Run Your Best

Carefully Bring the Various Elements Together Toward a Perfect Race.

Rees YOUR best in a marathon requires physical and mental fortitude, some knowledge, and some luck. Preparation is the key to any good performance, in and out of sport, and the marathon is a great example of an event that lives or dies by preparation. You can run 5Ks over and over again until you get one right, but the marathon is a one-shot deal, at least in the short run.

When you define one race as a goal, your priorities and your choices along the way need to reflect that decision. A 5K race as preparation for a marathon is different from one that is the goal race. You would sprint to the death in a goal 5K. But if that 5K is preparation for a marathon, let that runner beat you while you smile inwardly, knowing that if you had to put the hammer down, you could have beaten him. You will have to make many such choices along the way; just remember that it is the marathon you care about.

Why should you take a year to prepare for a marathon? We hear much about shorter programs, but they leave much to be desired. They are good for first marathons and for “destination marathons” where you go to run for fun or on vacation. When you put aside a year to prepare, you can accomplish many more things that will get you that best marathon, first among them a lack of injuries. If you realize that you can take your time increasing your mileage and intensity and not rush through it in 12 weeks, you are much less likely to be injured.

Ayear also gives you time to learn to race and for races to give you feedback on pacing. Without a good understanding of pace, you will find the marathon difficult to master. You can gradually increase your racing distance over a year’s time much more comfortably than over three to four months.

PICKING A MARATHON

The first thing to do is pick your race. To run your best, pick a marathon that is relatively flat, with temperature of 50 degrees or lower at the start, low humidity, and a low chance of rain. Of course, the weather is not within your control, but you can choose a marathon with a climate more suited for favorable weather.

You want to run with other competitors but not so many that you can’t run comfortably for many miles. Spectators are good, as is nice scenery, but these should be secondary factors. Do not choose a marathon because your friends can watch or the results will be in your hometown newspaper. Pick one that you can run fast, that you can get to comfortably, without crossing too many time zones, and where you don’t have to stand for hours beforehand. In other words, control as many factors as you can.

THE BASIC PLAN

The plan that Irecommend fora marathon is to gradually increase mileage from your current level, peaking about eight weeks before the marathon. After holding the peak for four weeks, you will taper for the last month.

The crux of this plan is a forced taper every three to four weeks in preparation for intermediate races. This will allow you to race during training with fresh legs and to rest your legs periodically, a critical component of safe running.

Unless you are a gifted neutral runner with a perfect gait, you will be more prone to injuries as you increase your mileage. With this program, you increase your mileage over two to three weeks, then drop it about 50 percent in the next week. If you are starting at 30 miles per week, week one might be 30 miles, week two 35 miles, week three 40 miles, and then week four drops to 20 miles. Schedule a race at the end of that fourth week. Then run 40 miles the following week, 45 the next, and 22 the third week with a race at the end. The race is less important than the drop in mileage. You don’t need to finish every low-mileage week with a race.

You must take out a calendar and prepare a schedule for the year. Pick out the races you want to do and create the increase in your training and the taper weeks you will need around those races. You can be flexible, possibly increasing one week, decreasing the next. But don’t go more than four weeks without dropping your mileage. You will not lose fitness by dropping the mileage; instead, you’ Il gain from the rest. This is an especially important concept in the last four weeks before the marathon.

RACING

Races are important for several reasons. They will teach you to feel comfortable with the discomfort of racing. The more discomfort you can accept, the faster you can race. Racing allows you to gather information about your fitness level that you use to create your training plan. You will use your racing performances in a 10K and half-marathon in the months before the marathon to predict your marathon time and thus your initial marathon pace, which is one of the most critical components of a successful marathon.

As you create your schedule, ideally you would like to reach the level where you can do long runs of 20 miles with about three months to go. Do these long runs about every other week, but if you are comfortable with high mileage and have a long running history, it is safe to do these on all weekends that you do not race. You should do long runs at a comfortable, talking pace. I won’t give you exactnumbers, but you shouldn’t feel like you are racing—but they shouldn’t be too easy, either.

As the year goes by, you should start doing your last two to three miles at a faster pace. Run those miles at a pace at least equal to that which you will run in your marathon—better still, at your 10K race pace, if possible. This will help train more of your muscle fibers that are less used during the long run, giving you more reserve in the last miles of a marathon. It is reasonable to take it easier early in a long run to make sure you have the reserve to make those last three miles fast.

FAST RUNNING

You must do some fast running during your training, but I do not think that you need to step on a track to run a great marathon. Tempo and fartlek running are great ways to run fast without likelihood of injury. Racing and fast running at the end of a long run are the other types of fast running I suggest. Temporuns are done at about 10-mile race pace—about 15 seconds per mile slower than 10K race pace. They last about 20 to 25 minutes after a 1- or 2-mile warm-up. They should feel comfortably uncomfortable. If you are using a heart rate monitor and know your maximum heart rate, tempo run heart rates are about 87 percent to 90 percent of maximum. Heart rate maximums are best done by running and not by the standard equations. Wear your heart rate monitor during races and workouts. At times when you are still fresh but running hard, go all out for a half mile. Sprint for that distance at the end of a 5K. These types of hard efforts are more likely to find your real maximum heart rate. Fartlek running is easy running punctuated by periods of fast running. The amount of fast running can vary in pace and distance. You might be running

easily with friends when you start taking turns running hard, trying to keep up with the one in front. Run hard for one minute, back off for two minutes, run hard fortwo minutes, back off for five minutes, and so forth. This is an excellent way to get in some high-speed running without setting back your training with sore legs in the days that follow.

As the year goes by you can increase the amount of fast running you do as you increase your mileage. Do no more than one tempo run per week early on. As you become stronger, you will be able to do a tempo or fartlek run in the middle of the week and a race at the end of the week.

SUMMING UP THE SCHEDULE

In summary, the schedule is simple. You know how much you are running now, and you should have a decent idea of how many miles you would like to reach as a maximum. This is based on your maximum in the past (you can go a little higher), how much time you have for training (don’t leave out time for rest, eating, and sleep), and the goal of staying uninjured. Maximum mileage in the range of 70 to 90 miles a week would be ideal—more, if you can handle it.

Chart your mileage on the schedule by gradually increasing, as I mentioned before, getting toa maximum mileage eight weeks before the marathon and 20mile runs with three months to go. Hold the maximum for four weeks before the taper period.

Work the schedule around the races you would like to do, making sure you find a half-marathon with about six weeks to go and a 10K two weeks before that. Take a few days of rest before a race in this time period. You can fill in the weeks with tempo, fartlek, and easy runs to get the correct mileage. Be sure to run less every three or four weeks. Don’t skimp on the rest; it is as important as the running.

CROSS-TRAINING AND REDUCING INJURIES

One type of cross-training that I find very valuable and have been doing weekly for more than 10 years is running in the water. Deep-water running with a vest to keep you afloat can add mileage while giving the legs a rest from the pounding. If you have access to a pool deep enough (generally about five feet deep), you should try to make this a weekly routine. Start with just 10 to 15 minutes the first time and gradually increase. I measure my mileage by using my longrun pace: if I have run 65 minutes in the pool and do my long runs at 6:30 pace, then I call the pool run 10 miles. If I do tempo runs in the pool, I increase the amount proportionately.

Greg Diamond RUN YOUR BEST MARATHON B® 23

Another way to add mileage with reduced risk of injury is to do doubles. Run two to three miles in the morning before work. Or run some at lunch, with more after work. Make sure you start any morning run very slowly to allow your legs time to warm up. I think that stretching before running is dangerous and increases injuries because you’re stretching a cold, stiff muscle, which is asking for trouble. Better to run slowly a while, then stretch once the muscles are warmed up if you must stretch early in the day. Better yet, do your full run and stretch afterwards.

You should lift weights during the first part of the year. Obviously, you don’t want to add bulk, but rather to strengthen the muscles to support your added mileage. The need for such training for distance runners is debatable. If you want to do weight training, don’t do heavy amounts and stop several weeks before the marathon.

NUTRITION

Your nutrition is very important. You need to eat to run. You might need to lose some weight, and you need to learn to eat for a marathon by practicing before and during your long runs.

Runners need carbohydrates to fuel their muscles, but carbohydrates are often misunderstood and much that is written about carbs is misleading. Broccoli, bananas, rice, potatoes, pasta, apples, M&Ms, and ice cream all have carbohydrates. Broccoli comes with lots of fiber, protein, vitamins, and minerals. Bananas, creamy as they are, have no fat. Apples have lots of water, simple sugars, and fiber. Ice cream is full of fat and refined sugar but very little in the way of nutrition. You want your food to be nutritious, to contain fiber, vitamins, and minerals, and to have few unhealthful components such as saturated and trans fats. If you want to lose weight, you have to keep track of calories, which usually means eating smaller portions. By and large, the type of food doesn’t matter. The math is simple: if you cut back on calories while you increase mileage you will lose weight.

It takes a deficit of 3,500 calories to lose one pound. One gram of fat is 9 calories, while one gram of protein or carbohydrate is 4 calories. (The story gets much more complicated, but that formula works for these purposes.)

100 CALORIES PER MILE

Running generally burns about 100 calories per mile, more if you are heavier. If you want to lose a half pound per week, which is an amount that is safe, you need to lose 1,750 calories per week. You can do this in three ways. One way is to eat fewer calories; the second way is to run more miles; and the third way

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is a combination of the first two. The half pound per week you want to lose could be the equivalent of a piece of bread per day and 10 extra miles per week, or one fewer beer per day and seven extra miles.

Count the calories; understand what you are eating. Nothing is wrong with pasta except that restaurants often serve up a pound of it. That is 1,600 calories, not counting the sauce. (Alfredo with cream has lots of unhealthful calories.)

Bread is good, but each piece might be 100 calories and it is easy to eat five pieces at a sitting. The cheese in the pasta dish will go further to elevating your caloric count than the pasta will. The terrible things that some are saying about carbohydrates are a bad rap on a good form of nutrition. The secret is simply serving size. If you are cooking at home, measure your portions and cook only what you want to eat. Don’t even put extra on the table. It’s just too tempting to have that extra (unnecessary) serving.

The most basic dietary advice is to avoid the bad fats (saturated and trans), cut calories as necessary, and eat as much in the way of fresh fruits and vegetables as you can. You will get enough protein whether you are vegan or a meat eater; in fact, the latter will probably get too much. Use healthy oils like olive, canola, and flax, and eat fish for their healthy fats as well. For carbs, fruits and vegetables are low-density calories, while bread, pasta, and potatoes are higher density foods and carry more calories per pound.

The less fat your body is carrying, the faster you will run. You don’t see elite runners carrying a lot of extra body fat. The equations for determining fitness, such as VO, max, are defined by weight. Less weight, faster running. To the degree that you can lose weight without losing strength, it is beneficial to your racing. Pinching your abdominal fat is a great way to judge your progress. As you lose fat, the skin you pinch will become more difficult to grip. Athletes, while fitter than most, run the risk of damage from free radicals, perhaps more than the general public. Exercise creates these products in the body that are responsible for damage to cells. The more intense the exercise, the more free radicals produced. Thus, vitamins that counteract them (C, E, selenium, beta carotene) and foods that have antioxidants (vegetables) are more necessary for runners who are training hard for a marathon than for the general public.

DRINKING AND EATING FOR LONG RUNS

Before long runs, and especially before the marathon, your dietary carbohydrates should be increased along with your fluid intake. For every carbohydrate gram stored in your muscles as glycogen, three grams of water are stored. So carboloading amounts to water loading as well, and both go a long way toward making a long run more comfortable. By increasing your carbohydrate and water intake for a day or so before each long (18-plus miles) run, you are

improving your chances for a successful run and practicing the routine for the marathon. Making mistakes with food before a training run is preferable to making mistakes before the marathon.

Drinking during a run is important because it improves the run and again allows you to practice for the marathon. If possible, try to train with the same electrolyte replacement drink that will be offered at your marathon. If you prefer gels, then practice with them. You need about eight ounces and 50 calories of carbohydrate every 20 minutes during the marathon. That formula is an excellent mixture for digestibility. Gatorade is mixed to this strength. It is optimal for absorption from the stomach. If you are using gels, the optimal digestible combination is half a gel packet with seven to eight ounces of water. Taking a full gel is doubling the strength of the carbohydrate and increases the likelihood of digestion problems. Never take gel without water.

And taking gel and electrolyte replacement drinks together is way too much carbohydrate. Water alone during a marathon will likely introduce you to The Wall. We use glycogen that is stored in our muscles during the marathon, and when we run out we switch to predominantly fat for fuel, which is much less efficient. Thus, we encounter The Wall and are slowed down. Training at long distances improves our glycogen storage ability and carbohydrate loading maximizes that storage. But we still need to ingest more carbs during the race itself; if we don’t, we’re likely to run into trouble down the road.

THE LAST FOUR WEEKS

Perhaps the most important part of training for the marathon is the mental strength it takes to do the last four weeks and the first few miles of the race properly. These are the times when you will do things that are against your will and your intention. Running less in the last month is essential, and running the appropriate pace in the first miles of the race will determine your success.

Biopsies of muscle fiber after 20-mile runs reveal a fair amount of fiber damage. This kind of damage takes about four weeks to heal. If you expect to have peak use of your muscles for your marathon, doing your last long run four weeks before the race seems to make sense.

If you have followed the program outlined, you are very well trained and doing a long run closer to the race is unnecessary. It can only hurt; it certainly can’t help.

If you are poorly trained and in need of more long runs, then you are more likely to get hurt by another long run since your muscles and surrounding tissue are not in shape to resist damage that a well-trained person can. So if you need it, you shouldn’t do it. If you don’t need it, you probably can get away with it. Bottom line: do your last long run four weeks before the race.

Greg Diamond RUN YOUR BEST MARATHON @® 27

As you reduce your mileage in the last four weeks to about 25 percent of maximum in the final week, you will be spending more time running at a quick pace. A good pace to choose is your marathon pace. It will get your brain ready to run at that pace. It would be good at this time to go to a track or a measured loop on which you’ ve done your tempo runs and make sure you are running at the correct pace. In the last two weeks, many of your miles should be done at this pace, with a warm-up and cool-down taken very slowly.

You will not reduce your fitness level during this period. Countless studies have shown that reducing training volume while keeping intensity high improves running times at the end of a taper. Continue to do one tempo run per week until about 10 days before the race. One concern might be reducing your calorie consumption to avoid gaining weight as you cut back your mileage.

In the last three days you must increase your carbohydrate and fluid intake. You will gain some weight, perhaps three or four pounds. This is the glycogen/ water complex mentioned earlier that is vital to a successful marathon. The fuel tank must be full and the fuel must be burned wisely during the race.

Using the fuel wisely so that it lasts the entire length of the marathon means running at the correct pace. If you start a marathon at a pace too fast for your level of fitness, you will use more muscle- and liver-stored glycogen in the first few miles. This will lead to a lack of glycogen in the latter stages of the race.

I’ve heard many times from runners after a marathon that they had minutes in the bank after 5 miles, but by 15 miles they were in deficit. You don’t bank minutes in a marathon. If you are ahead of pace, you are more likely to do poorly than well. The best marathons are evenly paced marathons.

PREDICTING YOUR MARATHON TIME

It’s necessary to predict your time and choose the appropriate pace to start the marathon. It will seem painfully slow to you, especially after resting in the days and weeks before the race. But it works, and you have to buy into and believe it. Many runners haven’t, and they have paid the very painful price on race day.

You can make an educated guess about your race time in several ways. If you have run a half-marathon or 10K in recent weeks, you can double your halfmarathon time and add 10 percent of your half-marathon time, or you can multiply your 10K time by 4.66 for a reasonable guess. For instance, if you ran a 1:30 half-marathon, or 90 minutes, doubling that number makes it 180 and adding 10 percent of your half-marathon time is 9 minutes, which predicts a 3:09 marathon. If you have run a 40-minute 10K, then 40 times 4.66 is 186.4, or a 3:06:24 marathon.

Here are some other variables to consider. Let’s say you ran a hilly 20-miler and plan to run a flat marathon. It might be fair to consider the pace of the 20miler similar to what you can expect in the marathon. If the half-marathon you ran was flat but much hotter than expected marathon conditions, you can reduce (improve) your marathon prediction by a few minutes.

The pace that you come up with is the pace at which to run the first couple of miles in the marathon. If you err, do it on the side of going too slow. It might seem counterintuitive, but slower at first means faster in the end. Going out too fast is not putting time in the bank, it’s putting nails in your coffin. If you expect to run a 3:30 marathon, that is an 8:01 pace. Do lots of miles in the last few weeks at that pace so that you know it as second nature. When you are rested, it gets very hard to go at the correct pace, and going out too fast is one of the worst things you can do in a marathon.

The marathon itself can be segmented based on your psychology, the course profile, and so forth. The first couple of miles, as I keep emphasizing, must be done at the proper pace. Do not run with a friend who is not going at the same speed because one of you will suffer. After the first couple of miles, your body will tell you how to run. By then the system is working comfortably and you are not likely to run too fast. Many people make the mistake of wanting to beat

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friends or other competitors in the race. You must run your ownrace, and if you win, great. Unless you are in the lead pack, run for your time only.

Remember to drink every 20 minutes or so. If you can’t get the drink fully down while running, walk through the water stop. Proper hydration will easily make up for the time lost walking. You will catch back up with the runners you were with. Get your drink down. Once you get past the half-marathon, you must concentrate on pace again. Many people wait for the 20-mile mark to such a degree that they lose concentration during miles 16 to 20. Stay on pace, and keep your mind on the miles you are on. You can tell yourself that once you get to 20 you will start the real battle, but keep concentrating until you get there.

Your comfort in the last 10K will depend on all the factors mentioned before: your prerace glycogen levels and hydration status, your speed in the first few miles, the temperature and humidity, and your personal state that day. Tf all goes well you will slow minimally during that time. You will, most likely, wonder why you are doing this and when will it end, and you might think that you will never do it again. But whatever it takes mentally, get yourself to the finish as fast as possible. This was the goal for a year; you can waste yourself now. There is no need to save anything for next week or next month. If your body has been prepared properly, it can defeat the mind. But if it isn’t, there is nothing to do but plan for next year.

