not be able to unlock the door. Squaring his shoulders for the folks viewing back home, he moved around the front of the car. He grabbed his billy club firmly by the throat. He purposefully stopped at the side vent.

DESPERATE MEASURES

Thwack! Tiny shards of glass sprinkled like little glimmering snowflakes over the front seat and over the ground beside the car. Reporters buzzed, cameras whirred. I covered my face with my hands, hoping the viewing public didn’t include higher executives from the local Buick dealership.

Meijer retrieved the keys, opened the back, and pocketed the keys without comment. The drama over, the timing system rescued from automotive imprisonment, reporters and camera crews drifted off to snare other riveting highlights of the morning.

Our group sprung to life, pulling out mats, uncoiling wires, placing the technical equipment. With obsequiousness worthy of the lowliest hoodlum in the presence of the Capo, I spent the morning scurrying for coffee, placing chairs at convenient places, arranging pencils within easy reach.

In comparison, a lapdog would be stingy in its attentiveness. The morning continued toward its 12 o’clock high. The runners started their journey to Boston, the system worked, Meijer grinned, and we headed back to Boston. I was allowed to drive my well-ventilated car. We met no irate Buick dealers.

MICHAEL HUGHES : 4 V

5:00 p.m., Boston—Over the past two hours, I discover that most of my friends had watched TV that morning at 6:30. “Hey, Julia,” they hooted with ironic glee across crowded rooms, “have a good morning?” Well, quite frankly, no.

4:00 a.m., Sunday, July 28, 1996, Atlanta—Meijer and Bruinink have been in town all week making the final arrangements for timing the 5K splits in the Women’s Olympic Marathon. They will also time the splits for the Olympic Men’s Marathon the following Sunday. Dedicated volunteers have gathered to meet them at the warehouse where the mats, yellow computer boxes, and coils of electronic wire have been stored. We have ordered tables and chairs and provided the necessary signs. The women’s race begins in three hours.

Meijer organizes the volunteers into teams, and they load the timing materials into the “Official Vans of The Atlanta Centennial Olympic Games.” Despite the damp early morning, the newly minted, steel gray vans glimmer under the street lights, their front door panels resplendent with the handsome logo of the Games. The volunteers hop into their assigned vehicles.

They are a bit surprised to see that each van is equipped with an extra i set of keys.

Adventure Running At Its WORST!

In 1989, two runners set off to become the Jirst to run from Death Valley to Mt. Whitney and back—in mid-summer. Lottsa luck, fellers!

Send $22 in US funds (shipping/handling included) to: Rich Benyo, Box 161,

Forestville, CA 95436, USA

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(And What | Learned From It)

Johnny J. Kelley breaks the tape at the New England 30K in New London, Conn.

OSTON, April 19, 1963——Wednesday, April 10, 1963, breaks cloudy and

raw over my Pequot Avenue home in Mystic, Connecticut. A few minutes before 6:45 a.M., when I set out running toward my English teaching job at Robert E. Fitch Senior High School, Groton, four miles away, ragged, soggy snowflakes clog the east wind and begin to mush roadsides and trails. I ponder switching from my customary brown paper grocery bag to a plastic wrapping for my cargo of clothing and papers. I decide to risk the brown bag.

My wife Jessie busies herself making my lunch while I cram in the last of my breakfast—orange juice, wheat toast, a scrambled egg, and coffee. As always, the clock keeps pushing the pace.

Ican’t help checking the timepiece in my head: M-Minus-Nine-Days-AndCounting. Three more teaching days before that godsend April vacation. Practically one full week to hide out, to gather my strength, to be as ready as the amateur athlete’s life ever lets one become.

I think of the American over in England who lately has been making New York Times headlines off his brilliant racing against those great British club runners. Leonard “Buddy” Edelen is eight years younger than I. Says he wants to race in Boston. They’re giving him a lot of print, but no money, as yet, to come home to prove himself.

Buddy is a schoolteacher, too. Runs to and from his job, four miles each way, just like me. Does he carry a grocery bag also, I wonder?

At 6:40 our four-year-old, Julie, totters into the kitchen clutching her drawnup pajama hem. The baby, Kathleen, remains asleep in her crib.

I click on the sinkside radio. The news crackles with unthinkable disaster: a U.S. nuclear submarine, the Thresher, built at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, has disappeared in the Atlantic a few hundred miles off New England, presumed shattered at a depth of one-and-a-half miles.

Jessie and I have time only to exchange glances. She hands me my lunch. Ido one last check of the brown bag’s contents. Kisses, and then out into the teeth of the east wind. Plop, plop, plop—south along Pequot Avenue.

Oncoming headlights alert me to possible slush baths from the far side. I have to stay tuned to rearward traffic and remember to cut repeatedly into the grassy margin to avoid dousings.

