Hate/Blood

Toni Reavis’s story “Hate Runs” is likely to receive one of those love-itor-hate-it responses from readers. It is a curious piece of work that will resonate with a certain type of marathoner but will fall totally flat with others.

The piece is centered at “the other” Bill Rodgers running store, the one out at Cleveland Circle along the marathon course as opposed to the store in Faneuil Hall, which used to be referred to as “the disco store” because of all the shiny stainless steel that helped it stand out in that wacky world of disco balls and the Bee Gees. The time frame, then, for Toni’s story is the late ’70s and early ’80s—sort of in the wake of disco.

Bill was in the habit of taking his afternoon runs from the Cleveland Circle store, and he was always open to runners who were visiting the store going along with him for the opening warm-up miles of his run. Once he was warmed up, however, it was hard for anyone to keep up with him, so his “guest runners” gradually fell away, but like the tail of a skyrocket, they glowed for a while afterward.

The guys who worked at the Cleveland Circle store couldn’t go out on their runs until the store closed at the end of the sales day, which is where Toni’s story begins.

His elaborate detailing of the anatomy of one of the runs on the 11 1/2-mile course captures well the intimate and intricate energies that went back and forth in those days when a gaggle of good regional runners went out to stretch their legs and add to their endurance-fitness bank account: all the games within the run, the testing and teasing and treachery that made the workout on some levels more of a hardfought contest than any official race they might run. One runner deciding to step up the pace, other runners making the decision to meet the challenge, still others holding back and maybe making amove for the lead later on at a favorite section of the course that was to their advantage.

And, of course, all the nuances and unspoken volumes contained in every step, every sideways glance, every expulsion and inhalation of air.

Three thousand miles away from Toni and the gang from “Boston Billy” Rodgers’s store, we had Bay Area weekend groups that would get together in a similar vein to get in 18-milers building toward a marathon or simply as ameans of staying fit. Sometimes we had a group of four or five, sometimes just two of us. Toni and his group referred to these runs as “hate runs.” We referred to them as “blood runs.”

They were “blood runs” because there was such up-and-down pounding throughout the 18-miler that invariably one of the group, upon removing shoes and socks, came up bloodied. But the

runs were, in essence, the same as Toni’s “hate runs.”

Our friend Bill Howard at that time lived on Twin Peaks in San Francisco, the highest point where humans can habituate in the City by the Bay. The view from his balcony was spectacular: it looked down Market Street to the Ferry Building and onward to the Bay and beyond to Oakland.

The courses we ran from his apartment had only two drawbacks: the first several miles, down to the Castro District, were steeply downhill, and at the conclusion of the run, we faced the several-mile ascent back up to Twin Peaks when we were most bushed.

We always carried enough money that we could stop at neighborhood grocery stores to get a Mountain Dew

(and get shooed out by the Chinese proprietor who didn’t want us sweating on his linoleum floor) and, if we chickened out, to call Bill’s wife, Tish, to come and pick up our sorry, bloodied asses.

Bill liked to run without a shirt, which on a bright, summer Sunday morning got some hoots and catcalls from fellows sipping coffee on restaurant patios in the Castro. Bill pretended not to notice.

We would invariably end up running along the Embarcadero, dodging tourists as we sped past Pier 39, Fisherman’s Wharf, and Ghirardelli Square, the usual tourist haunts. Then we would cut over to Golden Gate Park, where on Sundays the traffic along JFK Drive was restricted but the devotees of fresh air weren’t.

When Bill came down to Palo Alto to visit us, we would do our “blood runs” from near Stanford, out to Woodside, and then along Canada Road out to Crystal Springs Reservoir and back. A long stretch of relatively flat, smooth, wide-shouldered road between Woodside and the reservoir gave us a perfect segment where we could pick up the pace, either subtly or outright gonzo. We could pound on each other for well over a mile while traffic above us on I-280 went zooming by.

Because Canada Road generally didn’t see much vehicular traffic, it was frequently used over the weekend by scads of casual bicycle riders. Once one of the runners in our group put the pedal down and the rest of us accepted the challenge, it wasn’t unusual to go flying past bicyclists like they were stuck in first gear.

