in results again later in ’86, even though it was really very minor regional road race type stuff. Then in ’87, he had a fabulous year. I think that’s why he made the decision to go back and try to make the team in ’88. That operation had to have something to do with why it took him so long to break through. He was off for a long time. As a matter of fact, a lot of people just wrote him off then. That he would never come back.
He did make the Olympic team. He’s always been the guy who finished 4th or 5th, just missing. Everybody lived in Salazar’s shadow in the early ’80s. I always thought he was as good, if not better, than Eyestone and Spence. Maybe it was just a mental thing, not making it through at the big championships. Not doing well enough at the Olympic Trials to go on and do something.
Maybe he’s unlucky. There are guys who were great runners who never made an Olympic team. Keith Brantly, although he may get that monkey here in a few months.
We can’t all make the team.
Not to draw similarities with their personal lives, Chris reminds me of Barry Brown. He had this incredibly long career. Never made an Olympic team, but was always there. Got into his Masters and was still ranked at age 40. As a runner, I think Chris is closely related to him. Chris is even better. Although Barry ran a sub-4 minute mile, he didn’t run no 27:53.
Best races?
When he won Cherry Blossom in 1990, I know that was a biggie for him. Personally, that was one he always wanted to win, too.
How fast is he?
I’ll tell you, I think he can run 27:40. Just by looking at that 27:53. That night, if the rabbit had taken him through in 13:52 or 13:50, I think he was very capable of running 27:40 that night.
That’s what he can do about now. I would like to think he will go to the World Championships and do better, but…
All of us are concerned, he’s run a lot of 10,000s. The Pan-Am Games, the 10000 qualifying for USA champs, the Nationals, the qualifying time for Worlds. So, he’s run four pretty tough track 10000s. I am hoping he is still on the upswing. I would be surprised if he ends up running faster at the World Championships. Because he has to run the rounds, I would be shocked if he ran faster in the finals. Considering they only have two days between the rounds and the finals.
He’s almost due for a bad race.
I hope that doesn’t happen. I hope he goes there, that the semis go the way he thinks it’s going to go, that he can run his 28:20 or 28:25 without extending himself too far. Make it to the final and be able to run, you know, hopefully the race of his life.
He’s going to have to run a smart race to make the finals.
This is going to be very difficult. I hope he can get away with running a 1:32 last 600m and that will be fast enough to make the final. I don’t know how much faster he can go, unless the race is really pedestrian and under normal weather conditions.
And then you don’t know who the other pedestrians are and what they’re capable of. That 62 last lap at Montreal isn’t all that impressive.
In Montreal with 600m to go, he looked back, the two guys ahead had broken away. I don’t think he pushed. That’s another reason makes me think he could’ve run 27:40 that night. I think he just basically finished that race. He wasn’t going all out, knees and elbows down the last 200. He looked like he can pretty much run 62 seconds in the middle of a workout any time. Running halves or repeat miles. I think he can run 57 seconds, if it comes to that. Whether 57 seconds is going to be enough to do something for him in the final…
On the other hand, if he makes the final and lays down that 57 last lap to finish, say, 9th in the finals at the World Championships with a time of 27:40, you are going to have to hammer his feet into the pavement to keep him off the marathon team next February.
Yup. I think the marathon is where his next breakthrough is going to come. I was on the press vehicle down in Charlotte this past year, and that was a real heartbreak for him. He was really upset at himself. Because he saw himself no worse than 2nd in that race. Then as soon as stuff started happening, he was the first guy to go out the backdoor.
Why was that?
If you place a physical reason, he wasn’t handling the downhills very well. Maybe it was the old demon like you’ve talked about jumped out there, “I don’t know if I’m as good as these guys right now.”
Maybe you can say it was the downhills, you were prepared for them, so you learned something. maybe you were a little short of mileage, blah, blah, blah. Maybe it was the old thing that poked its head up at the marathon trials in ’92. Maybe he lacked that confidence, lacked the ability to hurt the way they were hurting at that point, or whatever.
I see him running under 2:10. Not down there at Charlotte. Not on that course and that will be his next marathon. I still see him running under 2:10. If he gets into a race like London, maybe Boston. He has the potential to break 2:10.
If he doesn’t make the team at Charlotte, he’ll change his focus to 10000m. Without a doubt. Even if he does make the marathon team, I highly suspect he’ll run a track season like he did this year and go to the Olympic Trials and run the 10000m there.
He ran really poorly down at the Pan Am Games and he said he was just so overcome by the heat down there. He doesn’t know how he stayed on his feet the last part of the race.
Right when the door opened on the track season, he went down to Colonial and ran that 5000m against Peter Sherry, and I’m thinking, he’s on a roll, he’s really starting to believe in himself this year. He’s not afraid to go to the front and make a hard move. He’s just believing in himself.
We’re a bunch of guys who have been hanging around with each other since we were teenagers. We’re not really living our dreams through Chris, but we’re just trying to let him know, if we can help him out in any way, we’re there for him. If he needs somebody to ride a bike with him on a 20-mile run, heck, I’ll sacrifice my run. We will help him out any way we can.
It’s good for him to be around people who realize, and we feel like he is, what he is doing is important and worthwhile. Where he might not be getting that support from the same peer group someplace else.
I don’t think Chris gets the credit for being that close to the top for that many years. For fifteen, sixteen years he’s run 13:47 or faster. Not just that he’s performed well, but what he had to go through to do that.
Even locally, I think people say, boy, he’s a really skinny, talented guy. I don’t think they see the little things he’s always doing. Such as making sure he gets to physical therapy, making sure he’s does the strengthening, the morning runs he’s meticulously out for by himself. He doesn’t get caught up. I’ll toss out a name to you. A world-class runner in the early ’80s from this area, Terry Baker. Terry had a hard time doing the little things and saying goodbye to the guys at 11 p.m. because he had to go home and get his rest. Chris has the discipline to get his rest.
He’s a great motivator. My wife is on the downside of her career, she ran 33:51 on the track for 10000m, and she made it to the ’88 Trials, which was one of her lifetime goals. And Chris was a big force in that. He shows interest in a lot of people that I think most guys at his level just run on by. Chris really gets into it. He gets into a kid breaking 10 minutes for the 2M, just as much as himself making the Olympic team.
He’s great for the sport.
Shank is the same way. He’s coaching 37-minute guys. He just likes to see people who want to get good, or want to be better at least, he likes to see them work hard. And he’ll help him.
Shank is a big reason for Chris’ success, at least for the last eight years. Shank is a guy, 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. He wanted to help Terry Baker fifteen years ago.
And when Chris came to town, and said, “Would you help me?” – Greg never hesitated.
Greg always has kept Chris focused on achieving his long time goals, not going for the quick buck.
