Since childhood, I’d dreamed of competing in the Olympic Games. But I seemed to be taking a roundabout way of getting there, turning into something of an itinerant runner, seeing the world either by hitchhiking or on a Merchant Marine ship. But I continued running, training, racing. And I began getting better . . . and perhaps was also beginning to become better focused toward my goals. 1979. I felt good about my running. I was still improving nicely.

I hit a 5,000-meter PR of 14:19 at the Rutgers Relays in April and a 10,000-meter PR of 29:39 at the Penn Relays. I continued to improve so I entered bigger races, like Falmouth, where I placed very well. I ran in the Diet Pepsi Finals in Purchase, New York, and ran a road PR of 29:37, and beat a lot of the top US runners. I was just thrilled completely. I was realizing my dreams.

In October I ran the New York City Marathon and finally qualified for the US Olympic Marathon Trials with a 2:18:19. 1980. My racing and training were very good. In April I hit a nice 5,000-meter PR of 14:06 at the Rutgers Relays. I was still improving.

At the Penn Relays it was another PR at 10K of 29:22. In May I entered the Midland 15K, which had a star-studded field, people like Bill Rodgers, Lasse Viren, Herb Lindsay. The field was just loaded. I ran well and turned in a 15K PR of 45:47 for 16th place, beating a lot of good runners I had never before beaten.

I was fit and ready for the US Olympic Marathon Trials. But— Jimmy Carter called a boycott against the USSR over its invasion of Afghanistan, and we were suddenly a potential USA Olympic team with no Olympics to go to.

Courtesy of Gary Fanelli

▲ Here I am warming up before the Trials in my protest T-shirt.

I had a T-shirt made up that said THE ROAD TO MOSCOW ENDS HERE. I was the only marathoner who went to the Trials sporting a protest shirt. I felt good about voicing my opinion. Being a true-to-form hippy, I was full of political consciousness. I was happy those years before I’d gone to Washington to protest the Vietnam War. I believed I was patriotic and loved my country for sure and was also happy I was allowed to protest something I believed unjust. Another part of my Olympic boycott protest was unvoiced, and I told no one about my plan. Since we were not going to the Olympic Games in Moscow later in 1980, I said to myself, OK then, let this Olympic Trials race be our Olympic Games here and now and let’s see if we can run faster here than they do later on in Moscow.

To ensure this plan, I took the lead, racing sub-five-minute miles for as long as I could. It didn’t matter to me if I died there. I wasn’t going to Moscow if I made the team, so I had nothing to lose. I felt I was turning a lemon into lemonade, thus making the best of a very bad situation. So off I went, opening with a rich 4:39 mile . . . with nobody going with me. The lead pack remained intact. Two miles, three miles, four miles, five miles, on and on it went, Gary Fanelli in the lead, running sub-five-minute miles. I went through 10 miles in less than 50 minutes. I’d never managed that before: a PR! The lead pack began to try to reel me in, afraid I might run away with it, the way Frank Shorter had done in Munich in 1972, never coming back to them. I hit the half-marathon in 1:04:39. Another PR! The pack was now on my pace, a sub-2:10 pace.

Courtesy of Gary Fanelli

▲ I led the 1980 Olympic Marathon Trials for 17 miles, setting PRs at every distance, and ensuring a fast finishing time, not just for me in a PR 2:16:48, but for the winners, too—Tony Sandoval, Benji Durden, and Kyle Heffner—who all ran faster at the Trials than the 1980 Olympic Marathon winner.

But my left foot was really blistering up on the ball of the foot. Because the second and third toes were arthritic, the bone was pressing down way too hard. (I would eventually have surgery to help correct the condition. Although it did not completely solve the problem, the surgery did help somewhat.)

My foot was really hurting, but I pressed on as best I could. Fatigue began to set in, but I was still setting one PR after another: 15 miles, another PR. Finally, at 17 miles, the lead pack caught and absorbed me. I still managed to finish in a PR of 2:16:48, good enough for 23rd place.

The top three runners (Tony Sandoval, Benji Durden, and Kyle Heffner) all ran 2:10. I was happy about that as I felt I got them to that pace and kept them on that pace. I was hoping the times they ran would be faster than the times run in the actual

Olympic Games marathon later in the year. I feel that had I not dictated such a blistering pace for so long, the lead pack would have dawdled so that the race would have come down to a kicker’s finish.

