On THE Road WITH Joe LeMay

TUTTLE IS BACK

Lately, one name we’ ve been hearing about on theroads again is John Tuttle, a man I met long after his running career was supposedly over. It was

Marathon was the place to be for serious distance runners living in the United States.

The race is run the last Sunday in January, which usually lands it right on Super Bowl Sunday, which is fine by me. Over the years, I’ve only watched the Super Bowl when someone has invited me to a party, where I’m pretty much stuck watching it, or because I want to see the commercials. Usually ’’m doing something else, and the game is playing in the background.

That I spend little time watching professional sports on TV is something I don’t generally share with strangers or co-workers (when I finally get some co-workers, that is— aside from writing this column, I’m jobless right now) lest they think me some sort of un-American weirdo.

So, as I was saying, The Naples Half-Marathon is run on Super Bowl Sunday, and if you’re down there in Florida at that time of year, I recommend it.

John Tuttle andI stayed at the same guy’s house, where the race organizers putus. “There’s one other guy coming in— aJohn Tuttle,” the race director told me.

Who? I thought. Is this the John Tuttle? The same John Tuttle who took third place in the 1984 Olympic Marathon Trials race back when men were men?

Sure enough, a guy who looks to be about 40 and resembling what I could remember of John Tuttle from my 1980s running magazines, shows up. He’s kind of tall (6’1″), solidly built, about the same age as Michael Jackson (who was born in August 1958), making him a newly minted masters runner that year.

I wasn’t worried that he’ d beat me, but I should have been. I didn’t realize what kind of talent I was dealing with. Here’s an excerpt of what I wrote in my log after the 1999 Naples Half-Marathon:

“Last year it was cool and clear and still, and I was running in a pack. This year it was humid (a storm had just passed through) and windy, and there wasn’t really a pack. I was running with John Tuttle either at my side or just behind me, and I was doing all the work. This is the same John Tuttle who was on the 1984 Olympic team and just turned a master this year. The

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whole time I’m thinking, this geezer is running alongside me, andIcantseem to drop him, but this is one geezer who can run. I think he hasn’t been running in a while, so all those miles haven’t beat him into submission as they will do to me when I hit 40. I hit splits of 9:22 at two, 19:25 at four, 29:23 at six, 49:18 at 10, and I feel pretty good actually. Thought I had it all wrapped up after I dropped John at 9.”

It turned out John wasn’t my main problem, and I ended up losing to a guy named Randy Ashley. John scared the U.S. masters record with a 1:05:41 (the record at the time was 1:05:27 by Steve Plasencia, aka, “Plaz”) that day. People were surprised to see these kinds of results from someone supposedly long retired.

THE BEGINNING

John Tuttle grew up in Alfred, NY, a small town way out in the western part of the state, just below the Finger Lakes region. He won the first crosscountry race he ever entered—a race for kids 10 years old and under that his father and brother talked him into running. He graduated from high school in 1977 with personal records of 1:54 for 800 meters, 4:10.6 for the mile, 8:57 for the 2-mile, two indoor state titles, and one state title in crosscountry. He went on to Auburn University on a track scholarship, where he was teammates with Chris Fox (who retired with PRs of 13:22, 27:50, and 2:13), and never raced a distance

longer than the 3,000-meter steeplechase. In college, John ran 1:49 for 800 meters, 3:43 for 1,500 meters, and 8:34 for steeple. Who’d a thunk he’d become a marathoner? Training in college never got to be more than an 85-mile week, and most of those miles, except for the track work, were at around 7-minute pace.

Graduation from Auburn left John living in a trailer park in Alabama with some friends. Rent was $50 a month; he got by on odd jobs, and they heated the place with kerosene heaters.

If you ask me, life just doesn’t get much better than that. John agrees: “Tt was a good time,” he recalls.

He went to road races just for fun and started winning some. Moving up in distance, he produced a 1:03 halfmarathon, and he finally took his first

He was 24 and ran a2:14 at the Florida Festival Marathon—atime that would raise a few eyebrows today, but this was in the wake of Alberto Salazar’s 2:08:13 world record in the New York City Marathon. As I said, it was the days when men were men, and the 2:14 was no great shakes.

Next up, just 4 months later, was Grandma’s Marathon in June. John’s training during this time consisted mostly of 120- to 130-mile weeks. The biggest adjustment from college, aside from the obvious volume increases, was doing most of his training at 6minute pace or faster, so these weren’t 120-mile “junk” miles. The 120-mile weeks were pretty much an all-the-time

ON THE ROAD WITH JOE LEMAY mm 15

standard training regimen for him, with the exception of some recovery anda 2-week taper prior to a marathon. Recovery from a marathon would take about 4 weeks, by which time he’d be back up to 100 miles per week.