This article contains many tidbits. Taken together, they form a strong foundation for a great marathon performance. There is nothing radically new | here, just common sense and science working hand in hand. sf

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Running Against

Are We Born Runners or Do We Just Get That Way?

By MICHAEL SELMAN

S OMETIMES YOU tear up the asphalt and sometimes it returns the favor. This day I found myself lightly stretching by the same track where my running first left me many, many years ago. I mused at the incredible coincidence of the whole thing, but I was now back on the track of the Sussex Avenue School, ready to get my vengeance. This was the same circle of 440 yards that laughed in the face of my agony over 30 years ago and turned my running to silence. I marveled at the fact that the same incident that first took my running away from me ultimately forced me to become the runner I am today. Please allow me to explain.

Iwas born arunner. For as far back as [can remember, I was always arunner. But I was not always the kind of runner I am now. In fact, the kind of runner I am today is most likely unnatural and against my nature because my nature was always to run short—and fast. When I was young, that’s the only kind of running I knew, and I was good at it. No other kind of running interested me. Lused to run only to race, and I used to race only to win. And all my races were 100 yards or shorter until I abruptly stopped running at the very tender age of 11. Ican honestly say I remember only a handful of times I ever lost a race.

Racing to win was the only reason I ran back in those days. The races were few and far between. I sometimes raced in gym class, occasionally I raced on a bet, and once a year I raced at the annual Butterworth Farms neighborhood picnic in Morristown, New Jersey. Inever lost arace in Butterworth Farms, and Tusually won my bets.

I was still living there when I was in the fifth grade, and I can vividly remember sitting in Mrs. Wilson’s classroom, most often just staring out the window and dreaming. Outside her classroom, I had a full view of the quartermile track quite clearly, but thinking back, I have no recollection of what

Michael Selman RUNNING AGAINST MY NATURE 31

subject Mrs. Wilson taught. My whole world took place outside her classroom, and that world included endless time just staring out the window, focusing on the track, envisioning myself running my 100-yard dashes and defeating anyone who dared step on the track with me. Yes, I was always a runner, but at the time I had no idea of the kind of runner I would become.

AN ADULT WHO RAN—AND RAN AND RAN

I recall now one day in particular, while I stared out that classroom window, a man way too old to be a student showed up at the track, stretched a little, and then did something amazing. He started running around and around the track, one lap after another, without even stopping at all. What struck me the most about him was how much he looked like my father and what I imagined myself to look like as an adult. In fact, if my father had not been away on a business trip, Imight have thought it was he. But Dad was not arunner back then. Almost nobody was.

I remember thinking to myself how strange this man must have been. I couldn’t fathom the concept of running without having the instant gratification of kicking other people’s butts in the process. This kind of running did not make any sense to me at all. This guy must have been at least 40, and I remember thinking to myself that I would never waste my time doing something as ridiculous as running circles around a track. I would rather waste it looking out classroom windows, dreaming about my next 100-yard dash.

I was snapped out of my daydream as the bell rang, and I was off to gym class. We were running a 100-yard dash that day, and I was particularly eager to kiss the asphalt and kick some butt. As the class arrived on the field, the man saw he was being overtaken by a bunch of kids and yielded the right-of-way to us. He was sweating profusely and didn’t look like he had just completed anything enjoyable. I still marveled at how much he looked like my father. [just had to ask him why he did it. “Sir,” I asked, “why do you run around the track the way you do?”

He looked at me, and at first his jaw dropped as if he had just seen a ghost. But then he composed himself and his look changed. It was hard to explain, but he looked half as though he was caught totally off guard by the question and half as though he had been asked the question a hundred times before. He seemed very uncomfortable, as if he was processing much more than just my simple question. Before he answered, he extended his hand and introduced himself.

“Hi,” he said. “I’m Michael.”

I smiled. “Me, too.”

We shook hands and then I asked him again. “Michael,” I asked, “why do you run around the track the way you do?”

He thought for a minute and finally gave a simple reply. “Son,” he responded, “I could try to explain it to you, but I think you’ re too young to understand right now. Some day, however, I think you’ll figure it out on your own.”

I had heard that answer many times but never in this context. The man toweled off and walked away as we overran the track.

ANOTHER WIN COMING UP

There were a few heats before mine, and I watched and waited. Finally, it was my turn. Mr. Geraldi, the gym teacher, had a cool little pistol that he used to start each heat. I lined up with my slower competitors and waited for the command.

“On your marks. Get set.” BANG!

Ijumped out in front and could see hardly anyone, even through my peripheral vision. I was winning the dash—as usual. It was just like almost every other race I had ever run. But suddenly, my right leg felt like it pulled right out of its socket as I tumbled to the ground and the asphalt track had its way with me. I had no idea what had just happened, but I knew right away that I would never be the same runner again.

The pain was the worst I had ever felt in my life. As I was wheeled to the nurse’s office, I thought I was going to be sick. All I saw was spots, all I felt was throbbing in the buttocks region, and I swear that I was sure that my leg was going to need to be amputated. Although that ended up not being the case, it took months to come close to a full physical recovery. Unfortunately, the emotional scarring, just like the large lump that now remains at the epicenter of the injury, will remain forever.

After I tore my hamstring, I was the kind of runner who no longer ran. I guess that would have made me an ex-runner, but in my heart I know there is no such thing. An ex-runner is much like an ex-alcoholic. Even if one does not engage in the activity for years, a single taste can change the status from “ex” to once again “active.” I was scared to death of flat-out speed, as I never again wanted to endure that kind of pain and subsequent recovery. And I had no interest in running if I couldn’t run fast and win. So I played baseball and football and basketball but officially retired from running. At least for a while.

But baseball and football and basketball were all team sports, and, over time, the teams disbanded as the various team members went away to college or got jobs and started families. For a while I went from ex-runner to ex-jock as my own life changed, mostly for the worse. I clearly recall how, at the ripe old age of 26, after years of following a mostly downhill path in a figurative sense, I decided one day to change the course of my own personal nature. I wanted to learn to run just like that man I saw that day on the cursed track that took away my running.

Michael Selman RUNNING AGAINST MY NATURE @® 33

Irefer to it as “changing the course of my own personal nature” because my nature was to run short and fast. But those days were now behind me forever, just as my competition used to be. If I wanted to run now, my only option would be long and slow. I can’t even tell you why I wanted to give it a try, but it was probably because I was always a runner and a runner must figure out a way to run in any way he can.

Icould vaguely remember reading about fast-twitch and slow-twitch muscle fibers in a book once, and knew right away that I had a large majority of the former. That’s why I had the explosive power and short-burst speed I had. I also recalled reading that, with training, fast-twitch muscle fibers could be converted to slow-twitch fibers, allowing a former sprinter to learn how to run longer.

Soin the earliest days of spring 1982, I gave slow and long atry. I didn’t like it at all. I struggled at first to run a mile and was stuck behind that millstone for quite a while. It wasn’t fun, and I couldn’t do it every day because every time I did it my fast-twitch body rebelled. Each time I ran, I needed a couple of days to recover from a mile that took 10 minutes to run. Although I was young and I was lean, this kind of running was against my nature.

UP MILEAGE, UP

After about three months I had my runs up to three miles at about a nine-minute pace. It was still hard but I was making progress, and in the process I was changing my own personal nature. My body was gradually learning to run slowly. The twitches were getting slower, and I was becoming a different kind of runner. I might have been born to run, but I was slowly creating the runner I was to become.

entered my first race near the end of June. I was probably ready for a 5K, but the 10K was the most popular distance in those days. So I entered, and I ran it. Sort of. True to form, I had to start walking just beyond the 3-mile mark. I half walked, half ran, and totally limped most of the final 3 miles, somehow managing to finish in a little under an hour. My feet were blistered and my legs were cramping. Even my biceps were sore. I was totally drained from head to toe. And I remembered trying to imagine what it would be like to be able to run another 20 miles on top of what I had just done, for the right of proclaiming that I was a marathon runner. I could not imagine ever having that right.

But I continued to train, extending my outer limits beyond where they had snugly fit before, and within a couple of months I could finally run a full 10K race without having to walk at all. Only acouple of months earlier, that had been against my nature, but now it was slowly becoming a part of my nature. I was evolving into the runner I was to become, and I was starting to actually like it. My twitches were getting more finely honed for long and slow all the time.

I started incrementally increasing my training distances and my race distances as my short and fast philosophies faded into distant memories. In September 1982, Iran my first 15K and on my birthday in October, as I turned 27, Iran my first half-marathon. A half year later, I accomplished what was once unthinkable as I crossed the finish line of the Long Island Marathon. The next day, I didn’t feel much worse than [had the day after my first 10K. [had changed my inner environment, and in doing so my outside world had changed as well.

Ever since then it has been my nature to be a long-distance runner. I know it is my nature because people don’t say, “There’s Michael. He runs.” They say, “There’s Michael, the runner.” It is only a subtle difference of semantics, but it carries a big difference in meaning. As of this writing, I have run several hundred races ranging from 5K to 30K, and I have also run 12 marathons. [am currently in training for lucky number 13.

The past few weeks, I have been traveling on business for my company. Travel does not always lend itself to good and productive marathon training, and sometimes strange things happen. This past week, when I spent a couple of days working just outside of Morristown, New Jersey, I found myself within a few miles of the asphalt track that had changed my life. Wouldn’t it be interesting, I thought, to return to the track that first took away my running and perhaps also forced me to later become the runner I am today.

YOU CAN GO HOME AGAIN

My first day in the area, I had a break during the day and I headed down to the Sussex Avenue School, perhaps to settle a score. My feelings were mixed as I stepped out of my car and to the fence beside the track, where I started lightly stretching. I wasn’t sure whether I was bitter, or mad, or just needed to make peace with the whole thing. But I do know that this was my first time back since my nature suddenly changed one day in gym class.

The former sprinter finished his stretching and took to the track. He started running around and around the track, one lap after another, without stopping at all. He ran lap after lap, thanking the heavens for the gift of long-distance running. As he continued to run lap after lap, a funny sensation gradually came over him. It didn’t feel quite like someone was staring at him but more like he was staring at himself from outside his body as he ran effortlessly, sweating lightly, breathing easily, and having the time of his life. Perhaps that elusive runner’s high had finally come to visit.

I was snapped out of my daydream as the bell rang, and within a few minutes the field was being overrun by a group of kids, perhaps fifth graders. They were led by a man with a starter’s pistol in his hand, and I knew it was time to yield the right-of-way. They were getting ready to run the 100-yard dash.

As I was walking off the track, now sweating profusely, I thought I heard someone talking to me from behind. “Sir,” the boy said, “I’ve been watching you running from Ms. Wilson’s classroom. I have a perfect view of the track through the window there. And I need to ask you something. Why do you run around the track the way you do?”

Tturned to answer and was not prepared for what I saw. [could not hide my surprise, and my jaw dropped before I could answer. This kid looked exactly like me when I was in the fifth grade. I’m sure he saw my shock, but I didn’t want to seem to beacrazy old man. So I just extended my hand and said, “Hi. My nameis Michael.”

I could tell that he was also processing much more than what he was letting on. He shook my hand and said, “Me, too.” Then he continued. “You know, you remind me so much of my father. But you couldn’t be. He’s away on a business trip.”

We both stood in awkward silence for a couple of minutes, and then he repeated the question. “Michael,” he asked once again, “why do yourun around the track the way you do?”

“Son,” I responded, after thinking long and hard, “I could try to explain it to you, but I think you’ re too young to understand right now. Some day, however, I think you’ll figure it out on your own.”

I toweled off and walked away as the kids overran the track. I didn’t ei stay to see how Michael did in his heat. f

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Collecting on the Run

Amassing a Collection of Running Items Isn’t as Difficult as It Seems.

c BEGAN with tobacco cards, of all things. Here I was, a guy who hated anything associated with cigarettes, fascinated by a pile of early-20th-century cards—distributed by a cigarette company—that an elderly gentleman had brought to the museum where I was working. Surprisingly, the full-color cards featured a variety of runners, along with short biographical sketches on the reverse side.

At the time, I knew that the sport of distance running had been around for a while, but the topic was never covered in any of my college history classes. I recalled that the Boston Marathon had been run for many years and that the marathon was the highlight of every Olympic Games. Aside from those two facts, about the only thing I could connect to the history of running was the New Balance Tracksters worn by a few old-timers running the roads in the early 1960s. I had a lot to learn.

As I began to read books on the subject, I learned that running for sport in the United States began as early as the 1820s and ’30s. Match races over varying distances, both on the roads and on measured tracks, attracted huge crowds and were accompanied by heavy betting. ““Go-as-you-please” events, epitomized by the great indoor six-day races, were immensely popular with all strata of society in the 1880s. Amateurism began to take hold late in the century in response to what some thought the unsavory nature of these professional events and ultimately led to the formation of the modern Olympic Games.

Realizing that my escalating interest in running history offered yet another outlet for my affinity to collect stuff, I began to acquire running-related items, which in turn allowed me to learn more about the sport. The colorful Mecca cigarette cards, thankfully free of any tobacco odor, were easy finds at card shows, and it took little time to acquire the entire collection of runners. By

Boston Scores 100 on Collecting Prowess

ust a few blocks from the finish line of the Boston Marathon are the offices of the Boston Athletic Association, organizers of the event. Although the complex mainly serves as Offices for the staff, the area is filled with exotica ranging from seats once used in the venerable Boston Garden to an aqua-interiored 1950s GE refrigerator in the staff break room. But for the running enthusiast, it’s the collection of memorabilia associated with past BAA activities that generates the most interest. Included in the BAA’s public display of marathon artifacts is the secondplace trophy from the inaugural race in 1897, the 1916 winner’s trophy that until recently was used as an ice bucket by a local racquetball club, scores of exquisitely designed competitors medals, contestants’ shoes dating from the 1930s, and the gray sweatshirt (see above) worn by Kathrine Switzer as she raced into immortality in the 1967 race. ___ According to Jack Fleming, the BAA’s media and promotions coordinator, the BAA also acts as a central repository for New England running- and track-related memorabilia. Scrapbooks, photos, race awards, film, and other material, if offered, are accepted for r safekeeping until aNew England running museum is established. _

___ The turning point for this collecting activity came as the BAA was preparing for the 100th edition of the marathon in 1996. History was to play alarge partin the celebration, and memorabilia were needed to interpret the proud history of the race. Material was gathered together from many locations, funds were set aside for acquiring artifacts, and an ambitious traveling exhibit program was set into place. The eight towns along the route had exhibits emphasizing their contributions to the race, ensuring that all the communities, not just Boston, were involved in the event. It was a huge success and guaranteed that the history of the race would never be forgotten.

The BAAS collection continues to play a large oat in keeping the Boston Marathon’s history in the limelight. Besides its office display, the BAA inteBAA, COLLECT

grates memorabilia of the past into many current activities. Each year, marathon sponsor adidas highlights a particular aspect of race history in its expo space. Race publications routinely feature photos and awards from past events, and the Web site incorporates material from the collection so that the history of the event doesn’t become simply a moldering, dusty collection of yellowing paper and tarnished metal.—DK

attending these card shows, I established a network of dealers and other buyers who would search for more obscure cards. I soon had almost every card showing a distance runner, from the obscure Clarence DeMar “strip” card printed on cheap cardboard to the elegantly designed Allen and Ginter cards of the late 19th century showing pedestrians and long-distance runners that some collectors deem the most beautiful cards ever made.

Attending antique shows usually led to at least one purchase per show, but the typical response from dealers was a glazed look followed by a “Sorry, I don’thave anything.” But postcard dealers proved to be a good outlet for my desire to enlarge my collection. Although they were relatively scarce I was able, over the course of many years, to find numerous real-photo cards of track and cross-country meets and teams, Olympic marathon races, and cartoon scenes.

As I continued this search, I added a few fruit crate labels with arunning theme, the most famous being the 1930s “Athlete” label showing the finish of a sprint race in the Los Angeles Coliseum. In the same advertising vein, I began to look for tin containers with marvelous images. Although not strictly historical documents, they do show the continued public interest in running. The most common tins are Marathon Oil containers with a running Indian and 19th- and 20th-century trading cards. “Good in the Long Run” logo.

hen Nike founder Phil Knight began selling shoes out of the trunk of his car at track meets in 1972 and Bill Bowerman was tinkering with shoes in the bowels of the Hayward Field stadium, little did they imagine that Nike would become a multibillion dollar company with offices, stores, and name recognition around the world. Fame and longevity ultimately led to an

interesting past, and Nike’s colorful history is being well tended by an active preservation and collecting program that would be the envy of many museums.

Begun in 1986 with a couple of hundred items gathered together by the company’s public relations department for displays and special presentations, the Nike Archives program has evolved into a 19,000-item collection housed in a 10,000-square-foot climate-controlled facility staffed by records manager Kristi Kieffer and archivist Tina Lengacher. Included in the collection are items that any running collector would die for: handmade shoes for Steve Prefontaine and his 1972 Olympic Trials T-shirt, some of the first shoes Nike marketed in the early 1970s, drawings of the original swoosh, prototype shoes made by Bill Bowerman, photos from the early Nike days, and an original bench from the Hayward Field bleacher section.

The collection, which Lengacher estimates grows by about 3,000 pieces a year, is used for many purposes. Most obvious to the public are pieces appearing in Nike ads, ranging from Bowerman artifacts used to tout the line of shoes bearing his name to early Shox prototypes appearing in print ads last year. Requests for exhibit material are common, both within the company and by other institutions, and a variety of artifacts are used as background during special presentations put on by the company. “Behind the scenes” use includes shoes and apparel studied by designers for inspiration, new development, or reintroduction to customers enamored with the retro look, and patent disputes. Like any good curator, Lengacher keeps close tabs on the whereabouts of these artifacts using a computerized record-keeping system.

WHEN MEDALS WERE MEDALS

As I expected, I could frequently find medals, usually buried among military medallions or commemorative coins at antique shows. These items are perhaps our closest link to past events outside of newspaper reports. Besides establishing a direct connection to the event itself, they can also provide information on clothing styles, course landmarks, and results. Unlikely as it may seem, I once chanced upon an entire collection of medals that traced the accomplishments of a West Coast runner over a period of several years in the early 20th century.