Faster than Cierpinski My hope that our Trials winners would run faster than the winner in Moscow panned out. Waldemar Cierpinski of East Germany (as we know now, a performance-

enhancing drug user) won the Olympic marathon in Moscow in 2:11:03. When I heard that news, I was thrilled. Our boys had run faster in our Trials than Cierpinski had run to win at Moscow. I felt somewhat consoled that my plan had worked.

I was profoundly affected by running in that US Olympic Marathon Trials, the “road to nowhere.” Once again, I am patriotic and all that, but I had to voice my feelings about the boycott. It was my first Olympic Trials. My goal, dream, and vision were not just to be one of many candidates in an Olympic Trial. I wanted very badly to be on the US Olympic Team. Hearing of the boycott crushed my spirit, once again to see my dream slip away. Intuitively, I felt I still needed to go on and continue to follow this inner voice, this dream, this vision of my destiny. As it turned out, my frontrunning in the Trials served as a springboard for my running career.

In the wake of that audacious front-runner move, all of a sudden it was like I was a big star on the running circuit. Race directors wanted me at their races. I felt quite honored and had a good time accommodating requests.

Then, in the middle of being a big star, I decided to drop into a few highprofile races as a Blues Brother known as Elwood Blues (a character played by Dan Aykroyd in the movie The Blues Brothers), running fast times dressed as Elwood and playing a harmonica along the way. It was another “hit” of sorts, adding further fuel to my running career. Yet through it all, I still had to focus on my Olympic dreams.

Courtesy of Gary Fanelli

▲

While making the Olympic team was still my focus, I also had some fun, dressing up and running fast as a Blues Brother known as Elwood Blues. Here I am with Dan Aykroyd, who played the character in the movie.

Courtesy of Gary Fanelli

It had now turned into something of a mixed bag. Intuitively, I was just going with it or, as they said in my Hippy Daze, “Just go with the flow, man.” It was in the wake of the Trials that I received my first appearance money. It

came from [New York City Marathon race director] Fred Lebow. I have always appreciated that about him: he was kind to me and supportive. He brought me in for his West Chester Half-Marathon in Rye, New York. It was June of 1980.

I tried hard to do him right, and I really ran hard that day and won the race on a hot and hilly course; I ran 1:04:39, tying Garry Bjorklund’s course record. I began receiving invitations from all over the country—and the world.

I received a shoe contract and various other endorsements. I got to make special appearances and do clinics. It was all great fun and really heady. It was like I had arrived, all because of my daring at the Trials, which had been televised

and heralded in all of the national running magazines. All those stories included pictures of me and text about my hand in the Trials and why I had run so hard upfront for so long. I started making a decent living

from my new, high-profile running, and I reset my focus on the 1984 Olympic Games. But I had been facing a few obstacles along the way. Genetically, my family has bad feet. My toes were curled, and perhaps from

all the mileage I put in, the toes became arthritic and froze in the curled position, thus forcing the metatarsal heads downward. Those bones pushed on the skin on the ball of the left foot. My foot hurt so

badly during the 1980 Olympic Trials Marathon as I was on the balls of my feet at sub-five-minute pace for many a mile. Several times at races the bone rubbed through the skin (West Chester Half-Marathon

in 1981 and the Stramilano HalfMarathon in Milan, Italy, in 1982), ▲ Then West Chester Half-Marathon race director thus creating what doctors called Fred Lebow paid me my first appearance money to an ulcerated blister. It left nerves on

run his event, which I won in 1980 and 1981 (photo). my feet exposed. It was extremely

painful—the most pain I have ever suffered in my life. The only thing that seemed to make it better was soaking my foot in ice water.

Treating the foot I got fitted with special pads by my podiatrist, Dr. Gary M. Gordon, in Philadelphia. I also had to cut portions of my shoes out to alleviate pressure. I was running well and racing well, but all of it with this painful foot malady.

Around this time I bought us a house. With wife Terry, we now had two daughters, Celeste and Laura. With that added financial burden, I could not afford to get injured or it would threaten my income. But I was getting injured and my foot was pretty bad at the time, thus threatening my running career. It could get quite nerve-racking and I was feeling a lot of pressure.