Talking to him, you might get the impression he never really set out to be the next Bill Rodgers, where he would make the cover of running magazines. He just started running a bunch of miles, someone told him to run a marathon, and it worked out. By the time he got to Grandma’s, he had figured out that this was what he should be doing. His first marathon paid him $2,500 in prize money and, with rent being $50 a month, that went pretty far. He made it to 23 miles in the 1983 Grandma’s Marathon and had a30-second lead when he crashed, but evidentially not too hard, as he still ran a 2:12:31, losing to a fellow named Gerry Helme. “I should have done more long runs,” he says with hindsight. “Inever went more than 17 miles in training. I should have gone at least 20 or 22.”

After those two marathons, John received a contract from the nowdefunct Kangaroos shoe company. While he doesn’t remember exact figures, the good people at Kangaroos urged him to run the New York City Marathon, with incentives for a good finish. He ran 2:10:51 for fourth place, for which Kangaroos increased his pay to $12,000 per year. (As you can see, the money isn’t that great, even at this level. It’s a winner-take-all sport if there ever was one.)

With the Olympic Trials Marathon in Buffalo coming the following spring (1984), John kept doing what he’d been doing. By the time he got to the 22-mile mark of that race, it became clear to him that he was going to make the Olympic team. “I could see the other guys around me didn’t look very fresh,” he recalls. He had more track speed than most of the other marathoners, but he’s quick toremind me that “that doesn’t make much of a difference when you’ re got 25 miles on your legs; still, I could see I was going to make it.”

His third place finish that day, which landed him a spot on the starting line of the Olympic Marathon at Los Angeles, also served to bump his Kangaroos salary up to $25,000 per year. Getting to the point where you can actually make a living off running is success in my book.

THE OLYMPICS

Nottoruin the suspense, but the Olympic Games Marathon was “‘depressing” for John.

Remembering the experience, he said, “I was thinking I was going to finish, no matter what. It was a bad day, and I should have either dropped earlier or finished. I still would have run in the 2:25 to 2:30 range if I had finished, but I guess I was such an elitist back then that I figured why bother if you’re not going to do at least a 2:14.”

It was just one of those days. He hung in there with eventual tenth-place

finisher Pete Pfitzinger for 13 miles before starting his death march, eventually dropping out at 21 miles. Tuttle still wonders what it might have been like to take that final Olympic lap in the Los Angeles Coliseum, eventhough it would have meant a very slow time.

John married his wife Steffani, a hurdler he met at Auburn, in 1984. Injuries followed, Achilles tendonitis the worst among them. By 1988, John had to stick to the 10,000-meters because he couldn’t put in the training

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mileage required for the marathon. On about 85 miles a week, he ran a 28:25 at the Penn Relays to qualify for the Olympic Trials, and he went on to finish seventh in those trials.

His first son was born, his sponsor, Kangaroos, went out of business, and for a short period of time, prize money became his only source of income. He raced only locally in Atlanta—a compromise location for John and his wife when a visit to his home town in New York convinced

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Steffani that Atlanta was as far north as she ever wanted to live. For the next 2 years, John secured a position teaching a high school wood shop class (he now teaches a hands-on technology class).

In 1990, he came back to run a 2:15 at the Twin Cities Marathon for second place, and a 2:14 at the Houston Marathon in January of 1991. On the basis of those performances, he was selected to run in the 1991 Tokyo World Championships Marathon on the U.S. team. He got hurt again, so Steve Taylor went to Tokyo in his place, and John retired from running, only to race locally in the coming years.

RETURNING AS A MASTER

John had been working out with some high school runners the summer of 1998, just before he turned 40. It was then that he hopped into a local 1,500meter race on the track and ran a 3:49. That result prompted him to make a more serious comeback as a masters athlete.

When your lifetime marathon PR is 2:10, it’s not always easy adjusting to diminished sets of goals. “These masters records are a little silly,” he allows, buthe’s happy to go afterthem.

Following the aforementioned Naples Half-Marathon, he went to the LaSalle Banks Shamrock 8K in Chicago that spring and came within 5 seconds of beating Todd Williams, a

27:31 10,000-meter runner, who was only 30 years old at the time. Todd had been showing some age lately in his races, and this led to the speculation that Todd just barely squeaked that win out. Not true. “He was just fooling around,” says John. “Itoldhim I could get the American masters record if he helped, and he asked ‘What is it?’” Turns out it was only a 23:51, set by Bill Rodgers. John blew it away with a 23:25. Shortly before, he set the still-standing masters record for 12K at 36:12. To sum up, his masters resume reads as follows:

5K in 14:19, an American masters record.

8K in 23:25, an American masters record.

10K in 29:27, an American masters record.

12K in 36:12, an American masters record.

Half-marathon in 1:05:11, second fastest ever for an American masters runner.

UNFINISHED BUSINESS

These days John is content to train only about 60 miles per week, and he has achieved these impressive results from it. He’s trying to get around to all the open races he never ran back when he was an open runner. While he has no plans for a marathon, he’d consider Boston. Henever got around to that one in his previous life.