Trophies are similar to medals in serving as a memento of certain events, though unfortunately for the not-so-rich running enthusiast, they are more expensive and desirable. Not only runners but also trophy, silver, and art collectors covet this type of collectible. Compared with the mass-produced awards of today, this type of item is a pleasure to own. Although possessing few myself, I delight in the fine engraving techniques, the upright pose of the striding figures, and in the case of a large 1927 mile trophy found in the back of a greeting card shop—don’t ask, I don’t know why either—the diminutive but sharp track spikes on the bottom of a raised foot.

Other interesting but more obscure items that filled my walls and drawers included an old board game titled “Game of Endurance Run,” trade cards with a running-related image that were distributed by businesses, event programs, almanacs that often include ads for shoes and apparel, and a shoe worn by a New England road runner in the 1930s whose lightness dispels the accepted image of race contestants plodding along the roads in shoes more suited for construction work.

Where can a person interested in collecting running mementos begin? When I began collecting, about the only method was to attend antique shows and visit antique shops and flea markets. A successful foray usually meant finding one or two items in a day, which meant little cost but a collection that grew slowly. Card shows are good if only to establish a network of dealers willing to look for running cards, and specialized postcard shows are held around the country. Rare-book dealers can find obscure titles and conduct a broad search for subject material. Once in a while it may be possible to find something in unrelated surroundings, such as a sports bar or an old sports-related retail store going out of business.

Today, as might be expected, all the action is on eBay, the e-commerce site with over 22 million registered users that offers everything from Beanie Babies to backhoes. On any given day, scores of running-related items can be found in the marathon, running, Olympic, and track and field categories. As in any other shopping experience, mundane items abound, such as a 1996 Honolulu Marathon T-shirt or a Sports Illustrated magazine with a famous runner on the

Dave Kayser COLLECTING ON THE RUN mm 45

A Legend’s Collection

hat kind of race memorabilia does Bill Rodgers, one of the i icons of distance running, save that will one day document one of the most illustrious running careers evel : ick survey of his running store in Boston: 5

as his. Boston Marathon meda i} in a bank safe-deposit box.

_ Brother Charlie Rodgers relates that Bill is “not obsessed with documenting

his accomplishmen .” Bill once kept scrapbooks filled with newspaper

r but stored them in a damp basement where they

became covered with mold and mildew. His Fukuoka trophies are stuck on

acluttered shelf in the office of his store. He recently returned a trophy that

he won at the inaugural Tulsa Run to the race director, who is using it for

promotions. Looking into the crystal ball, future collectors will find plenty of

autographed pictures of Boston Billy but will have to be ie to spend a bundle on oe : items _ i |

cover. But to my amazement, things I never dreamed existed consistently come up for auction, such as the program for the 1930s transcontinental Bunion Derby, 19th-century go-as-you-please medals, and an obscure card from a collection that escaped the attention of even the most knowledgeable dealers. eBay has revolutionized collecting, making it easy to amass a collection of interesting items. At the same time, unfortunately, the thrill of the hunt is lacking when all you need is the patience to scroll down a list of auction offerings on a computer screen.

HIGH-END ITEMS

What hasn’t changed is the category’s affordability, allowing almost anyone to collect something, whether old photos or race medals. Certainly, some things are expensive, like the 1 9th-century Cross Country Run game board that brought $4,750 at a recent East Coast folk art auction or the early 1900s Boston Marathon participant medal that realized $130 in a December 2000 eBay auction.

But at the other end of the spectrum, a 1930s running instructional manual can be had for under $20 and a pair of old Nikes might be found for $20 to $35. Prices of medals vary widely. I’ve seen similar medals auctioned off on eBay for between $30 and $100, and books are the same way. Postcards can range

between $2 and $20, though Olympic Games cards tend to be higher. I recently bought an 18-by-24-inch period photo of Clarence DeMar crossing the finish line at Boston for only $4. It was found hanging in a barn on Cape Cod, and I intend to set aside my curatorial concerns and maintain tradition by hanging it in a garden shed I intend to build someday.

Needless to say, patience is a virtue when bidding on, and losing, items, but if something becomes available that puts lust in your heart, whether at an antique show or on eBay, lay out the cash because you may never see it again.

Like most distance runners, collectors of running memorabilia are tenacious. Dr. Ed Kozloff, who lives in the Detroit area and is president of the Motor City Striders, has amassed an impressive collection of running memorabilia. Kozloff enjoyed reading about the sport but never considered collecting objects associated with his hobby until he attended a flea market in Washington, D.C., about 25 years ago. Acoin dealer was offering medals from the Baltimore Cross Country Club, and Kozloff’s purchases at that flea market unleashed a passion. Besides assembling a library of 135 biographies of runners, he has gathered an array of photos, magazines, medals, Olympic memorabilia, merchandise bearing a “marathon” logo, and other odds and ends.

One of his most prized pieces once belonged to Edward Payson Weston, probably the world’s greatest pedestrian, who performed numerous feats of

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A portion of Bob Roncker’s impressive vintage shoe collection on display at his running store in Cincinnati.

long-distance walking almost unimaginable today. The 1869 log now in Kozloff’s possession contains five pages of newspaper clippings on Weston’s quest to walk 5,000 miles in 100 days, along with daily notations of start and endpoints, towns he passed through, and daily observations. It is certainly a museumquality piece, demanding the best of care. Kozloff continues to build his collection by scanning the eBay listings, along with the old-fashioned method of stopping at antique shops and shows while traveling around the country.

Another avid collector, especially of old running shoes, is Bob Roncker, proprietor of Bob Roncker’s Running Spot, Cincinnati’s premier running specialty store. Roncker has long been a collector of old shoes, and after acquiring the shoe collection of Ed Ayres, the founder of Running Times magazine, he decided it was time to properly display his collection.

In his newly enlarged emporium, one floor is dedicated to showing the progression of running shoes. Close to 300 pairs of shoes are on display, interspersed with explanatory labels, shoe company history, and contemporary magazine ads. Local running history, autographed memorabilia, Olympic material, old magazines, and apparel worn by notable runners are also on exhibit. Like any museum professional, Roncker hopes to educate and entertain his visitors by showing them how technical advances incorporated in the

SPALDING’S Atntetic LIBR 8 RARY

GrorceE Orton.

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DAVE KAYSER COLLECTION

DAVE KAYSER COLLECTION

Prized items from the author’s collection: a) 19th-century cracker tin; b) early 20th-century Marathon Shoe Polish tin; c) Spalding instructional manual; d) Allen and Ginter card of William Cummings.

shoes contributed to the growth of the sport and how the sport has contributed to changes in society.

CARE AND FEEDING OF A COLLECTION

How do collectors care for their possessions to ensure their continued wellbeing? Common sense plays a big part. Exposing objects to light increases fading, so it’s helpful to keep light-sensitive photos, paper goods, textiles, and books in a dark storage area or at least away from windows. Mold and bugs are a constant threat, so that dark storage place shouldn’t be in a damp basement. Fluctuating temperature and humidity can cause the deterioration of almost any object, so a constant environment is ideal but often difficult to attain. Keeping objects in containers such as acid-free boxes helps to buffer or slow the rate of change, allowing the object to better adjust to the changing conditions. Keeping objects clean of dust and dirt is a must, and if they are displayed they should be in an area where they won’t be bumped or otherwise damaged.

A number of companies sell what are commonly called archival supplies designed to protect materials and increase their longevity. Two of the bestknown firms are Light Impressions (800/828-6216, www.light impressionsdirect.com) and University Products (800/762-1165, www.universityproducts.com). Both of these firms offer boxes, binders, bags, albums, cleaning supplies, and frames that will increase the lifespan of precious acquisitions.

If you’re more inclined to saving contemporary running memorabilia instead of the old stuff, opportunities abound. Race expos offer a cornucopia of ephemera, ranging from shoe-shaped key rings produced by various footwear companies to posters, cards, magnets, race advertisements, and small souvenirs. Collecting the adidas “We’ re Different” series of advertisements is similar to the many collections of “Got Milk?” ads, and the shoe surveys published by various running magazines are great research material. Recently produced running shoes may one day hold interest, though right now it appears that the great shoes of yesteryear, like the Nike LDV and the Brooks Villanova, have more cachet.

The future value of whatever you collect should be of little concern unless you are collecting only to supplement your retirement income. What’s most important is the enjoyment you receive from watching the collection grow and the memories associated with it. Happy collecting, but please don’t bid 4 against me on an eBay auction. Bs

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| DeMar@Home

What Was It Like With “Mr. Marathon” Living in the Same Neighborhood?

ITH ALL the complications that go with technological development,

from satellites and space explorations to genetic coding and cloning, we long for what we nostalgically refer to as the common American man: one raised under harsh conditions, steeled by adversity, strong, silent and dependable. Humble beginnings, legendary by the time of death, mourned by many. In between, a life that inspired a nation and his neighbors. A man for all seasons, especially the spring season where Patriots’ Day means Boston Marathon. A man like Clarence DeMar, who came to be known as “Mr. Marathon.” A force on the world scene, a neighbor everybody knew. This is the story of Clarence DeMar’s domestic life, which began in Madeira, Ohio, in 1888 and ended in Reading, Massachusetts, where he died of stomach cancer in 1958.

From the beginning, Clarence’s life took a long and tortuous course. He had five brothers and sisters. His father died when he was only 8 and he had to help his mother keep hearth and home together by selling needles and thread in neighboring towns—covering 10 miles a day on foot to do so. To get home before dark, Clarence began running between towns, thereby starting an avocation that would change him and change the fledgling sport of long-distance running. When Clarence was 10, the situation in the DeMar household slipped beyond desperate. In a move to keep the little family together instead of splitting it between the poorhouse and orphanages, the family moved to Warwick, Massachusetts, to live rent free in a house owned by a relative. But in those harsh times, even a rent-free situation wasn’t enough to maintain the family, and it was broken up.

Clarence was sent to the Farm School on Thompson’s Island in Boston Harbor, but he was unhappy there and eventually left to work on a fruit farm in South Hero, Vermont. He eventually enrolled at the University of Vermont

Clarence and his mother at home in Melrose, Massachusetts.

but left in his junior year to live with his mother. One brother and one sister were also living with her.

DOMESTIC LIFE BEGINS

From 1909 through 1929 the DeMars lived in a modest house at 43 Union Street, near the Melrose High School athletic field. This is where our story of Clarence DeMar’s domestic life in New England begins. To help support his family, he had learned the printing trade, a business at which he would work for the rest of his life.

Meanwhile, he had not overlooked his religious life. He attended services at the First Baptist Church in Melrose, Massachusetts, and later taught Sunday school there. He enjoyed working with and teaching young men so much that,

James B. Goldsmith DEMAR@HOME ® 53

Clarence, back row, right, loved to take his Boy Scouts and Sunday Schoo! students on outings.

for three years, he became scoutmaster of Boy Scout Troop 5, which was housed in the same church. He would later be scoutmaster of Boy Scout Troop 9 in the Maplewood section of Malden, Massachusetts, from 1924 to 1929.

Since DeMar did not have an automobile, the young printer needed some way to commute to and from work, so he began running, carrying a clean shirt under his arm. His commuting at what was referred to as a dogtrot seemed to suit the introspective young DeMar. He loved to be alone with his thoughts where nobody could bother him.

DEMAR ACCORDING TO SQUIRES

All of Clarence DeMar’s contemporaries from the Melrose area are now dead. DeMar himself died when he was 70. However, another fine runner and coach, Melrose resident William “Billy” Squires, who coached Bill Rodgers, Alberto Salazar, and Dick Beardsley, gives us an insight into DeMar’s character and why he motivated runners, including himself, and became a mentor to them.

Squires was a national champion in the mile and later taught at Boston State College and the University of Massachusetts at Boston. He also coached high school track in the greater Boston area. Today Squires is semiretired and coaches elite runners at distances from 800 meters to the marathon. He is affiliated with

John Hancock Financial Services, the principal sponsor of the Boston Marathon.

Squires didn’t know DeMar personally, so he can’t comment much on the running legend’s domestic life, but he thinks that DeMar’s strong work ethic and ambitious training schedule can serve as a model for today’s runners. Moreover, Squires believes that DeMar’s character, perseverance, and penchant for setting goals and achieving them carried over to his domestic life.

Squires has lived in Melrose for three years and greatly admires the persistence and motivation DeMar exhibited in running from Melrose to his night job at the Boston Herald-Traveler and back on a daily basis after being on his feet working as a compositor for 9 or 10 hours. Squires was one of the spark plugs behind getting a monument of DeMar dedicated in Melrose on DeMar’s birthday, June 7, in 2001.

“He ran over hills on the way to work and took a less strenuous route, with fewer hills, on the way home,” Squires relates. “He trained by running 18 to 20 miles daily, seven days a week. On Saturday he ran around Spot Pond [Stoneham, MA\| three to five times. Each lap is approximately 5 miles, totaling another 15 to 25 miles. Clarence ran about 150 miles a week, and his endurance was above and beyond [that of his competitors]. The running shoes he wore for training were comparable to today’s bowling shoes, while his race shoes had crepe soles, which are soft, but wore out quickly.

“Clarence was a very, very serious man. In one Boston Marathon,” Squires continued, “someone got out in front of him and tripped him. After that Clarence carried a stick. He was the amateur of amateurs. A lot of that [resulted from] his stern, religious upbringing by his mother. He ate well: meat, potatoes, and vegetables, much of it from his own farm. He kept all of his training ideas to himself because his competitors were out to beat him.” This character trait defines Clarence DeMar, who was by nature taciturn, shy, and introspective.

After establishing himself in the printing business, DeMar felt it was important to further his education, so he enrolled in evening classes at Harvard in 1913. While studying for his associate of arts degree, he got to Harvard and back the old-fashioned way: by shoe leather. He ran 12 miles from Melrose to Arlington. Squires sets the scene. “Clarence hopped on the elevated train at Arlington and rode into Harvard Square, Cambridge, after running over rough, dirt country roads.” He graduated from Harvard in 1915.

CLARENCE AT KEENE

By the time he moved from Melrose to Keene, New Hampshire, in the fall of 1929, Clarence had matured as a professional printer, amateur marathon runner, and Christian. He met a fellow Melrose parishioner and placed first in the

‘COURTESY OF THE DEMAR FAMILY

Wedding bells rang for Clarence and Margaret (Isley) DeMar, September 7, 1929, at the First Baptist Church in Melrose, Massachusetts.

race to win her hand in marriage. Margaret Ilsley and Clarence were married at the First Baptist Church, Melrose, in 1929. Now that he had a wife to support, he needed a better-paying job, and he found one at the Keene Normal School as a printer and teacher of industrial arts. He began working at the school after taking a week off for his honeymoon. At that point DeMar, who had won Boston six times, taught Sunday school in Melrose and was a Boy Scout leader in both Melrose and Malden, : Massachusetts.

DeMatr’s flinty independence, dogged perseverance, and uncompromising work ethic found a perfect match in conservative New Hampshire. The Old Man of the Mountain, a striking profile in granite at Franconia, New Hampshire, stands as the state’s symbol of rugged independence, while its motor vehicle registration plate says it all: “Live free or die.”

Life in Keene held both promise and uncertainty for the newly married couple. Would the young bride adapt to the Granite State’s harsh winters and isolation?

A pleasant voice with a distinct New Hampshire twang fills us in on the domestic life of the new couple in their Keene years. Donald P. Carle puts it this way: “Clarence joined the faculty at Keene Normal School in the fall of 1929 where he taught young people printing and a large class of girls industrial history. The school was known as Keene Normal School from 1909 to 1938. Later, from 1939 to 1962, it was renamed Keene Teachers College. In 1963 it was renamed Keene State College.”

Donald Carle continues: “My father was a member of the faculty. He taught chemistry and was dean of men from 1928 until 1960. I was about five years old when I first remember seeing Clarence DeMar. He came to Keene in 1929 and left in 1939. He lived on Appian Way a few houses away from us. He taught printing and left Keene and moved to North Swanzey, New Hampshire, in 1932. [There he] ran to work [class], about four miles, and was never late to class.

“He taught Sunday school at the First Baptist Church when I was eight or nine years old. My father loved brook trout fishing. In 1930 Clarence won all the major marathons in the country [Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore]. Dad was talking to him one day on campus and said, ‘Clarence, now that you’ ve won all

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Clarence ran everywhere; here he tries to keep in step with his children, Dorothy, left, and Robert. Photo taken in Keene, NH, where Clarence taught from 1929-1939.

James B. Goldsmith DEMAR@HOME ® 57

the major marathons in the country, are you going to hang up your running shoes?’ Clarence replied, ‘Dwight, when you catch the biggest trout, are you going to hang up your fishing pole?’ He had a very dry sense of humor. When he ran he was very, very concentrated on what he was doing and became upset with people who interfered with him. Otherwise, with us I never saw that at all. We never had any unpleasant incidents with him.

“Every Sunday morning when he came up to church he brought us a dozen eggs from his farm. We would sometimes go to the farm to visit and get a chicken for dinner. He also had goats at the farm. The eight- or nine-acre farm is now the airport on the edge of a pond. He also had some ducks and we usually got 10 eggs and 2 duck eggs.

“He had to be extremely careful to retain his amateur status while at Keene Normal School. He couldn’t take any money for coaching the cross-country and track teams. In 1931 he was the favorite to win the Boston Marathon again, and Keene Normal School held a big parade on April 18 from the center of Keene to the railroad station. He took the train to Boston to run the marathon the next day. My brother and I went on the same train with Clarence, and when we got off at Waltham, somebody said, ‘That’s Clarence DeMar. What in heck are [those boys] doing with him?’ Clarence always told us, ‘If you’re ever in Boston come and see me.””

The 75-year-old retiree says from his Peterborough, New Hampshire, home, “Another time I was in Boston and went over to the Boston Herald-Traveler. Clarence was working the night shift after he ran the Boston Marathon. Before Ileft, he said, ‘Oh, you have to have something to eat.’ He disappeared for a few minutes and came back with a banana and an orange.

“Mrs. DeMar was also very nice. She didn’t have a mean bone in her body, just a lovely, nice, humble person. Every spring we would have a flood in Keene. In 1936 it was a very serious flood. At Clarence’s house the water came up to the first floor. Clarence put on his rubber boots and waded through the water over to the Butterfield Building, the vocation education building at the time, to get everything off the floor so it would be dry.”

