On THE Road

WITH Kathrine Switzer

THE MIRACLE OF THE UNLIKELY

WASHINGTON, D.C., April— Twenty-five years ago this spring, I came down from New York City to visit my parents in Virginia. I was on my way to Florida to do a magazine article on fishing, of all things, and the great baseball player, Ted Williams, who was also a great angler.

Williams was a cantankerous, untalkative guy even then, and the magazine thought if they sent a woman reporter, Williams would be caught off guard. The sticking point was that the reporter also had to be a good fisherman. Williams had already sent two reporters packing, and he was losing what little patience he had left.

With a bundle of clippings about my running prowess, and some totally convoluted reasoning about athletic capability in one sport carrying over to another (you know, if baseball equals fishing, then running also equals fishing), [convinced the magazine that I was an ace fisherman. What can I tell you? I was broke, and the magazine was paying $500—huge money in those days.

Gar Williams (unrelated to Ted Williams), one of the top U.S. marathoners at the time (seventh at Boston ’61 and national marathon champion in ’65) lived in the same

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town as my parents, and I phoned him just to chat. Gar was the president of the Road Runners Club of America, an organization I had come to love as much as I hated the AAU.

Among other things, Gar told me about a race the next morning called the Cherry Blossom 10-Miler, which went around the Jefferson Memorial and the Tidal Basin. He convinced me that I had time to run it and still catch my plane. I needed to run 10 miles that morning anyway, so the race was an excuse to get out of bed and get moving.

It was a nice enough race, under the cherry blossoms and all, and outside of using it for a 71-minute tempo run, I didn’t think much more about it. I was recognized as the “first woman,” but that was no big deal—I

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think there was only one other woman who showed up. Races were popping up everywhere in those days, and most of the ones I entered I “won” the women’s division because there were no other women!

I went on to Florida and met the irascible Williams, who was indeed an intimidating figure. But with all his steam and bluster, he reminded me of Jock Semple; and if Jock and I wound up friends, Williams would be a piece of cake. All I had to do now was fish.

T’ve never believed that I was “talented,” andI’ ve had to work very hard at everything to get results. But nature is interesting. In moments of incredible pressure, when we totally focus, sometimes we can accomplish the impossible.

With totally artificial outward calm, I watched every move that Ted Williams made, memorized it, imitated it, and outfished him. Had the trip lasted more than two days, Icould not possibly have held the tension. But I only needed the two days, and the visit produced one of the best stories I’ve ever written. And one of my best lessons in life: Give it everything, even when the odds are against you, and you might do something amazing.

For various reasons, I haven’t been in the Washington, D.C., area for the Nortel Cherry Blossom 10-Miler since 1972. The years have brought prestige and thousands of runners to the starting line. One of the best sponsors in the business, Nortel (Northern

Telecom), has transformed the little event I ran in 25 years ago into one of the hottest races on the international calendar.

The race has also made me kick myself annually for 25 years because the entry form has a column of the women’s winning performances, beginning with my glaringly pedestrian 71 minutes right at the top. If I had known that history was going torecord me, I would have kicked it under 70 minutes for heaven’s sake, since everyone knows that even 69:57 sounds three minutes, not three seconds, faster than 70. This year, the race even had a special souvenir mug made for every woman who could run faster than my 1972 time. “That must have required an entire china factory,” I grumbled at Phil Stewart, the event’s tireless race director.

So it was fun to find myself invited to the VIP dinner the night before the race as one of the “originals.” After two glasses of wine, old friends at the table suggested that I actually run the race the next day. Since I needed 10 miles on Sunday anyway, I figured it was a good excuse to get out of bed and get moving.

Don’t worry. Nothing spectacular occurred because I suddenly put myself in a pressure situation. At age 50, I don’t do that any more. Not without preparation, anyway. Instead, Iran the race at about the same effort as I expended when I was 25. And that effort came out at 84 minutes. When I passed the 71-minute mark, though, I did wonder for a moment if it would be

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worth the effort to try to train down to that time again, something I did do at age 45. That notion passed quickly, and instead I decided to run my next Cherry Blossom in another 25 years, for the 50th Anniversary, which will be in 2022!

The performances of winners Peter Githuka and Valentina Yegorova were superb on a muggy day: 46:29 for him and 54:28 for her. (I wonder if Valentina picked up her souvenir mug in addition to her $5,000 check.)

But running never disappoints, and for that matter, occasionally produces an outright miracle. At the awards, I bumped into Norm Green, the legendary masters runner who rewrote the books for many male over50 and over-60 records. Five months ago, when I last saw 64-year-old Norm, he was recovering from prostate cancer surgery and was 25 pounds overweight due to intensive hormone therapy. At that time, he was wearing the most cheerful expression he could muster, probably because at least he was beginning to walk/jog again. At the time I was not only shaken by the possible loss of a friend, but also profoundly saddened by the demise of a great champion, the man who was going to show through his 60s, 70s, and maybe beyond, whatrunning possibilities the human body could hold.

Butat the Nortel Cherry Blossom, Norm was ebullient. He had just finished in 64:50 and won the 60—64 age group. Maybe Norm’s already shown what possibilities we hold. As he and his wife Dolores drifted into the

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crowd, they were as giggly as teenagers. The rest will be a bonus.

BOSTON, April—Last year’s “100th” Boston Marathon produced enough miracles to last another century. Plenty of conversations at the 1997 edition simply took up from where they left off 12 months ago, only in quieter hotel lobbies. In between, there was a big marathon held last Augustin Atlanta that precipitated plenty of drama in Boston.

Notably, that Boston’s three-time champion duo, Cosmas N’deti and Uta Pippig, were both felled by Olympic attempts. N’ deti didn’t even get to the starting line in Atlanta, so devastated physically and emotionally was he by his third-place Boston finish last year. By his own admission, he just couldn’ t lift it in time for a top performance in Atlanta and asked Kenyan selectors to take a worthy up-andcoming runner. (They wisely chose Eric Wainaina, who ran a brilliant 2:12:44 for the bronze.)

In Boston, N’deti was still in his trough, also fighting the residue of malaria, and was never a factor in the race. With a cool head wind, it was a tactical affair, made interesting by the feisty rivalry between the Mexicans and the Kenyans. Sucha battle played into the hands of someone who could hang off the back and then finish fast, and Lameck A guta, a perennial bridesmaid, was first down the aisle this time with a 2:10:34. His grin was as wide as the white finishing tape.

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Pippig began as a dicey favorite forthe Olympic marathon last August, because plenty of us felt she—like N’ deti—hadn’t recovered from Boston. In Atlanta she started too fast, stress fractured her right foot (or aggravated an existing fracture), became unbalanced, stress fractured her left tibia, and in trying torunon them both, tweaked her sciatica. “It wasn’t too fast!” Uta protested; “the pace was well within me, and the course was overrated. I just got hurt.” After hoping forthe same miracle that suddenly brought her around in Boston ’96, Pippig gave up on the Olympic Marathon at mile 20. Afterward, her doctor said NO EXERCISE at all.

For four months, Pippig sat in a sauna for an hour each day to raise her heart rate and sweat. In December, she began swimming. In January, she added cross-country skiing. In February she began jogging. Encouraged by a 40-minute 10K run in February, Pippig and her coach Dieter Hogen began serious track—not marathon— training. But by March 1, even the longer stuff was working well, and they decided on March 7 that some marathon training within the track workouts would only help, and that Pippig would run Boston just to see how well it was working.

That’s the short version, and with just those facts, my personal opinion is that without more healing and preparation time Pippig was crazy to run any marathon, let alone one that was a showdown with an Olympic champion. But there is much more

about the situation that can’t really be known or measured, like the fact that Uta Pippig is the darling of Boston or that her appearance fee is rumored to be about $175,000, which had an upward escalation to $500,000 if she won. Not many runners can afford to walk away from that kind of money, despite misgivings about short-term gain.

Entering center stage to this drama is one Fatuma Roba, the Ethiopian who surprised the world with her conclusive and seemingly effortless win in Atlanta. Talking to her in Boston was strange because she was confident to the point of arrogance. She made comments like, “I have no doubts I’m going to win because Ihave done all the necessary preparation,” or, “I am not afraid to push the pace and run from the front, and I will.”

And she did. Fatuma looked for all the world like Abebe Bikila’s ghost: a totally natural runner, metronomic, nohead bobbing, no arms or legs flailing, not even a flick of a foot or a glance behind. Roba led from start to finish, only letting the determined South Africans Colleen De Reuck and Elena Meyer go a bit in front to do the work on the hills. Every time Roba surged, she was away in a heartbeat, and it seemed to take a major transplant for the others to work their way back to her. For a while, that group included Pippig; then it was just Meyer and De Reuck, and then, poof! Roba just glided away.

With her Boston win in 2:26:23, Roba let the world know that the

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Olympics was no miracle performance. But while the Boston laurels were put on her head and she stood for the playing of her national anthem, Pippig came down the homestretch for an astonishing and highly unlikely fourth place 2:28:51, drawing cheers that drowned out the music. How often nature will allow the talented Uta Pippig to draw so deeply from her well will only be revealed in time, but for the moment her performance was exhilarating.

PHILADELPHIA, April—Further in the unlikely miracles department was the phone call I got two weeks later from my nephew Wayne, a swell kid I could always outrun until he managed in one week to turn into a 6-foot, 160-pound, 18-year-old GQ candidate who could run the 400 meters in 51 seconds. Whoa! We should have put one of those slow-motion, plant-growing cameras on him, because there are about two feet of growing that I missed.

Wayne was calling to say that his 4×400-meter high school relay team had qualified for the Penn Relays. Since the kid has only been running about a year, I thought it was neat that he could wind up his senior year at the greatest of all track carnivals—and get to see some impressive older runners, too. He was nervous, so I told him just to focus, run as hard as he could, and remember that there were hundreds of other kids like him, and nobody knew him from anybody else. It was a polite way of saying, “Try

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your best, and then you won’t be ashamed when you get your butt kicked.”

Wayne’s 4X 400 team didn’t make the finals, but the 4800 team did. And at the last moment, the coach decided to replace the third leg of the 800 relay with… Wayne, who had only raced the distance twice, with a 2:04 best.

When my 83-year-old mother called, shouting that Wayne’s team had won the Penn Relay’s High School 4X 800, I figured she couldn’t have it right, as my mother, God bless her, doesn’t know the distance around a track. So I went out and bought the Washington Post. And sat down. And read. In disbelief.

“Aunt Kathrine,” Wayne said later, “everyone was screaming, and there were flags everywhere, and I just put my head down and ran my heart out. Iran a 1:59. Aunt Kathrine, I passed a Jamaican\”

He passed a Jamaican! Never in the history of my family, or my husband’s, could anybody ever have dreamed of having enough fast-twitch fibers to pass a Jamaican. Did the team bus stop by The Shrine of Lourdes on the way to the meet, or is my little

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nephew made of gritty stuff? Roba, Aguta, Pippig—they all faded in comparison.

PITTSBURGH, May—“Well, sure, who doesn’t fantasize during those long workouts about winning like this?” said an amazingly composed David Scudamore when the TV reporter asked if in his wildest dreams he had ever imagined he could do this.

David Scudamore, a 27-year-old medical student from Davis, California, accepted an invitation from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center/City of Pittsburgh Marathon to take a shot at the Men’s National Marathon Championships. He had neverruna marathon before, but based on a 49:04 win in the 97 Pacific Association 10-Mile Championships, Pittsburgh race director Larry Grollman and elite runner coordinator Joe Sarver admirably wanted to give Scudamore and other up-andcoming young athletes the opportunity to explore their potential. It was a brilliant risk on pretty thin credentials, but more race directors should adopt this inclusive policy.

Starting well back of the leaders, Scudamore worked his way into the second pack, and moved with them at 20 miles as they overtook a tiring leader, Ed Eyestone. There were various surges, and then David Scudamore just took off, saying later that his coach had told him “not to start racing until 20 miles.”

Compared to the typically scrawny marathoner, Scudamore is an absolute Adonis. There have not been many 150-mile weeks in that body. Not yet, anyway. He ran with not a hair out of place, not a sweaty shirttail flapping, not a grimace showing until the last mile, when the effort finally showed. In plenty windy conditions, he won his first-ever marathon in 2:13:48, well ahead of a tough old Ed Eyestone, who rallied for second.

It wasn’t until Scudamore crossed the finish line and curled his arms over his head—just like Frank Shorter did when he won the Munich Olympics— that you got the sense that he, too, thought his performance was amazing.

Scudamore is either a throwback to the old generation—that is, of an unknown winning one out of the box, ala Chariots of Fire—or a harbinger of a new generation of runners who are out there, just waiting for a marathoning opportunity. While such performances are not likely, we’ve seen them just often enough not to classify them as miracles: Steve Jones (Chicago ’84), Mark Conover (Olympic Trials ’88), Tegla Loroupe (NYC °94), Jenny Spangler (Olympic Trials ’96), and indeed Fatuma Roba and Cosmas N’deti. Some of these runners had modest experiences at the marathon distance before their major victories, but others, like Scudamore, did not. You can’t really predict the breakthrough; you can only provide the opportunity. . . and maybe the focused inspiration, so that unlikely possibilities can produce very possible triumphs.

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Into the Valley . of Death

Twenty Years Ago a Runner Passed Solo from Death Valley to Mount Whitney. That Feat Lured a Cadre of Ultrarunners to the Most Godforsaken Course on Earth

De VALLEY. The name reverberates with ill intent and conjures up the most perverse meteorological conditions on the poxed flesh of the earth. Death Valley is a huge gouge whose steep sides have filled in its bottom with debris; the bottom of Death Valley lies 8,000 feet below the top of the debris, yet the top of the debris still represents the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere. The valley is so commodious and its sides so formidable that the heat trapped there in mid-summer can be reheated on subsequent days, which makes it the hottest spot on earth.

Death Valley’s landscape is so alien that in 1992 Russian scientists carted a six-wheeled, Martian probe vehicle to the place to run it through its paces in otherworldly conditions. The very expensive robotic crawler ran into an environment it liked less than Mars—Death Valley killed it.

German high-performance carmakers such as BMW and VW regularly send tough prototypes to Death Valley’s Stovepipe Wells (5 feet above sea level) in mid-summer so they can torture the cars on the 17-mile ascent to 4,956-foot Towne Pass. Death Valley is a caldron that will giddily boil flaws to the surface.

Twenty-six miles down the street from Stovepipe Wells lies Furnace Creek, the figurative and literal capital of Death Valley. It boasts a steady supply of water, amodern air-conditioned motel complex, an airport, a golf course, a post office, stores, barely-functioning restaurants, acres of date palms, and guests who speak enough non-English languages to keep the U.N. translation corps working overtime. Female coyotes in heat wander into Furnace Creek and lure guests’ dogs into the surrounding desert where they are eaten.

In 1913, Furnace Creek was merely a godforsaken ranch where its owners, Eagle Borax Company, attempted to cultivate date palms. As one of his tediumsplintering duties, ranch bossman Oscar Denton took daily temperature measurements. On July 10, 1913, Denton’s job turned deadly: “On the day that I recorded the greatest heat ever registered—1 34 degrees in the shade—I thought the world was going to end. Swallows in full flight fell to the ground dead, and when I went out to read the thermometer with a wet Turkish towel on my head, it was dry before I returned.”

WELCOME TO BADWATER, CALIFORNIA

Eighteen miles south of Furnace Creek squats Badwater, California, one of the most unattractive bits of real estate in the world. Badwater is a brackish pool of mineral-ripe water at the edge of the world’s most famous saltpan. The saltpan forms the crusted icing atop a rich mineral layer cake more than a mile deep that over eons has washed down from the sides of the mountains that imprison the massive valley.

