Alone The loneliness of the long-distance runner. For a generation of runners, the title of Alan Sillitoe’s novel of juvenile rebellion described and defined the person, usually male, who ran long distances over hill and dale or along lonely roads at any time of the day and sometimes at night. It was a solitary figure, a loner, a sort of malcontent, running to his own beat. This was repeated as though it were undisputed fact: that long-distance runners were introverts, antisocial, prone to long periods of silence. And that all of them came from the same mold.

Of course it wasn’t true. Except in those cases when it was, when a long-distance runner was actually introverted, antisocial, and prone to long periods of keeping his mouth shut. Most of the long-distance runners of the 1970s and ’80s were sociable enough. Some 80,000 of them used to get together one day a year to run the Bay to Breakers race in San Francisco. And marathons grew large enough to boast tens of thousands of participants. And running clubs cropped up in every big city and many small towns. Runners were sociable; they went to great pains to seek out other runners. And once women became involved in larger numbers, running became more sociable still. The Greater Boston Track Club featured a dozen or so national-class

runners who worked out together. Women’s running groups formed up for Saturday morning runs. Corporate competition brought together disparate employees all proudly wearing the logo of their company. More recently the tendency of people to train and race together has further escalated. There are charity running groups and computer-generated virtual-training groups, often tied in with major races. Everybody’s running with somebody. The solitary runner backlit against the far horizon has become a rare sight.

And that’s unfortunate. Especially these days when we are bombarded with communications of all sorts all the time. We are being smothered by communications, yet in spite of all the yakking, it’s the rare conversation that is truly riveting and memorable. To escape the constant babble is to court sanity. A solitary run can provide that escape and is a thing of beauty on two important fronts. First of all, it gets you away from the distractions of daily life and encourages you to meet yourself and to become reacquainted with yourself. By this I mean you voluntarily strip yourself of all distractions and distortions. You are, for the duration of

the run, free from the warped life perpetrated upon you by a world panting for your attention. No phone calls. No instant messaging. No lists of what’s “in” or “out.” No brand names vying for your attention and your dollar. No badgering or begging or cajoling or nudging. It is only you listening to the in and out of your breath and to the beat of your heart. You, in sync with the basic rhythm of your own body. All things extraneous are stripped away. All complexities become simple. Pounded and confused by a myriad of questions and decisions, all of them hypercharged and demanding an instant answer, the body and the mind stumble and become misaligned. Stripped of that constant assault of the senses, rolling along a quiet road, breath coming regularly and strongly, the mind slips into a primal gear where it confidently sorts through the dozens of questions and problems that have stymied you. Like a computer alphabetizing a database, it lines up the questions in a remarkably logical way, bringing only one topic forward at a time, stripping it of its nettles and disguising it until it stands before you, stark and accessible. The question that has dogged you for three days is solved in three miles. And you shake your head at how absolutely simple it was all the time, once the extraneous camouflage was shunted. Then there’s the training effect—the purely physical side of the solo run. When we run with others, we either set the pace or the pace is set for us. But it is never truly our own pace.

When we run alone, the pace we run at any one time is always the pace we choose. Do we want to pick it up to the next lamppost? Do we want to cruise over the next mile? Do we have an urge to turn off the road we usually run to explore a neighborhood we’ve never experienced before? We need ask no one for permission. We need only give in to ourselves. We are for that precious time captain of our own ship. And for that time, our ship—inside and out—is improved by its shower of physicality. We are once more renewed by a sacrament of sweat, a process we can accomplish only solo, in a sport where even in the middle of a 10,000-entrant race, we are alone. But far from lonely. * * * As we bid a fond farewell to the year 2005 with this issue, we look forward to 2006 with excitement and more than a bit of apprehension as we make several moves to “grow” Marathon & Beyond and to expand its influence in the wonderfully wacky world of longdistance running. Publisher Jan Seeley and I decided that our 10th-anniversary year would be the perfect time to fire a lot of guns at once, to make a lot of noise to celebrate, and to potentially put ourselves in the nuthouse by adding to our current workload. I told her it goes against everything we preach in this magazine about pacing, but she seems to think we’re getting younger all the time, not