NOT A SHARP DRESSER

Carle continues with his recollection of DeMar: “His one handicap on campus was his dress. He wore a suit that didn’t get pressed very often. His appearance as a teacher was a little doubtful. I never saw him with an overcoat. He always said, ‘If you wear gloves, you’ll keep warm.’ Mrs. DeMar knit him a gray ski mask to cover his face. It went over his ears, down the back of his neck, and had an open space for his eyes and nose. It had a slit for his mouth, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the first one made.

“He and my father were very good friends and could talk about anything. He was a very courteous person, and a very strong believer and was very loyal to the church. He never drank or smoked. I know when he was in training he ran from Keene to Troy, New Hampshire, all uphill, a 20-mile round trip. He was a very, very thorough trainer.

“I feel he would be very pleased to see the number of people who are running today. The Clarence DeMar Marathon is run every fall.” It’s sponsored by Keene State College and has been run for going on three decades. Carle continues: “Mrs. DeMar was invited up as ‘official starter,’ as were several of his children. It can be used as a qualifier for the Boston Marathon. I would love to see the Boston Athletic Association give more recognition to Clarence.

“Tn 1939 I was a teenager when he left. We probably didn’t realize how famous this man was; he was a neighbor, a dad, and member of the faculty like many other people. We didn’t ooh and aah. He was just like everybody else except that he ran.”

Donald Carle graduated from Keene Teachers College in 1952, taught school, and was principal of two elementary schools as well as assistant superintendent of schools in Peterborough. He retired as alumni director at Keene State College in 1988.

The old neighbor and family friend concludes, “I can see him today running down Main Street, turning the corner onto Appian Way. He would say ‘Hi’ or ‘Hello.’ He was just a real nice person, as was his wife. Now that ’m grown up Isee what he accomplished, what he did. He represented the country three times on Olympic teams. After he left Keene to work at the Boston Herald-Traveler, he told my father, ‘I know I’ll never win it [Boston] again. I run for time—to finish under three hours.’ He loved the sport. He just wasn’t going to quit running the BAA [race] until he had to stop. He set goals and challenged himself.”

In 1939 Clarence and Margaret DeMar and their children said good-bye to their friends in Keene and North Swanzey. Clarence took a printing job at Murdoch High School in Winchendon, Massachusetts, from 1939 to 1942. America was at war. Meanwhile, on the home front, Clarence was managing to eke out a living, but he and Margaret felt it was time to move nearer a large city, in this case Boston, where wages were higher and more printing jobs were available.

ON TO READING, MA

Clarence and Margaret had four children to raise and Reading, Massachusetts, 14 miles north of Boston, became their new home as Clarence started with the Herald-Traveler. He worked full-time on the night shift at the Herald and put

inas much overtime as his supervisor allowed. Commuters enjoyed their morning newspaper and cup of coffee on the train ride from Reading to Boston while the man who helped set the news in type was arriving home to chat with Margaret and catch up on family news.

The human dynamo that was Clarence DeMar didn’t rest long, however. He had numerous chores to take care of around the 16-acre farm that the DeMars had purchased in April 1942 for $6,000.

Dorothy (DeMar) Foster, 72, the oldest of the four DeMar children, has moved the farthest away from New England and their old colonial farmhouse in Reading. However, Dorothy still has vivid and pleasant memories of her childhood. Today she is a professional musician, mother, and grandmother and lives in Orange, California.

What was life like growing up on farms in North Swanzey and Reading? Dorothy, on the phone from Orange, replied, “We didn’t eat out much. We had

(COURTESY OF THE DEMAR FAMILY

The DeMars at home in Reading, MA. Front row, left to right: Betty with the family dog, Prince. Back row, left to right: Clarence, Barbara holding the family cat, and Margaret.

an old woodstove in North Swanzey and an outhouse when we first moved there. My father bought eight acres, the house, and barn for $4,000. I think the house in Reading was modern by New Hampshire standards. Clarence paid $6,000 for it, and mother baked bread and cooked roasts, potatoes, cookies, pies—everything—on the old woodstove. We picked blackberries and my mother canned whole blackberries. We ate them for dessert with whipped cream on top from our own milk.

“T vacuumed every Saturday. [had my own chickens and sometimes helped with the cows by herding them up to the back pasture. Clarence wasn’t very good with fences, and the cows would crash through them and get into the neighbor’s yard. The cows gorged themselves on green apples and got tipsy. Maybe they ate the fermented apples on the ground. And I had cats. Oh, we loved our cats.

“T have two trophies in my living room with a white, blue, and red poster of Clarence from the 10th Clarence DeMar Marathon. In 1988 four of us went to the marathon.”

LASTING MEMORIES

Dorothy Foster recalls a lasting memory: “In Keene he put the twins in a basket on his bike, and Robert and I were on the back as he peddled from North Swanzey to Keene. He got stopped several times and was lectured for having too many people on his bike.”

Clarence was respected and loved by his Sunday school students and his Boy Scouts, but was he equally revered by his own children? “He was very supportive of my music,” Dorothy recalled. “We all got good educations. We all had animals to take care of and we were expected to be responsible. We were pretty independent; he wanted us to think for ourselves—not to be smothered. There wasn’t a lot of communication; he was always very busy and worked several part-time jobs. We ate better food than most people, no insecticides or preservatives. We produced our own food, and I developed a love of nature, animals, and the outdoors that has always been with me. I graduated from Reading High School, class of 1948; Boston University School of Music, with a bachelor of arts degree in music; and from California State University, Fullerton, with a master of arts degree.”

Is Dorothy interested in the Boston Marathon, which her father won seven times? “I’m definitely interested in the Boston Marathon. I follow the results. The media sometimes mentions Clarence DeMar. I was born when he was older than 40, so his best marathon days were behind him. He was like a folk hero [while I was] growing up. People used to ask me if I was related to Clarence DeMar.”

James B. Goldsmith DEMAR@HOME 61

Betty (DeMar) Mueller remembers her father as a tenderhearted man who sometimes surprised his children with unexpected gifts. “As a kid, I was probably 10, 11 years old, he asked me if I wanted to go to a football game, not one a few towns away—we flew from Logan Airport [in Boston] to New Haven to see Harvard play Yale in the Yale Bowl. We came home on the train and had a meal in the dining car. At 5 I had rheumatic fever and was bedridden; Dad put a calf on my bed.

“Another time before we went on vacation, the cows needed to be milked every day, so we rode our horses to a Wilmington, Massachusetts, farm as Dad jogged along [leading] the cows. When vacation was over and it was time to get the cows, I wondered how Dad would ever get our cows away from the herd of perhaps 150 in the pasture. Clarence yelled, ‘Come Bossy. Come Bossy.’ And they both came running. We drove them down Lowell Street, and Dad took a shortcut, which saved about a half mile.”

ON FOREST STREET

What did the DeMar farm at 249 Forest Street look like when Betty was growing up? “I remember the house with its big, long front porch with pillars. The house had six bedrooms and two baths and an old-fashioned woodstove. I really liked that black woodstove. . . .

“The attic had back and front stairways and it was pretty hot in the summer up there. It was kind of a fun place. We used to go up there and play hide-andseek. One could really hide forever up there. The barn had a hayloft and cupola with a horse weather vane. My dad was afraid of heights; one day our neighbor’s dog was chasing our cat and they both were run over. Dad went up the ladder into the barn and got the kittens. I guess he did it for me. Our collie nurtured the kittens. Bob had one of those cats and it lived for a long time.”

Living on the DeMar farm meant so much to Betty that when she eventually did return, she was shocked. “It was very depressing for me,” she remembers. “When I saw the pillars and the front porch were missing, it was very upsetting. It just wasn’t the same place.”

Today she prefers to remember the good things about that period in her life. “Dad was areal fan of Hopalong Cassidy,” she remembers. Betty also cherishes memories of going to the rodeo. She was a member of 4-H and participated in the rodeos. “T loved riding in the rodeo parade down through the streets of Boston ending up at the Boston Garden.”

Betty recalls an incident from many years ago where her father’s fame and her artistic talent came together to account for her first “sale.” It was 4:30 p.m. after a long day of classes at the Massachusetts College of Art. Tired and drained, Betty rushed to catch the Green Line subway car to North Station,

Boston, where she jumped down and rushed into the dimly lit concourse. She climbed aboard, past the conductor, who began shouting in his raspy voice, “Track 19. All aboard Train 422 for Malden, Wyoming, Melrose Highlands, Wakefield, and Reading.” Exhausted, she collapsed into a seat, where she proceeded to break into a cold sweat. “Oh, my God,” she muttered to herself. “What am I going to do? I don’t have any money!” You can hear the anguish 47 years later as she relates the incident. “As the conductor came down the aisle toward me I quickly sketched a portrait of him in pen and ink. I was absolutely broke, and somewhere along the way he learned I was Clarence DeMar’s daughter. He loved his portrait. Maybe this was my first sale.”

MEMORIES BY BARBARA

Betty’s twin sister, Barbara (DeMar Roberts), loved to ride her horse with Betty and their neighbor and friend Virginia Merrill. In the ’40s and ’50s when they were growing up there, Reading was very much a country town. The girls had a 16-acre wonderland of farm, pastures, and forests. When she graduated from Reading High School in 1955, Barbara went to the University of Vermont, where Clarence had gone to school for three years. “He was very oriented to his family,” she recalls. “He was the oldest of six. The Merrills had two horses [which we boarded]. Our animals were all pets. Growing up on a working farm we sold milk and butchered beef. We ate the chickens we raised.

“Dad brought three or four cows when we moved from North Swanzey to Reading, and we sold the milk to people who came to the door or he delivered it on his bike.”

Mrs. Edward Ruff, who now lives in the DeMars’ old colonial farmhouse, recalls hearing about customers who came into the DeMar house, took their milk from the refrigerator, and left their money on the kitchen table. “At first,” Mrs. Roberts continues, “the milk was unpasteurized, but in the late 40s and early ’50s [the state mandated] that all milk be pasteurized.

“The chickens were ordered by mail—purebreds, lightweight New Hampshire Reds and Asian varieties that flew. They were enclosed, but they didn’t stay enclosed long. The chickens would nest in the haymow and breed, and would turn up in many places like under a bush. We also had ducks and geese that were kind of independent.”

Today Barbara’s memories are pleasant but misted by the years, memories of her dad mending fences, doing a bit of haying, weeding the vegetable garden, and tending to the cows. “He was around a lot,” she recalls. “He never drove acar; he jogged to the Reading railroad station and took the train to Boston. He had a bicycle—a one-speed with balloon tires. Really kind of beat up. Clarence was born in 1888 and was pretty much a senior when I was growing up.

PHOTOGRAPHER

Clarence couldn’t be happier—he’s on the job as a compositor at the Boston

Herald-Traveler where his “bosses” couldn’t be nicer. Left to right: Dad, Charles, Dorothy, and Robert.

“Betty and I really teased to have a horse. He saw an ad for a horse in the paper and bought it in Saugus when I was 11. [On the way home] he dogtrotted along in front, and mother brought up the rear in our big old 1948 Buick Roadmaster through all that traffic. He, in his own fashion, was a good husband and father. Not a gregarious fellow, but a loyal churchgoer. My mother was really good at encouraging him to excel at running. Clarence really wasn’t into horses and horseback riding. I knew him as a family man. Clarence was known for his honesty and integrity. He was super honest and thoughtful. He looked in on his family and neighbors he thought highly of. When we moved to Reading, Clarence put more emphasis on family. But he encouraged us to join the Girl Scouts.”

Margaret DeMar was an excellent cook and had arich and plentiful larder from field and barn. Inside the cozy farmhouse she kept busy cooking, sewing,

cleaning, and caring for her four children. Barbara recalls the wonderful aroma of homemade bread baking in that old kitchen woodstove in Reading. “My mother was very interested in keeping a neat house—more than my father did,” Barbara recalls during a phone conversation from her home in Woodbury, Connecticut. “He enjoyed his animals. Chickens came in the mail and he used to set up an incubator in the bedroom. It was not unusual for him to bring a sick calf into the house.”

George and Hazel “Dolly” Hodgkins live in Reading and were in the same Bible study group with Margaret DeMar. George relates an anecdote: “Margaret had one of her feet amputated at New England Deaconess Hospital, Boston. One evening during visiting hours several of Margaret’s church friends, including us, were in Margaret’s room as she told stories about her famous husband. Meanwhile, a doctor overheard part of the story from the hall. He poked his head into Margaret’s room and said, ‘Don’t say anything until I come back.’ [He wanted to be in on enjoying the stories.]”

George remembers when they all took part as a delegation from Old South Church in the 1973 Walk for Hunger. “There were several checkpoints along the way: 5, 10, and 15 miles. Margaret was quite a brisk walker and soon left the field behind. When Margaret and [associate pastor] Ward Coleman got to checkpoint number one and signed in, Margaret was ready to continue. Ward said, ‘Margaret, there are some people from Channels 4 and 5 who want to interview you.’ She replied, ‘Fine,’ and went along her way toward checkpoint two. She was in her 80s and displayed the same disdain for the press of her late husband.”

Clarence’s wife was also a prolific poet. George and Dolly Hodgkins have an autographed chapbook of poems Margaret wrote titled Adventuring With God. It’s dedicated to “Old South Church, Reading, MA. Where I find God and Love and many warm-hearted friends to be my inspiration.”

While George and Dolly never met Clarence in person, they remember seeing him running many times. “We met Margaret in the early ’70s in our Bible class,” Dolly says. “Margaret had white hair, was about five feet three, wiry, energetic, feisty, independent, and determined. If she had something on her mind she’d let you know in a sweet way. She had a cute little giggle. She was a sweetheart.”

Mrs. Edith Sias was a friend of Margaret’s for many years. She knew Clarence, too, and attended Keene Normal School from 1935 to 1938 while Clarence was there. “He was always tired; he would fall asleep in church.” It was obviously Clarence’s exhausting schedule, and not necessarily the sermon, that was responsible. After all, he worked one full-time job, two part-time jobs, and his 16acre farm, and also had a rigorous training schedule and a large family.

CLARENCE’S REMAINING SON

What was it like for Robert DeMar in the DeMar household? The DeMar children all had chores and were expected to be responsible. Fifty-eight years ago Clarence gave his son, Robert, the job of keeping the coal furnace fire stoked and burning. “I tended to the coal furnace,” he recalls by telephone from Chicago. “One thing you never want to do is let an anthracite fire go out.” But that’s exactly what young Robert thought happened one cold winter day. He panicked and threw a cup of kerosene in the firebox and Whoosh! It exploded, singeing his eyebrows and hair. “I cleaned myself up and never told anyone what happened.”

Robert DeMar graduated from Reading High School in 1949 and Harvard in 1953. He spent the next 42 years as a professor at the University of Chicago. Now retired, he lives in the Hyde Park section of Chicago. Charles DeMar, Robert’s brother, died at age 7 from rheumatic fever.

Do Robert’s memories of life with father burn hot like an anthracite fire? “He was a difficult man, having grown up in an orphanage on Thompson’s Island, Boston, which he called a reform school,” Robertrecalls. “He couldn’t bring himself to bring authority on his kids. He never , discussed going to college with me. He had a great dif_ ficulty accepting authority. In the 1912 Olympics he blamed coaching on the failure [of the American team to do well]. I once asked him

Clarence DeMar was inducted into The Class of 2000 Distance Running Hall of Fame, Utica, New York. Clarence’s son, Robert DeMar, and Robert’s grandniece Aleysha enjoy the day.

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James B. Goldsmith DEMAR@HOME ® 67

about the Thompson Island orphanage and he went into a three-day rage. He was not a guy you had idle chat with.

“He and I got along all right. When I was a graduate student at the University of Chicago, he seemed quite proud of me at the time. I applied for and won the Laverne Noyes Scholarship. It is given to students who are sons or daughters of World War I veterans.” When Robert gave his dad the good news, Clarence, a World War I Army vet, quipped, “I thought I had used up all my veteran’s benefits.”

THEN THERE WAS PRINCE

Robert’s memories extend to the dog Prince. “Prince was a nice dog,” he said. “Tn selecting a dog you should go to a breeder. What he did was look for an ad in Country Gentleman. It was when Lassie was popular. It [Prince] arrived by Railway Express from Iowa and was covered with feces and his nose was bent a little and the price was marked down. The kids trained it.”

Virginia [Merrill] Adams was aclose neighbor and friend who grew up with the DeMar children and still lives in Reading. “They were really our second home for my sister Jean and me. We lived across the street. As teenagers we boarded our horses over there; it was just friendship and neighborliness. Life was a lot simpler then. Their bantam chickens were running loose everywhere. They had a large orchard. They had two cows and sold milk. Margaret preserved a lot of the vegetables. I remember seeing Mr. DeMar working on his farm milking cows, cutting hay, and gardening. One time he invited us to share a gray squirrel he was cooking on an open fire. There was a meadow beyond the pasture, and in the winter the ice was always cracking. The best memory was skating by moonlight. Later we’d have hot cocoa with a bonfire, quite often.

“Tt was a stable neighborhood,” she reminisces. “They were just part of the fabric of the neighborhood. Mrs. DeMar enjoyed flower gardening and was an excellent cook. Clarence always led an interesting dinner conversation. Since he worked in the newspaper business, he was aware of current events. The DeMar girls had an annual birthday dinner. One time the roast beef came from one of their pet cows.”

Carl Bertelsen also was a neighbor. “My brother and I went to the DeMars’ on Halloween for pumpkin pie,” he recalls. “One year he came out of the kitchen carrying a pig’s head on a platter. We were grossed out, stunned. He thought it was funny. He had butchered the pig.”

To place Clarence DeMar in the larger marathoning context, let’s solicit memories of Clarence from some of New England’s most prominent marathon experts.

“YOUNG JOHN” AND OTHERS REMEMBER

John J. (“The Younger’) Kelley won the Boston Marathon in 1957; he lives in Mystic, Connecticut. “To me and people of my generation DeMar was a towering figure in American marathoning,” Johnny said. “The focal point in marathoning as it came to be—the race itself. I came into running at his late stages. I was 16 when I met him in 1948 when the New London Police Benevolent Association restaged a race, which was run at Thanksgiving. Clarence DeMar, John A. (“The Elder”) Kelley, and Les Pawson were invited. DeMar was known to have a flinty disposition, so the race organizers were hesitant to invite him. Instead they sent a letter, and he responded very warmly and came to New London fora 12-mile race, which was time handicapped. Clarence was 60 then and had an honorary starting position. He showed up wearing farmer’s clothes: overalls, plaid shirt, and running shoes. He was a character. Everybody loved him, and later I learned he had run this same race in 1930 or 1931.”