Time easily fragments here. It took eons for the fill to wash into the valley— the driest spot on earth, a place that has gone as long as 18 months without measurable precipitation. It is not uncommon for evil-looking, rain-saturated

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clouds to pass over Death Valley and drop torrents as they scud by, only to have the rain evaporate before it reaches the ground, rejected by the hellish heat that rises from the surface. There’s even a meteorological term for this premature evaporation: verga.

Nothing is done half-ass in Death Valley. When it does rain there, vicious flash floods wash tons of minerals from the imprisoning mountains. The Black and Funeral mountains that form the eastern walls are over 5,000 feet tall, while the Panamint Mountains that form the western wall top out at Telescope Peak, which is 11,049 feet. That’s a lot of elevation drop during which a cocktail of water and minerals can mix, pick up speed, and get concentrated to crash on one point in the valley. At low points along the two-lane, blacktop road that winds along the eastern edge of the valley, California Transportation Department engineers have anchored concrete stretches of road. Road crews grew tired of replacing the blacktop every time a flash flood tore it up and carried it down to the saltpan.

If you screw up your courage and leave the little parking lot at Badwater and walk two miles west onto the salt—something you won’t want to do in midsummer—you’ll reach a spot that is 282 feet below sea level, the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere. If you set out a chaise lounge during summer, you’ ll be treated to the hottest temperature on the face of the earth. ‘You won’t have a hankering to linger.

Oscar Denton’s thermometer at Furnace Creek in 1913 was housed inside a white, louvered box elevated five feet above the ground so it could record an accurate ambient air temperature well shaded from the di- – iano rect sun. No human being has ever. BADWATER hauled the same apparatus onto the a ae saltpan near Badwater to record the aed FT, ele ll temperature, but rangers who work out of Furnace Creek conservatively

The Death Valley-to-Mount Whitney course starts here, in Badwater, the lowest point in the western hemisphere and the hottest and driest place on earth.

Richard Benyo INTO THE VALLEY OF DEATH @® 13

claim that the temperature in the middle of the Death Valley saltpan is consistently five to eight degrees hotter than it is at Furnace Creek.

Measure the temperature on the surface of the blacktop road that runs past Badwater at 4:00 p.m. on a July day, and it tops 200 degrees. You can literally fry anegg on the hood of your car. The word “frying pan” is muttered frequently in Death Valley, even by foreigners.

MANY PATHS TO DEATH

It would not behoove a visitor to underestimate the ill effects of the extreme temperatures in Death Valley. Some years ago two fiftyish couples parked their car along the road between Badwater and Furnace Creek and decided to walk up Artist Drive. One of the women began to feel unwell and returned to the car. When the others returned, they found the woman near death. She was suffering from a fascinating phenomenon known as “disseminated intravascular coagulation,” or D.I.C. Dr. Ben Jones of nearby Lone Pine handled the case. He’s an enthusiastic participant in all autopsies in Inyo County, a generous-sized county that includes Death Valley and Mount Whitney, that, at 14,494 feet, is the highest spot in the lower 48 states. “D.LC. is a curious condition,” Doc Ben explains brightly, “in which half of the blood in the body clots while the other half flows freely out of any body orifice it can find. It’s quite dramatic. The woman died, of course.”

In Death Valley, consuming massive quantities of potable water is essential for continued existence. Because of the near-zero humidity and almost constant wind, perspiration that manages to reach the surface of the skin evaporates instantly, which gives a person the illusion that one is not sweating, which lulls the unwary into a false sense of well being. In reality, a body at rest in the shade on a summer day in Death Valley will lose two gallons of water, which, left unreplenished, is enough to precipitate life-threatening failure in several major organs, including the kidneys.

badly misled adventurer who had been to Death Valley on several occasions and was suitably fascinated by its unearthly challenges, parked his compact pickup truck at Badwater and attempted to hike across the saltpan to the western mountains and back. From the relative safety of Ohio, he had somehow calculated that to lighten his load, he could survive the trek on three quarts of water, which he carried in a bandoleer-style canteen. It is more than five miles to the far side. He carried with hima 35mm SLR camera and an 8mm Sony camcorder. Unfortunately, Hodge had assumed that in mid-summer the saltpan is solid.

One lesson a Death Valley survivor learns early onis that there is a great deal of illusion in the world’s desert places. In the middle of the saltpan, Death

Valley’s meager annual ration of rain water soaks into the ground under the protective shell of salt. The brilliant, white salt crust reflects the intense sun back into the laser sky, thereby slowing the evaporation of the groundwater. When Hodge reached the middle of the saltpan, he broke through and sunk up to his knees in mud. The unanticipated exertion of trudging through the mud caused him to perspire his body’s precious fluids into the dry, greedy air. The three quarts of water he carried proved woefully inadequate. Through sheer determination and in part due to his good physical condition, Hodge was able to stagger out of the mud and to within.a half-mile of his truck, where several gallons of water waited on the passenger seat. But he collapsed. His body was found a week later, more than one-third of his body weight sucked away by the dry winds. The tape in Hodge’s camcorder chronicled the first half of his fateful journey. The camcorder’s batteries died as he reached the far side of the valley.

NATIONAL LAMPOON’S ULTIMATE VACATION

It is the rare American who freely chooses to visit Death Valley—rarer still in the middle of summer. Its very name discourages American visitors who have so many other benign options from which to choose. Imagine this bizarre scenario: “Well, kids, where do you want to go for summer vacation? Disney World, Yosemite Valley, the seashore, or Death Valley?” The thought of vacationing in Death Valley is macabre. Perhaps we should suggest it to National Lampoon as the next Chevy Chase vacation movie.

Certain foreigners, however, especially those shoehorned into countries with limited borders, flock to the vast confines of Death Valley. Germans, French, Spaniards, and Japanese zoom around the valley in white, air-conditioned cars, awed by the outrageous elbow room. They have nothing even approaching it in their countries. Before its recent ascension to National Park status, which brought with it a million-acre (or 1,600 square miles) expansion of its area, Death Valley measured 3,231 square miles, one and a half times the size of Delaware.

And then there’s the weather! German families drive through the valley, hermetically sealed in their Las Vegas rental cars, until they find a scenic vista area. As though they had rehearsed it at home for weeks in advance (which they may have), the car pulls off the side of the road, all the doors open at once, the family ejects with Prussian precision and lines up in front of the vast scenery, and pater swings the camcorder in a slow pan, commenting on the incredible heat, one-upping the friends and neighbors who decided to holiday once again in Switzerland. On signal, the family pours itself back into the car, and they are off in a whoooosh!

Foreigners will stop very tentatively when they see a runner slowly jogging along the side of Highway 190 at high noon on a perfectly hellish July day wearing a flowing white suit to keep the worst of the radiant heat off a frazzled body.

The tourists initially inquire after the runner’s health and then offer aride. When they realize that the runner is doing what he is doing of his own free will and not because his car has died, they reverentially inquire if they might shoot some camcorder tape. Even the usually aggressive Germans, who two days before had viciously elbowed the runner away from the postcard display rack at the GenJANE BYNG

The flowing white suits shown here help 1 St tF Creek keep the worst of the radiant heat off run- ahem ea ners’ bodies while they travel through the solicitous. This shot will really get desert of Death Valley. them one up on the neighbors. Let’s see the Schmidts top this!

AN ULTRARUNNING TRADITION

So just what are fragile human beings doing running along a frying pan road in Death Valley in the middle of July? Vacationing in hell—it’s become ultrarunning tradition.

The noble, wholesome sport of distance running took a decidedly wrong turn in the early 1970s when it entered Death Valley—as though the Greek long-distance messenger Pheidippides, patron saint of marathoners, had lost his way on the 24-mile road from the Plains of Marathon to Athens to bring word of the Athenian victory over the Persians and had, muddle-brained, headed into the desert like prophets and saints before him, looking for a shortcut to immortality. Death Valley gladly accommodates ill-advised shortcuts and just as benignly confers immortality.

In 1849, the Bennet and Arcane wagon train splintered from a larger train taking an established but lengthy southern loop (the “Spanish Trail”) to California and blundered into Death Valley while attempting to find a purported

shortcut. Brimming with dissension, the group arrived at what is now Furnace Creek and split up. A group of young and eager Ohioans knownas the Jayhawkers pushed west, burned their wagons to smoke the meat of their oxen near what is now Stovepipe Wells, and broke down their belongings into jerryrigged backpacks and made it out, accidentally finding silver along their escape route.

William Lewis Manly and John Rogers, two bachelors who had attached themselves to the wagon train when it left Salt Lake City behind schedule, struck out together in hopes of finding salvation for the remainder of the party, which stayed behind at Furnace Creek. After a harrowing two-week trip through several deserts to the pueblo of Los Angeles, the pair eventually brought back enough supplies on a one-eyed mule to save what remained of the train. The disaster occurred over the Christmas Holidays of 1849; had it been July, there would have been no survivors.

Today, we remember the disastrous Bennett and Arcane wagon train as the Manly Party because 45 years after the fact William Manly sat down and committed the whole sordid affair to paper in a book unassumingly titled Death Valley in ’49. Now, when the occasional winter rains rush downhill to the middle of Death Valley, the resulting inch-thick sheen of water that covers the saltpan before osmosising through it is known as Lake Manly. William Manly is immortal thanks to his taking a wrong turn into Death Valley.

MAD DOGS & ENGLISHMEN

Kenneth Crutchlow, a shamelessly self-promoting expatriate English adventurer, has also been immortalized (in some circles) for consciously using Death Valley as a shortcut to fame. In 1974, he bet a friend a pint of ale that he could pedal a bicycle from San Francisco to Alaska faster than a steamship could make the trip. He won, and besides his pint of ale, he and his bicycle won passage back to San Francisco on the steamship. Crutchlow is the madman responsible for igniting the competitive passion of ultrarunners to cross Death Valley.

“T was in New York,” he explains, “and I had spent the previous seven years hitchhiking around the world and had been involved in a number of different physical things. In those days, I was quite fit. Many friends of mine were with the Rupert Murdoch group, the News Limited of Australia, and I was always in their New York offices.

“J remember distinctly being there on Forty-Second Street, at the Daily News building, and text came over the wires saying that a Frenchman had just completed a walk across Death Valley. I’d heard of Death Valley, but I didn’t know much about it at all, so I said to myself, ‘Obviously he’s a man to be

congratulated, being the first to do something.’ And I didn’t think much more about it.

“But during the same time frame, a friend of mine, John Fairfax, was rowing a boat from the Canary Islands to Florida. He wanted to be the first to row the Atlantic Ocean. I went down from New York to meet John as he arrived in Florida. After he arrived, he was telling some silly joke that he couldn’t quite get straight, and he said, ‘Though I walk through the valley of death, I fear no evil, because I’m the biggest son of a bitch in Death Valley.’ He made an error in saying it in that manner. But something about it just triggered something in me, and I said, ‘You could never get across Death Valley, Fairfax,’ and he said, ‘T wouldn’t want to.’ Then he bet me a pint of beer that I couldn’t run across Death Valley. I accepted that bet. At that time, I did not know where Death Valley was. But this seemed like the thing to do. Fairfax had just done his Atlantic row, and I was looking for something to do. Death Valley was there, so I took his challenge.

“T decided to run from Shoshone [near the Valley’s southern border] to Scotty’s Castle [near the northern extreme]. And I decided it should be in July or August, because, obviously, if you do it any other time, you might as well come to Santa Rosa [the very temperate city in northern California where Crutchlow was living at the time] to run. I can’t recall exactly what year it was. I did that course five times, and after a while they all run one into the other. But it was the early 1970s.

“In 1973, there were not that many really serious challenges left to do in this part of the world. And aclose friend of mine at the time, Paxton Beale, was looking for something to challenge him. [looked on a map and noticed how close the lowest point in the western

In 1973, Brit Kenneth Crutchlow initiated the craziness of running from Death Valley to Mount Whitney.

hemisphere was to the highest point in the lower 48 states. So we decided to do it [Death Valley-to-Mount Whitney] in relay fashion. I considered it outrageous to even think that a man could do it alone. It was nearly 150 miles.”

IF AT FIRST YOU DON’T SUCCEED…

But when Al Arnold, a tall, large-boned health club manager in Walnut Creek, California, heard of their feat, he determined to be the first person to run the same course solo. He trained for the heat by lugging a stationary bicycle into a dry sauna, where he spent an hour twice a day pedaling himself into oblivion. After abortive attempts in 1974 and 1975 and a hiatus in 1976 to get married, Arnold successfully made the solo trip in 1977. It took him 84 hours. He nearly died of exposure on Mount Whitney when someone stole the cache of supplies he had left beside the trail for his eventual descent. Accounts of Arnold’s accomplishment forever closed the runner’s imagination to the shorter (and now deemed easier) Shoshone-to-Scotty’s Castle route as the official Death Valley course and elevated the Badwater-to-Mount Whitney course to prominence.

Inthe years that followed, hundreds of attempts were made to repeat Arnold’s feat, but the next successful crossing didn’t occur until 1981, when Jay Birmingham of Jacksonville, Florida, made the trip in 75:34. The following year, the New Zealand super-runner Max Telford, who had previously done Crutchlow’s original Shoshone-to-Scotty’s Castle course and who had previously failed in an attempt on the Badwater-to-Mount Whitney course, brought the Death Valley record down to 56:33.

In 1983, Greg Morris of Orange County, California, made a successful attempt, but it took him 76:38. Three years later, Tom Crawford and Mike Witwer of Santa Rosa, California, running together with a July 4th start, set a new American record of 70:27. Their ascent of Mount Whitney was especially grueling and perilous because an unusually violent series of February snowstorms in California left the mountain booby-trapped with decaying snowbridges, avalanched trails, and nearly impassable ice shelves. They were trapped overnight in the stone survival hut at the peak of Mount Whitney, where they huddled together against the bitter cold.

Crawford and Witwer made their 1986 attempt a month after their California Ultrarunners Club cancelled attempts to host the first-ever race on the course. All the necessary permits had been received, and 22 credible ultrarunners had signed up, but it became impossible to secure insurance to cover the support crews. Some potential crew members had inquired about the feasibility of bringing along their horses, while others asked after child care facilities. Crawford

and Witwer, well trained to participate in their own race but not eager to lose everything they’d worked a lifetime for in a lawsuit from an ill-prepared crew member, decided not to let their training go to waste.

On behalf of the California Ultrarunners Club, Crawford had conferred with the handful of graybeards of the course before he and Witwer put together the race, and they jointly came up with a sparse set of rules to govern the course:

1. All attempts must be made in either July or August.

2. Participants must stay on the prescribed course.

3. The starting line is the pedestrian crosswalk at Badwater; the finish line is the survival hut at Mount Whitney’s summit.

4. Participants must cover the entire course on their own two feet, without mechanical aids to locomotion other than shoes, and must do so completely under their own power.

5. To be credited with an “A.M. start,” a participant must begin the course between 6 A.M. and noon, so as to experience the maximum daylight heat of Death Valley.

THE CHALLENGE, THE RACE

Not long after Crawford and Witwer returned to their Santa Rosa homes, an article in the San Francisco Chronicle about their exploits rousted Kenneth Crutchlow from a growing athletic lethargy that had added 40 pounds of body weight to the Brit. Crutchlow tracked Crawford and Witwer to a local watering hole, ambled in, and threw down the gauntlet. He proposed a team race in July of 1987 between the United States and England; Crawford and Witwer versus Crutchlow and a female runner; the two elapsed times on each side to be added together, the low combined time the winner. The wager: a pint of ale and $1,000 to the winner’s favorite charity.

Crutchlow advertised for a female partner in Athletics Weekly, the legendary British running magazine. He received one response, from Eleanor Adams, at that time the world’s most accomplished female ultrarunner. Mike Witwer, faced with the possibility of being beaten by a woman, eventually withdrew— a mere two weeks before the race. Crawford, coming off the Western States 100, enlisted Jean Ennis, a fellow Santa Rosan who had just finished the Western States 100 herself, a few places behind Crawford.