Reviewing my training log for 1980, I find that I raced 41 times that year—way more than is good for a runner. I had done 13 races before the Olympic Marathon Trials in May. I ran a marathon PR of 2:14:16 in Montreal that year. That was my 29th race of the year: way, way too much racing.

I had so many invitations and paid appearances and access to prize money that I got played out physically. It was so bad that I could feel even my bones getting tired. I closed out the year with what I hoped would be a “fun” race: the Honolulu Marathon. My goal was to win the Honolulu race and go out of the year on a high note. But my whole body was tired and my foot bothered me. I ended up in 18th place with a 2:26.

Obviously, I was going to have to save my body and race less, and I was going to have to do something surgically about my left foot. I used rolls of tape, footpads, Vaseline, a Nu-Skin-type product, and custom-made shoes, but it was still a problem that I kept putting off addressing.

I went into 1981 still getting calls to come to races, all expenses paid, and a bit more besides, but I was still hung over from my exhausting 1980. I was expected to be in top physical shape, but it seemed to take forever for me to slough off the aftereffects of 1980.

I received an invitation to run the Tokyo International Marathon as part of a USA team that included Benji Durden, Herm Atkins, and Don Kardong, who had taken fourth place at the 1976 Olympic Marathon. I was thrilled and honored to be part of the team, but I was still suffering from overracing in 1980 and managed a mediocre 2:26. I was embarrassed and felt I was on a merry-go-round where my shoe sponsor wanted me to race more and my mortgage wanted me to keep paying it.

In April I was contracted to be a rabbit at the Boston Marathon. It was a classic matchup between Boston Billy Rodgers and Toshihiko Seko of Japan, arguably

Courtesy of Gary Fanelli

▲ In 1981, I was contracted to be the “rabbit” at Boston, taking the field through the half in 1:03:02. For 18 miles, I experienced the thrill of the police car, the motorcycles, the sirens, the helicopter, and the fans!

the two top marathoners in the world that year. I agreed to take the field through 10 miles in just under 48 minutes and to hit the halfway mark in 1:03:02, which I did. Seko went on to win the race, and in the process he set a Boston Marathon course record. It was fun being a rabbit in such a high-profile race and would have been a thrill to lead Boston for one mile, yet I got to lead it for 18 miles. It was wild: the police car, the motorcycles, the sirens, the helicopter, the fans! I came through Wellesley as the leader, and it was nuts! Even feeling tired and beat from 1980, I was definitely glad I did that.

Even more invitations If anything, now I got even more invitations to races. I was making decent money. Don Kardong invited me to run the Bloomsday Race in Spokane, which he had created. It was beautiful. I also returned to West Chester to defend my half-marathon title there and did manage to win but further damaged my bad foot. The bone rubbed clear through the skin. It was horrible. My 1:05 on a hot day was respectable, but I was really hurt. I felt I had to take a few weeks off to heal.

Courtesy of Gary Fanelli

But I had a shoe contract at the time with Asics and also had to perform or lose that income, which was now paying our mortgage. So I got intense and stressed psychologically. Had a decent race at Falmouth with a 34-minute performance. But I injured my heel. I think that slamming the first half of the Boston Marathon as a rabbit might be what did it, that on top of that inherent imbalance with my feet on top of running more than 100 miles a week. What a life, both good and bad.

Reviewing my training log, I feel that I had a really mediocre year because I was injured so much. I was able to turn in a 2:18:43 at New York: not too shabby, when considering all my problems. The following year, 1982, was a better year as far as the foot injury went. I was more rested, got in better training, and raced less—all factors leading to better performances.

I managed some good races. At the Stramilano Half-Marathon in Milan, Italy, I ran 1:04:30, and at the Trevira Twosome in New York City I did 48:59 for 10 miles. Then a 2:15 marathon in Auckland, New Zealand. In July I turned in a road 10K PR of 29:16 at the Diet Pepsi finals, and I placed 10th at the prestigious Falmouth Road Race.

▲ Here I am winning the Stramilano Half-Marathon in Milan, Italy, in 1:04:30.

In September I did the Giro dell’Umbria in Umbria, Italy, a series of five races in six days, totaling close to 60 miles. I won the overall title and some nice prize money. Looking back at my training logs, I realized that I really despised it when I took second or third. I was really competitive during that period and always wanted to be number one.