What stands out in your mind about Clarence that most people don’t know, I asked Johnny. “His scholarly approach of competitive runners. Clarence DeMar said that marathon runners should receive per diem payment, compensation for wages lost while competing, and he was one of the first to insist on the standardization of the length of the Boston Marathon after the 1924 Olympics. [He maintained] that every marathon should be so certified. Additionally, the problem facing marathon runners of his day was many were chronically unemployed [in the late ’20s and early *30s].”

Kelley himself now walks and runs recreationally. “I can’t race,” he says. “T drive a cab and am a freelance writer for Marathon & Beyond. We’ || never see another Clarence DeMar. The Boston Marathon has lost the color—with runners winning against all odds. That time will never come again.”

Another John Kelley, this one the Elder, who competed in a number of marathons with Clarence DeMar, is retired and living in East Dennis, Massachusetts. He is the grand marshal of the Boston Marathon on an annual basis. “I was waiting on the rubbing table after the 1935 Boston Marathon,” John recalls. “He came up to me, shook my hand, and said, ‘We got your running out of the way.’

“T won Boston in 1935 and 1945 and placed second seven times. He was a very honest and fair person. Years ago I and several other runners went to his house and he wore a white sweater with a blue V-neck—the University of Vermont colors. He was very gracious—a good host.”

Another fine runner, Edward F. O’ Connell, of Winchester, Massachusetts, who ran for Tufts University as a miler, has a different perspective of a visit to the DeMar house. “His wife was there, and we were served some apple cider. I would have expected something a little more substantial. The DeMar

James B. Goldsmith DEMAR@HOME ® 69

household was somewhat parsimonious. Clarence, while competing, wore long shorts that looked like today’s basketball players’ shorts. He always had a knotted handkerchief covering his head.”

William “Will” Cloney worked at the Boston Herald for 27 years and retired in 1956 as sports editor of the Boston Post. He currently lives in an assisted-living facility in Duxbury, Massachusetts, but his memories of Boston Marathons past are crystal clear. “I spent 37 years managing the Boston Marathon—the last 15 as director,” he recalls. Cloney remembers when newspapermen asked DeMar about the race he had run earlier that day. “‘I’m too busy, don’t bother me,’ he’d reply,” said Cloney. “It didn’t make any difference who you were: sports editor or reporter. He was a tough guy. He didn’t like newspapermen, even though he worked with them. He used to say, ‘[race sponsors] give you a watch [as a prize] that didn’t work.’

“Today he probably wouldn’t do that well,” Cloney continues. “He was always a shuffler—a good competitor in his day. A gruff guy who didn’t make friends easily. A pretty sardonic guy. Today marathon runners are all different—characters who are real athletes. I used to cover all the 10K races and marathons. I bumped into him in my early years and his late years. I was the first president of the Association of International Marathons in the 1970s.”

BILL RODGERS’S PERSPECTIVE

It’s fitting that we end our story of Clarence DeMar by talking with Bill Rodgers, a four-time Boston winner. This is Bill’s perspective of Clarence: “Primarily the [most frequent] winner of the Boston Marathon of all time. And he was one of the top American marathoners of all time—ahead of his time. Not that many runners were doing high mileage then. I read Marathon [DeMar’s autobiography]. It’s a very good book. His training makes him a classic prototype of his era, [with the characteristics of] a modern-day runner, almost a professional.

“T think DeMar, because he’s not alive,” Rodgers continues, “his history and persona will be known only by the real followers of the sport. They just don’t know about him; one in 100 does, maybe. Maybe there should be a trophy awarded by the BAA in his name to perpetuate running, to keep his character and history alive.

“Runners today are mostly professionals. In the past it was a part-time job. A blend of qualities came together that made him an all-American sports hero, almost a myth. I never met him, but it’s a real good story. I like his son, whom I met at the Class of 2000 award ceremony in Utica, New York [at the Long Distance Running Hall of Fame].

“Clarence dominated Boston and was one of the best in the world. The sport is more global today. For pure running ability, Paavo Nurmi, a Finn, was the top

MRHS ) LIFETIME CENTERS

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James B. Goldsmith DEMAR@HOME ® 71

A striking Italian black marble monument was dedicated in 2001 to the late Clarence H. DeMar on his birthday, June 7, in Melrose, MA. Shown left to right: Barbara (DeMar) Roberts; ex-mayor, Patrick C. Guerriero; Bill Squires, Sr, who organized the event; and Charles Rodgers, Bill Rodgers’s brother.

runner in the world. Frank Shorter is the greatest American runner of all time. He didn’t do it at Boston, but he did it in the °72 Summer Olympics. Clarence is a wonderful figure in Boston—that is one fine record. It probably won’t be broken. Nobody has won Boston four times in a row. It’s one heck of a major challenge.”

The words that are associated with Clarence DeMar (feisty, ornery, principled, caustic) can be capped with “legend.” An ordinary man living an ordinary life on a 16-acre farm in Reading, Massachusetts, who regularly went out into the world and established himself as a force to be reckoned with in ; road racing. Sort of like Clark Kent and his alter ego. Pe

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The Completion | of the Circle

The History of the Toronto Ultra Came Full Circle During 2001.

BY JOHN REMINGTON

ORA few years now, ultrarunners in the Ontario, Canada, area have talked

about organizing a fast 100K race to have a World Challenge qualifier on our doorstep here in Toronto. We’ ve had to travel to Victoria, British Columbia, or to the United States for a fast 100K course since our local race, the Niagara 100K, is held at the end of June. Niagara is a very scenic race where runners twice pass the famed Niagara Falls, but it is always very hot, making for an interesting but less-than-fast race. Tales of putting together a flat, fast 100K course in Toronto often involved the large consumption of yeast beverages, and nothing seemed to go any further.

Our complacency was rocked off its foundations in December 2000 when Ed Alexander, the president-for-life of the Ontario Ultra Series (OUS), up and resigned when the start of the 2001 series was only four months away. Gord England stepped forward and put together a group of concerned ultra folk, and suddenly the idea of a 100K within the confines of Canada’s largest city became feasible as an OUS event.

I must admit to being involved in the plot to ultrasize Toronto. Although I had no experience as a race director and no running club ties, I proposed a 100K race for September or October 2001. The new board accepted the proposal immediately, with the caveat that it be run in March or April to launch the 2001 OUS series. Without the connection to the glue that is the OUS, I had no hope that the new 100K would be born.

After a meeting with my team, Leslie Nigh, we agreed that we would put onarace that we could both be proud of, a race that would signify the renewed commitment of the OUS to increase the numbers of Ontario ultrarunners. Leslie and I were about to be launched on an odyssey we had not foreseen.

John Remington THE COMPLETION OF THE CIRCLE Mi 77

TO THE WORLD WIDE WEB!

From the outset I used the Web to find runners, to get sponsors, and to complete race details. For the first time in history, an OUS race would be created in hyperspace! A grand idea, certainly, and one that largely worked since there is no way the race could have gone off without the communications the Web provided. However, there were times when I thought the actual race might end up a virtual one.

One snowy January day after night duty, Leslie and I settled down in front of the computer screen with a rather nice bottle of red wine and began searching for likely companies that might be willing to get involved with our insanity. We hoped to get a prize for each runner, but we weren’t desperate. We had definite concepts as to whom we wanted as sponsors. Montrail shoes has a nice Web site, so I e-mailed the company explaining the concept of our race and asking for help. It didn’t hurt that they are Leslie’s favorite shoes.

We also contacted Marathon & Beyond by e-mail because I have been a subscriber since the first issue and I love the magazine. I tried to hit on a few others that declined, but we’ ll try them again next year.

RACE DATE? COURSE? WHAT COURSE?

The March date seemed a bit cold to us, but we were trapped by the boxes on the calendar since we had to put on the run before the April 28 Ganaraska SOK. Someone suggested we schedule for the first week in April, but we declined since that would have put us up against the Buffalo 6 Hour Distance Classic, directed by Carl Pegels.

Picking a date became more a process of eliminating dates that would not work and going from there. The date that emerged from the jumble was April 14, 2001. As soon as we settled on the date, things began to happen with frightening speed.

Running Free, a local store, came up with $150 for our OUS registration and promised bib numbers and draw prizes. (All dollar figures cited in this article are Canadian dollars.) The Ontario Masters Association offered us its race clock at a very reasonable price. I began contacting ultra Web sites and magazines to get out the race publicity, and Leslie got her brother-in-law, a designer, to work on a logo for the sweatshirts I had ordered from Running Free.

Toronto is blessed with a long, complex system of trails through the city. From the roadways the trails appear flat, but they are riddled with deep ravines left over from the last Ice Age. One such trail system is the Humber River system, where the Parks and Rec Department had installed a bridge fording the upper Humber River in summer. There was a 5K segment that seemed ideal for

our purposes, as it slopes gently down from one large park to another smaller one. The trail crossed four bridges as it meanders along the Humber River, weaving through copses of trees, over golf courses, and through parks, and passes underneath one of Canada’s major highways, the 401.

The bike path is six feet wide and very much underused and is mostly in perfect condition. Our major problem was that no race had ever been run on the course, so we had no idea whether our enthusiasm was overriding common sense. The other problem we faced was that during the winter the path was under two to three inches of hard ice, so measuring it accurately at that time of year was impossible. We were also concerned that an out-and-back 5K might not be fast enough. And would it be boring? Could we even get the necessary permissions from the city? Since we were naive novice race directors, we took an attitude of “Oh well.” All that would have to wait for the spring thaw since the race had been announced and runners were sending in their entries!

HISTORY IN THE MAKING?

We were under the assumption that we were at long last bringing an ultra to Toronto; we felt we were launching onto a dark sea with a torch held aloft, the first explorers to bring a major ultra inside the city limits.

Then Esmond Mah dropped me a line to mention that the previous Toronto ultra champion, Ron Flint, might consider helping out. Toronto ultra champion? Where did Toronto get an ultra champion?

It turned out that between 1981 and 1986

Esmond Mah (left) and – Rolly Portelance in the = 1982 Toronto 100K. d

‘COURTESY OF JOHN REMINGTON

Toronto hosted a 100K in April. Our “new” 100K would be the first of the new millennium but the seventh 100K road race held within the city’s borders. I began to root out whatever history I could find about the previous 100Ks. I titled what I found about the inaugural 100K “1981—Massive Beer Bill!”

George Kolesnikoy, as race director, started the Toronto 100 on April 11, 1981, with five brave runners armed only with a map of the city on which they could follow the course on their circumlocution of Toronto. Over half the course was on public roads while the other half was an adventure featuring bike paths, hiking trails, and even Toronto’s beach! As is common in our sport, the four finishers had never raced 100K before and the only DNF was John Kendall of Burlington, who had finished the Western States 100 and the Old Dominion 100 in less than 24 hours. Sadly, he was felled at 30K with a thigh injury and stopped at 40K.

During the heat of the race, Ron Flint passed the marathon mark in 3:43 and was unchallenged as he finished in 8:57:32. A relative newcomer to running finished second in 10:49:24. Esmond Mah passed the marathon mark in 4:16 in his first 100K and hasn’t stopped running them since then.

George Kolesnikov came in third with 13:33:33, and Alan Woods was a close fourth in 13:44:45. After the race the five runners and support crews quaffed $303.60 worth of beer and food. And that was at 1981 prices! That budget frightened me as the “new” race director, as inflation alone would saddle our race with a $25,000 beer bill.

1982—RON REPEATS!

The Toronto Sunday Star, April 4, 1982, had a half page on the second annual Toronto 100K race. The ever-smiling Ron Flint defended his title in 9:12:43 as rain and wind made for miserable running. The title of the newspaper story is terrific—“Stretching Pain For 9 Hours And 62 Miles.”

Again, there were only four finishers, but the great Rolly Portelance pressed Ron as he finished in 9:50:10. And of course Rolly is still out there running ultras.

The organizers had also added a 50K event, which was won by Esmond Mah in 4:44:37 with three runners finishing it. The beach section of the course contained a surprise, as it was high tide and the storm pushed some of the lake onto the beach. This section became a survival scramble as runners had to scamper up the steep Scarborough Bluffs and take to the woods at the top.

The race, although small, had been well organized by the Longboat Roadrunners Club of Toronto. But it was about to take a giant stride forward when, for the 1983 race, ultrarunning legend Al Howie entered. It was immediately assumed that a new course record was guaranteed.

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Ron Flint (right), near the 30K mark, being paced in the 1982 race.

There was also interest in the entry of Wally Herman, a 57-year-old runner from Miami Beach. Wally is still running marathons and ultras today, but we’re unsure whether heis still wearing white gloves as he did in the 1983 race. The entry fee was astaggering $5 and the Brooks shoe company came aboard as sponsor. The race now boasted detailed course maps and splits every 10K. Theera of adventure had given way toasprinkling of organizational fury.

The day of the 1983 race began beautifully. A field of 31 took the start, the 50K and 100K competitors leaving together. The field was accompanied the entire way by a parade of local runners traveling by foot, bike, and car.

Karl Massfellar from the Burlington Runners was first master in the 50K with a respectable time of 5:13:49. The digital clock made the time more authentic, the mechanical stopwatches now long gone. Still, Karl’s fluid intake was more a bow to the crude origins of ultrarunning than to modernity: copious amounts of water, one can of V8 juice, and one bottle of beer. In Toronto, electrolyte drinks and energy gels were far in the future.

Second to Karl was the indomitable Norm Frank, 51, who hailed from Pittsford, New York, and third was the even-more-famous Sy Mah who, at his death, had run more than 500 marathons. Lorna Rickey was the only female finisher, winning the 50K in 5:30:14; she had run a 50-miler the weekend

before. The overall winner of the 50K was 36-year-old Doug Barber from Owen Sound, who turned in a 3:25:55.

Al Howie, the 37-year-old from Victoria, British Columbia, won the 100K as expected; his 7:30:31 crushed Ron Flint’s course mark by 87 minutes. This was Al’s personal best at the distance.

Terry Martin from Barrie, Ontario, was a close second in 7:43:19, and Bob Manson from Thunder Bay, Ontario, was third in 8:25:04. It was Terry Martin’s first of what would turn out to be numerous ultras. The first five finishers all beat the old course record. Incredibly, Al Howie had four weeks previously set the Canadian 50-mile record in Vancouver with a 5:35:17.

1984—TERRY MARTIN RETURNS; WORLD AGE-GROUP RECORD SET

After his debut in ultras the year before, Terry Martin came back for another 50K and beat Al Howie’s course record by uncorking a 7:27:56—roughly a 7:10 pace. Adele Milicevic, 57, of Phoenix, Arizona, was the first woman and set a Canadian open women’s record and a world age-group record as she finished in 10:47:54. Sadly, details of this historic race are sketchy.

In 1985, Jim Pellon from Encino, California, beat Terry Martin and broke Terry’s course record by running a 7:09:17. Chocolate bars and ERG (a forerunner of Gatorade) were provided and bikes accompanied the runners. Although Jim Pellon was happy with his time, he had a few problems with traffic, as the route used open roads for part of the distance. Jim was running only his fourth ultra, although he had won one of those races the previous year: the JFK 50 Miler!

Terry Martin gave it his best but finished in 7:26:59, just barely beating his course record time of the previous year in spite of encountering stomach cramps at 15K. Rolly Portelance finished third overall in 8:20:35 and was the first master. The 50K was won by American David Kanners in 6:25:34. Jo Wells from Burlington, Ontario, was the first woman finisher.

Longboat Roadrunners of Toronto had once again hosted the race, and Ron Flint was one of the three race directors. The entry fee had doubled to a whopping $10, with $15 for day-of-race entries.

1986—STEFAN FEKNER

Big changes came again in 1986. The name became the Frontrunner 100K; the course became a 20K loop around Sunnybrook Park; the 50K start was moved back to 10:00 a.m. from the usual 7:00 a.m. start; the entry fee again doubled (to $20, although the new fee brought entrants race T-shirts, medals, and

finishers’ certificates); and a Canadian victor would for the first time in the race bring the winning time below seven hours.

“Tt’s certainly a challenge, but it’s not as difficult as a lot of people assume,” stated race winner Stefan Fekner in the wake of his 6:58:51, which translates to a 6:42 average for 62 miles! Fekner’s first-mile time was 4:52! It was only his second 100K; the previous year he had posted the fastest time in North America by running 6:47:20.

For the third time, Terry Martin took a second-place medal with a 7:53:03, which was good for first master. Interestingly, the first six masters runners finished ahead of the second open runner. Rolly Portelance was third overall in 8:42:02.

Fekner’s remarks about the course not being as difficult as assumed went counter to the feelings of most of the runners. The temperature reached 26 degrees Celsius [78 degrees Fahrenheit], which is well above normal April weather for Toronto. The heat, combined with cloudless skies, accounted for a 50 percent dropout rate for the 100K. Thirty-six men and 3 women began the 100K and only 20 finished. Jo Wells repeated her 1985 victory, but the heat wilted her, and she was nearly an hour slower than the previous year, finishing in 11:28:42. Arelay division had also been added, but none of the three teams entered could keep up with Stefan Fekner.

The 50K race was again won by Doug Barber in 3:27:09. The 10:00 a.m. start reduced the 24 male entrants to 16 finishers, although 7 who did finish broke 4 hours; there were no women in the shorter event.

After creating and then building the Toronto 100K into the premier 100K event in Canada, the organizers found the workload overwhelming. Simply put, the race was too successful. It became impossible to get enough volunteers, and so, reluctantly, the race was folded. No one in Toronto was able to revive the event until 2000, although the Ontario ultrarunning scene grew into the strongest in Canada during this period.