David Bolling, a local newspaper reporter who had been periodically covering Crutchlow’s attempt to whip himself into shape, decided to cover the race first-hand by running with the eccentric Brit. Adams and Ennis figured that one of them would be the first female to complete the course. But 1987 was to be a particularly active year on the course.

Before the dueling Yanks and Brits could get to the course, Linda Elam and Adrian Crane were already there, and Elam became the first woman to complete the course (69:12). The story of her overcoming an upset stomach by vomiting vertically while lying on her back has became an ultrarunning legend.

Meanwhile, Crawford, Ennis, Adams, and Bolling arrived at Furnace Creek, but there was no sign of Crutchlow. There was word, however, that there was yet another runner on the course, Gill Cornell from nearby Ridgeway, California.

On the morning of July 31, 1987, with the 6:25 A.M. start nearing, Crutchlow finally arrived, garbed in a tweed business suit. He and his handler had decided to make the trip in one of the decrepit, diesel-powered London cabs that Crutchlow had at one time driven in a Santa Rosa taxi scheme, only to have to push the underpowered antique over Tioga Pass.

The “race” soon turned into high drama at the front and farce at the rear. Eleanor Adams went out fast and steadily and moved away. Crawford and Ennis stayed together and followed in her wake. At 7 p.m. on the first day they were still within a half-mile of the speedy Brit. In the rear, Crutchlow ambled along in a brand new pair of oversized New Balance shoes. Bolling grew increasingly impatient.

Eleanor Adams went on to finish the course in 52:45, beating Max Telford’s 1982 record. She called the course the toughest she’d ever encountered inher life. Unfortunately for her record, Gill Cornell, who ran into Crawford and Ennis on his way off Mount Whitney, had set a new course record of 45:15. Crawford (who became the first runner ever to do the course twice) and Ennis reached the peak in 58:57 but were then forced to spend a cold night in the survival hut.

Meanwhile, Bolling was Tom Crawford and Jean Ennis ascend from becoming more frustrated with — Stovepipe Wells in Death Valley toward Towne the pedestrian pace and lame _ Pass in their 1987 race against Great Britain.

antics of Crutchlow, who had begun to have his handler drive them into Lone Pine for meals, marking the course where he left it so he could return hours later to restart. Crutchlow and Bolling eventually reached the peak in 126:30, the slowest successful course crossing to that point.

While this race was going on, 68-year-old Richard Kegley of Washington state began his own trek from Badwater to Mount Whitney. He eventually finished in 113:09, becoming the oldest man to ever finish the course.

By the time the July/August 1987 window closed, there had been nine successful completions, three more than in the entire history of the course. Unfortunately, restrictions on the use of federal wilderness areas were being tightened. Rangers were attempting to control Mount Whitney from overuse. Crawford continued to pursue negotiations with the government entities he had worked with to put together the abortive race in 1986 (including former senator Alan Cranston, a runner himself) to “grandfather” the course in, which would have allowed continued unrestricted use of the course, even as regulations concerning the mountain tightened for other uses. Unfortunately, 1988 was about to see Crawford’s several years’ efforts ruptured in one day.

HI-TEC ENTERS—AND COMPLICATES—THE FRAY

The Hi-Tech shoe company of Modesto, California, a British-owned company specializing in hiking boots, decided to market a running shoe they planned to call the Badwater 146. One of its marketing ploys was to “road test” the shoes by putting together a race on the Death Valley-to-Mount Whitney course. They ran into a problem, however. The district ranger informed Hi-Tec that permits were needed to be on Mount Whitney after dark and that competitive events were illegal in federal wilderness areas.

Hi-Tec decided to hold its “event” anyway. Using a 2:46 a.m. start on July 28, 1988, eight runners left Badwater. One of the racers, Frank Bozanich, one of America’s premier road ultrarunners, lasted 17 miles before dropping out because of dehydration. Hi-Tec shoes had been given to all the racers, and in the heat of the day, the shoes began to come apart.

Four of the racers made it to the mountain, and against the district ranger’s ruling, they raced toward the peak. The most talented was Tom Possert, who struggled up the granite trail with help from his crew, which pulled him up portions of it. Chuck Jones, Linda Elam (becoming the second runner in history to do the course twice, after Crawford), and Douglas Mitchell eventually made it to the top.

Aware of the illegal ascents of the mountain, ranger and extraordinary mountain athlete Marty Hornick caught and cited three of the Hi-Tec runners.

As the story goes, Hornick calmly put up with extreme verbal abuse from at least one of them. The California Ultrarunners disqualified Possert on two counts: Ranger Hornick’s report that Possert’s crew had helped him up the mountain and the half-page photo of his crew doing so that appeared in a feature in People Magazine that Hi-Tec had arranged.

Any hopes of “grandfathering” the course that Kenneth Crutchlow and Pax Beale ran relay style and Al Arnold ran solo were buried with the Hi-Tec race director’s illegal assault on the mountain.

TWO BEERS TOO MANY

While the fireworks were exploding on Mount Whitney in July of 1988, Crawford had gathered the main characters from the Britain versus United States duel of 1987 on his Santa Rosa deck for a one-year-later picnic. Every participant and crew member from both teams was present except for Eleanor Adams. In discussing the mountain portion of the course, Crawford and Rich Benyo, who had covered the 1987 race for the Chronicle and The New Yorker, noted the fact that once you reach the peak of the mountain, you have to descend roughly 12 miles on foot before you can meet your crew and catch a ride home.

“But you’ ve already covered 12 miles of the return course,” Benyo said in the wake of too many beers. “Why not keep going?”

Crawford paused to blurrily think about that.

“You’re already on your way back to Badwater,” Jean Ennis observed.

Several more beers were popped.

“Let’s do it,” Crawford said.

The three raised a toast toward July of 1989, when they would “do it” by becoming the first runners to “do” the course in two directions—with an A.M. start.

Crawford and Benyo concentrated their training on teaching their bodies to “process” fluids. Building on Al Arnold’s dry sauna training, Crawford went to his health club and cranked up the dry sauna. Living more than 25 miles from the nearest health club, Benyo built a “hotbox” in his pasture and equipped it with space heaters. Unfortunately, Jean Ennis concentrated her training on overdistance, and in the spring of 1989 developed a stress fracture and was forced to cancel her attempt.

Both Crawford and Benyo went to the course armed with apprehension, Crawford’s based on his two previous experiences on the course and Benyo’s based on his long history of poor running in heat and poor performance at altitude. On their way into the valley, Crawford, Benyo, and their crews encountered Southern Californian Bill Dickey coming out of Panamint Valley. He had started the course the day before and would complete the course in 62:23.

Crawford went out from Badwater at a good clip, Benyo more conservatively. Crawford made the peak of Whitney in 55:08 and enjoyed a sunny day, but on the way back to the desert, he outran his body’s ability to process fluids. Near Keeler, Crawford began urinating blood and stopped until his body could catch up with his pace. From his folding chair he watched a black storm roll in on the mountain top, where Benyo was being assaulted by hail and lightning storms occurring below the peak, down through which he had to stumble to get off the mountain. Eventually, both completed the course, and on their way back to Badwater encountered Todd Leigh, who had started the one-way run while they were out doing the two-way. Leigh finished the course in 65:17.

HI-TEC RETURNS

A week later, Hi-Tech held its second annual race, this time with an evening start, with a new race director, and the “option” for runners to proceed up the mountain to the top after removing their numbers at Whitney Portal, a dozen miles from the peak. Bart Yasso of Runner’s World and twin sisters Barbara Alvarez and Angelika Castaneda successfully reached the peak. In 1990, the third annual HiTech race saw the emergence of the runner who would effectively become the King of the One-Way, Marshal Ulrich. A Colorado ultrarunner, Ulrich finished second to Tom Possert’s record-setting 38:18 in 1990, but after that year Ulrich began regularly to dismantle the course record, especially the “unofficial” Hi-Tec course record, which runs from Badwater to Whitney Portal, in deference to increasingly strict ranger scrutiny above the Portal. Not satisfied with his 1989 double crossing time of 170:58, in 1991, Rich Benyo returned to Austrian twins Barbara Alvarez and the course for another two-way Angelika Castaneda compete inthe Hi-Tech attempt. Tom Crawford also reBadwater “146” race. turned, hoping to set a one-way

JANE BYNG

A.M. course record. And Rich Benyo’s younger brother Drew came from Pennsylvania, attempting, in his typically perverse way, to be the first to do the reverse course. Crawford got off to a bad start, made up time on the mid-portion of the course, but faltered on the mountain and dropped out. Rich Benyo knocked 88 minutes off his one-way time, but faltered on the return trip, dropping out after 274 miles with what he thought was a stress fracture but turned out to be ligimentitis. Drew Benyo succeeded in his reverse course attempt in 90:14 and even enjoyed a spat of hallucinations in the latter stages, when he believed he saw a giant turtle.

A week later Marshal Ulrich, taking part in the 4th annual Hi-Tech Badwater “146” race, clobbered the oneway course record by doing 33:54 with a P.M. start. Earlier in the day Ulrich had travelled to Badwater to also begin an A.M. Start before returning to Furnace Creek to await the HiTec evening start while the A.M. clock continued to run. His 40:09 a.M. start time remains the one-way record for morning starts.

Not content with his DNF in 1991, Benyo returned to the course in 1992 for his third attempt at doing an A.M. start double crossing. He encounMarshal Ulrich owns the one-way, Badwater- _teredhotter temperatures than

to-Mount Whitney record for morning starts— he had enjoyed on the previ40:09. ous two outings, but managed

to better his time, and in the process became the first runner to do two double-crossings. A week later, Robin Smit, an eye surgeon from Fresno, California, who started the evening Hi-Tec race, became the third runner to complete a double. He reported hallucinating a cruise ship on the Badwater saltpan. Smit returned the following year to do a double again, and in the process became the first runner to go under five days on the out and back.

JANE BYNG

DOUBLE FEATURES

Double-crossings became the featured attraction in 1994. In the same year, Colorado ultrarunner Scott Weber went to near-obscene extremes and pulled off a triple-crossing.

The 1994 Hi-Tech race was the launchpad for three double-crossing attempts by U.K. runners Jack Denness and Steve Kerr, who had previously done the one-way, and military man Robert Lambert, who uncorked a very credible 118:57, to become the second runner to go under five days for the doublecrossing. Lambert had done the one-way the previous year in 67:24. Denness and Kerr did the double together in 161:20.

The year was also noteworthy for the number of runners Hi-Tech allowed in its race, in the process adding eight names to the one-way completion list (including the three Brits who went on to accomplish double-crossings).

Scott Weber, who did the 1994 Hi-Tec race to Whitney Portals, then went back to Colorado, pulled himself together, and returned to the course in August to do the first-ever triple-crossing. He climbed to Whitney’s peak, ran a reverse one-way to Badwater, then turned around and ran back to Whitney’s peak, then turned around and ran back to Badwater, in the process using up 257:32 of his summer vacation. Incredibly, Weber was so enamored by the course that he returned the following summer to run the Hi-Tec race again; he reached the peak of Whitney ina very credible 68:02.

Later in the summer of 1995, Rhonda Provost of Forestville, California, who had served as medical director of Crawford and Benyo’s double-crossings, became the first woman and the eighth runner overall to do the doublecrossing successfully, nipping under the six-day mark witha very focused 143:45. Jean Ennis, who had hoped to be the first woman to do the double-crossing in 1989, served as one of Provost’s crew members.

In 1996, Hi-Tech finally changed to an A.M. start to allow its runners to enjoy

In 1995, Rhonda Provost became the first woman and the eighth runner overall to do the double-crossing successfully.

the unique daytime temperatures of Death Valley. Milan Milanovich of Switzerland started with the expressed intention of doing a double-crossing and raced to the summit in 52:00, turned around and raced back to Badwater, shattering the old record by over four hours, knocking it down to 110:26! He plans to return in 1997 in an attempt to better his time.

OBSERVATIONS

As far as adventure run ultras go, the Death Valley-to-Mount Whitney course is a beaut. Its extreme altitude changes combined with its penchant for heat and wind conspire to offer a unique challenge. Death Valley in mid-summer can offer temperatures nudging 130 in the shade. In the direct sun, the radiant heat on the human body combined with the 200+ degree heat coming up off the asphalt road is tremendous. This condition can also be complicated by 30 to 40 m.p.h. winds that can last for as long as 11 hours without letting up. There have been some days when runners leaving Badwater have had to wear goggles and masks against the gusting sand.

Most Americans also assume that the route from Badwater to the base of Mount Whitney is a direct shot. It isn’t. There is nearly a 5,000-foot, 17-milelong ascent to escape Death Valley, then a descent to roughly 1,200 feet in the bottom of Panamint Valley, followed by an ascent to more than 5,000 feet coming over the Argus Range before dropping into Owens Valley (4,000 feet).

The most unpredictable segment of the course, however, is almost always Mount Whitney. A summer afternoon on the peak of Whitney can range from suntanning weather to hail and lightning storms that have on occasion taken lives. The challenge for ultrarunners on Mount Whitney is that they arrive saddled with all three of the contributing factors to altitude sickness: weariness, dehydration, and a rapid ascent. But like most seemingly overwhelming challenges, once Al Arnold proved in 1977 that arunner could in fact solo the course (something course founder Kenneth Crutchlow just four years before had assumed to be impossible), the veil was dropped. Through 1996 some 59 different runners have completed the one-way course. Marshall Ulrich holds both the course record and the record for the most number of successful one-way crossings (six).

When Crawford and Benyo agreed to attempt the supposedly impossible double crossing in 1989, they approached the challenge with fear and respect. They took tremendous precautions and ran the course conservatively, expecting at any moment to be crushed. Ironically, the completion percentage of double crossings overwhelms the success rate of the single crossings, likely due to the tremendous preparation and focus required for the double.

Richard Benyo INTO THE VALLEY OF DEATH @® 27

Certainly a number of runners who signed vaoon Course 3 poumait. | up over the years to do

Altitude % the Hi-Tec race have vso00 F Chart claimed to have a 12000 double crossing in mind, but did notreally. The typical doublespeak goes like this: “Tl see how I feel after the one-way attempt, then I’ll go for the double.” Veterans BRR | now tischand how a Selo)

‘ runner feels after doing Cf Bet ques a one-way attempt, are | ee : able to predict precisely World’s Tallest Building how runners expressing the “option” of a double would perform.

On the other hand, serious attempts at the double crossing have had an incredible 91.7 percent success rate. And here’s an even more incredible statistic regarding the double crossing: Of the 3,600 miles attempted on the out and back course, 3,574 miles have been completed. The author’s 1991 DNF after 274 miles is the only unsuccessful double crossing attempt made by runners who went to Death Valley with the double crossing as their Bs prime focus.