For the first time in weeks, I welcome visions of the looming 67th Boston Marathon. They refuse to coalesce. In their place are sea-wrapped metal fragments and the eerily blank faces of Thresher’s 129 crewmen, instantly and forever consigned to a watery grave.

Since September, 1956, when I began my teaching career, my wife and I have lived in Groton, now in its Mystic section. With General Dynamics Corporation’s Electric Boat Company as the town’s major employer, and with the nation’s key submarine base located three miles upriver, the business of building and operating submarines is never far from anyone’s thoughts hereabouts. My friend George Terry, like so many thousands of our fellows, works at “EB.”

Despite the economic and emotional dependencies we all share, my own attitude has been shaped by pacifist reading and a lifelong horror of warfare. Today, trudging cold, wet roads and fields toward my classes populated largely

by navy and EB kids, I am moved by something more affecting than the most impassioned denunciation of war.

Not until I reach the half-mile stretch of farm abutting Fitch’s soccer field do my preoccupations return to their habitual April rut. Almost gratefully I picture my waiting Ethiopian nemeses, 1960 Olympic champion Abebe Bikila and his understudy, Mamo Wolde.

From them—as if I needed to learn in that dratted Cambridge 12-mile handicap race two weeks ago—there is no personal escape. My only hope— and a great likelihood—is that, in demolishing my 1957 record of 2:20:05, they will hopelessly outclass 200 rivals besides myself.

And what of this Buddy Edelen? How good can the guy be?

Througha swirl of snowflakes, I make out Fitch High School. [hear the 7:20 warning bell.

“GRIZZLED OLD CHOPPING BLOCK”

Three training diary entries. Three solid penultimate workouts:

“Saturday, April 13—6:30 a.m.: From my sister Ellen’s house, New London, ran (through the city and over Gold Star Bridge, into Groton, including Bluff Point and adjacent trails) home to Pequot Ave., Mystic, to finish in 2 hrs., 30 mins. Kept steady 7:00 per mile pace, wearing sneaks & long pants, w/long-sleeved T-shirt, in clear, fine weather: 40— 44 degrees, nw breeze. 20 miles.”

“Sunday, April 14—9:43 a.m.: From home, ran 13-mile road course, north through Ledyard and back, to finish in 1 hr., 27 mins. Included pickups of 45 secs., 5:00 mins., 2:30 mins., 1:15 mins., 45 secs., with like recovery intervals after each, from 3-10 miles. Wore long pants and long-sleeved T-shirt in fair, fine weather: 55 degrees, nne breeze.”

“Monday, April 15—9:48 a.m.: Ran as yesterday, adding 3 miles in Ledyard, to finish home in 1:59:30. Kept steady 6:50 per mile pace, wearing flats, long pants, sleeved T-shirt in fair, fine weather: 55 degrees, fresh nne breeze. 16 miles.”

Tuesday, April 16. M-Minus-Three-Days-And-Counting: A day of ill omen. Diary entry: “No running. Have developed a crick in lower back. Walk with Jessie and the girls in Connecticut College Arboretum during afternoon; again, alone, near home, later.”

It’s official. Edelen won’t be coming. My Boston Athletic Association “Aye,” Jock Semple, was rumored to be considering off-setting his expenses, as he did those of Jim Peters in 1954. But, for whatever reason(s), probably bureaucratic, Jock’s beneficence wasn’t tapped.

Belgian champion Aurele Vandendriessche, who finished close to the great Bikila in Europe recently, will be present. And Brian Kilby of England, who thinks he can beat Vandendriessche on a good day. Of course, there’s to be my old scourge, defending champ, Eino Oksanen, going for his fourth win.

Chances are I won’t even miss Buddy.

Now I’ve caught a cold, wouldn’t you know it? These damn things always seem to start with a back muscle strain, just when I’ m zeroing in on the big race. Jessie tells me it’s probably “psychosomatic.” She could be right. Even if she isn’t, Ican hardly refute her, because, God knows, I’ve beaten her over the head with my pop psychology often enough.

So here I am, 32 years old, beginning to see myself as Jack London described his fictional slugger, Tom King, in the story, “A Piece of Steak”: “..grizzled old chopping block of the ring.”

I’m still doing what I started doing a half-lifetime ago. Chasing my will 0’ the wisp. What is there about this running—specifically, racing the killer distance—that keeps bringing some of us back and back for more?

You hear the horror stories. Is it true that “Smilin’” Jimmy Henigan died of a broken heart after being “barred for life” for taking a couple hundred bucks from a cigarette company?

Ah well, I have 72 hours between these reflections and joining the fun in what I think will be my 11th Boston (counting 1949 and 1960 DNFs) and my 27″ marathon overall (including seven Yonkers national AAU wins, the ’56 and °60 Olympic races, the “59 Chicago Pan-Am, and the 55 Mexico City Pan-Am DNF, as well as two of Gerard Cote’s Canadian championships).