2001, AND THE CIRCLE IS COMPLETED

April 14, 2001, saw 69 runners line up to restart ultraracing in Toronto after a 15-year absence. The Grand Marshal was Ron Flint, who had won the inaugural race in 1981, had won again in 1982, and had not run an ultra since then. Like many others in the area, Ron’s interest was renewed by the ultra’s revival. In spite of a hamstring injury incurred during training for this race, he entered the 50K. Paced by Ed Whitlock (the oldest man in the world to have run a sub-3:00 marathon) and Chris Kelk, Ron stormed along to finish third overall in the 50K with a 4:01:50 and took the first mature male (50 and over) trophy by a huge margin.

‘COURTESY OF JOHN REMINGTON.

Levity before the start of the 2001 race.

Doug Barber came in second in the mature male category in an impressive 4:10:12; it was also his 100th ultra finish! Doug has continued to run ultras since the days of his 50K domination in the ’80s. He is now the race director of the beautiful Owen Sound SOK trail race in July. We were more than willing to give Doug bib number 100, but he preferred to keep a low profile about his accomplishment.

In keeping with the international flavor of the original Toronto ultraraces, the winner of the revived Toronto race hailed from Switzerland. Michael Misteli was running his second 100K in a six-day period, all in preparation for the Bronx six-day race at the end of the month. Michael was the favorite coming in since he had clocked an impressive 8:10 the previous weekend and had a personal best of 7:40. Well, he left Toronto with a new PB at 7:35:10.

Also of note was Henri Girault of France, who chose Toronto as his 445th 100K. He was happy to motor through the course wearing bib number 445. For all of his accomplishments, he claimed it was only the second time a race had honored him in this way.

2001 WORLD AGE-GROUP RECORD

Oh, yes. Then there was the additional story: Odino Soligo. Fresh froma year’s worth of leg injuries, the 80-year-old came into Toronto’s 50K ready to rock. He had his eye on the Canadian age-group record. But he should have sighted

Race director John Remington, right, with Henri Girault of France, who ran Toronto as his 445th 100K.

higher. By the time he finished his astounding 5:43:52, he had knocked 45 minutes off the world age-group record! It was a pleasure to bask in Odino’s glow when he pulled off his world record.

When we put together the revived race, I felt the course would be fast and Thoped runners would enjoy the 5K of smooth, noncambered, little-used bike path that gradually slopes downhill along the Humber River. Cross a few wooden and iron bridges and an abandoned road, then end in a quiet park after passing underneath the 401 Highway. Then a quick turnaround and follow the course back to the start. Then repeat. Although we had allowed a generous cutoff time, nobody needed it, as everyone finished within 13 hours.

I guess we underestimated just how fast the course would be. But if you’ re going to goof up, it seems better to goof up in the fast direction. It’s difficult to revive a “tradition,” however, because now several of the “old-timers” are talking about how we should also revive running the course through the city as an “adventure race,” as they used to do it in the old days. Time will tell.

The following references were consulted in digging up the history of the Toronto ultras.

Burlington Runners Times of 1983 contained an article on the ’83 race, provided by Ed Alexander.

Personal communications with Esmond Mah.

Toronto Sunday Star, April 4, 1982.

Doug Barber, personal communications and scrapbook.

The Globe And Mail, April 28, 1986. Bs

Toronto Sunday Star, April 2, 1986. Ae

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‘Run of Shame

You Can’t Go Home Again, and If You Try, There’s a Price to Pay.

BY JOANNE LANE

UMBAI [BOMBAY] is India’s fashion and movie capital. Its Hindi movie and music business, famous the world over as Bollywood, outgrosses its American counterpart in box office attendance every year. With its weekend cricket on the maidans [parks], double-decker buses, and booming international trading industry, it could easily be mistaken for a prosperous 19thcentury English industrial city. But India is the land of contrasts, and the nation’s population of | billion souls takes its toll even here in the most modern of cities. English-born marathoner Peter Lane took to the streets of Mumbai to find out where the real heart of the famous city lay and found a city still challenged by overwhelming human suffering and shame, despite being so fashionably hip and modern—reminding him of his early days in Coventry as an Anglo-Indian child caught between two worlds. His daughter, Joanne Lane, reports on his experiences.

“Levio” was a favorite game for the kids in the 1950s postwar suburb of Hillfields in Coventry. Two teams would take turns chasing and catching each other and putting the ones caught in a den with a guard unless someone could get past the guard and tag them into freedom. For my father, English-born marathoner Peter Lane, it was also a way of escaping the drudgery of inner-city working-class living and of being Anglo-Indian.

Peter says, “I remember running down the streets and alleys, hiding on bombed sites, jumping garden fences, for hours and hours on those endless British summer nights. .. . Perhaps this is where I developed my natural endurance, or it may also have been in the genes—a product of hardy Irish and Indian folk.

“Both fish and chips and chicken curry were on the menu at home, yet it was not easy being Anglo-Indian; shame was attached to it. I often wondered where I truly belonged ethnically.”

Joanne Lane RUN OF SHAME ® 89

Personal Fact File

| Name: Peter Lane Age: 56 | Club: InTraining, Brisbane, Australia Born: Northhampton, England Current residences: Brisbane, Australia, and Mussoorie/Jalandar, India Best ultramarathon: 68K, 8:30, May 28, 1999, Mussoorie, India : Best marathon: 3:07, Brisbane, 1997 | Best half-marathon: 1:29, Noosa, Queensland, Australia, 1998 Best 10K: 44:00 Number of marathons completed: 5

A DOWN-AND-OUT PLACE TO LIVE

In those days Coventry still bore the scars of World War II bombing. It was a poor area where many immigrants, especially from Asia, had concentrated to live in cheap housing. For Peter, this area—today known as the Midlands—was like the childhood described in Angela’s Ashes.

The overcrowding, migrant families, and poor housing were also a boyhood extension of India for Peter: running through the streets past Hindu, Sikh, and Muslim households with their exotic smells of curry and spice and the twang of Hindi music. Indians were his boyhood friends in a place where white faces and fish and chips were rare but curries abounded, and yet shame was attached to

Peter, standing back row right, on his school cross-country team.

being dark skinned. But it was still a world in limbo, and when Peter visited Mumbai [Bombay] recently, a run brought memories of Coventry flooding back.

Having clambered around the Himalayas in the north, run with singing Hindu pilgrims from the holy city of Haridwar by the Ganges River, and seen the magnificence of the once-mighty British Raj buildings in Bangalore, Peter no longer finds many surprises in India. But Mumbai was something he was not prepared for, even after 25 years in and out of India. This is the most fashionable city in India, with a music and movie industry famous the world over and remnants of the Raj era with stylish buildings, weekend cricket matches, and glamorous cafes and restaurants.

Yet within the city are heartlands of some of the most appalling human conditions. Huge slums, red-light districts, poverty-stricken families, Mafiatype dons, and communalist politics constantly remind Mumbai that she is still in India. It also reminded Peter of Coventry, where the line between East and West was blurred.

One-sixth of the world’s population lives in India and 18 million of them live in Mumbai. Fifty percent of these inhabitants live without water or electricity, and one report claimed that breathing air in Mumbai was like smoking 20 cigarettes a day. Since then “oxygen bars” have opened in the city: little use to millions who can barely afford to eat each day.

It is hoped the satellite city of New Bombay will relieve overcrowding, but it is estimated that by the year 2020 Mumbai could be home to more than 28 million people. Into this throng of humanity Peter began his run in the Mumbai suburbs with a desire to explore things that conventional tourists would not see.

“Running in Coventry playing Levio must have prepared me in some way for the running I did in India, and there were only a few cultural adjustments to make. But the shame was still there—perhaps the run of shame really began in Coventry,” he says.

MONSOON POOLS

An overnight thunderstorm from the retreating monsoon had cooled Mumbai but had left roads awash. A mass of humanity, animals, cycles, and vehicles negotiated the potholes, sewers of human feces, and dead cows along roads now enduring additional suffering under monsoon rains. It is impossible to describe the chaos that is Indian roads, functioning without any apparent rules, signs, or traffic lights—not quite the postwar England that Peter is used to, but he plunged in.

Running in India is an activity for only the most intrepid and dedicated of athletes. It is madness: exhilarating, exciting, and dangerous. Combined with the dangerous natural elements are religious forces in a country steeped in culture and ancient tradition.

As usual Peter was an object of interest, for in India no one runs but crazy foreigners. Yet folk chatted to him as he passed computer shops, chai [tea] stalls, subsi wallahs [vegetable sellers], doctors’ surgeries, a Hindu temple, and a business that made stone railway sleepers.

“Aap kahan se hai, sahib?” they called. [““Where are you from, sir?’”]

“Australia se.”

“Aap kya kar rahe hai?” [“What are you doing?”]

“Mai dor raha hun.” [“I am running.”’]

Peter passed a nearby playing field and then took to the back streets, running down alleyways and over ditches, avoiding cows, bikes, and cars, like his days in Coventry. “Here I was running through it all, contending not only with the

Peter’s runs in India are full of exhilaration and danger.

usual horrendous smell of an Indian city with decaying rubbish, animals, and sweaty humans but also with the smell of stagnant monsoon waters. Even above this an overwhelming smell hit me like a smack in the face,” Peter says. “For a few seconds I wondered what it was. It was human feces and urine and I was running through it!”

On the road ahead were little piles of human feces left by children. Some were still relieving themselves as he ran by. To their right in an open field was a toilet area for women, though most tried to avoid the shame of using it in daylight hours. Fifty meters farther on men were in their area in another field, openly urinating. It reminded him of the communal toilet that people in Coventry housing blocks used and how much it was avoided in summer when it ran over and was covered with flies.

As he continued he passed packs of scavenging dogs, goats, and crows fighting over piles of vegetable scraps left from the open-air bazaar held daily from sunrise. At least in India the animals kept the place relatively clean, as no other system is in place. Here Peter stopped to get his bearings and saw on his left a densely packed slum area known as Indira Nagar, home to an estimated 15,000 people who live packed in an area the size of three Olympic swimming pools.

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“All I could do was cry as I looked over what seemed an endless sea of shanty homes, which were made from everything conceivably imaginable and available: plastic, sacks, tin, wood—anything that had been thrown away. I’ve seen a lot of things in India, but nothing compared to the sight of the Indira Nagar colony. I decided to run through it and soon discovered there were only six major tracks, but overnight rains had left two impassable. Even our unused country tracks are better than these that were pitted with rocks, holes, and puddles.”

Local cyclists were skillfully negotiating these obstacles and glanced contemptuously at Peter as he struggled to get through. To make matters worse, whole shanties were surrounded by green stagnant waters and piles of rubbish.

“Yeh rastar bund hai, sahib,” a man calls to Peter. [This road is closed, sir.”]

“Dhanyavad,” Peter replies. “Mai dekh sakti hun.” [“Thank you. I can see.”’]

A local dhobi [washer man] was working in the olive-green, stagnant monsoon waters. Children passed him bearing the fruit of his labors: bright blue uniforms rushing off to school in auto rickshaws [three-wheeled cars] waiting outside the slums. “Amidst all this filth and squalor, you would wonder how or why anyone would bother to keep clean. But even the poorest Indians are clean, and people are always seen bathing in public under taps or in rivers. There are

COURTESY OF JOANNE LANE

amazingly high standards of cleanliness, very different from some of our street people in the West,” Peter says.

Peter passed undernourished naked children playing happily in the dirt with old cycle tires, too young to know of the hardships that lay ahead if they could survive disease, poor diet, and limited health services. “The life span in Indira Nagar must be very short with poor diet, no sanitation, but then who cares in a country with 1 billion people? My running gear, worth a paltry £35 pounds [$50 USD; 3,000 Indian rupees] would be more than many of these folk would earn in a year,” he observes.

Mothers in bright saris bathed and washed their babies and cooked meals on wood fires. They appeared saddened and prematurely aged by the burden of their lives, contending with poverty, disease, and hopelessness. In contrast, men were fixing bikes, doing carpentry, playing cricket or cards, and drinking tea—playing the privileged roles even amidst poverty.

But India is the land of staggering contrasts and for all the rubbish, disease, and despair in this slum, Peter noticed that people took pride in their

Visiting Mumbai

ry to avoid the monsoon season in India, which is humid and very wet. Between the months of September and April is the best time to explore Mumbai. By September the rains have usually gone, and it cools down over the winter period. A big festival in Mumbai is held in August and September.

Mumbai has more international flights than any other Indian center. It is also the busiest on the domestic flight network. Two railway stations operate out of Mumbai and long-distance buses depart from the state road transport terminal opposite Mumbai’s Central Railway Station. Mumbai has a good public bus system but also has incredible traffic congestion.

Mumbai has many cheap, moderate, and expensive hotels. Always ask to see the room before you pay, and check to make sure the water runs, the air conditioning works, and any other promised services are in place. Use a guidebook for recommendations.

It is best to run outside major cities and centers to avoid pollution and crowds in India. Runners are a novelty because very few Indians run and foreigners are an unusual sight. Be prepared for stares and even harassment. Women may be physically harassed (more annoying than dangerous), so quiet areas are best avoided and running aloneis not recommended. Itis also best to remember to drink only bottled water and not to wear skimpy clothes. Very few people in India wear shorts so be prepared to stand out. tL

surroundings. Flags flew proudly from the poorest of houses, some had tiled floors scavenged from rubbish dumps, and others even had television antennas. “Even the poor love television,” Peter says. “Maybe they can escape the hopelessness of their situation for a few hours by watching the mindless Hindi movies with their repetitive stories of love, song, and dance. After all, this is where they are produced.”

It reminds Peter of Saturday afternoons in Coventry when neighborhood people went to the cinema to forget their troubles for a few hours. He used to wander past the homes of wealthier neighbors in hopes they might invite him in to watch their television. A family member eventually scraped some pounds together to buy a television for Peter.

Just as in Peter’s neighborhood in Coventry, the affluent rich lived only a kilometer away from Indira Nagar in luxurious apartments, indifferent to and unaware of the suffering in their own city. A line of electricity pylons towered above the shanties, striding off to service these people. Peter followed the pylons and moments later emerged outside Indira Nagar, free of its odors, despair, and hope, running back along tree-lined roads, past tea shops, beauty parlors, computer shops, and kindergartens, to arrive at modern Mumbai.

“Tronically I was to talk for two days on aspects of shame—cultural, personal, and national,” he recalls. “There was plenty to be ashamed about in Indira Nagar. How and why could this place exist? Yet in spite of all this I had been challenged and inspired by the human spirit that never gives up even amidst the depth of hopelessness that would seemingly engulf life itself.” Just

as inhis childhood. Many of his boyhood friends had struggled against the odds and gone on to be lawyers and doctors, and he himself is in the health profession.

Mumbai has entered the new century with enormous environmental, population, and medical problems. It might be the center of trade and fashion in India with its head in the global marketplace, but these poor are a constant reminder of where the city’s real roots lie. It is not in the fashionable shops, computer stores, and movie industry but in the depressing poverty where life is really won and lost . . . in the slums of Indira Nagar. The real Mumbai. Bs

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The Secret

Shoe Sense Meets Common Sense at Your Local Running Specialty Shop.

BY DAVE KROMER

OR NEARLY a quarter of a century, I’ve been fortunate enough to have

matured—as a person and as a runner—among a handful of fellow running mates at the Bill Rodgers Running Center, a specialty running shop in Boston. The store was opened in 1977 by Bill and his brother, Charlie, along with a cast of friends and associates; the original store was in Brookline along the famed Boston Marathon course, not far from mile 21.

We were unique at that time. The term “specialty running store” had not yet come into existence. Nike, which had recently released its new “waffle sole” shoe, was still years away from its awesome growth and New Balance was being operated out of a suburban garage here in New England.

We were pretty confident that nobody was going to make it rich in this newfangled business, but our love of the sport seemed to make it all worthwhile. We all worked long, hard hours; we put in a lot of road miles together; and we certainly made sure that we had a lot of fun along the way. The store also served as a haven for many of the talented runners of that period who lived in the area, including Greg Meyer, who won Boston in 1983 with a 2:09:00.

When the store first opened, running was a whole different animal. Footwear has changed dramatically over the years, as has running clothing. Much research has been done in sports medicine, which was in its infancy in those days. Training methods evolved (not always for the better), the running magazines drew more subscribers, and the charity running movement was birthed and grew. Naturally, to survive and meet the needs of the running community, the Bill Rodgers Running Center has had to evolve along with the sport and lifestyle of running. In this article, I will tell you some of the things I’ ve learned over the years about running shoes, while also touching on how the store has evolved over the past 25 years.

WHEN YOU NEED SHOES

Let’s start with a simple question. Where do you buy your running shoes? They are the primary tool a runner needs to practice the sport, so even an experienced runner often puts in a lot of time and effort to find just the right shoe in a world where the makers are always changing, redesigning, and tweaking their shoes. Runners have far more options these days, including footwear stores in the malls, chain stores (such as Niketown), factory outlet stores, and even mailorder catalogs. These options may work for some people, but they certainly aren’t ideal for runners who don’t know exactly what they need.

Because every runner’s feet are different and every runner’s needs are different (most of our shoes can be used for any mileage surface, or goal), the purchase of running shoes should not be undertaken haphazardly.

You will frequently be on your own when shopping for anew pair of running shoes, since most high-volume stores seldom employ well-qualified, experienced runners as staff. And if you have a particular biomechanical problem, shopping on your own can have its pitfalls.

As an experienced runner, you’re probably aware that various running shoes are designed not only for different purposes but also for different foot types. Shoe sizes are no longer standardized, so your size may vary not only from one brand to another but also from one company’s model to the next—and even, sometimes, in different shipments of the same model.

Will there be someone to educate you regarding new models or the effect of revisions to an existing shoe model? In many high-volume or high-discount stores, you may be picking from defective shoes, discontinued models, only one particular brand, or only low-end (inexpensive) models.

Because of the limited choices, you may not even be exposed to some of the more successful shoes currently on the market. Having reviewed those tired mail-order catalogs from time to time, I’ ve noticed that their prices don’t seem to be any cheaper than the same models sold at our store. At a specialty running shop you get a warm body to assist you, someone with experience based upon sometimes decades of miles in a multitude of different shoes. And, of course, you can walk out of the store with the shoes under your arm—or on your feet.

The Bill Rodgers Running Center is now located in Faneuil Hall Marketplace. Like other specialty running stores in the United States and Canada, we provide a number of services, from assistance in identifying your foot type to suggesting appropriate footwear. We also advise on treating common running injuries and provide a wide assortment of literature on running, races, and local clubs. We carry numerous brands and models of running shoes, including training flats, racing flats, spikes, and walking shoes, along with an assortment of other sports shoes.