That was all well and good until we overstayed our welcome in the anaerobic zone, when one by one we’d fall off the pace and drop back to 7:00 or 7:30 pace, saving enough energy to get us back to our apartment on Grant Avenue.

The runs were always memorable, if for no other reason than the fact that they were never done lightly or haphazardly. These runs weren’t for jogging about, taking a scenic tour. They were, next to the weekly track workout, the most serious runs of the week. They were the backbone of our training program, a training program that allowed us, at the drop of a marathon race date, to say, “Yeah, let’s do it,” without fear that we were going to have to plan 18 weeks in advance so

we would be ready. We were ready— any time, any place—because of the “blood runs.”

I’m not sure whether the “blood runs” were so special because they were so damned challenging or because misery loves company.

But they would always end with a pile of bagels, Philadelphia cream cheese, lox, and a few beers. And, of course, a recounting of every step of the “blood run” that we had just finished. It was a badge of honor to be the first in the group to “flash the red,” to display some blood.

In a sense, the blood connected us to our running heroes of old, when running shoes were made of leather and bloodied feet were simply a fact of life as a road racer.

It was another era back then in the late ’70s. It was a transitional era for running, one in which the forebears, Johnny “the Elder” Kelley and Emil Zatopek and Tarzan Brown, were legends, and Frank Shorter and Kenny Moore and Don Kardong were leading masses of us, new and naive but eager runners, onto the altar of sweat, where it all seemed new and brilliant and special. That was before it became something that everybody could and would do, a time when it still took a measure of sacrifice and dedication and sometimes stupidity to feel that the results were worth the extra effort—before the “blood runs” faded and everyone was a winner.

Eo * * At the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, Lorraine Moller of New Zealand won

the bronze medal in the women’s marathon. It was the culmination of an incredible career in long-distance running. She wasn’t the best-known female marathoner of the era, but when you look at her statistics, she certainly was solidly in the top five along with Grete Waitz, Joan Benoit, Ingrid Kristiansen, and Rosa Mota.

Consider: she won the first eight marathons she entered. She won three of the seven Avon Women’s World Championship Marathons that led to a women’s marathon in the Olympic Games. No other woman won more than one. She won the Osaka International Ladies Marathon three times. And in 1996, she was undefeated as a masters runner.

Of course, that’s just the flash, the statistical abstraction.

Behind every champion is a life spotted with high points and dismal failures that sculpt the person into a fierce competitor but that also make certain to remind her that, in the end, she is very much a human being like everyone else, blighted with foibles and brilliant with determination.

Lorraine has written an autobiography that is at once inspiring and humbling. It follows a sickly, scrawny, Kiwi kid who discovers she has a certain talent for moving her legs really fast—but she comes from humble beginnings and has a long way to travel to ultimately reach her goals on the international stage. There are a lot of

false starts, a lot of setbacks, and a lot of triumphs.

Titled On the Wings of Mercury: The Lorraine Moller Story, the book is a fiercely honest look at a life led on a fairly public stage. Lorraine spares no one, especially herself. She is forthright with the wrong turns she took in her life, the questionable decisions, and the blind alleys. But her story is ultimately uplifting because she is determined to come back from everything that goes wrong in her life. When she made a mistake, it was usually a doozy (her marriage to American marathoner Ron Daws is a perfect example), but like the person who throughout life learns how to get things right by first learning lessons from doing them wrong, Lorraine always sticks it out, works hard at correcting her course, and in the end pushes through.

The book is a delight in that Lorraine’s personality drenches every page. Her unique take on the world—and on herself—provides an opportunity for readers to get to know the person behind the accomplishments. This opportunity is provided by two factors: she is brutally honest, and she is a skilled writer. She certainly doesn’t need a ghostwriter or a collaborator. This isn’t meant as a put-down to her treasure trove of running accomplishments, but she writes even better than she ran. Every page is filled with vivid word pictures and sometimes startling insights.

It would probably be accurate to refer to Lorraine as a “practical New

Ager.” Throughout her adult life, she has been led by her spiritual side and has consulted many a celestial source, whether a seer or a faith healer. She has put an enormous amount of energy into finding the meaning of life, or at least the meaning of her life. And because of her generous personality, the quest in various chapters of the book comes across as more endearing than kooky. Whether a palmist is authentic or not doesn’t matter; if you increase your self-confidence in the process, well then, it worked, right?