older and slower—and occasionally in need of a nap. These young’uns, ya just can’t keep ’em down, so sometimes ya gotta indulge ’em. First of all, a word about this 10thanniversary stuff. Geez, where did the 10 years go? An old geezer’s lament: seems like only yesterday we were firing up this idea of doing a supremely specialized magazine for marathoners and ultrarunners, and now in the wink of an eye it’s a decade later. The thing that makes it all only too real is the bookshelf in the living room where all 54 issues, including the one you’re holding, are lined up neatly like a decade’s worth of used calendars. Where to start when considering our 10th year? Even discussing it at this point causes something of a time warp because magazines work on what is referred to as “long lead time”—sort of like training for a marathon. You begin the effort 16 or 18 or 20 weeks out from the date and gradually build toward it. As I write this, the charcoals from Labor Day picnics have barely cooled, and we are already well into projects that we won’t see in their final stages until well into 2006. Two of the biggest things we’re doing for 2006 are special issues, which means that instead of doing the usual six issues for 2006, we’ll be doing eight. To help celebrate the 110th running of the legendary Boston Marathon, we’ve been working with the Boston Athletic Association to publish a commemorative anniversary book titled Boston Marathon & Beyond, which will

be M&B’s first full-color issue. Boston Marathon & Beyond will be around 200 pages, will be inserted into the bags of each Boston Marathon entrant, and will also be sent as a special bonus issue to all of our subscribers. All of the editorial content is already finished; we’re going through photos and beginning the layout process and working with the companies and races that will be advertising in the special. And it has been a real pleasure to work with the good folks at the B.A.A. on this project. It has been especially fulfilling to work with the team of writers who contributed material for this special: Tom Derderian, John J. Kelley, Kathrine Switzer, Roger Robinson, Tito Morales, Hal Higdon, and Scott Hubbard. The other special issue we’re doing is very similar to the Boston Marathon & Beyond book but is centered in the north woods: Grandma’s Marathon & Beyond. Grandma’s turns 30 years old in 2006, and to help commemorate that occasion we have been working with race director Scott Keenan and his wonderful staff to create a special one-shot issue that will be distributed to all marathon entrants as well as to all entrants in the Garry Bjorklund Half-Marathon. Grandma’s Marathon & Beyond won’t automatically be distributed to M&B subscribers, although interested subscribers will be able to order it through the magazine. Marathon & Beyond will also host its seventh-annual open house at Grandma’s. Should be quite a shindig. But that isn’t the end of our exciting news. For the last several years, Jan has served as the speaking engagement

manager for our good buddy Dick Beardsley at marathons and other races, corporations, and schools. Dick is easily the premier inspirational speaker on the running circuit. His story of triumph and tragedy easily puts to rest F. Scott Fitzgerald’s admonition that American lives have no second acts. Jan has been so good at promoting Dick’s speeches that there isn’t enough of Dick to go around. So in 2006, Marathon & Beyond will launch the M&B Speakers Bureau, which will feature an impressive stable of speakers, in addition to Dick: Helen Klein (see the cover story in the last issue of M&B) is world and American record holder at so many distances we don’t have space to list them all here. Her story of getting into running at the age of 55 and simply running away with the record books is inspiring and fascinating. Bill Wenmark is a dynamo, a force of nature. A decorated combat corpsman in Vietnam, Bill built his career around providing medical aid to those who need it. He has also practiced preventive medicine through athletics. He is the founder and coach of ALARC (American Lung Association Running Club), the largest marathon running club in the United States. Gerard Pearlberg, or “Coach GP” as he is known to his charges, is cofounder of RunningBuzz.com and the author of

Run Tall, Run Easy: The Ultimate Guide to Better Running Mechanics. Patti Lyons Catalano Dillon, like Dick Beardsley, has a story filled with ups and downs that inspires anyone who hears it. At one time one of the world’s premier road racers, Patti’s life fell apart, but through iron will and great determination she was able to bring it back together. Paul Clerici did a marvelous job of telling Patti’s story in the March/April 2005 edition of this magazine. Look for more info about the M&B Speakers Bureau in future issues of M&B. To further commemorate 10 years of M&B, we’re also offering a 10th Anniversary performance shirt by New Balance. See the enclosed flyer for ordering information. Phew! I’m exhausted just listing what’s coming down the road for 2006. Maybe it is time for that nap. Looking back at the last decade, Jan and I would most especially like to thank all of those runners who have made the journey with us by buying and reading our little magazine. We refer to you folks as the M&B family. We appreciate your support and encouragement, and we hope to grow old together—and to continue to be divinely dysfunctional. In excess there is fulfillment. —Rich Benyo