Whitney Portal

© The Oasis O Towne Pass Panamint Valley © Owens Lake b Lone Pine

Stovepipe Wells

Furnace Creek

° Badwater

Death Valley-to-Mount Whitney Master List, 1977-1996

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF SUCCESSFUL ONE-WAY ATTEMPTS

No. Year Name Country Hrs: Min. 1 1977 Al Arnold US 84:00 2 (eel Jay Birmingham US 75:34

3 1982

4 1983

a 1986

6 1986

7 1087

8 (8)

2 1987

10 1987 A] 1987 1987

(2 1987 13 1987 14 «(1987 15 1988 1988

16 1988 17 1989 1989

18 1989 19 1239 20 1989 21 1989 22 1989 23 1990 24 1990 25 1990 26 1990 27 1990 28 1990 29 1990 30 1990 31 1990 32 (93) 33 1991 1991

34 199) 35 199) 36 129) 37 1991

Richard Benyo

Max Telford

Greg Morris

Tom Crawford Michael Witwer Linda Elam

Adrian Crane

Gill Cornell

Eleanor Adams Jean Ennis

Tom Crawford (2) Kenneth Crutchlow David Bolling Richard Kegley Chuck Jones

Linda Elam (2) Douglas Mitchell Bill Dickey

Tom Crawford (3)# Richard Benyo# Todd Leigh

Bart Yasso

Barbara Alvarez Angelika Castaneda Tom Possert Marshal Ulrich Odin Christensen Jurgen Ankenbrand Kevin O’Grady Jack Christian Marvin Skagerberg Ed Ayers

Joseph Marchand Bruce Sherman Kenneth Thompson Marshal Ulrich (2) Richard Benyo (2)# Odin Christensen (2) Stefan Schlett

Don Choi

Robin Smit

Ben Jones

NZ 56/33 US 76:38 US 7027 US 70.27 US 69:12 US 69 12 US 45:15 UK 52:45 US 53 5/ US 58:57 UK 126:30 US 126:30 US 113.00 US 45:54 US 61:47 US 80:32 US 62:23 US 55:08 US 19:23 US 65,17 US 63/2)

AUSTRIA 66:00 AUSTRIA 66:00

US 38:18 US 40:51 US 45:05 GER 55:30 US 65:09 US 66:00 US 69:19 US 69:43 CAN 69.55 US 79:54 US 79:54 US 33:54* US 1755 US 43:28 GER 46:21 US 67:04 US 68:48 US 75:30 continued

INTO THE VALLEY OF DEATH mi 29

99) 1992 1002 1092 1992

1993 (903 1994 1994 1994 1994 1994 1994 1994 1994 1994 1994 1995 (925 1905 1905 1995 1996 1996 1996

199) 1996 1987 19389 1996 1936

Jack Denness Richard Benyo (3)# Joe Franiak

Robin Smit (2)# Marshal Ulrich (3) Ben Jones (2) Steve Kerr

Jack Speer Margaret Speer Joe Franiak (2) Mark Macy

Robin Smit (3)# Robert Lambert Bob Givens

John Shehadey Ben Jones (3) Marshal Ulrich (4) Bill Menard Robert Lambert (2)# Rob Volkenrand Steve Kerr (2)# Jack Denness (2)# Denise Jones John Rosmus

Joe Schlereth Lennie Lefler Scott Weber@ Scott Weber (2) Willette Ulrich Marshall Ulrich (5) Whit Rambach Rhoda Provost# Milan Milanovich# Marshall Ulrich (6) Judy Overholzer

Ceececeececeecececeeceececeeececec ect cece ce NANRNDRAARDADARRANRRAGAAAAARRAAAAAKRANANANA

SWISS US US

90:50 77122 39:46 68:21 69:50 72:08 72:30 97,02 97:02 41:08 51:20 5539 67:24 70:04 1855 90:30 93:25 49:49 5015 64:00 74:45 75:00 90:59* 400:09 400:40 78:08 92159 68:02 72:20 72:20 89:41 1138 52:00 55:08 55/30

a.m. STARTS/ONE WAY (RANKING)

Marshal Ulrich Milan Milanovich# Eleanor Adams Tom Crawford# Marshall Ulrich Judy Overholzer

40:09* 52:00 52:45 55:08 55:08 55.20

“July/August 1997

7 1993 Robin Smit# US po39

8 1987 Jean Ennis US 5857 1987 Tom Crawford / US 58 5/ 10. «(198 Jay Birmingham US 75:34 1 1992 Richard Benyo# US J) 22 12 1991 Richard Benyo# US 7755 12 1989 Richard Benyo# US 1923 14 1992 Jack Speer US 97,02 1992 Margaret Speer US 97:02

16 1994 Denise Jones US 97:44* 17 1995 John Rosmus US 99:32 18 987 Richard Kegley US 1132/09 19 ~=«1987 Kenneth Crutchlow UK 126:30 1987 David Bolling US 126:30

DOUBLE CROSSINGS

1 1989 Tom Crawford US 126:34 2 (9e0 Richard Benyo US 170:58 1997 Richard Benyo(2) US 157.58 B 1992 Robin Smit US 124:20 1993 Robin Smit(2) US 114:54 4 1994 Robert Lambert UK 1185/7 5 (994 Jack Denness UK 161:20 6 1994 Steve Kerr UK 161:20 Z 1994 Scott Weber US 17551 8 1995 Rhonda Provost US 143:45 9 1996 Milan Milanovich SWISS 110:26

TRIPLE CROSSINGS (WHITNEY TO BADWATER TO WHITNEY TO BADWATER)

1 1994 Scott Weber US 25/732 REVERSE COURSE 1 1991 Drew Benyo US 90:14 2, 1994 Scott Weber@ US 81:41 1994 Scott Weber (2)@ US 82:52 LEGEND:

#: one-way time recorded during double crossing.

@: one-way time recorded during triple crossing.

* In the cases of Marshal Ulrich in 1991 and Denise Jones in 1994, the runners travelled to Badwater earlier in the day of their attempt in order to make an official “a.m. start” before noon, then returned to Badwater later in the day to begin the journey with the Hi-Tec race group; consequently, their “a.v. start” total is different—higher—than their time from the Hi-Tec 6 p.m. start to the peak of Whitney.

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Beating

How the Exercising Body Cools Itself—Or Fails To

\ N JEATHER EXPERTS consider the United States and Canada temperate regions, but try telling that to a runner in New Orleans or Phoenix in July! The former feels like a sauna, the latter like a microwave, and evena social jog at dusk can be frustratingly difficult to a “Northerner” accustomed to less thermal stress. But even North America’s northern tier— from Winnipeg and Minneapolis to Toronto and Buffalo—can have sultry weather. True, if you endure a few weeks in this kind of weather, training “feels” more tolerable; but the training and racing pace you’re able to maintain is substantially slower than what you could do in cooler weather, even with comparable fitness. Why is this?

The laws of physics answer the question (Nielsen, 1996). The body must keep its internal temperature fairly constant, and any heat accumulated must be lost to the environment. The warmer our surrounding environment, the slower this heat transfer is, and the greater the trend toward heat accumulation. How do we accumulate so much heat from training and racing? How does heat accumulation slow performance? How do we remove it? How does training help in this regard? What else can you do besides training to manage optimally environmental thermal stress? Read on for the answers to these questions.

HEAT ENERGY PRODUCTION

Our body is only about 20 to 25 percent effective in converting stored metabolic fuels to energy for movement. The remaining 75 to 80 percent of exercise

energy production is in the form of heat. A certain amount of heat energy is essential to maintain the healthy body temperature of 37°C (98.6°F). Enzymecontrolled chemical reactions in the body function optimally a few degrees above this, making it quite appropriate for exercise body temperature to be in the neighborhood of 37.8°C (100°F) or more. However, your performance will begin to deteriorate at temperatures beyond 40.5°C (105°F), and cell death is essentially inevitable beyond 43°C (109.4°F). In short, relatively little heat energy can be stored.

During aerobic running, the heat liberated from metabolism amounts to about 955 kilocalories (4 kilojoules) per kilogram of body weight per kilometer of distance run. As you increase your running pace, your rate of heat production rises. For example, a runner with a VO,max of 66.3 ml/kg/min. can run at an energy production of 16.1 kcal/min. (5:44/mile), which permits a 2:30:00 marathon, whereas a runner with a VO,max of 76.2 ml/kg/min. can run at an energy production of 22.2 kcal/min. (5:04/mile) and complete the distance in 2:13:00. The increasing energy dynamics with the faster pace cause a greater rate of heat production. Thus, as mentioned earlier, it isn’t just fitness that contributes to how fast we can run. It’s also physics, because one’s pace cannot be so fast that metabolic heat accumulates; for a runner to remain in thermal equilibrium, the heat must be removed.

Shunting Heat Away from the Core

Some of the physiological mechanisms designed to dissipate heat in the body are similar to those which optimize physical performance. In both instances, blood is shunted from regions less involved in the exercise to regions more involved. The best example for performance enhancement is when blood flow is redirected primarily from the visceral region (gastrointestinal tract, liver, and kidneys) to the exercising skeletal muscles. The best example for heat dissipation is when warm blood is sent to the cutaneous region (skin) so that its accumulated heat can be lost to the environment.

Now youcan appreciate the challenge of trying to perform well in thermally stressful conditions. You will simply not be able to maintain the working pace that was possible in cooler conditions. Instead of greatly enhanced blood flow to working muscles, your body has to divert blood to the skin for cooling, which decreases the blood supply available to working muscles. As a result, your finishing times in warm-to-hot weather races are slower than those in cool-tocold weather events. Whether you are hiking across Death Valley or racing a half-marathon in Miami, when you’re performing in thermal stress, you have to determine early on what pace will be manageable throughout the activity without exceeding your threshold of heat accumulation.

ADAPTING TO INCREASED ENVIRONMENTAL TEMPERATURE

You’ ve probably read that over time it’s possible to adapt to hot, humid weather simply by training in such conditions. That’s indeed correct. However, keep in mind that this adaptation does not involve a rise in your body’s maximum tolerable core temperature. Instead, what’s occurring is that once you’re heatadapted, you have an improved ability to remove heat, and thus delay core temperature from rising to an intolerable level.

Several physiological mechanisms help this adapting occur. First, although training even in cool weather increases your blood volume, training in the heat increases it even more (values expressed in the scientific literature suggest anywhere from 300 to 500 milliliters extra, depending upon the quality of training, the training period, and the environmental temperature). This increased blood volume permits more blood to shunt to the skin for cooling before infringing on the blood supply needed for your working skeletal muscles.

Second, training in the heat substantially enhances your body’s sweat response, and as we shall see shortly, sweat evaporation is a major component of cooling. Sweat production starts to occur at a lower core temperature, and more sweat is produced each minute. The sweat is more dilute, that is, it has fewer electrolytes, such as sodium and chloride. Maintaining optimum electrolyte balance is particularly important for optimum neuromuscular functioning. Although it may seem unsophisticated, experienced runners who are in the process of heat acclimation know very well the practical value of licking a sweaty forearm arm and sensing its saltiness as they finish a run.

The essence of published research suggests that 90 to 95 percent of adaptation to warm-to-hot weather occurs within two weeks of roughly 60 minutes per day of moderate-intensity training in those conditions (Armstrong and Dziados, 1986). While a runner can gain a bit more tolerance to heat stress with a longer period of training in hot weather, as a coach I don’t recommend such an extended preparation. Prior to two weeks before a major competition, a number of fairly high intensity workouts are still on an athlete’s training schedule. It’s important that the runner execute these workouts with quality and a positive mental outlook. The risks of the runner completing them unsatisfactorily because of the hot weather do not outweigh the benefits of extending the adaptation period.

MECHANISMS FOR HEAT DISSIPATION

The body has four major heat transfer mechanisms: conduction [C als convection [C,], evaporation [E], and radiation [R]. Three of these mechanisms can

cause the body to lose or gain heat, depending on whether the body skin surface is warmer or cooler than its surrounding environment. Evaporation is solely a mechanism for heat loss. To determine whether the body will store or lose heat, sum the combined influences of these various mechanisms on metabolism [M]. Mathematically, heat storage [S] is thus summarized as S=M+ C,£C,+R -E (Aoyagi et al., 1997).

If you can understand how each of these heat gain/loss mechanism works, you’ ll gain useful information about how you can cope successfully with warmto-hot and humid conditions and thus be able to run at an elevated (training or competitive) workload with minimum slowing of your pace. Data from the 1996 Atlanta Olympic marathons will help illustrate the various aspects of heat gain or loss. A hot and humid Atlanta in mid-July provided the perfect laboratory forus scientists to study the potentially adverse consequences of the weather on athletes’ performances.

Convection

Convective heat transfer from your body increases when there is a breeze blowing past your body’s surface, and when the thermal gradient between skin temperature (T,,) and environmental (ambient) air temperature (T,) increases. Thus, on a cool, breezy day, you can experience considerable convective heat loss. Its effects are probably familiar to most. While standing in the shade on an otherwise calm day, you can easily notice the cooling influence of a sudden breeze. The ambient temperature hasn’t changed, but warm air surrounding the body surface has been convected away.

For the mathematically inclined, convective heat loss is calculated as C, = 8.3 X Wv X (T,) – T,), where the two temperatures are in °C, and v is wind velocity in meters per second. The units of conduction are watts per °C temperature difference per square meter of body surface area. The Atlanta Olympic marathons were scheduled to start at 7:05 a.M., just as the sun was rising. Using an estimate of 95°F (35°C) as an average skin surface temperature and fiveyear temperature averages for 7:05 A.M., we calculated that the expected T,,-T, differential would be substantial—as high as 22.4°F (12.6°C) at the start and decreasing to 18.4°F (10.2°C) by the finish (Martin, 1996).

On both marathon racedays, however, the wind was calm. Did this mean that the athletes experienced no convective heat loss? No, because the athletes created their own breeze while running. This cooling was highest initially, when the T, -T, differential was highest, before the environmental temperature started to rise. And the cooling was greater for men because of their faster pace. Josiah Thugwane’s Olympic gold medal performance of 2:12:36 (a pace of 5:03/mile or 3:08/km) gave him an 11.9 mile/hr. (19.1 km/hr.) breeze. By contrast, Fatuma Roba’s winning time of 2:26:05 (a pace of 5:34/mile or 3:28/

km) gave her a 10.8 mile/hr. (17.3 km/hr.) breeze. However, as ambient air temperature increased toward the end of the race, heat loss by convection started to decrease.

Conduction

As a mechanism for heat loss, conduction requires the presence of an adjacent cooler surface. A good example is what happens when you jump into a swimming pool after a morning run. The cooler water is an enormous heat sink, with body heat transferring rapidly to the cooler water. Competitors in the Atlanta Olympic marathons achieved conductive heat loss by squeezing wet sponges onto their neck surface, which promoted core cooling by reducing internal jugular vein and internal carotid artery temperatures. The runners also poured cool water onto their heads or other skin surfaces. The water stations were stocked with supplies well before athletes arrived, which meant that the fluids were at ambient temperature, not refrigerated. This lack of cool water was not an oversight. Although cooler fluids might have “felt” more refreshing, the benefit to the runners of cool water would have been negligible.

Those of you who have tried dousing your head with sponges or cups of water know that the potential benefits of conductive heat loss can be undone by other practical problems—the real risk of waterlogged shoes and socks, which can produce blisters as well as additional running weight. Some of the more savvy runners have attempted with varying success to counteract these problems by using small socklets instead of standard socks and by spray-waterproofing their shoes. weNLee

Radiation

The transfer of radiational energy occurs from a combination of long-wave (infra-red) radiation from the sun and nearby surfaces, such as streets and

buildings, and short-wave (ultraviolet) radiation from the sun. Infra-red energy accumulation is more critical from the standpoint of thermal stress because it represents heat energy. A familiar example is the heat that builds inside a car parked in the sun (even ona chilly winter day) due to infra-red energy accumulation. Another common example is the difference in how the air “feels” when you run on the sunny versus the shady side of the street, particularly with respect to the potential heat gain from running in the sun.

Heat can also be lost by radiation as well. As with convection, the extent of radiational heat transfer depends on the difference between skin temperature (T,,) and the surrounding mean radiant air temperature (T,,,)- Radiant energy is calculated as R =5.2 (T,,-T.,,,), where the two temperatures are in °C and the units are watts per °C difference per square meter of body surface area. The greater this thermal gradient is, the greater the potential for radiational movement.

The radiational component of heat gain or loss was an important consideration in the decision to schedule both Atlanta Olympic marathons during the early morning hours (Roos, 1996). The original plan was for the men’s marathon to occur at the more “traditional” time (dating back only to 1984) of lateafternoon/early evening to coordinate nicely with the closing ceremonies.