You’d think I’d get loose. Must be something about the Irish-Canuck mix that prevents freewheelin’ enjoyment of life. Something spooky behind a smiling facade. A guy goes everywhere sneaking paranoid peeks over his shoulder.

Arrgh! Throat feels sore. Please God, not strep! I’ll have to ask Jessie to leave the girls’ room door closed tonight. Early to bed. Thank goodness there’s no school to worry about this week.

Only, there’s my thing about sleeping. What a bugaboo! An athlete can control everything but his sleep. What a waking nightmare that 58 Boston race was. I actually spent five completely sleepless nights coming down to it. Wanting to repeat so bad. Counted a million sheep. I swore I’d never repeat that folly. Nothing’s worth it.

I remember dust devils whirling in Newton like tiny tornadoes in a desert wind. Staggering on in near delirium. Finishing second, five minutes back of Mihalic, too giddy to answer questions. What would I have done if I had been a soldier facing D-Day? What do big-league pitchers do to calm their nerves? Eino looks like he’s never lost a second of sleep in his life. He’s a detective, isn’t he?

M-MINUS-ONE-DAY-AND-COUNTING

Thursday, April 18—M-Minus-One-Day-And-Counting: I take my final easedown jog through the Pequot Woods behind our Mystic home. I jot “3 miles” in my diary, with a weather note: “Cloudy, mild: 55 d., light sw breeze.”

In early afternoon, Jessie and I leave the girls, along with an undependable car, with my sister in New London and board a train for Boston and Mr. and Mrs. Johnny A. Kelley’s home on the Belmont-Watertown line.

There, over supper, with the phone off the hook, 55-year-old Johnny laughs uneasily as he recounts his 33-year-old friend Dr. Warren Guild’s stories of the latter’s famous Ethiopian houses guests, Bikila and Wolde.

“Warren can’t keep enough steak in his freezer,” Johnny says.

“All the boys have to do is eat, sleep, and run. They run twice a day, some days as much as 40 miles. They love American steak, but no potatoes, very few greens. Steak, steak, steak!

“They’re modest, friendly, and thankful for everything the Guilds do for them. Yesterday they jogged over to Lexington Green to read the statue inscriptions. Tomorrow, it’ll be Hopkinton’s Minuteman.

“They even let Warren run with them for a couple of miles sometimes. But when they’ ve had enough, they take off like a shot. Guild doesn’t see anybody coming within a half-mile of either of them. He says Bikila will beat Wolde.”

Through Johnny, Guild, one of Boston’s bright young surgeons, discovered running a couple of years ago. True to the popular belief about converts, he can’t seem to get his fill of the activity or its practitioners. Warren has made Johnny his personal guru.

Laura Kelley invisibly whisks our main course plates away and returns with dessert. Spooning into mine, I can’t help marveling over my host’s unique temperament. I have yet to meet another runner of his competitiveness and durability. I know he worries each race as if it were his first, after all these years.

i 1 iti

ANDY YELANAK

To this extent we are alike. But Johnny Adelbert Kelley possesses an unyielding Celtic toughness that will carry him through hoops of fire, if necessary, to his version of victory. By a quirk of coincidence, we bear the same name (except for the middle one). If only, I think enviously, we bore identical traits.

More to fill a conversational lull than to inform myself, I ask him, “So who do you like tomorrow, Mister Marathon?”

Johnny runs one of his trademark portentous looks my way before declaring, in conspiratorial confidence, “You! It’s your turn again, Kid! In fact, you’re overdue. You should have won all those times you finished second. I know how it is. I’m no stranger to cruel twists of fate in this game, you know.”

I love him for saying it, but the heat is on, and I’m uncomfortable. Time to change the subject.

“Johnny, what do you think about this guy Edelen? Is he as good as they’re saying, or does he just have a super press agent?”

Johnny shakes his head slowly. “It’s hard to tell, Kid,” he says. “I think he’s good, sure. But how good? We won’t know until he gets over here … and races against you.”

“T dunno, Johnny. He’s only 24 and racing with that great bunch of Britishers. I’m, .. . well, . . . kind of an old chopping block, I guess.”

Johnny bristles. “Kid,” he says emphatically, “I ran some of my best races after I turned 30. You’ve got terrific races still ahead of you, believe me.”

Then he says, “That Thresher thing was terrible, wasn’t it? It wasn’t built down where you are, was it?”

“No, I don’t think so,” I say.

Johnny grimaces. “You never know in this world, Kid. There are surprises waiting around every corner.”

As quickly as an April sun unburdened by a passing cloud, he brightens. “Laura’s got the bed all made up. Go, get yourselves a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow is a new day.”

He gathers up the last of our plates and follows Laura into the kitchen.