We are a little spoiled over the last year in being given two gifts in excellent running books that essentially cement the women’s running movement into history. A year ago, Kathrine Switzer unleashed her wonderful Marathon Woman; now, with Lorraine Moller’s honest and insightful tome, that chapter of the history of running is thoroughly plumbed and delightfully recorded.

The strength of both books comes primarily from the strength of these two outstanding women to tell their stories with honesty and humility, to let the chips fall where they may, and to stand not behind what they have written, but above it.

Eo * *

To purchase Lorraine’s book, On the Wings of Mercury: The Lorraine Moller Story, please contact the Marathon & Beyond office at 217/359-9345 or, tollfree 877/972-4230, or e-mail Jan Seeley at jan@marathonandbeyond.com.

—Rich Benyo

ON the ROAD WITH DON KARDONG

Run of the Mill

Iknow there are places in the world where runners ply their avocation year-round clad only in shoes, shirts, and shorts. California comes to mind. In my part of the world, though—Spokane, Washington— November is the month when days darken at an alarming rate, mornings turn frosty, and runners become reacquainted with tights, gloves, jackets, wool caps, and wind briefs.

Unless, that is, they simply move indoors.

I’ve always relished the special sounds and sensations of running outdoors in winter, as well as the challenge of it, the call to action. A 10-mile run at 10 degrees can be trouble free and invigorating, assuming the footing is reliable. Lonely at times, to be sure, but also serene, and a surefire way to shake off the ill effects of spending too much time cooped up. Cabin fever begone.

But there are limits. An inch or two of new snow makes a lovely cushion, and being the first human to leave tracks during an early-morning run is an ethereal ego trip with no kickback. But let that same snowfall pack down under 10,000 automobile tires, melt and

refreeze a dozen times, and hide under

another layer of snow, and your favorite five-mile route is suddenly a high-risk danger zone with no warning signs. You might as well ask your spouse to smack you on the head with a frying pan. At least then you’ll be laid out on a warm hardwood floor at home and not flat on your back on some anonymous stretch of frozen roadway.

And yes, [know about those traction devices you can wear on your shoes in icy weather, studding your steps for greater security. Good products, to be sure, but there are still days . . . lots of them, in fact, around here, especially last winter, when my hometown endured the second-snowiest winter on record. Snow was piled everywhere, pushed or plowed or blown into mounds that were heaped to the sky on every thoroughfare in town, narrowing passage and promising disaster. Chains on running shoes were no help.

It’s conditions like those that cool my passion for winter running and force me to pursue a different love affair—with the treadmill. Winter can be wonderful, but fighting the tough ones wears me down. When the footing is bad or the snow piles high, my out-of-doors determination crumbles and I finally seek solace in the sweaty confines of a fitness club. I join the treadmill brigade.

ALL THE COMFORTS

I’ve allowed myself that luxury for only a few years now, and the transition wasn’t easy. At first, it wasn’t half bad—T-shirt and shorts, cable TV, lots of people around, and the sure-footed, calorie-counting, pace-recording spinning belt humming an accompaniment to my footfalls.

When I say “at first,” I mean for the first 10 minutes. After that it became a different kind of experience. Same view, same effort, same everything, step after step, minute after hard-earned minute. At the very least, I needed a running buddy, someone to share the monotony and break the tedium.

Imagine my delight, then, when one day, while I was still trying to get comfortable with the torture of the treadmill, my oldest daughter Kaitlin suddenly popped on the machine next tome. “Hi, Dad!” she said brightly, and started the belt spinning. Redemption it was, underscoring a big positive for treadmill trekking—you run as fast or as slow as you want, and either way you don’t lose your partner. So we ran, dad and daughter, sharing a word or two now and then. It passed the time, lightened the load.

This was especially gratifying because Kaitlin almost always refuses to run with me. She says I’m too fast.