Dave Kromer THE SECRET OF THE SHOE M 99

This plaque honoring Bill Rodgers is embedded in the walkway near his running shoe store in Boston.

We have a seasoned staff with a wealth of practical knowledge about running in high school, college, and beyond. Although we don’t claim to be doctors, with many years of experience behind us we see many similar problems over and over, and as a result are familiar with some of the likely solutions. In fact, a number of podiatrists, sports medicine clinics, and physical therapists routinely send their patients to our store for proper footwear and guidance consistent with the treatment plans prescribed by their medical professionals. Naturally, we do not charge for our hard-won advice on preventing or getting through injuries. And if we can’t help you resolve your problems, we can refer you to any number of successful sports medicine resources in the Boston area, with which we have developed a working relationship over the past several decades.

OUR CUSTOMERS

The profile of our customer base has changed dramatically in the past 20 years. During the days of the initial running boom, it seemed like everyone was doing 70 miles a week. For many of our customers at that time, weekends were for racing, and they had loads of options in that regard. Many of our customers were serious, competitive runners, so we kept a wide variety of both training and racing flats on hand at all times.

In today’s world, moderation and low mileage seem to be the current trend. As a result, we now sell many more stability and motion-control shoes and fewer lightweight trainers and racing shoes. The majority of our customers

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today are not hardcore runners who ran competitively in high school and college. Instead, they are beginning runners who are seeking a moderate level of physical fitness through running as well as other forms of exercise. We see many people who are new to the sport and are connected to a charity that is helping them prepare for their first marathon.

Fewer customers today are familiar with the kinds of shoes that are available or know their specific needs. When it comes to success with their running programs, many customers have greater expectations about what shoes will do for them. The advice that we provide concerning training methods and injuries is now more frequently directed toward the novice runner. As a result, our role seems to have become more motivational and educational. This substantiates the need for buyers, particularly beginning runners, to get experienced, expert advice. The running world is still booming, it’s just the profile of the average runner that has changed.

I should mention that not all of our customers are runners. A fair number of senior citizens come to our store sporting various foot problems. They are referred to us by podiatrists and physical therapists with whom we’ ve worked over the years. These seniors want to be able to take a leisurely, pain-free walk around their neighborhood. Although there are some decent walking shoes on the market (the Brooks Addiction walker comes to mind), the technology of walking shoes hasn’t kept pace with running shoes. If you have a problem with bunions combined with a bulky orthotic that takes up a lot of space inside the shoe, you may have few options for a good, comfortable fit among the walking shoes. Yet many options are available on the running side of the aisle.

THE SHOES OF YESTERDAY AND TODAY

The characteristics of running footwear have also changed dramatically. Back in the ’70s, running shoes were more performance oriented; many were designed with the efficient, competitive runner in mind. The features on these models included minimal weight, low heel lift, curved narrow lasting, and moderate arch support. Shoes seemed to be contoured to the feet, thus allowing one to become one with the shoes. The shoe models were oriented toward making it easier to run faster. When I pull out some of my old, worn-out Japanese-made Tiger running shoes from the ’70s, I feel almost like I’m viewing a piece of art.

Nowadays, those straightforward, high-performance shoes have been virtually eliminated by models that place a priority on support and protection. Interestingly enough, in spite of the design changes and the fact that today’s runners are running fewer miles at slower speeds, I haven’t noticed a dramatic reduction in running injuries. What was state of the art back then seemed to

work out well for most runners. Some runners who enjoyed the classic shoes would agree with me when I say that “less is more.” (That’s pretty much in keeping with Rich Englehart’s piece on running shoes in the November/December 2001 issue of M&B.)

Shoe manufacturers today seem to be focusing the majority of their efforts on trying to meet what they see as the needs of the “average runner.” While some of the shoemakers still carry a token lightweight trainer, the vast majority of shoes on the market today are broad based in the forefoot, have lots of heel lift, are primarily straight lasted with exaggerated flared heels, and possess an abundance of antipronation technology. We’ve seen the sales of lightweight trainers, such as the excellent Asics Gel Lyte, virtually dry up in the last few years.

Almost a decade ago, I used to train in the Asics GT2000, the first edition of what is undoubtedly one of the bestselling designs in running shoe history. (The shoe is now known as the “2070.”) The shoe was basically a supportive, fairly heavyweight trainer. As I examine its structure next to the latest edition of the Asics Gel Lyte (the company’s current offering in the lightweight trainer category), the differences between the two shoes are clear.

Although the new Gel Lyte is aimed at the biomechanically efficient, nonpronating, faster runner, it has a much broader heel base and a far straighter last than the older GT2000, which was an everyday training shoe for the moderate pronator. Support and stability features have now even been added to lightweight trainer models that had never had—or needed—them.

Back in the ’70s the arch support systems were more minimal and less complicated than they are today. Many shoes of that era contained a spongy arch cookie that was tucked inside the liner at the arch point. If you had very flat feet or a severe overpronation problem and the then-available shoes weren’t working for you, the Spenco company made an arch support that could be inserted into the shoe. The high-tech solution at the time, of course, was the introduction by podiatrists of orthotics, to the tune of several hundred dollars per set. Unfortunately, not every podiatrist was adept at fitting and designing orthotics, and some runners found they were better off discarding the orthotics and going back to a more moderate solution.

The past 5 or 10 years have seen a revolution in over-the-counter arch supports, such as the Power Step and Rigid Arch. For the high percentage of runners who overpronate, these products have been a lifesaver. Today, podiatrists routinely send their patients to us to be fitted with stability or motioncontrol shoes along with one of these products to determine whether orthotics can safely be avoided. If you have very flat feet, pain in the bottom of your feet, or shin splints, you might want to try one of these products. We have seen numerous success stories in this regard.

TOO MUCH CUSHIONING

We frequently get customers who complain that they bought the most expensive, cushiony shoes on the market elsewhere, six weeks ago, and yet their feet are still killing them. With the emergence of various revolutionary cushioning technologies, many runners seem to have been brainwashed into an obsession with cushioning in the belief that it will miraculously solve many of their running problems. The theory that the more expensive a shoe is, the better it must be plays arole here, too. In these cases we frequently find that the problem relates to the runner’s foot type and lack of adequate support, and that it may be exacerbated by excessive cushioning. The solution may be a shoe that is less expensive and less cushioned, and the runner may be feeling better even as they’re walking out the door of the store. Although adequate cushioning may be very important for a heavier runner or for someone with a supinating rigid foot, too much of a good thing can cause its own problems.

When it comes to overpronation, Achilles tendon problems, chondromalacia, and various hip and back problems, instability is one of the most common culprits. Cushioning, by its very nature, breeds instability. As a result, finding just the right mix of adequate cushioning and support should be the goal. When I see those old black-and-white slow-motion films that follow a drop of milk as it falls onto a smooth surface, the impact spreading out across the pool, it reminds me of the sole of a highly cushioned shoe when a runner’s foot hits the ground. Wasn’t it Sir Isaac Newton who said, “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction”? Some biomechanical energy must be lost and extra effort required from the time that it takes the highly cushioned shoe to hit the ground, spread out, and allow a runner to move on to the next stride. Personally, I’ ve always found it easier to run efficiently in a responsive, moderately cushioned shoe.

SHOE SURVEYS

Although shoe surveys published by running magazines may be viewed as a means of assisting runners with their selection of shoes, they must be kept in perspective. The reality is that they are a form of promotional advertising. The instant these surveys appear in print, we get a flurry of knowledgeable experts who flood the store without realizing that the new revolution in footwear will not be available for another six months. More important, you can’t always believe what you read. On numerous occasions, models that were given high ratings as the latest, greatest, new best thing in the world of running don’t measure up to the hype.

In other instances, models that were described as having specific features don’t quite end up the way they were described. This is where your local

running specialty store can really help you out. Our store is almost like a laboratory. We see the trends and receive feedback about shoes from our customers on a daily basis, and we can pass this information along to you. Frequently, our feedback does not jibe with the promotional hype. While shoe surveys may be somewhat helpful and often provide entertaining reading, keep them in perspective, as it’s a lot wiser to deal with what’s going on in the real world than with what is touted on the printed page.

WHEN “IMPROVEMENTS” ARE MADE

Shoe companies may introduce what they consider slight modifications to existing models or may discontinue or replace models with, for the model’s fans, horrendous consequences. In some instances, a shoe manufacturer may affect the performance of an existing model by, for example, altering the cushioning or changing the height or position of the arch support. What the maker considers a minor alteration can hurt arunner whose biomechanical needs were met by the original model. For a number of years, Nike’s Air Structure was among our bestselling motion-control shoes. This was the shoe for customers with severe overpronation problems; few others worked as well. Nike eventually replaced this model with the Air Equilibrium, which was a disaster for these runners. When this change was made, a gigantic base of satisfied customers was completely obliterated. We sold only a few pairs of the new model and returned or gave away the remaining inventory.

One of the most common laments we hear at the store is “They discontinued my shoe!” After many years of frustration, I reached the point where, sometimes when I find a shoe that works for me, I buy 15 pairs and stockpile them against the day I would be forced to lament, “They discontinued my shoe!”

CONSULTANTS, NOT SALES PEOPLE

An individual who walks into a running specialty shop like ours finds that the shoe display wall has literally hundreds of models, including men’s and women’s training shoes, walking shoes, racing shoes, and trail shoes. That Wall of Shoes can be just as intimidating as The Wall that many ill-prepared marathoners know. Frequently, customers will say, “I’m taking up running and I’m here for some help in choosing some shoes.”

What follows is a brief discussion of what kind of running they intend to do, a look at their feet, and an educated consensus of where on the Wall of Shoes we’re headed. It is important to be armed with the basics of runners’ feet. Some runners have a neutral foot strike, a significant number overpronate (foot collapses excessively to the inside), and a small number are supinators (outside

Dave Kromer THE SECRET OF THE SHOE _@® 105

DAVE KROMER

The Wall of Shoes at Bill Rodger’s Running Center in Massachusetts.

foot strike). All shoe companies have specific models for each particular foot type.

If an individual does not clearly fit a particular category of shoe, moderation is the key. A person who appears to have slight pronation should go with a moderate solution instead of an extreme measure. For instance, some runners with significant overpronation who wear orthotics have great success with the top-of-the-line motion-control shoes such as the Asics MC Plus or the Brooks Beast. Others with the same condition find it easier to run in a lighter, less restrictive shoe since they feel that their orthotic is solving their overpronation problem. They don’t need a shoe that is going to do the same thing, so they take a moderate approach with the Asics 2070 or the Brooks Adrenaline GT.

As mentioned before, there are definite trends regarding which shoes are bestsellers. But good specialty running shops carry models from every reputable manufacturer and have no bias regarding manufacturers; they can help the runner by citing some of the pros and cons of various models. Most people who walk through our doors are already committed to making a purchase, so we are not technically sales people but rather serve as consultants who guide our customers through the maze of options that confront them. It is to the benefit of the customers and the consultants to find the right shoe because we want customers to run well and to run back to us when they wear out that pair of shoes.

If I’m dealing with an experienced runner, the first question I ask is “What shoes have you been running in and how have you been doing with them?” If the customer is certain about making a change, we continue from there, but I always advise that changing to another shoe may open up a whole new world or it may result in an expensive and frustrating nightmare.

NOT AN EXACT SCIENCE

Although foot assessment and gait analysis may be excellent tools for selecting an appropriate shoe, they should never be viewed as an exact science or in absolute terms. Many runners have one foot that is larger than the other, one leg that is longer than the other, or one foot that pronates and one that does not. Nevertheless, they do quite well without significant intervention. Although one might think that 120-pound Kenyans are the only people who can run in lightweight, unsupportive shoes, I’ve met senior division runners who have been doing quite nicely shuffling along at a 10-minute mile in their Nike Pegasus for years. Even in instances where imbalances do exist, the body finds a way to compensate and make the biomechanics work.

Although froma biomechanical standpoint Bill Rodgers is one of the smoothest runners who ever lived, one of his trademarks is that one of his arms swings out to the side. Some have theorized that this motion helped him to compensate for a leg-length discrepancy. During the height of his competitive career, Bill’s running biomechanics were studied at the Human Performance Lab at Pennsylvania State University. His swinging arm was plotted, and the scientists concluded that—considering his success—it would be foolish to mess with what worked. While foot or gait analysis may be helpful, the bottom line is that it should never be considered as absolute, only as a piece of the process. Don’t fix it if it isn’t broken.

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Dave Kromer THE SECRET OF THE SHOE Mi 107

Jason, our assistant store manager, is an overpronator who wears orthotics; he is a good example of an individual engaging in problem solving. Over the past 20 years or so, he has tried many of the bestselling motion-control shoes on the market. Although there have been pros and cons to every option, he has not been particularly ecstatic about any particular model, having found most to be heavy, clunky, and overly controlling.

In the past 5 years he has had the best success with two shoes. One was a pair of old Tiger Alliances, which had been sitting in his closet for about 20 years. The other was the Asics Gel Freak, a retro shoe that came out a couple of years ago. These shoes offer only moderate support, yet the added biomechanical efficiency they provided gave him a better result than the hardcore heavy-duty, motion-control shoes that are typically recommended. Naturally, the Freak was shortly thereafter discontinued. But being a veteran of such moves, Jason had stockpiled enough to last him for a couple of years. Once again, we had a situation of less being more.

FINAL THOUGHTS

The owners of many running specialty shops like the Bill Rodgers Running Center are not major corporations; they are runners just like you and me. They know they are probably not going to get rich in this line of work, but they draw satisfaction from working within the sport of running. Such specialty shops are usually actively involved in the local running community and provide financial assistance to local charities. The Bill Rodgers Running Center, for example, held its 25th annual Jingle Bell Run this past year, the proceeds of which go to CASA, a children’s advocacy program.

Unlike many professional athletes who charge large fees for their autographs, Bill Rodgers can be found in our store every year on the day after the Boston Marathon signing various items and encouraging runners to pursue their goals. With obesity and heart disease two of the major health problems in America today, stores like ours provide a valuable public service by encouraging people to take up running as a means to a healthy lifestyle.

With a knowledgeable staff that can assist you through the footwear selection process; advise you on medical and training problems; and provide you with superior product selection and literature on running, clubs, and racing, along with a good dose of motivation, how can you go wrong? Don’t overlook your local running specialty shop as one of the most accessible resources in your running arsenal. And next time you’ re in Boston, stop by and we’ ll ’ swap running stories. Pa

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Best of Times, ‘ Worst of Times

Determination Goes a Long Way Toward Success in a First Marathon.

BY LYNN SEELY

M ORETHAN 2,000 runners were signed up for this early October marathon in Scranton, Pennsylvania. The day before the Steamtown Marathon was to be run, I picked up my race packet and bib number. My number was 56. I stared at the number, puzzled.

“The first 100 numbers are set aside for the very best of the best, the elite runners,” the volunteer said as she thrust the sign-in sheet at me. As I bent over the form, I asked whether a mistake had been made in assigning me this number. She conferred with several officials. One turned to me and said, “No mistake. That’s the number you should have.” Odd! I was certainly not an elite runner. Yet it was certainly a good omen for tomorrow’s race.

Race morning arrived in a blast of cold air and a steady rain when I left the hotel at 6:30. Close by the entrance stood a small white bus. The driver looked out and glanced at my bib number. The door opened. I stepped up into the bus and out of the pouring rain. As I stared into the sea of tense faces, I realized my mistake. Each face was attached to an elite runner’s body. The driver must have assumed I was an elite runner based on my low bib number. I smiled as he asked me, almost as an afterthought, “Are you one of the elite runners?” I broke the awkward silence with an embarrassed, “Oh no. Not me!” I turned, a little red faced, to leave the bus. One of the elite runners gave me an encouraging smile. He knew we both had dreams this chilly morning.

A moment later I was back where I belonged, in the familiar throng of nonelite runners. I walked a few blocks to where the yellow school buses waited. Once on board, I settled down, lost in my thoughts. As soon as the bus jerked into motion, conversations sprang up all around me. I joined the nervous jumble of comments ricocheting around the bus as we rumbled through the dark toward the dawn—and the starting line.

Lynn Seely BEST OF TIMES, WORST OF TIMES m 113

CF csec cis

As we neared the end of the ride, silence gradually replaced conversation. We were all lost in our own unique experiences. The rain beat a steady rhythm against the window as I contemplated what lay ahead. The bus finally ground to a halt near the starting line and discharged its nervous cargo.

After a pit stop, I made my way through the throng and took my place. I waited nervously, shifting from one foot to the other. My heart pounded as the last seconds ticked away. A cannon was to start the race.

BOOM!

I was off! We were all off! I was running my first marathon! I fought back unexpected tears as I took my first few steps. Two years of anticipation and hard work, and I was finally here. Two years had passed since my back surgery. Two years since I had been told I would never run again. I had had many failed attempts at training for a marathon during the past two years and many reasons to give up, but I hadn’t. Now, after overcoming all the problems and pain, and battling asthma, I was finally here.

I was soon into a pace that felt comfortable. I had the sure and certain knowledge that I was going to do well today. The rain still came down in buckets, but unlike some runners around me, I didn’t care. My heart was filled with joy as the enthusiastic—and brave—crowds cheered us on. In spite of the bad weather, they jammed the sidewalks and porches. I smiled and waved back as I ran.

By mile 10 I still had plenty of energy, although I did start to notice some discomfort on the bottom of my right foot. I thought that was strange, but I dismissed it. I was still safely in the middle of the pack. All my training was paying off. I was on schedule to finish with a time of 4:30, and despite the fact that I had somehow managed to lose my inhaler, I had no breathing problems.

Butsoon after mile 10 the bottoms of both feet began to bother me more with every step. I had run races as well as trained in the rain and had never, ever had problems with my feet. Today was different.

I continued and by the 11th mile I realized what was happening. I was developing huge blisters on the very bottoms of both feet. How could this be happening? If the blisters had been on the heel or on the toes, I could have stopped to bandage them. ButI had no experience with something like this. This had not happened during any of my 24-mile training runs. As the blisters on each foot increased in size and volume, the pain reached an almost intolerable level. I had to change my stride to an awkward gait just to keep going. This created a new problem. My knees began to ache.