In February of 1983 I ran a 1:06 half in Oakland, then I was off to Tokyo for a 2:23 marathon, which was very disappointing to me. Then it was time to focus on Boston, where I hoped to run fast enough to qualify for the 1984 US Olympic Marathon Trials. I managed to run 2:17:29 for 48th place and qualified for the Trials. Now I hoped to make the US team, but I would need to do something about my messed-up foot. I knew I needed surgery, but there was a Catch-22 involved. It seemed to me that if I wanted to do well at the Trials, I would need to have the surgery, but if I had the surgery, the downtime would cut into the training I would need to be in top shape for the Trials.

On to foot surgery In October I went ahead and had the surgery. The doctors removed pieces of bone from my second and third toes and inserted temporary pins in an attempt to straighten them. My timing was as good as it was going to get, as the road-racing season had wound down by then.

My primary focus now was the Trials. I would be 33 years old; I felt that it was my last chance to make the team, although I realized that many other runners had faster PRs than I did. In this sport, it sometimes comes down to having things go especially right on the special day.

I had faithfully done the required rehab after the surgery, and I had terrific desire to be at my best for the Trials. I still heard that intuitive voice saying I could be in the Olympics. I resumed hard training and my foot felt sore, although my toe problem had been straightened out. The soreness in my foot bothered me to varying degrees.

I went into 1984 getting fitter and building toward the Trials. When I looked at my condition realistically over that winter, I realized that I still had a long way to go. Some days my foot really hurt. I remember one day getting to the top of one hill and sitting down on the curb to cry. My foot was extremely sore, and I felt like I was running out of time. I tried to not feel sorry for myself and pulled myself up from the curb and got going again.

I went to the Trials knowing I was not in top physical shape, but as in 1980, I made the best of the situation.

Knowing I would not be at my best at the Trials, I entered the Boston Marathon dressed as Elwood Blues. When I arrived at the press conference two days before the race dressed as Elwood and announced that I was going to run the race in my Elwood costume, Don Kardong, the moderator, laughed, but Jock Semple, the major domo of the race, got up and began yelling, “Whaddya mean you’re goin’ to run like that? I won’t let you. A man of your ability, and you’re going to run like that? I am disgusted.” He stormed out of the hotel conference room. OMG, I surely didn’t want to offend him. I did run Boston in 1984 dressed as Elwood Blues, and within the first 300 yards of the race, a man on the sidelines threw a cup of beer in my face. The bubbles stung my eyes. Good thing I had on my Blues Brothers sunglasses or it would have been worse. I had a good time and the spectators loved it—except for that guy who wasted a perfectly good beer. I ran a 2:37:50, which I think still stands as the record for a Blues Brother running 26.2 miles at Boston. I ran a 2:30 in the Toronto Marathon dressed as Elwood, which was a record in 1984, or was it 1985? Ah, yes. And then there were the Trials. Here I was again in Buffalo, New York, for the US Olympic Marathon Trials. I was here four years ago with the Road to Moscow Ends Here show, a white elephant of a race to nowhere. It was now May 26, 1984, four years later, and the Games this year would be in Los Angeles, and the Soviets would boycott us. I had done the maximum preparation I could while rehabbing my foot after surgery and still hoping to be in shape for the race—a frustrating trade-off all around. I was in decent shape. I’d just run 10 miles in 49 minutes at the Broad Street 10-Mile run in Philly. My plan was to be conservative and try to run respectably and to place as high as I could. I had no illusions about making the team. There were many guys with faster times than I had, and most of them were healthy. As it turned out, Pete Pfitzinger beat Alberto Salazar to the line, with John Tuttle finishing third. This was our Olympic Marathon team for 1984. I placed 23rd in 2:18:53, not bad considering everything that had dogged me for the past several years. I was one of 25 guys who ran under 2:20 that day. I felt pretty good about that, but, alas, I was not on the Olympic team and I was 34 years old; for the 1988 Olympics, I would be 37 years old. I saw my dreams of being in the

Olympic Games fading away. (Of course, in retrospect, I could have been more upbeat; the 1984 Olympic Marathon was won by Carlos Lopes of Portugal—he was 37 years old when he did it.) Part 4 will appear in the next issue.