I’ve tried to tell her she’s remembering another time almost 10 years ago, when she was in high school. She wasn’t keen to run with me then either, but once in a blue moon I could talk her into it. My pace in those days was

quicker, and on one infamous jaunt together, she suffered. In silence. I didn’t realize she was struggling until she was on her last gasp. Too late. It angered and embarrassed her, and since then she has always turned me down.

With the treadmill, though, speed doesn’t matter, which was a really good thing. Because as she finished her workout, I couldn’t help asking: “So what pace were you running?”

Her answer? 7:30 per mile. Which was—imagine this—just a little faster than I had been running.

So that was a good day on the mill, one with a running buddy. Sadly, it was also an anomaly. Most days, most winters, I have trudged from the locker room to the treadmill alone and tried to figure out how to pass the next 45 minutes without whining. Other years, when snow comes sporadically and warm Chinook winds blow through town often enough to melt the snow and clear the streets, treadmill trips are infrequent. In those years, I’m outside often enough not to mind an occasional stretch indoors. But in a winter like last year, when the snow came early and kept returning and returning in a seemingly endless cycle, I was almost permanently sentenced to the treadmill. And that made the experience especially tough to endure.

Ah, but then came Christmas, and with Christmas came a new kind of running buddy, one that arrived in a small, carefully wrapped and ribboned package. It was an iPod Shuffle.

For those of you who consider the techie marketplace alien territory, here’s

a quick description of the Shuffle. It’s a smaller version of the iPod, that ubiquitous musical storehouse that keeps teenagers and young adults permanently disconnected from the actual world. I wonder about young people wandering through life in a music-induced haze, but it turns out that the Shuffle is the perfect running buddy, at least if you’re running in one place in a room with no traffic. [loved my Shuffle from the moment I turned it on—really loud—and started my daily spin.

The Shuffle is about half the size of a book of matches, small enough to clip to the shorts, and it holds hundreds of songs. Sometimes I look at the thing in amazement. All the drug-and-devil music of my youth in one tiny package, with enough firepower to seriously rattle my eardrums. I watch the snow fall outside, the belt below my feet spins steadily, and a rock concert thunders somewhere between left and right temporal lobes. I would never use this product outdoors, where there are pitfalls and predators aplenty and where attention to surroundings is mandatory. Plus, I like the sounds that nature makes. But indoors, time on the treadmill has never passed so quickly.

THE MUSIC OF YOUTH PLAYED LOUD

Kaitlin was a great running buddy, but so are Jim, Mick, Freddie, Jimi, Janis, Roger, Joan, and John. MC, Bob, Sting, Billy, and Sir Mix-A-Lot aren’t bad, either. And when Mark Lindsay or Brian Wilson joins me on my ride,

I’m back in my glorious high school years. In an instant there is renewed spring to my step.

I think I’m safe in saying the Doors never intended to write a treadmill running song, but how else am I expected to understand “‘Not to touch the earth, not to see the sun, nothing left to do but run, run, run, let’s run!”’ Man, does that get me moving!

Of course, songs don’t have to be running specific to warrant inclusion on my Shuffle. I add songs to the mix because they have a good beat and you can run to them. Good vocals are key, and strange lyrics are welcome.

On any given morning, I step to the machine, hit the start button on the dashboard, and start slowly cranking up the pace. My tunes are playing, and before I know it, the lyrics begin creeping into my thoughts. Without the Shuffle I can hear that engine roar and whine beneath my feet, but that’s why J gotta get my friends together. The lead singers, that is. J love rock ’n’ roll, and with my Shuffle as my companion I’m rarin’ to go and ready to put the pedal to the metal. Of course, if everybody had an ocean across the U.S.A., then everybody’d be surfin’ , like California, but here in the Inland Northwest, at least in winter, we make do with treadmill running. No complaints from me any more. I ain’t no monkey but I know what I like.

I sometimes feel guilty, remembering how I used to run outdoors through all kinds of weather. No kidding, I’d go walkin’ in a hurricane, I’d come crawling ina drivin’ rain.I keep running

till I go insane, or so it seemed. I guess I’m just a junkie, addicted to the flame—te flame, that is, of working out. Running outdoors in frigid weather may seem heroic, but there’s a killer on the road, and that killer is hard-packed snow. Sure, you’re out on the street lookin’ good, and baby deep down in your heart I guess you know that it ain’t right. Because that road goes nowhere but to the emergency room. Better stick to the treadmill and just daydream of two lanes shinin’ in the July dust.