By mile 13 I was running alone in an odd, clumsy shuffle. Not a very pretty sight, yet it kept me running. My T-shirt was soaked and heavy from the rain. My feet were wet and the shoes soaked through. The pain was so bad that I didn’t see how I could go one more step. My leg muscles tightened up and my stride shortened to about 12 inches. Humor had helped me get through difficult times in the past, and it would help me now. I decided to name my awkward stride “the Steamtown shuffle.”

A sag bus that picks up runners who need to drop out of the race came by and slowed down. Gee, it looked inviting! But wait! I couldn’t afford to think like that. So I started talking, not caring what the people on the bus thought. I looked down at my knees and feet, then shouted, “No! Quitting is not an option. Deal with it!” One runner on the bus gave me a weak smile and a thumbs up as the bus slowly drifted away.

ONWARD IN SPITE OF IT ALL

Imade it to mile 15 still running slowly in my awkward shuffle. I glanced at my watch often and I tried to figure out how many miles I had left and how long it would take me to finish. I couldn’t quite put the information together in my head. I had passed the point where a drop in carbohydrates equals a lack of mathematical skills.

I was at mile 20 when I began to believe that I could make it to the finish. For some reason my math-deprived mind began to tell me I had only 5 more miles to go. I knew in one moment that the marathon has 26.2 miles. Yet somehow 26.2 minus 20 began to equal 5.

The rain had finally worn itself out and the weather turned much warmer, to the point where the humidity had to be nearly 100 percent. No breeze moved the oppressive air. My breathing gradually became more labored, as though I were trying to breathe under water. I kept moving, placing one burning foot in front of the other. My mantra kept time with each step. “Don’t-quit. Keepgoing. You-can-do-it.” I tried to imagine how far away the finish line was but still couldn’t make the numbers come out right. My mind wasn’t working clearly. I had been running for hours. How many? I wondered.

It was around 22 miles that things suddenly took a turn for the worse. I suffered an asthma attack. For a moment I panicked as I realized that I didn’t have my inhaler with me. My throat closed and for a moment I could not inhale. I stopped moving, stood completely still for the first time in hours, and willed myself to be calm. I tried inhaling just a tiny amount of air. It worked. Gradually, over the next few minutes, my throat reopened and I was able to regulate my breathing, though it was labored. I was able to run again, though I had to move even slower than before. I crested a hill and encountered a race official. He looked concerned as I shuffled past. He called out, “Do you want to stop? Are you having any trouble?”

I answered over my shoulder. “No thanks. I had a problem with asthma a little while ago, but I’m OK now.” I knew my body. My breathing was getting easier with each step. The worst was over. I knew from experience that I would not have another asthma attack.

A few minutes later I was startled as I first heard, then saw, an ambulance. It raced up behind me as the siren proclaimed an emergency. It sped past me a short distance, then skidded to a stop. Two medics jumped out and ran to the back of the ambulance, then flung open the back doors. Very dramatic. One medic stepped up inside the ambulance’s yawning rear while the other spoke in my direction. “Ms. Seely, you need to get into the vehicle, so we can evaluate you.” I was confused by this turn of events. How did they know my name? Oh, yeah. The race official had seen my number. “Uh… wait a minute,” I muttered. “I’m not stopping! Why would I want to do that?”

Thatremark made perfect sense to me. However, they looked dumbfounded upon hearing it. They explained that someone had called 911 and reported my location, name, and number. Furthermore, I needed to get inside the ambulance, so they could assess my condition. From their viewpoint, it was areasonable request. I stopped near the back of the ambulance and stared in.

AN AWFULLY TEMPTING OFFER

One medic had already untied the gurney and pulled back a sheet. Oh, that gurney! That lovely gurney! A wonderful, comfy-looking haven of rest was

=< SSS SSSSS A > SS N

SS SS oS SSS LS

SS SS SSN SSSe

SES SSF SS

MICHAEL HUGHES

only a few inches away. I stared at it longingly. There was a big fluffy pillow, clean, white inviting sheets. Ah. Beautiful, dry white sheets! Warm blankets!

Gazing at the gurney, I envisioned myself crawling up and getting into that waiting bed. Pulling up the ever-so-warm blankets where I would receive sweet rest, oxygen, and relief from the pain of burning feet and sore knees. No more struggling, just blissful, heavenly rest and a ride all the way to the finish line.

Whoa! Wait just a minute!

I snapped out of my daze. No way!

I politely refused to get in and stood on the road as I signed papers stating that they had advised me to stop and to get in but I refused their service.

The medics had delayed me for only three or four minutes, but it seemed like a lifetime. I’m sure they thought I was nuts. But I know my body, and I was confident at that point that I could finish the race. I restarted my patented “Steamtown shuffle” and watched as they drove away and faded from view. Riding across the finish line was not an option.

My mind cleared long enough for me to realize I was four and one-half miles from the finish. My breathing was improving. I certainly was not going to quit now. No way! I looked at my watch. As things now stood, it was questionable

Lynn Seely BEST OF TIMES, WORST OF TIMES mm 117

whether I would make the finish line in six hours, the time the finish line was scheduled to close. My hopes of finishing in under four and one-half hours were long since dashed. But my hope of finishing was not diminished.

I came to the steepest hill on the course. Each step was an experiment in willpower. Each step caused me to wince in pain. But I made it and crested the top. I knew then that I would certainly finish. And then I was a mere mile from the finish line. I increased my painful, awkward shuffle.

When I was only blocks away from the end and could see the finish line, I still was uncertain whether I would make it in time. Didn’t they close the gate to the stadium in the Comrades ultra in South Africa? I began looking for sinister gates. Now I could see the clock. It indicated that I had been running for five hours, 52 minutes. But my mind was fuzzy and I wasn’table to calculate how much time those last two blocks would take. Would I make it across the finish line before the big “6” came up on the clock?

FRIENDS AT THE END

At that point I saw afew familiar faces and heard one voice cheering louder than all the others. It was my husband, “All right, Lynn, you did it! You did it!” I picked up my shuffling pace as my burning feet screamed at me. I ignored the stiff legs and painful knees and finally crossed the finish line!

Iimmediately bent my head down as the beautiful, hard-earned finisher’s medal was placed over my head and settled around my neck. A silver space blanket was placed over my sagging but proud shoulders. I had done it! It had taken me five hours, 53 minutes, and it wasn’t the 4:30 time I had planned. But it was a finish, nonetheless. I had done it!

Running has taught me a lot about myself. I have learned plenty about determination and the true nature of my character. Frankly, I like what I see. I use running as a method of exploring my character and testing the parameters of my life. I go on when I want to quit and go faster when I want to stop. I have learned how to exert my considerable will over obstacles and roadblocks in my life and to win against formidable odds. I have tested my belief system about my limitations, and I have learned a great deal about human nature—my own and others’. There is great satisfaction in giving my all, trying my best, and succeeding by my own standard. Sometimes failure happens to be part of an experience, but it’s no matter as long as the effort was genuine. I do not run for approval, nor for the time posted at the end of the race. I run for myself. I run to embrace life. I run with a grateful heart because for now, for this moment, Icanrun. It’s a gift I do not take lightly. Make no mistake, itis not always easy. Yet in my opinion, easy does not build character—challenge does. Bsa

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Ny Most Unforgettable Ultramarathon

(And What | Learned From It)

BY GAY RENOUF

G RANDE CACHE, ALBERTA, CANADA, August 4, 2001—Are you tough enough? That’s the question posed by the Canadian Death Race, an event that bills itselfas Canada’s toughest endurance run. And that’s the question I set out to answer, along with six other members of my running club.

The race covers 78 miles of mountain trails, climbing and descending 17,000 feet and summiting three mountains. It’s more commonly doneas a five-member relay. Only 73 of the roughly 500 participants in 2001 were solo runners, myself included. All teams and soloists have 24 hours to complete the course, a time limit that seemed generous four months before the race when I signed up.

The Death Race has some very quirky features. To a great extent this is because it’s not a race, it’s an event, and some original—and devious—minds are behind it. Race directors Paul Bailey and Dale Tuck sent out mesmerizing pamphlets emphasizing its challenge, promoted it at the Boston Marathon, and developed one of the best Web sites I’ve seen, with its revolving skull and embrace of the cult of “Death.”

Dale Tuck, the course creator, answers e-mails as “Dr. Death” and signs off with “Train hard, train very hard.” The Death Race skull is everywhere in town: on posters and signs and tattooed onto most of the runners. Another of the quirky features is a raft crossing of the Smoky River at the 68-mile mark. The “Ferryman” will take you across the river (alias the River Styx on race day) at

Our Regina contingent, left to right: Back: Darryl Mailander, lain Harry, Denise Ackerman, Gary O’Connor, Stefano Diiorio. Front: Rick Minett (alias Johnny Venture), Gay Renouf. Five minutes before the start—we looked somewhat worse for wear later on.

Hell’s Gate, provided that you have the proper coin. That’s right. All runners must carry a Death Race coin—no coin, no raft ride.

My friends and [arrived from Regina, Saskatchewan—heart of the flatlands of Canada—hoping that our repeats of a local 200-foot hill would be enough to get us through the race. The night before the run, we were to attend a mandatory prerace meeting. I had expected some dry discourse on which sections of the trail were wet and whether bears had been sighted, along with the usual advice to exercise caution working your way through traffic on the eight miles of paved road. The meeting was a bit of a surprise. The race directors, along with many volunteers, dressed up as skeletons or ghouls and exhorted us to scream our lungs out, yelling over and over, “I am a Death Racer!”

STAGE 1, DOWNTOWN JAUNT, 12 MILES, 2:10

The morning dawned bright but cold—about 50 degrees. Thank God for no more rain. Grande Cache had had steady rain the month before the race, and we were promised muddy trails. The race started at 8:00 a.m. with a procession through town led by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, flags and banners, and a local musket regiment. Something I had dreamed about, feared and worried about, kept myself awake at night obsessively thinking about, had begun.

Gay Renouf MY MOST UNFORGETTABLE ULTRAMARATHON 121

Gay running through town at the start of Stage 1.

We had about three miles on the road through town and on the highway before we reached the trail. Not so bad. The trail was wide enough for two sideby-side runners at times, and the muddy spots could mostly be avoided by running at the very edge of the trail. Then we got to the first mud pit. There was no way to avoid mud here, so we splashed through, shrieking like 10-year-old kids.

Signs posted on the trees proclaimed, “Normal is boring.” Too right, I thought happily. At the end of the 12 miles, I could hear whooping and clapping—the noise of the first relay exchange station. Crowds had formed a gauntlet just after the final mud pit of this stage. With everyone watching and cheering, I wasn’t about to pussyfoot my way along the edge of the mud pit. And besides, this was a little one, only about four feet wide and long. I plowed right through and was shocked to sink up to my chest. The crowd cheered again. “Got another one! You should have practiced your swimming.” Hmmm. It was then I began to appreciate just how devious the minds were behind this event. I imagined Dale Tuck chortling as he dug a deep hole right before the exchange station. Dr. Death is evil!

STAGE 2, FLOOD AND GRANDE MOUNTAIN SLUGFEST, 17 MILES, 5:20

One of the challenges of the Death Race is the need to carry all food and equipment between aid stations. We would reach two emergency stations stocked

with snacks on stage 2, but I wouldn’t see my crew: husband, Mike; and son Conor for another six hours. So I changed my shoes and socks and loaded up with six hours’ worth of pretzels, Gatorade, and PowerGels; my emergency supplies; camera; and trekking poles, and was off.

Perhaps I should rephrase that. I was more “up” than “off.” Almost immediately the trail began to climb, and like most of the soloists around me I changed from jog/walk mode to a fast hike. Surprisingly, the trail was still muddy even though we were clearly gaining elevation. We were on a well-tread trail, so the view wasn’t anything special until we reached the summit of each of the two mountains.

The meadows surrounding the trail were vibrant with many varieties of wildflowers. However, the trail between Flood and Grande mountains was especially rugged. It was sort of a goat path, about the width of a sneaker, that disappeared and reappeared at will.

Fortunately, the trail was well marked with orange flagging tape, but I still couldn’t believe it was really a trail. “Curse Dale Tuck,” I thought. “No one in his right mind would consider this a potential race course.” I knew that in a month’s time mountain bikers would challenge this same course in the Canadian Death Ride, and to be honest I thought it would be impossible to take a bike through this stage. Rocks, roots, cliffs of 10 to 15 feet. I heard later that only 12 of 80 solo cyclists finished the course.

Finally I made it to the Cut Line—a 14 percent descent along the power line back into town to the next aid station. My faster running buddies, Denise and Tain, ran down this section, a feat that truly impresses me. They must have mountain goat blood.

The finish of stage 2 is exciting because it ends back in town, with cheering crowds and an announcer reading each runner’s profile. It was great to meet up

Ambler Loop 5000′

FINISH}

Grande

Smoky River Cache | Raft 4110″ |

CreekTrail 3030′

Daye 10 20

Canadian Death Race elevation map.

Gay Renouf MY MOST UNFORGETTABLE ULTRAMARATHON = 123

with Mike and Conor again. Mike brought me sandwiches, helped me tape my feet and change shoes, and resupplied me for the next stage. Mike reported that my faster running friends, Stefano, Darryl, Denise, and Iain, were looking strong and running well. Rick, who always runs as “Johnny Venture,” had more troubles. He had injured his knee a month before the race but decided to start anyway and see how far he could get. Knowing that he couldn’t run a step two weeks before the race, I was amazed that he had gotten this far. Gary, avery experienced ultrarunner, Gay posing with one of the many volun- was taking his time and was beteers dressed up in death themes. hind me somewhere.

STAGE 3, OLD MINE ROAD AND CITY SLICKER VALLEY, 13 MILES, 3:05

Stage 3 was supposed to be the easiest stage, so I tried to run as much as possible. The trail was wide and mostly downhill and I began to enjoy myself. I even stopped cursing Dale Tuck. To my left, the view was incredible. Far below was the Smoky River, which I hoped to cross by raft much later in the day. The last part of the trail is basically a creek flowing against the ruanners— 30 yards long and it was bloody cold! Stage 3 ends with two and one-half miles of highway running on a gentle downhill stretch. It should have been great, but it wasn’t because a storm blew in and the wind pelted us in the face with rain and sleet.

STAGE 4, HAMEL ASSAULT, 20 MILES, 7:37

Stage 3 finally ended, and I warmed up with soup and put on my jacket. I waffled about wearing tights or shorts and stuck with shorts since the rain had stopped and I knew that the three hours of steady climbing I was about to do would warm me plenty.

Gay at the relay exchange station between stages 3 and 4.

Big mistake. What I hadn’t counted on was the weather at the top of Mount Hamel. You know those films taken on Mount Everest. It was similar, with the wind blowing so hard you have to lean into it and prayer flags are flapping so hard you can’t hear anything else. I stumbled into the weather station hut at the top, and it was like arriving ata M*A*S*H scene. Stunned, hypothermic runners huddled and shivered, with three medics rushing around checking each new patient.

Iwas one of them. I shivered uncontrollably as my hands thawed painfully. The only good part was that I finally got to see my faster friends. Denise and Iain looked cold but still determined and in control. Johnny Venture, amazingly, was still hanging in there. I heard later that Stefano, Darryl, and Gary suffered the worst from the cold at the top of Mount Hamel. Like a dozen other soloists including the two leaders, Gary was pulled from the race here with hypothermia. Stef, wearing only shorts and a T-shirt, and Darryl reached the top at the same time as the sleet storm. Hypothermia shut down so much of Stef’s thought processes that he was left with what we all called “the lizard brain.”

The worst of the race is an out-and-back half mile along the ridge of the summit of Mount Hamel. You have to pick up a flag at the endpoint and return itto the weather station to prove that you made it. The wind was blowing at least 40 miles per hour, and at only three degrees it meant another 15 minutes warming up in the hut on the return. I think I really, truly hated Dale Tuck at this point.

Gay Renouf MY MOST UNFORGETTABLE ULTRAMARATHON = 125

Coming down Mount Hamel was treacherous, with lots of rocks and ruts. A sign said “Boulder Garden” but I didn’t feel like smiling at the signs now. I passed Johnny at the last emergency station. After running 56 miles and summiting three mountains, he was quitting. lexchanged a quick hug and some tears with him and kept going.

The sun sets late in northern Grande Cache, about 10:30 or 11:00 p.m. For me the darkness arrived as I came down from Mount Hamel. I had worried and fretted about this aspect for months before the race. I was terrified of bears and was worried about running in the darkness by myself. I had planned to find others running about the same speed and just stick to them during the dark stages. No one was there, and I was running by myself down the mountain in almost pitch black. Somehow, I wasn’t scared. I think I was too busy to be scared. The nighttime portion of the trail was exceptionally well marked with fluorescent dots every 10 to 20 feet, so I was too busy trying to keep on the trail to worry much about the bears that I never met.

STAGE 5, THE TUNNEL AND RAFT RIDE HOME, 16 MILES, 4:45

At last, lights and rock music emerged from the darkness, signaling the last relay exchange station. I began to dream that I might indeed finish this thing. Stage 5 is labeled the third hardest or third easiest stage, but there was nothing middling about it.

Two very steep climbs, a rock-strewn trail and another called the “Root Route,” made it mentally the toughest stage. It also had about two or three miles of running on a wide gravel road. No one was about and I hadn’t seen any orange flagging tape for at least a mile. Convinced I was lost, I started to sob and thought murderous thoughts about Dale Tuck.

Eventually a truck passed and reassured me that I was almost at the raftlaunching point. Yippee! It lasted only a few minutes, but the raft ride across the rapids of the Smoky River was incredible. At the time I crossed, the full moon was perfectly framed between the two stone pillars of Hell’s Gate, with the clouds uncovering it at that instant. It was a perfect moment, and I stopped wishing I was finished and was just happy to be there and running.

Coming into town, I promised myself I would run the last mile. My pride demanded it. However, as soon as the road reached Grande Cache it started uphill, so I let myself off the hook. With the few last flat blocks I began to run again. Twenty-two hours and 57 minutes since the start, no cheering crowds awake at this time, with only Mike running beside me, I passed through the finishing gates. Exultantly, I said the words I had wanted to say for months: “I am a Death Racer.”