The switch to a morning start could not have been wiser. The expected race weather was cloudy and cooler conditions prevailing during the early morning, with a greater likelihood of sunny skies—and hot streets—near the end of the day. This exact scenario occurred. Skies were foggy-to-cloudy during almost all of both marathons, and radiational heat gain was unmeasureable. However, shortly before the last men’s marathon finisher crossed the line, the sun appeared and remained in full force the rest of the day. At the proposed 6:30 p.m. marathon start, the temperature in the sun was 36.3°C (97.3°F), which meant that the combination of hot pavement and continuing sun would have caused a net heat accumulation for the athletes even as they were standing on the street—without running! The early-morning start was indeed a blessing.

Evaporation

Quantitatively, the most effective mechanism for heat loss is evaporational cooling. The extent of this heat loss depends on the water vapor pressure difference between the skin surface and the surrounding environment, as well as the influence of an accompanying breeze. The greater the breeze and the lower the ambient water vapor pressure, the greater the maximum evaporation rate, and thus the greater the heat energy loss. Mathematically, evaporational heat loss is calculated as E = 124 x Vv X (P,,- P,). The two vapor pressures are measured in kilopascals (the metric equivalent of millimeters of mercury), and wind velocity (v) is measured in meters per second. Thus, evaporational heat

losses are greatest on a dry, breezy day, regardless of temperature. Under this situation, the water vapor pressure gradient is large. As relative humidity rises, the water vapor pressure gradient decreases. Evaporative cooling thus decreases as well, and if the two vapor pressures equalize (the relative humidity would reach 100 percent), evaporative cooling would cease to occur (even though you would still sweat).

During the Atlanta Olympic marathons, the relative humidity was very high initially (92 percent), dropping to 79 percent by 9:00 a.m. Thus, the athletes were sweating, but it didn’t cause much evaporational cooling initially because the water vapor pressure gradient between skin and air was minimal. However, as the race progressed and the humidity started to fall, this evaporational component steadily became more effective.

Although sweat evaporation is an extremely powerful cooling mechanism, remember that a large proportion of sweat is derived from blood volume. If sweat losses greatly exceed fluid replacement, blood volume will start to decrease, which in turn will reduce the amount of blood pumped with each beat (the stroke volume). Remember the formula for cardiac output—heart rate X stroke volume. To maintain cardiac output, and thus ensure adequate tissue blood flow, one’s heart rate must rise if the stroke volume decreases. This adaptation has its limits too, and cardiac output will soon start to fall. With it, the sustainable workload (training or racing pace) must decrease. Also, the resulting lowered perfusion of blood to the skin and the working muscles will cause inappropriate heat accumulation anda decreased oxygen supply to highly metabolic tissues. These two factors will also inevitably slow your performance.

During the first few hours of a very long run or a fairly long race, such as a marathon, your sweat production can range routinely from | to 1.5 liters/hr. and can even exceed two liters/hr. in some individuals (Gardner et al., 1996). Olympian Alberto Salazar fell into this latter category, and his extraordinary sweat rate may explained some of his difficulties with the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Marathon (Armstrong et al., 1986). As part of his preparation to endure what was projected as a potentially brutally hot Olympic marathon, Alberto underwent some physiological studies at the U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine at Natick, Massachusetts. Results of a heat chamber treadmill test at his anticipated marathon race pace of 5:00/ mile—with temperature and humidity similar to a “worst-case” scenario (30.6°C, 76 percent humidity)—indicated a potential 2.79 liters/hr. of sweat loss. On raceday, weather conditions were not as badas in the heat chamber, but Alberto’s race pace was slower (5:07 per mile, good for 15th place). Calculations made on the basis of estimated fluids ingested and body weight loss suggested that his actual marathon race sweat rate was 3.71 liters/hr., even higher than in the

heat chamber. Thus, it is not surprising that Alberto’s several super-fast marathon performances around the world have all occurred in cool-weather circumstances, where minimal sweating kept his fluid losses manageable.

The maximum absorption of fluid from the gastrointestinal tract during exercise is typically much less than sweat losses, averaging around one liter/ hr. (Coyle and Montain, 1993). However, it is unlikely that while competing at the marathon distance or less you could achieve that kind of ingestion rate. One important reason is that runners devote very little training time to perfecting the techniques of actually drinking on the run. Another reason is that the substantial shunting of blood away from the gastrointestinal tract decreases the total volume that can be absorbed. In Salazar’s case, one can imagine that even under the most ideal conditions of fluid ingestion, his sweat loss would still greatly exceed his fluid replacement.

In my own advising of such marathoners as Keith Brantly and Steve Spence, Ihave harped upon the need for them to find fluid bottles that are easy to grab and hold, to practice emptying the entire contents—which means finding the best spout and the best size to hang on to for perhaps half a kilometer of running—and to practice drinking various quantities during training to learn how much fluid loading they can tolerate. Along with drinking too little, there is also the problem of drinking too much. If absorption isn’t fast enough, the stomach distention from excess fluid is itself uncomfortable and can even result in eventual vomiting to remove the excess. If you’re going to work hard to develop superb fitness, also have a sensible approach to managing your fluids. Then you can actually use that fitness successfully when it counts in important races. Spence earned a bronze medal in Tokyo’s heat at the 1991 World Championships, and Brantly was the first U.S. finisher in the Atlanta Olympic marathon. Ultrarunners typically find it much easier to ingest fluids along the way, in part because their pace is slower but also because not as much blood is being shunted away from their gastrointestinal system, and absorption is more effective.

THE CONSEQUENCES OF FAILING TO COOL

The consequences of excessive heat accumulation vary from discomfort on one extreme to death on the other. Negative consequences on performance are virtually guaranteed. The two most commonly used terms for describing heatrelated problems are heat exhaustion and exertional heatstroke (ACSM, 1996). Heat exhaustion is not permanently harmful, and its effects are entirely reversible with oral rehydration and/or the administering of intravenous fluids. Symptoms are quite varied, depending on the situation, and range from dizziness, agitation, confusion, and incoordination to vomiting, nausea, headache, and

There Sex Differences in Heat Loss?

Although men and women use the same mechanisms to dissipate heat— radiation/convention through increased skin blood flow and evaporation of sweat—the relative dominance of the mechanisms differs. Women sweat less than men at any given body temperature, which emphasizes enhanced skin blood flow and suggests that women might be at a performance advantage in longer, warm-weather endurance events because their fluid conservation would decrease the chances that their performance would deteriorate from dehydration. However, other factors complicate the story, so we don’t really know for sure whether men and women tol differently. One factor is that the smaller sweat loss women peri

be compensated for by their somewhat smaller amount

water. Another confounding factor is that \ wome have a greater surface area thanmen for any given body weight because women have more stored body fat than men, and fat is less dense than an tissue ) |

“more space. This larger irface area shoul both radiation/con

and evaporation among women. 2 M.

fainting. Those most susceptible to heat exhaustion are poorly heat acclimated, minimally fit, not attentive to adequate hydration, and trying too hard to perform well.

Exertional heatstroke, on the other hand, is indeed life-threatening if not attended to promptly. It is a true medical emergency. Irreversible cell and tissue damage can occur in multiple organ systems. Those who have experienced heatstroke previously have a higher risk for subsequent recurrence under similar conditions (Epstein, 1990). Death is indeed a possibility unless the person’s body temperature can be promptly and profoundly reduced. When an athlete collapses from heatstroke, measures as drastic as total-body ice-water immersion can indeed be life-saving. The key is to prevent the rapidly rising excessive body temperature, which has been caused either by excessive work rate, excessive dehydration, or inappropriate functioning of other heat loss mechanisms. Sunburned skin is less effective for heat dissipation than healthy skin, which points out the importance of taking precautions during long-lasting activity in sunny conditions. Obesity also reduces skin blood flow heat loss.

Marine recruits who are treated for heat injury as they go through boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina, all seem to have the following characteristics: they’re fairly unfit and a little overweight, with a previous lifestyle involving indoor, sedentary workaday jobs; they come from the northern states and start boot camp in early summer. An unfortunate statistic that emerges from the medical records of recruited military trainees at Parris Island and

similar facilities during World War II is that nearly 200 deaths occurred from heat stroke (Minard, 1961). The vast majority of those who died match the characteristics above. Subsequent work by Captain David Minard and a colleague, Constantin Yaglou, resulted in a substantial revamping of policies for training patterns. These changes have dramatically reduced the risk for heat injury and death in this population group. I cannot emphasize enough the seriousness of heat accumulation. Preventing it must always be one of your top priorities as a runner.

PRACTICAL STRATEGIES AND CONCLUSIONS

Just as you have an anaerobic threshold running pace above which metabolic lactic acid accumulation exceeds your tissue’s ability to metabolize it, so also do you have a threshold running pace above which metabolic heat accumulation exceeds your body’s ability to dissipate it. The anaerobic threshold is a chemical phenomenon, whereas the thermal threshold is a physical phenomenon, dependent upon the interaction between pace and environmental weather conditions. Flaunt the laws of either chemistry or physics, and you’ll be guaranteed a most profound and debilitating impairment of your performance.

The experiences of the athletes at the Atlanta Olympic marathons show nicely the multiple interacting environmental factors that contribute to heat loss. The faster the pace of the runner, the greater was the convective heat loss. But as the air temperature started to warm, this mechanism became less effective. As humidity decreased, evaporation became more effective in removing heat. Cool streets and a lack of sun minimized radiational energy gain. And splashing water on warm skin surfaces helped the runners conduct heat away. Overall race times were faster than expected primarily because thick clouds delayed air warming while humidity gradually decreased.

You, too, must use a multifaceted approach in all of your training and competitive experiences to manage thermal stress effectively.

Be Sensitive to Pace

Do not cause excessive heat accumulation by maintaining a pace that is so fast that heat production greatly exceeds heat loss.

Be Smart

Use a variety of strategies to optimize heat loss and minimize heat gain. Drink frequently to maintain adequate blood volume for flow to the working muscles and flow to the skin for sweating and radiant heat loss. Apply water (sponges, cool water from cups, etc.) to conduct heat away from your body. Remain out

of the wind shadow of athletes in front. While wind-shadowing may be energyconserving, in warm conditions there is a greater decrease in convective heat loss. Restore fluid/energy dynamics as soon as possible following training or racing.

Plan Ahead

Planning ahead also involves several strategies. One is to bring fitness to the thermally stressful environment rather than to arrive early and expect to acquire it thereafter. One of the best examples of this is the recent series of fast winning times at the Honolulu Marathon. The island’s weather is not conducive to achieving supreme fitness on site, but athletes who undergo such training in ideal weather will have already increased their blood volume. A brief period of final tapering on site can help athletes acclimate to the time zone change and strengthen a positive mental attitude when they successfully manage some easy training before the event.

A second strategy is to load up with fluids before a very long training run or long race. This is somewhat analogous to loading with carbohydrates to ensure adequate energy. Simply drinking lots of water by itself is ineffective, however, because the body very accurately attempts to maintain its blood volume constant. This explains the long urinal lines at the start of races, as runners get rid of all the fluids they drank prerace. What you need to do is mix water with a substance that will transport it to the fluid compartments other than the bloodstream (such as within cells and in the extracellular spaces).

Hyperhydrating with glycerin effectively provides such water storage because the ingested water-glycerin mixture (3 tablespoons glycerin/36 ounces of water) quickly leaves the circulatory system and is dispersed in all fluid compartments (Lyons et al., 1990). It is absolutely essential, however, that the glycerin be greatly diluted, rather than used directly from a bottle purchased from a local pharmacy. As with carbohydrate loading, considerable practice prerace will tell you how much to ingest (e.g., a liter or more), how fast to ingest it (e.g., over a period of 30 minutes to an hour), and when to ingest it (e.g., a few hours before the activity).

This mixture provides a prerace water reservoir that can help ensure adequate fluid availability. However, prerace glycerin hyperhydration does not eliminate the need for additional fluid intake during a very long training run or long hot-weather race. Also, adding glycerin to during-race beverages should not be necessary. Fluid ingested during the race will automatically move directly from the stomach to the blood to working tissues and sweat glands.

Remember—you can never change the weather, but you can indeed ’ use some viable strategies to beat the heat. Bi

References

American College of Sports Medicine. 1996. Heat and cold illnesses during distance running. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise 28:i-x.

Armstrong, L. E., and Dziados, J. E. 1986. Effects of heat exposure on the exercising adult. In Sports Physical Therapy, ed. D. B. Bernhardt. New York: Churchill Livingstone.

Armstrong, L. E., et al. 1986. Preparing Alberto Salazar for the heat of the 1984 Olympic marathon. Physician and Sportsmedicine 14 (3):73-81.

Aoyagi, Y., McLellan, T. M., and Shepherd, R. J. 1997. Interactions of physical training and heat acclimation. Sports Medicine 23:173-210.

Coyle, E. F., and Montain, S. J. 1993. Thermal and cardiovascular responses to fluid replacement during exercise. Perspectives in Exercise Science and Sports Medicine 6:179-223.

Epstein, Y. 1990. Heat intolerance: predisposing factor or residual injury? Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise 22:29-35.

Gardner, J. W., et al. 1996. Risk factors predicting exertional heat illness in male Marine Corps recruits. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise 28:939-944.

Lyons, T. P,, et al. 1990. Effects of glycerol-induced hyperhydration prior to exercise in the heat on sweating and core temperature. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise 22:477— 483.

Martin, D. E. 1996. Climatic heat stress studies at the Atlanta 1996 Olympic stadium venue, 1992-1995. Sports Medicine, Training, and Rehabilitation 6:249-267.

Minard, D. 1961. Prevention of heat casualties in Marine Corps recruits. Military Medicine 126:261-272.

Nielsen, B. 1996. Olympics in Atlanta: a fight against physics. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise 28:665-668.

Roos, R. 1996. Heat stress in Atlanta. Physician and Sportsmedicine 24 (6):89-99.

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Using Your Body’s ‘Tachometer

Gauging Your Marathon Training and Performance with a Heart Rate Monitor

N O DOUBT about it—there is a revolution afoot. And like any revolution, it seeks to alter an archaic way of thinking. Perhaps you are aware of what’s going on. The reporters would have you believe that the ideas fueling this revolution are bold and brand, spanking new. The leaders of the movement have been branded as rebels and opportunists by the traditionalists of our sport. The cynics claim the revolution is all a grand marketing ploy aimed entirely at selling expensive—and useless—gadgets. And, as usual, the pundits fear for the survival of the democratic republic.

At fault are those demented, antiestablishment heart rate monitor addicts! Tossing aside their reliance on the old-fashioned stopwatch, these lunatics stand at the starting line with silly grins on their faces. The gun fires, and you can’t wait until the crowd thins out so you can be rid of their incessant “beepbeeping.”

Twenty miles and two hours and some minutes later, these runners stride by you with apparent ease, but they are no longer beeping. They acknowledge you with those same silly grins, while your face wears only a late-race grimace. Don’t they know there’s a “wall” up there? You watch helplessly as they pull away over the final stages of the marathon. What do these rebels with their expensive toys know that you don’t?

NEW EQUIPMENT, OLD SCIENCE

As with any revolutionary movement, the ideas behind this one have sprouted and grown from seeds containing thoughts and observations nurtured ages ago. From the dawn of time people have been aware of the heart’s propensity to beat. Even the most physically unaware freshman in health class would have to admit, “Like, you can sort of hear it and feel it sometimes, ya know?”

The field of medicine has certainly known about heart rate for centuries. Long ago it was commonly accepted that a human heart held only so many beats, and when you used them up, . . . oh, well! As recently as 60 years ago, it was believed that too much exercise led to an enlarged, weakened heart, which would eventually lead to, shall we say, a permanent early retirement. Doctors in Boston detected an enlarged heart in Clarence DeMar and warned him to stop running immediately. He eventually won Boston seven times, more than any runner in history.