THE LYRICS SKIRT REALITY

T’mnotsure how the other gym rats deal with treadmill tedium. A woman walks in, stands like a statue, becomes part of the machine, fiddling with the controls, procrastinating. She seems selfconscious at first, as if she’s wondering, what’s the matter with the clothes ’’m wearing? To which I’d be tempted to say, “So Cosmo says you’re fat, well I ain’t down with that,” or maybe just “Let me stand next to your fire.” But I wouldn’t dare. I know that move over, Rover look when I see it. Yes, it’s don’t stand, don’t stand so, don’t stand so close to me. Leave me alone, because I’m gonna show you that a woman can be tough. And there she goes, a minute a mile faster than me.

And yes, I’m getting old, getting gray, and some people probably think Ishould stop acting so crazy by spending so much time on the treadmill, but J get by with a little help from my friends—the lead singers, that is. /

know it’s only rock ’n’ roll, but I like it. And the music definitely helps pass the time. Time goes by so slowly, and time can do so much, but one thing time can’t do is pass quickly on a treadmill. Even with tunes, sometimes it drags, and you wonder is it tomorrow, or just the end of time?

Even when I’m sung to loudly, loud enough to drown out a whole lot of shakin’ goin’ on, running on a spinning belt is no bed of roses, no pleasure cruise. In fact, no matter what you do, you’ll never get away from you, and if you keep onrunning, you’ll have to pay the price. Believe me, I’ve been there. Some days I wish I could say, “Now wait aminute, I feel alllll right,” but instead I feel so broke up, 1 wanta go home. Of course, I don’t quit. I keep going. J’ ve paid my dues, time after time.

Some days I think this is the worst trip I’ve ever been on, and I consider heading back outdoors. Even with great music, with the treadmill I’m always wondering if this could be the last time, maybe the last time, I don’t know. I think about cross training, and suddenly J want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike. But I keep moving, and soon enough /’m going home. Yeah, home.

I push the stop button on the treadmill dashboard, and the spinning belt slows steadily and stops. So do I. I push the button on my Shuffle, and abruptly there is dead silence. I’m back in the real world, or at least the somewhat stuffy indoor world of the club where I work out. Outside, snow continues to drift over the city.

I’ve had a good workout, much better than anything I could have managed in the slip-slide world outside. Yes, I could have gotten through five miles somehow outdoors, but it would have been slow, awkward, and with more than ample opportunity to tweak a muscle or strain a groin. Or worse.

I’m not sure what kind of winter we have in store in the months ahead. There are years when Spokane’s winter is pretty much like Seattle’s, with lots of gray, overcast days and permanently wet streets, but no snow to fret about. And there are years when our winter is more like the upper Midwest’s, with snow piled everywhere.

I don’t know which variety of winter is in store, but either way, I’m ready. If it’s cold but the streets are clear, I’m outside. If traction is an issue or the temperature is arctic, I’m back indoors, back to the treadmill, with a whole host of running buddies serenading my way to spring.

Either way, I’ve got it covered. Either way, I’ll be running with dedication and conviction this winter. I can run at 10 below. I can run in place for

as long as it takes. ] wasn’t kidding, I can do anything.

I’ve enjoyed my stint as columnist for Marathon & Beyond. Along with giving me the opportunity to plumb the memory banks of my past marathon experiences, my two years with the magazine have marked a significant personal journey. When I started writing this column, I was struggling to recover from double knee surgery and could barely run. Now, two years later, I’m back healthy again and even managed to run another marathon in December 2007, my first in six years. Such is the magic of this publication. I’m not sure if Lorraine Moller has ever traveled a similar path from injury to recovery, but in any case, I’m pleased to turn this column over to someone with her credentials: five Olympic appearances, a bronze medal, a 2:28:17 personal best, and a slew of other great performances on the roads. I’m looking forward to hearing what she has to say each issue, and I hope you are, too. Thanks for joining me these past two years, and here’s wishing you a great next marathon (or beyond).