Sitting on the edge of our bed a few minutes later, I force down a tablespoon of the Robitussin Jessie has brought from Mystic.

“Tshould’ve told Johnny I wasn’t fit to run tomorrow,’ I tell her. “My throat is on fire. It’s closing up, I know it is. I’ll kill myself racing with strep, won’t I?”

“If you had strep, maybe,” Jessie says. “But you don’t. You do have a cold, that P’Il admit. But the worst thing you have is a bad case of prerace jitters. Believe me, if I thought you would hurt yourself, I’d be the first one to tell you not torun. You’ve done all the training. You should at least take the starting line. I’ll tell Jock to keep his eye on you.”

John J. Kelley MY MOST UNFORGETTABLE MARATHON f& 87

“Jock? My God, the man will be out there fighting with everybody in sight, and you think he’1I be able to play my personal physician? He’ have all he can do to watch out for himself!”

“Trust me,” Jessie says levelly. “He’ll be watching out for you. He always does.”

“You don’t know how badly I want to believe you,” I tell her.

NO TURNING BACK

Jock Semple waits to greet us athwart Hopkinton High School’s teeming main entrance. His oh-so-imitable Scot’s burr overrides the ambient clamor.

“Geeze, wher-re hov y’ beeeeen?”

Laura Kelley deposits our bags on the pavement beside the Opel and tells us, “If Jessie and I don’t get out of town now, we’re not going to get out.”

“Okay, okay, get going then,” her husband replies with stock raceday acerbity. “We’ve got our things to do, too.”

Then, in atonement, he rushes to the Opel’s driver side to kiss her cheek.

Jessie blows her kiss my way and says, “Do your best. And remember, you’re not dying .. . yet.”

The Opel slides efficiently away into Hopkinton’s Marathon Morning Madness.

Jock steers us both by our elbows toward his “dr-ressing r-room of the starrs,” a scarcely secluded faculty cubicle one swinging door apart from the raucous rank-and-file’s gym changing quarters.

“Tt’s for-r y’r-r pr-rotection, so ye can concentrrate on y’r-r-race,” he invariably explains. A minute after we begin undressing, he’s back, with “just one special r-repor-rter” in tow, for “one quick interrview.”

The quiet, amiable fellow across our aisle turns out to be the Brit, Brian Kilby. A startling camera flash illuminates our handshake.

I feel strangely comforted in the presANDY YELANAK

ence of this world-ranked marathoner who appears hardly more girded for our coming ordeal than I—and hardly more physically imposing.

My old pal Eino Oksanen remains conspicuous for his absence from our sanctuary. And we hear that Dr. Guild has driven his famous duo directly to the starting line.

Dressing for today’s weather poses no great challenge. A foggy overcast notwithstanding, the temperature approaching noon nudges 60, while the wind, predicted to be dead in our faces, seems to come from a southerly quarter.

No Olympic champion has ever won the Boston Marathon. So the Boston Globe’s Jerry Nason reminds us as we leave Hopkinton High on foot for the start, half-a-mile down Hayden Row.

“So how is Young John feeling?” Jerry ventures.

Feverish, croupy, probably suffering from strep throat, constricted, halfsleepless. “Not bad, not bad, Jerry, thanks,” I lie.

“Really, Kid, how are you?” my namesake whispers with grim innuendo.

“Feverish, croupy, probably suffering from strep throat, constricted, halfsleepless,” I spill the beans.

Johnny shoots me his terribly concerned look. “Gosh, Kid, that’s awful! But … you’ll do okay. You’ ll do just fine.”

Over and over, as we walk, voices exclaim, “Johnny Kelley and his son!” “Johnny Kelley and his dad!” Time and again we break stride to scribble “Good luck” on proffered autograph pads. I chuckle to realize that, at this time on a Groton school day, I’d be ordering some troublemaker out of my fourth-period class.

THE 67™ BOSTON MARATHON

The 67″ Boston Marathon’s early miles engage my outer self, committing me to the best effort I can make against crippling odds. My inner self has taken refuge in a kind of free-associational reverie.

The outer self keeps pace with a fellow named (Ibelieve) Jesse Eblen. Eblen hails from Seattle, and today’s meeting is our first. We seem well-matched.

Half-hidden by a low ceiling, a TV news helicopter chop-chops overhead. Eino Oksanen, with his incongruous woodsman’s physique, joins us, his stolid countenance allowing no hint of his most reasonable hope.

If there are Ethiopians in the race, our subpack must imagine them. But ample proof of their existence is provided by the overly helpful fans lining our route. “They’re up by 400 yards!” “You’re 600 yards behind!” “Go after ’em! They’re almost to Wellesley!”

In Wellesley at last, we get our first official posting: Bikila and Wolde are striding in tandem a half-mile ahead of us.

John J. Kelley MY MOST UNFORGETTABLE MARATHON i 89