Thanks to physiology and other disciplines, we now understand more about the heart and how it works. From its very inception, the sports medicine and exercise science fields have been studying the relationships between human performance, cardiac output, and how muscles react to exercise. In The Lore of Running, author Tim Noakes, M.D., cites research work from the British physiologists A. V. Hill and Hartley Lupton dating back as faras 1923. Scientists in human performance laboratories have known for years that the more efficiently the heart can supply blood (which contains vital oxygen and nutrient supplies), the better the athlete will perform. As we will discuss later, scientists know that runners rely on a series of fuel systems to provide the energy for continuous running. Many physiological events connected with burning those fuels can be predicted fairly accurately by observing the heart rate during exercise.

Armored with their heart rate monitors (HRM), runners can now take advantage of years of research and apply those principles to the healthy and selffulfilling pursuit of personal records. A heart rate monitor, properly used, provides a link to exercise physiology and science in a way that no other tool can.

Training at scientifically determined heart rates is the simplest way to train smarter. Because heart rate-based training is highly individualized, the numbers you rely on have to be your numbers, not your training partner’s. The remainder of our discussion will help you determine your numbers and explain what they represent.

HOW’S YOUR ENGINE RUNNING?

Explaining the science behind the fuel systems of the body and the effect training has on them can be confusing, even for experienced coaches. Let’s look at the body in terms of an automobile’s engine and see if we can make it all a bit clearer.

Typically, an automobile is powered by a combustion engine fueled by gasoline and oxygen. When the oxygen comes into contact with gasoline, either by way of the carburetor or fuel injectors, and a spark is provided, the engine

fires. The proper mix of fuel and oxygen is necessary for a car’s engine to operate efficiently.

If your car has a standard (stick shift) transmission, it’s likely that you have a tachometer. This gauge, more than any other on your dashboard, gives you a constant reading of how the engine is running. If there is any sign of trouble in the engine, the tachometer will be the first gauge to let you know. The tachometer readings may reflect significant changes in temperature, oil pressure, battery voltage, and fuel supply, all of which affect an engine’s efficiency.

Acar’s tachometer does not measure velocity or speed. It reads how many revolutions per minute (RPMs) the drive shaft is spinning. Those RPMs are dependent upon all of the individual parts of the engine working together as efficiently as possible.

In each gear, there’s a limit to how many RPMs can be reached before they hit the “top end” and the engine “redlines,” at which point the engine reaches a range where it is working too fast and therefore loses efficiency. The various parts of the engine are no longer operating in a rhythm; in fact, they have begun to work against each other. If you keep driving with the tachometer in the redline, your engine will begin to damage itself and eventually self-destruct.

The tachometer is the gauge of the pros. In general, race cars do not have speedometers. While fans in the stands suck down another cold one and argue about how fast their hero is driving, a race car driver is more concerned with how he can get the most out of his engine at any given moment. Being able to accelerate when necessary is far more important to a driver than the relative speed at which he’s moving. With the help of their tachometers, the best drivers develop a keen sense of just when to shift gears to achieve the maximum torque and horsepower an engine can deliver and achieve the acceleration necessary to pass other cars. Knowing the velocity (speed) is a nice feature, but hardly relevant to the driver who wants to win.

Now let’s apply this basic engine and race car knowledge to the human body.

Factors Affecting the Human Tachometer

Your body relies as heavily on the oxygen/fuel ratio as your car does. Much like your car’s engine, your body uses oxygen and various fuels (carbohydrates, fats, and proteins) to yield muscle energy. When this ratio is not in balance in the body, a series of physiological events occur that can be gauged with your body’s tachometer—your heart rate (HR). And much like the automobile engine, the true efficiency of the body’s engine is dependent upon a multitude of parts working efficiently together. Your heart rate will indicate if there is any sign of trouble in your body’s engine. Here are a few of the factors that will

John Gallagher USING YOUR BODY’S TACHOMETER @& 47

directly affect your heart rate in much the same way that outside factors can affect your car’s engine:

Body temperature: If you become too hot or too cold, your body senses a thermal stress load. Blood is sent to your skin to enhance heat dissipation to cool you or to increase blood flow to warm you. Apparent temperatures (which account for humidity or wind chill) above 70 degrees (F) and below 35 degrees (F) will increase your heart rate at least 2 to 4 beats per minute. Over 90 percent humidity can equal as much as a 10beat increase in heart rate.

Terrain: Run uphill, and your HR increases. Run downhill, and your HR decreases.

Wind: Running with the wind at your back is easy, so your HR decreases. Running into the wind is more difficult, so your HR increases. Dehydration: As you become increasingly dehydrated during arun, your blood thickens and waste products build up in the bloodstream. Your heart will work harder to maintain constant cardiac output. A fluid loss of three percent of body weight increases pulse rate because of a decrease in circulating blood volume.

Diminishing glycogen stores: Glycogen is your muscles’ primary fuel source. As the fuel depletes, your HR increases to maintain the same pace.

Insufficient nutrition or sleep: Your HR increases.

Insufficient recovery after a long run, race, or hard workout: Your HR increases.

Recent illness, or, a signal of impending illness: You guessed it! Your HR increases.

Medication: Depending upon the medication, one’s heart rate can either decrease or increase. Be certain to ask your physician about any medication you are taking and its effects on your exercise heart rate. Emotions and anxiety: These, too, can raise your heart rate! Unlike an automobile that is purely mechanical, we are not solely governed by working parts. Some days you can “feel” your way to a higher HR.

Just as your car’s tachometer does not measure velocity or speed, neither does your heart rate monitor. It will tell you how efficiently your heart is working, but it won’t tell you what pace you’ re running. (Okay, there are some models that tell you both. For the sake of explanation, let’s concentrate on a model that does not have a built-in stopwatch feature.) In the human body, the car’s RPMs become beats per minute (BPMs). BPMs among various runners

can differ about as widely as a new Ferrari differs from an old Pinto station wagon. (More later on estimating your individual BPMs.)

“Redlining” in your car can cost you a new engine. “Redlining” with your HRM can cost you your lunch. When you hit the “top end” of your BPMs, you’ ve lost efficiency. Various parts of your body will feel heavy, and your running stride will no longer appear to have any rhythm. Push yourself too long, and you’ll be recovering for a few days afterwards.

You don’t have to bea pro to own a heart rate monitor, but you can drive your body like a pro with one. As you learn to read your personal tachometer more, you’ll rely less and less on your old stopwatch/speedometer. The increase in running pace you’ Il experience will be a mere byproduct of the increase in your running efficiency. Instead of watching race cars, your friends will be sucking down a cold one and arguing about how fast you’re going while you glide along monitoring your personal tachometer. To further explain how aheart rate monitor can help you prepare for your next marathon, let’s look at a specific example.

CHRIS’S SATURDAY WORKOUT

Chris is a 44-year-old woman with a resting heart rate (RHR) of 50. She wants to run sub-3:30 for her next marathon. Her training has been going rather well, and she’s five weeks away from the big day. Her scheduled Saturday morning training run looks like this:

¢ Warm-up 15 minutes with an easy jog ¢ Run 8 miles at marathon goal pace (8:00 per mile) * Cool down with 10 to 15 minutes of easy jogging afterwards

Chris chooses a simple out and back course, one of her favorites, because it rises uphill for the first half, and there’s usually a nice tailwind on the way back. She starts conservatively with an 8:05 first mile. Recording splits at miles 2,3, and 4 of 16:05, 24:05, and 32:05 respectively, Chris is convinced she’s got the workout nailed as she hits the turnaround only 5 seconds behind pace.

She hits mile 5 in 40:10 and thinks, Oh, I must have fallen asleep. I gotta concentrate more. I still feel good. Confident that the downhill grade and breeze at her back will help her get those seconds back, she pushes the pace. At mile 6 Chris is incredulous when her watch reads 48:18. What’s wrong with me today? she mutters to herself. How could I have slowed down on that mile?

Chris decides she needs to focus on her form, her arm swing, and her leg turnover during the next mile. She tells herself to think positively and relax.

Fifty-five minutes into the run Chris finds it difficult to concentrate. Her legs are starting to get heavy, and she begins wishing the workout were over.

Chris completely misses the huge oak tree that marks her 7-mile split. Discouraged, Chris cuts back the pace, finishing the 8 miles in 65:20. Later, she records the run in her training log as a “miserable” 8:10-pace workout.

During her cooldown, Chris’s mind clouds over with doubts about her fitness, her marathon goal, and her very existence as a person. She mentally reviews the last few weeks of training: I followed everything I was supposed to do. leven backed off the last three days. I can’t believe the workout was that hard! I’m just a flake.

Could This Have Been You?

Now some analysis. Let’s assume that Chris was indeed rested and ready to run this particular workout. What happened? If we make the same mistake Chris made and look solely at her mile splits, we’ll make the conclusion that she started out fine, but slowed down. . . Oh, well, a bad day.

But there’s more to this workout than that. Why was it her favorite course? Recall the uphill out, downhill back, and the wind factor. It’s highly possible that while Chris’s splits appeared slower over the last four miles, she was working harder than she imagined just to recover from the first four miles. She was certainly working very hard to maintain an 8:00-pace up those hills, into the wind! Chart 1 below shows Chris’s splits and what could easily have been her heart rate “split” at each mile for this workout, based on what she was feeling during the second half. To make sense of Chris’s “HR splits,” let’s do a little heart rate math.

As we noted earlier, Chris is 44 years old with a morning RHR of 50. We can estimate Chris’s maximum heart rate (MaxHR) by using the formula that has gained wide acceptance among coaches working with adult athletes: 205 — 1/2 X (age) =MaxHR. (See “Modified Karvonen Formula” on page 51.)

CHART 1

For Chris, 205 — 22 = 183, so her MaxHR is 183 beats per minute. From that number, we subtract Chris’s morning RHR of 50 to receive her heart rate range, which is the total number of beats available between complete rest and maximum heart rate: [183 — 50= 133]. We can then take percentages of Chris’s heart rate range (133) and add back in her morning RHR (50) to determine what her BPMs should be at different percentages of effort.

For most aerobically-fit runners, marathon pace is going to be about 78 to 80 percent of maximum heart rate. For Chris, that would be 154 to 156 BPM. Look back at the heart rate “splits” for Chris’s workout in Chart 1 and compare them to Chris’s data in the Modified Karvonen Formula box above. For mile 1, even though Chris was sure she was backing off, her 8:05 pace put her over 80 percent of her MaxHR with seven more miles to go. And, she was going uphill into the wind! So on an effort-based scale, Chris’s first 5 miles, even though they were only 10 seconds slower than her goal pace, were actually run at 90 percent of MaxHR (170). That is a running intensity equivalent to a 10K race pace! Chris’s stopwatch lied to her! She hit the 5-mile mark convinced that she needed to pick up the pace and effort when, in fact, she was already working way too hard to achieve the goals of this particular workout.

John Gallagher USING YOUR BODY’S TACHOMETER Mi 51

Chris fell into the trap of trusting her speedometer (her stopwatch) when she should have been monitoring her tachometer (her BPMs). If Chris had been a race car driver, she would have redlined, probably blown a piston, and been out of the race.

Because of the terrain and the breeze, Chris probably could have run splits closer to 8:10 to 8:12 on the way out, not maxed her HR for the entire eight miles, and still run under 64:00 as she had planned. In fact, her splits could have looked something like this (see Chart 2):

CHART 2

8:10/16:18

– Signific cant increase in grade; reeze ~ 8:12/24:30 Slight increase in grade; breeze i in face” | 3.07/32/3/ Manna | increase in grade; breeze i in face 154

Slight « decrease | in ‘grade

As the chart shows, Chris could have run her goal time and not recorded a single 8:00 split! Also notice that she would have topped 80 percent of max only twice, during the mile that climbed the most and at the end when she “pushed it home.” Even though Chris was 30 seconds “behind” at the halfway point, by keeping her HR under control, she could have been able to take advantage of the downhill and the breeze on the way back in.

Remember what happened to Chris at minute 55? Instead of falling into the depths of anaerobic debt—her legs unable to clear out the increasing levels of lactate—had Chris used an effort-based approach, she potentially could have run her fastest mile with the least amount of effort due to the significant downhill and breeze during that mile.

Chris’s experience is all too common. As arunner, and sadly, too, as acoach, from time to time I’ ve fallen prey to the lure of the stopwatch—the spell of the speedometer. You look down and see those splits and ignore the signals your body’s tachometer is sending you. Anyone who runs for time secretly hopes that “this is the day I destroy my PR,” or “this is going to be the workout of my life,” when she has absolutely no basis for that hope. Too often, we are left shaking our heads, like Chris, wondering what happened at the 55:00 marks of our own races or workouts.

You could argue that scientific, effort-based training (EBT) takes away those magic, unexplained running moments when “everything clicked, but I don’t know why.” But wouldn’t you like to explain with some certainty at least some of those “miserable” workouts and “blown” marathons?

FINDING YOUR HEART RATE RANGE

Calibrating your heart rate monitor to work to your personal specifications involves determining your morning resting heart rate, your maximum heart rate, and some handy work with a calculator.

To determine your resting heart rate, do the following:

1. Before getting out of bed and before you give even a single thought to the pressures of the day, put on your heart rate monitor or find the pulse in the carotid artery in your neck.

2. Lie on your back quietly for 2 minutes.

3. Ifyou’ re using your HRM, look at the receiver and record your heart rate. If you’re counting your pulse, take a count for 15 seconds and multiply it by 4. This gives your beats per minute.

4. Repeat this procedure for five days in a row and average the readings.

MaxHR varies from individual to individual and decreases with age. For years, the standard formula for determining MaxHR has been to subtract one’s age from 220. However, science has determined that “chronically fit” individuals—the term bestowed upon creatures over the age of 30 who have remained fit most of their lives—do not lose an entire beat per year. For these individuals, the formula that we used for Chris earlier in the article works much better.

However, human beings don’t always fit into the same mold, and the standard charts don’t always hold true for everyone. It is no different here. Some people have physically larger hearts that beat slower than the results of the formula [205 — 1/2 X (age)], and others have physically smaller hearts that beat at faster rates.

The size of the heart matters little. They are both capable of being trained to the same levels. If it helps, think in terms of car engines: There are efficient three-cylinder engines, and there are efficient eight-cylinder engines. Both can move a car down the road at the same speed and RPMs, but the smaller engine works at a higher rate.

To get an accurate reading of your MaxHR, you have to do something that will take you to it. Being tested in a lab by an exercise scientist or physiologist should yield the most accurate numbers for you. Unfortunately, not everyone has access to a human performance lab and an exercise scientist-buddy. Contrary to popular belief, it is possible to determine your MaxHR without puking

John Gallagher USING YOUR BODY’S TACHOMETER @® 53

on your shoes. Of the many, many whiz-bang formulas out there, I offer two options that seem saner than most. The first comes via John L. Parker, author of Heart Rate Training for the Compleat Idiot.

The second, an indoor option, comes from the esteemed exercise physiologist Owen Anderson, PhD. His method most closely resembles an actual lab protocol and is highly effective as long as you are used to treadmill running at a stressful level.

Now What Do You Do?

To determine what your numbers are for each of the percentages, plug your MaxHR and morning RHR into the appropriate spaces in the modified Karvonen

Formula box below. Then grab your calculator and multiply your heart rate range by the various percentages. Fill in the numbers, and you’re on your way! Stay within the percentages of MaxHR given below for the following workouts:

¢ 60-75% for long endurance runs (start easy, HR will drift). Watch your heart rate during the second half of the run. Muscle fatigue, glycogen depletion, and fluid loss will increase your HR—especially if you are just beginning to increase your mileage. Don’t let your HR creep above 75 percent of max.

¢ 80-85% for tempo runs for anaerobic strength (stamina). When you go over 80 percent of MaxHR, your fat stores won’t be your body’s choice of energy. Carbohydrates and your glycogen stores take over more of the load. If you run out of glycogen, you’ll hit the “wall,” no matter how much fat you have left.

¢ 90-95% for intervals for speed development.

* 60-70% for easy days for recovery (HR can drift at end).

* 70% for ultra runs of 50 miles or 100K.

* 60% for all runs 3 hours or more; begin with 60%.

“Modified Karvonen Formula (More accurate for the | “Chronically a

1 Subtract 1/2 your age . Result = Approx Max HR . Subtract Your. Resting HR

. Result = Heart Rate Range (total nUEE of beats)

–HRRange x .65 + (Resting HR) = HR Range X 70 + (Resting HR) = HR Range x .75 + (Resting HR) = __

HR Range X .80_ + (Resting HR) =

HR Range x .85_ + (Resting HR) =

HR Range X .90 + (Resting HR) =

HR Range X .95 + (Resting HR) =

HR Range X 1.00 + (Resting HR) =

John Gallagher USING YOUR BODY’S TACHOMETER @™ 55

CLOSING THOUGHTS

Over the last five years, I have coached over 150 people using effort-based training, which uses a combination of objective heart rate monitoring and a subjective rating of perceived exertion as the primary guide for training load. We still use pace per mile as a guideline, but only as it relates to a scientificallybased and individualized goal.

If you stick to the range of percentages for the workout you intend to do on a particular day, you will see that your pace may vary, but you’ll accomplish what you set out to do for that workout. It is very true that your HR will drift a bit higher toward the end of most workouts due to glycogen depletion and early stages of fluid loss. Therefore, you need to start every workout at the beginning of the range listed above. If you start at the end of the range, you’Il finish that particular workout overtaxed. You may make it through the workout all right, but day after day of being at the edge eventually leads to overuse syndromes and injuries. Which, of course, can get in the way of training for and finishing a marathon.

I wish you the best and encourage you to be patient with your tachometer. If your personal calibration is correct—and that may take some fiddling—the number appearing on your HRM ain’t lyin’. Itknows how hard you are working on most days, whether you want to admit it or not. Trust the tach and ‘ good luck! Bs

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The Last Marathoner

In Every Race, Someone Must Be Last— Even in the Olympic Marathon

H IS NAME is A. Baser Wasiqi. He comes from Afghanistan. Though Olympic files are full of information on most of the athletes who took part in the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, on him the records are nearly mute. We have no height, no weight, no qualifying mark. We know he was born on July 12, 1975. We don’t know where. What we do know is that he ran the 1996 men’s Olympic marathon. And that he finished. The story of Wasiqi’s marathon is a tale that aptly illustrates the chaotic grandeur of the Olympic Games.

In the early 1990s when many of us from the Atlanta running community become involved with the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games (ACOG), most thought putting on the Games would be challenging—rather like building a large ocean liner when we were more used to creating trawlers and twomasted schooners. The part of the process that we didn’t quite comprehend, however, was that there was no existing blueprint for this construction project.

My background as the race director of the 50,000-runner Peachtree Road Race, the world’s largest and most popular 10K, landed me the title of ACOG’s Deputy Competition Manager of Athletics, Marathons/Race Walks. This ungainly title meant that I oversaw the technical planning for the two marathons and the race walks. I reported to the Competition Manager of Athletics (track and field), who in turn reported to the Managing Director of Sports, Dave Maggard, who sat on the inner council and reported to CEO Billy Payne and his number two man, a former banker named A. D. Frasier.

All ofus in the Sports Department were responsible for putting on the events themselves. The venue within which each sport was held (natatorium, tennis facility, track stadium, etc.) was run by the Venue Department. The Managing Director of the Venue Department had power equal to that of the Managing Director of Sports.

IT ALL WORKS—AT LEAST ON PAPER

On paper, this structure had the simple majesty of a DNA double helix. In reality, it created rival fiefdoms, complete with (sometimes quite literal) turf battles. To my irritated bemusement, the marathon course was declared a venue, and was, therefore, assigned its own venue chief, who had authority equal to or superior to mine. As a result, I was directing the Olympic marathons without authority over the course security, communications, materials delivery, or medical coverage. In theory, the course marshals were to report to the marathon venue chief, not to me. All negotiations with the police were likewise a venue matter. I was responsible only for what actually occurred on the field of play itself: aid stations, course vehicles, and timing stations.

In theory, the Venue and Sports departments were to coordinate efforts with the

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HEY “HEY.” WHoS IN CHARGE HERE 2

Baptist choir. Inactuality, Q¥ everyone tended toend up in muted quarrels like barnyard geese, pecking at each other’s plumage of authority. For the two years leading up to the summer of 1996, the two departments battled their way along, inexorably accomplishing things in spite of maximum irritation and ruffled feathers. 7

By early 1996, some har- __, f 1 mony had crept into the mara- , thon preparations. Venue au- bd jig | 7 “yy My thority had come to rest with — mcrae nucnes Mey an accomplished manager named Todd Allen, who was more intrested in successful outcome than petty agenda. We shouldered our separate, ever-interdependent burdens as a team and were rarely at cross-purposes.

I was fortunate. My immediate boss, Phil Henson, Competition Manager of Athletics, was not so lucky. As meet director of Olympic Track and Field, Henson’s venue was the Olympic Stadium, a $200-million structure destined to be a baseball stadium after the Games. The stadium was also the venue in which the opening and closing ceremonies would take place. A Venue Manager was charged with overseeing the workings of the stadium. Ceremonies also had

its own manager. In theory, the three managers wielded the same authority. As are most troikas, this threesome was harnessed in an uneasy alliance.

Henson’s brief was to stage an impeccable, stunningly-presented track and field meet at the highest international standards. The Ceremonies’ charge was to stage opening and closing ceremonies so wondrous that the millions upon millions of people watching worldwide would suck in their collective breaths in awe. Sports’ agenda was to present a perfectly maintained track and its field; Ceremonies sought to practice and practice on that self-same turf until the cast of thousands had reached Rockette perfection. Sports needed every inch of space behind the scenes for equipment and personnel; Ceremonies had to store warehousefuls of elaborate costumes and materials. Sports needed permanent command posts above the field; so did Ceremonies. Stadium Venue Manager Bob Stiles shuttled between the increasingly irritable camps—a diplomatic mission that rivaled Middle East negotiations.

Sports Versus Ceremonies

We in Sports were firm in our conviction that Ceremonies had unlimited budgets while we were seemingly constrained to pennies. In addition, we strongly suspected that Ceremonies had access to the most important ears. Ceremonies, on their part, doubtless found us ; monofocal, lacking any willingness to work things out. It probably didn’t help that the Ceremonies Department was staffed with trendy, strongchinned Californians dressed artistically in black with hair artfully mussed, while we in Sports were a ragtag lot of coaches and athletic directors sporting faded, ill-fitting golf shirts bearing the logos of obscure track meets. The net result was a deeply embittered venue, with little charm or generosity exuded by either side.

The marathon obviously took place primarily outside the stadium so my contact with intra-venue strife was limited. The marathons began and ended on the track, however, so some coordination was necessary. _ mictise.nucnes

Julia Emmons THE LAST MARATHONER 59

SCHEDULING THE MARATHON

The women’s Olympic marathon was scheduled to take place the second day of competition. Because of the crowded on-track schedule at Olympic Stadium, it was obvious from the beginning that any runners finishing outside three hours would have to conclude their race at Cheney Stadium, the warmup venue 600 meters away. The men’s marathon was another matter. Originally, the event was slated to finish as a prelude to the closing ceremony, scheduled for the final evening of the Games. This was a tradition begun in 1984, which allowed the overweening and egotistical IAAF president to present the final medal of the Games. As closing ceremony could not be held up indefinitely awaiting the more sluggish finishers, anyone finishing over three hours would also be shunted to Cheney.

Those of us close to marathon planning had long felt that an early evening marathon would be disastrous in the inevitable heat and humidity of an Atlanta summer. There was also the likelihood that one of the powerful electrical thunderstorms that frequently plague Atlanta’s summer evenings would come along—two of the last five Fourth of July fireworks displays had been cancelled because of these dramatic downpours. We were mere squeaks of protest, however, with little clout. We thus planned for an early evening marathon, though never giving up hope that wisdom might somehow prevail.

Level—and Cool—Heads Prevail

To our astonishment, in March of 1996 it did. The IAAF medical commission recommended that the men’s marathon be held in early morning. The gold medal, however, would be presented during the closing ceremony by the IAAF president.

The men’s Olympic marathon was thus rescheduled to begin at 7:05 A.M. on Sunday, August 4, the 17th and final day of the Games. It would begin and end on the Olympic Stadium track.

Since the marathon was the only track and field event scheduled for that day, it seemed logical that all runners could finish on the track. There would be no need for the subtle humiliation of finishing outside the Olympic Stadium.

From lessons learned in Barcelona (where one runner finished in four hours), asked that the finish be scheduled from approximately 9:15 to 11:00 a.m. on the Olympic Stadium track. There would be a crowd on hand to watch the start, follow the race on the stadium Jumbotron, and then view the finish. There seemed little reason not to keep the stadium open for the entire race.

I soon learned the lucid logic of my argument was not universally shared. Until March, Ceremonies had assumed it had the field the entire day for rehearsal. They were not amused to relinquish their morning. I continued to lobby within my middle management circle, mentioning the public relations downside of having Olympic athletes shunted off to Cheney so that majorettes could rehearse their struts.

Confident of eventual victory, we planned for closure until 11:00 a.m. Not until three days before the men’s marathon did I learn that the marathon could have the track only until 10:30 a.m. Thereafter, the gates would slam shut, and closing ceremonies rehearsal would begin. There was no argument. Ceremonies did indeed have access to important ears, and the marathon was suddenly a loser in the venue wars.

Thus it was. We were not overly disheartened, however, as the final finisher in the women’s Olympic marathon the prior week had finished in roughly three and a half hours. Surely, the men’s final finisher would take less time than that, and if we were a mere 10 minutes over the limit, we were confident Ceremonies would relent.

THE CAST OF CHARACTERS

Although I did not receive the final list of marathoners until the night before the race, the preliminary lists contained few runners who did not meet the minimum Olympic qualifying standard of 2:22:00. There were a few just over the mark, including a fellow from Andorra with a personal best of 2:51:03, and six runners with few statistics listed and no personal bests or qualifying marks. One of these was A. Baser Wasiqi of Afghanistan. I hoped these final few competitors had been mere victims of bureaucratic bungles, and that they were better qualified than the citizen athlete from Mongolia, who had taken four hours to finish the 1992 Olympic marathon in Barcelona.

The field for the 1996 men’s Olympic marathon numbered 123 and represented 77 countries. At 7:05 a.m. on August 4, they left on their 26.2-mile journey with three laps around the track and then proceeded through a tunnel near the 100-meter start line. After these 1,200 meters in the stadium, the runner in second-to-last place was Baser Wasiqi.

Snugly wedged into the lead vehicle in front of runners loping along at a sub-5:00 pace, I did not become aware of Wasiqi’s predicament until the 17th mile of the race. By then, the lead pack was polishing off the middle third of the race, which consisted of a flatish 10 miles out to the turn-around point and back. Wasiqi had just reached the 17K point, as the leaders were passing 27K.

Dressed in a loose-fitting Reebok uniform, his country’s name obscured by the napkin-sized race number, the short, stocky runner had one thigh bandaged, appeared to be limping, and was trailed by a sizable entourage of police and

emergency vehicles, along with a sag wagon ever at his disposal. I knew he would never make it.

The race continued, developing into a stunning three-way duel eventually won on the track by a mere footstep in a time of 2:12:36. Another 109 runners would finish, with Abdi Isak of Somalia bringing up the rear in 2:59:55.

ONE MAN’S JOURNEY

As we watched the “final” finishers slogging around the track, we were aware that a handful of runners were still out on the course. One by one they withdrew, except for one—Wasiqi—who was walking by 30K. He had reached 30K in 2:45:14, 35K in 3:24:17. He had just done a pedestrian 39-minute 5K. The odds seemed strong that Wasiqi would soon pack it in.

True to their word, Ceremonies had the stadium tunnel gate shut just after the Somali finished. Cones that had defined the final 500 meters on the track were gathered up, and a tarp was spread over the field. Nubile majorettes in short shorts and tall hairdos popped out and began their high-step routines.

Cheney was alerted that a finisher might be heading there. Timing and medical teams were sent over to greet the final runner, should he make it. As Wasiqi kept coming, like some sweat-drenched Energizer Bunny, I finally ambled over to Cheney along with a couple of TV cameramen intent on recording the final moments of the marathon. By the time I reached Cheney, we were close to four hours into the marathon. Wasiqi had yet to reach 40K. A pair of security volunteers yawned lazily under umbrellas, sipping from the endless supply of free Coca-Cola.

Out on the race course, however, the action was anything but tranquil. Several of the key personnel from Venue who had been coordinating various aspects of security had become involved in the final stages of Wasiqi’s journey. The course had long since been partially open to traffic. Wasiqi was protected by his own entourage of motor police, a medical vehicle, a sag wagon, an NBCTV cameraman on a motorcycle, and a flying wedge of dedicated volunteers. He even had his own TV helicopter overhead picking up the TV feed from below.

Follow the Blue Line

Wasiqi followed the blue line that indicated the tangents runners could take when the six-lane boulevard was closed to traffic. Back and forth, runner and entourage followed the line as it led, meter by painful meter, towards the stadium. When the runner reached a cross-street 400 meters outside the stadium, volunteers would point him away from the blue line and toward Cheney.

As Wasiqi passed the 40K point in 4:04:49, I received a call from the key Venue personnel. “Julia!” they cried, “this man must finish in the Olympic Stadium. It’s only just.”

T agreed, then somewhat irritably listed the reasons I was standing there in the damp stillness of Cheney to greet the final runner rather than at the open gates to the stadium.

“Hey,” they replied, “Jennifer Jordon, the woman in charge of marathon central communications, knows the number two guy at Ceremonies. She’ Il ask him to open the gates.”

Iradioed back to go ahead and try, but pointed out that Wasiqi was approaching the fateful cross-street. In less than five minutes, we would be required to send him right to the stadium or left to Cheney.

Meanwhile, I was on another radio back to Henson at the stadium. I told him that Venue volunteers were working to get the gates open and asked that stadium timing and medical be reactivated, the tarp taken up, and something be done about the necessary coning of the track.

Bearing the scars of many a battle with Ceremonies, Henson was understandably skeptical about the success of the last-ditch pleas to open the gate, though both of us realized that Ceremonies was beginning to reflect on the public relations downside of barring the last runner of the Games from the stadium.

As Wasiqi was crossing an overpass towards the cross-street, word came through that the gates would open. “Turn him right towards the stadium!” I radioed the zone leader in charge of the final mile. I radioed Henson that Wasigqi was on his way, accepted a lift in a golf cart, and reached the track through another entrance just as Wasiqi came through the gates followed by the TV motorcycle.

Like the sea parting for Moses, the tarp was pulled away as the Afghani circled the track. The hundreds of Ceremonies volunteers applauded enthusiastically, and the band, which was practicing on the field, broke into vigorous tune.

One of the volunteers found a length of broad white tape, quickly scratched “Atlanta 1996” in large black letters, and had it stretched across the line as Wasiqi finished.

His final time was 4:24:17. Overhead, Wasiqi’s faithful TV helicopter broadcast the news.

Ninety minutes later, Wasiqi was released from medical, and he held a brief news conference for the small gaggle of press that remained. We learned he was from Kabul, that his personal best was 2:33, and that he could only train on the streets of town since the countryside was too dangerous. He had lost his grandparents and many relatives to the continuous fighting, and he had also lost all

Julia Emmons THE LAST MARATHONER 63

semblance of a normal life. Someday, when the fighting stops, he told us, he hopes to continue his studies.

“T am taught,” he said, “that this is . . . important Olympic idea, to finish, to complete race if you possibly can . . . and I know I can, so I keep going.”

PERRY JULIEN

Afganistan’s A. Baser Wasiqi breaks a homemade tape at the finish line.

For those of us who came to know him that long morning of August 4, Baser Wasiqi became the overriding Olympic ideal. After years of empty hype, inflated egos, and unnecessary turf battles accomplishing nothing, our buoyant symbol of the Olympic spirit was not the flame nor athletic magnificence such as Michael Johnson’s 19.32 200 meters. It was the large-hearted effort by a semi-injured athlete from a war-ravaged country who would just not quit— combined with the get-it-done spirit of dedicated volunteers determined that his valiant efforts should merit a fittingly ceremonial finish.

Ihave many souvenirs of the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games. But the one I would treasure most if I had it would be that scruffy piece of tape ff inscribed “Atlanta 1996.” Bs

On the

A Tale of Fathers & Sons

BY JOHN J. KELLEY

Here’s the first of an exclusive series of articles by Johnny J. (the Younger) Kelley, who will share his marathon memories with M&B readers. Look for the next “chapter” in a future issue —Editor

John J. Kelley, Sr., of New London, Connecticut, died as December 29, 1947, slid silently into December 30. “Complications of viral pneumonia” was the cause listed on his death certificate. He was 57 years and six months old, aNew London post office foreman with a wife, Genevieve, 50, and three children— John Jr, 17; Robert, 14; and Ellen, 13. Not quite four months earlier, Kelley had accompanied Johnny Jr. and the latter’s friend, George Terry, on a doglegged day trip by Greyhound bus and train from New London to Littleton, Massachusetts, to watch the boys compete in their first road race.

T HE LITTLETON 10-Mile Handicap Road Race of Labor Day 1947 had drawn a 45-man field—about average for the country fair spin-offs that were a New England recreational staple of the era.

Many of the racers had made at least part of their pilgrimage on a coalburning “local” out of Boston. The stubby train’s doors had remained open throughout the hour’s start-stop westward journey, bestowing on the passengers a mixture of natural air-conditioning and carbon pollution. Outside, a hazy sun broiled through a stalemated mass of Gulf air.

Inside, a patrician, bowler-hatted man of 65 studied a clipboarded paper, now and then pausing to survey his youthful fellow travelers. Eighteen-yearold George Terry felt a tingle in his stomach. He nudged his pal. “Lad,” he said, “that’s old Al Hart, the AAU commissioner.”

“Oh yeah?” Johnny Jr. said.

“Yeah,” George confirmed. “Mal pointed him out to me last year at the New England Meet.” Malcolm Graham Greenaway was a popular teacher, activities

adviser, and coach at Bulkeley School in New London. “He’s a wealthy guy” — George nodded toward Al Hart—“who goes around to all the AAU races to keep everybody straight.”

“Straight?”

“So’srunners don’t take illegal expense money, so’s they keep their amateur status,” George clarified.

“Oh,” said Johnny.

“Mal says Hart loves the running, but he never ran himself. Used to play polo when he was young, got kicked or slammed in the head . . . and ended up an AAU bigwig. Lives for the sport, lad.”

Johnny peered hard at Albert Thayer Hart. Even Pop Kelley sneaked a peek.

“He keeps us straight,” Johnny mused. “Yet there’s something crooked in his face when he looks at people.”

“Yeah. Mal thinks he might have a metal plate in his head,” George said.

“Wow!”

Not 10 feet away the punctilious commissioner Hart tugged his bow tie into perfect alignment and sat ever more erect.

Above the locomotive’s clangor, the names of road racers and their latest clockings could be heard being nervously bandied about. The superheated air in the train’s coach hung heavier still with the smells of rubbing alcohol, Sloan’s Liniment, and Red Hot.

The local ground to its ninth halt. “LIT-tleton, LIT-tle-ton!” the craggy conductor barked.

Canvas tote bags, leather tote bags, string-tied brown paper bags in hand, a baker’s dozen metropolitan road racers, along with Pop Kelley’s duo, made their way toward a crayoned sign atop the jouncing pickup truck that would transport them the final miles to Littleton Green.

His paunch incongruous with the lean stomachs surrounding him, Pop Kelley clambered valiantly aboard the hatchdown pickup with the fittest and settled himself against the cab’s rear wall.

The elder Kelley had never been a runner as these boys were, though he had loved playing sandlot baseball as a kid; and, since coming out of a five-year “nervous breakdown” two years earlier, he had taken up walking—almost 10 miles a day, on around-trip from his New London home to Ocean Beach, where he also swam for at least five minutes each day, March through November. Perversely, his girth had refused to yield an inch to his rededicated physical life.

Facing Pop, gray trousered legs drawn almost to his chin, clipboard resting on his humped knees, bowler held secure in his left hand, Commissioner Hart jounced democratically with his charges.

“Where you boys from?” a squatting runner asked George Terry.

“Oh… down New London way,” George replied.

The youth frowned. “Where the hell’s that?”

“Oh … down in Connecticut, you know,” said George.

“Kin-ettiket? Cripes, you boys’re from the sticks!”

“Kind of looks as if Littleton might be in the sticks, too,” George chanced.

The youth eyed him edgily. “You got a point there,” he replied. “You in a club?”

“Mmm … No, I don’t suppose we are,” George said. “You?”

“Course. The BAA,” the other said proudly.

“BAA?”

“Never heard tell of the Boston Athletic Association?” the city boy asked.

“Uh-huh,” George said, trying to recover his fumble.

“Then you must have heard of the Boston Marathon. We put that race on.”

“Oh yeah, sure.”

“Heard of Jock Semple, too?”

George couldn’t right off say.

“Oh boy, if you don’t know if you have, I can guarantee you haven’t,” the BAArunner said. “Once you meet Semple, you’ II never again have to wonder. And, speaking of famous names, certainly you’ve heard of Johnny Kelley? He’s supposed to run up in Littleton today, too.”

George thumbed in the direction of his pal. “This is Johnny Kelley,” he said with deadpan earnest.

The BAA runner arched a brow for a full five count. “Yep. And I’m Paavo Nurmi,” he replied.

The prewar Ford cut a tight turn and halted in a cloud of dust. “OK, boys, all out, Littleton High, check in, change up, and be ready to run at three on the nose!”’ a stogie-crunching official with an alderman’s overhang yelled as he hustled them out of the pickup.

John J. Kelley ON THE LITTLETON ROAD ® 67

KEITH BLOMBERG

The brick school stood near Littleton Town Green, where the contest would start and finish. The pickup’s excited passengers creaked back to the land of the self-propelled, running anxious palms behind kinked knees as they headed for the waiting gymnasium.

Pop Kelley pulled a damp handkerchief from his pants pocket, swabbed his sweaty face clean of road grit, polished and replaced his bifocals, knocked dottle from his pipe, and told the boys, “Go do what you have to do inside. I think I’ll find a nice shady spot and enjoy the goings-on. Here’s a four-bit piece. I think I heard that the entry fee was a quarter.”

George and Johnny joined the line inside, were duly pried loose of their coin, handed two safety pins and a sizable paper number each, and told to report to an adjacent table for their time handicap assignments.

“Never ran a road race before? You swear on a Bible, never?” the histrionically skeptical handicapper charged.

“Nope, never,” George swore.

“Race before? Anywhere?”

“Um, sure, we’ve raced… in high school . . . in track and cross-country,” George replied.

“Well then, you’ve raced,” the skeptic concluded triumphantly. “Not exactly green wood, you know what I mean?”

He restudied his sheet and addressed his assistant, “So whadda ya say, Mike? Whadda we give ’em?”

“Can’t be the limit,” Mike said.

“No no, the limit’s for ol’ Amos and O. Gardner,” the skeptic said. Amos was Amos Kujala, a Finnish-born farmer from Harvard, a familiar road racing figure; O. Gardner Spooner of New Bedford was a perennial starter and “go man” in local handicap races.

“T dunno.” Mike puzzled the problem. “We don’t have nothing to go on.”

A persuasive suggestion broke the deadlock.

“The boys look promising. However, since this is their first road race, I might think you would want to give a cautious allowance, say seven and a half minutes up on ‘scratch,’” Al Hart said.

“Seven-thirty it is, for both. Thanks, Al,” the skeptic said.

“Certainly,” Al replied, touching his bowler hat.

Young Johnny Kelley straddled a bench, lacing his Keds halfcuts over prickly wool socks he hoped would protect his not-quite-healed bunion blisters.

A fraternal hand clamped on his hunched shoulder. He looked into the grinning face of his new friend from Boston. He had put on an eye-catching racing uniform—gold jersey embossed with a blue unicorn head.

“So what did they give you boys?” the BAA boy asked.

“Seven and a half minutes, I think,” said young John.

“Whatever that means,” added George.

The BAA boy sized up these two unknown quantities: Terry, a year or two the older, and his improbably-named shadow.

George Terry was already a Connecticut schoolboy entity. He had won a slew of races, including his high school’s conference and state cross-country and mile championships. He held records. Now he was pointing toward the fall’s state and New England cross-country showdowns.

George had prematurely thinning sandy hair, watery blue eyes, a quizzical half-smile, and your basic accountant’s tummy ripple: inall, a body deceptively designed to dispose of legions of more formful rivals.

Kelley had all but erased his name from his second-chance high school’s roster when he met Terry. The event marked a kind of road-to-Damascus turning point in his life.

Kelley did indeed see the hand of Fate directing his feet. During the previous few years, he had filled a shoebox with Sunday New York Herald-Tribune clippings about the era’s greatest runners’ exploits: those of tiny Greg Rice, the Indiana cannonball; Les MacMitchell of NYU, and his nemesis, Bill Hulse; and, as the war’s hiatus ended, of the relentless “Flying Parson,” Gil Dodds.

Young John Kelley was slight of build, standing barely 5’6″ and weighing probably less than the 120 pounds he reported on demand, his hair a tousled, mottled blond, eyes hazel, and a smile too ready to be the product of serenity. He was a worrier, a dreamer. On this hot September afternoon, he believed he had at last taken a fix on his star.

“You guys ever run in a handicap?” the BAA boy asked.

“Heh, we never ran in any kind of road race before,” George said.

“Oh Gawd, are you in for a treat! Well, see, there’s so-called ‘scratch’ races, where everybody starts together. And then there’s handicaps, where runners go off in small groups at intervals.

“The basis is a minute a mile. Ten miles, 10-minute time allowance, see? Ten minutes for the slowest, or “go’men, that is.

“Now, the breakdown may be every 30 seconds, like today, so you end up with not 10, but 20 separate flights of runners.

“You guys got 7:30, which means that you go two and a half minutes after the go men, and 7:30 ahead of ‘scratch.’

“If you’re any good, what you got today should give you a fair shot. Only, watch out for the heat. Don’t take off too fast. You’ll fry like an egg on that blacktop.

“And remember, you’ll likely be catchin’ those ‘leathers’ ahead of you pretty quick. It’s the faster guys, like me, with five minutes, or Kelley or Tom Crane, if they show, at scratch, that you hafta be thinkin’ about, ’cause they’ II be closin’ on you with every step, bustin’ ass to win both place and time prizes, since handicaps offer both, and very few people have had the stuff to take both.

“Ah, these things can be great fun, but they’re crazy torture tests, too. Handicaps are the devil’s own invention, boys, as you’ll soon see.”

Then the BAA boy was out and lost in Littleton Green’s merry doings.

The Connecticut boys followed, stepping gingerly to avoid collisions, walking wide around urchins carrying cotton candy, relishing the fleeting stares of the curious and the steadier gazes of occasional devotees of the game.

Mid-afternoon’s cascading heat flushed sweat from every pore, instantly drenching the runners’ skimpy racing togs before their wearers’ exertions had even begun. Some runners busied themselves fashioning head covers of knotted kerchiefs. One was seen cramming a cabbage leaf between fabric and scalp.

The boys found Pop Kelley surveying the scene from the shade of a patriarch oak whose leathery leaves glistened in the molten sunshine. Pop knocked dottle from his ever-present pipe. “They’re about to line you up, by the looks of things,” he said. “Somebody just blew a whistle over there.”

George danced like Willie Pep. Johnny followed suit.

Suddenly, from the jumble of runners “warming up” on this Saharan day, there emerged a bantam-chested, sinewy-legged fellow shod in customized, kangaroo skin flats, a far cry from the Connecticut boys’ gutted sneakers.

“That’s him. That’s Kelley himself,” Pop told the boys. “He did show up. It’s his 40th birthday, I’ ve been hearing. And he lives only ahop andaskip away, in West Acton, so they were all hoping. And, by gosh, he really showed up!”

Whatever happened, Pop promised, before this day was out, they’d all get to shake the famous Kelley’s hand.

“TWEET!”

On line, the great man trotted ceremonially front and center, hands clasped above his head, grinning to a burst of applause. Then the stogie-chomping official read the rules of the road.

A pistol was fired heavenward. Two grizzled veterans of the game shuffled off their mark—a hastily-laid lime line—and the Littleton 10-Mile Handicap Race of 1947 was underway.

Ten minutes later, tactfully tailed by a Buick Roadmaster bearing an OFFICIAL CAR sign on its windshield, Johnny (the Elder) Kelley began his desperado’s pursuit.

Two hours later, young Johnny Kelley sprawled facedown on the cool, matted grass under Pop’s oak tree. It had been the spot most convenient for his ejection from the race’s “meat wagon.”

Johnny lay gratefully overlooked in the day’s winding down drama. “No,” he mumbled, “never again… .” Painfully, he raised himself to a half-sitting position. He touched a bloody bunion, soaked through sock and sneaker. Of course the shoes would have to come off. But not now, God, not just now! He collapsed once more.

Sounds of the gazebo’s awards ceremony beset his ears. George had won first place. Not unexpectedly, the great Johnny A. Kelley, his famous namesake, had won the time prize. He would have to feign happiness. The trip to Littleton had been long and disjointed. The return would be endless.

Kelley squinted one-eyed through a crooked elbow. Uncle Sam beaded him froma poster tacked to a nearby tree. “I want YOU to buy United States Savings Bonds.” Yes, the war was over. People were supposed to be buying Savings Bonds now. OK, Sam, Kelley thought, you’re right. I’m going to have to start taking care of business. This isn’t it, is it?

A hand touched him gently. He saw Pop Kelley’s inquiring face.

“Get up, Bud,” Pop exhorted.

He tried to obey, but his drenched running clothes and throbbing bunions drained the will.

“No, Bud,” Pop insisted. “There’s somebody here I want you to meet.”

The next hands belonged to George. With Pop under one arm and George under the other, Johnny teetered toward vertical.

He saw the huge silver cup George had collected. Then he saw the very same sinewy-legged bantam who had jogged past this spot a couple of hours before.

“Bud,” Pop said, “I want you to meet the great marathon runner Johnny Kelley.”

George’s success had ushered him into the great runner’s magical sphere. Fate had thrown open her door to George today. She had kicked it shut in young Johnny’s face.

Yet George had a perfect right to this moment. So did Pop.

The great marathoner advanced a step, arms outstretched. He cupped his dejected namesake’s hands in his. “Better days are coming, kid,” he said. “You had your baptism of fire today, that’s all.”

The kid found himself actually struggling to smile. “Thanks, Mr. Kelley. You and George did great today ….”

The Littleton Handicap’s time prize winner let several silent seconds elapse. Then he said, “Look, you’ ve got runner’s legs, kids. You’ re going to do all right in the game. Trust me. And hey, I dropped out of my first marathon, too.

Just like you!” “Well, that’s it, Bud. You can’t quit now,” John J. Kelley Sr. said.

KEITH BLOMBERG