tour bus that always take the same, monothematic, quick ride, and let the locals show them the funky twists and turns, the detours and digressions. Let them learn about track workouts, trail runs, fun runs, and 5Ks. It might even be safe to expose them to the radical notion that some people consider themselves serious runners who— prepare yourself—plan never toruna marathon. If they’re set on achieving “the ultimate” soon after starting to run, so be it. They’re adults with free will, so caveat emptor and all that. But at least it will be more likely that, having done so, they won’t be stranded, shrugging, “What now?” but licking their lips, thinking, “What’s next?”

COMING TO CLOSURE

Linking charity marathoners to local clubs might also help alleviate a growing problem in American marathoning—namely, the increasing early closing of fields.

It’s early April as I write this, and October 24’s Marine Corps Marathon filled its 16,000-runner field more than a month ago. Sorry, Al Gore and Oprah, but as the race’s Web site claims, “No exceptions, no transfers.”

A few points. First, it’s absurd that runners must commit in February to being ready for a marathon eight months hence, especially if your selfstandard for satisfaction extends beyond completing the distance regardless of time. Yet the impetus to do so sets in motion an autocatalytic entry

process, in which prospective marathoners hear that the race will fill soon, so they better get their entry in soon, which leaves that many fewer spots, so you really need to sign up now, leaving just a few spots left, so hurry, it’s really getting close, and so on.

The race gets its quota of entries (and, of course, their fees), but it also gets a lesser field than it deserves. An official of Washington, D.C.’s Capital Running Company has estimated that last year’s Marine Corps Marathon, which didn’t close until the now seemingly luxurious June, saw 27 percent of the starters pull out before the finish. And I wonder how many of the 16,000 never even made it to the start. I know I didn’t, having signed up under the lemming program in June, at least two months earlier than I would have liked, only to be a crosstrainer come race day thanks toa stress fracture. My $40 and my race number could have been better used.

In addition, it’s unfair that X number of slots are set aside for charity runners—4,000 for this year’s Marine Corps—regardless of who those runners are, whereas you might as well put your head on a platter if you were to suggest that, say, anyone who in the previous year ran faster than the 90″ percentile for the race should be guaranteed entry. Marine Corps’ Nealis told the Washington Post that all runners had a chance to register for the race he directs. True, but misleading, given that charity marathoners, who often enroll in their programs

July/August 1999

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 3, 1999

his is our 28th year! We are proud that with

age our event has gained credibility and tremendous accolades. However, our goal remains to make everyone who participates feel tke a winnet.

Goodies and Awards We do not spend our budget on purses for an elite few – we spend it on each entrant. Our Marathon runners and walkers receive high-quality, long sleeved finisher’s shir, medal, poster, food and drink, space biankets, and a great goody bag. Our related event participants also receive shits and an assortment of goodies.

Last year over 1,250 awards were given out We have five-year age divisions, masters, Clydesdel, state and country competition, as well as team, race walker, wheelchair, and other special handicapped categories.

‘An Event for Everyone

You do not have to be a marathoner to enjoy the Portland Marathon because there are seven other events that take place on marathon morning or during the weekend.

ur Five-Miler is an excellent event for beginning and compettive middle distance runners. ‘The Mayor’s Walk is 6.2 miles of fun along the last 62 miles of the marathon course. The Kids’ Marafun is a noncompetitive approximately tworile event for kids 12 and younger and anyone else who wants to join them. The 26.2 mile Marathon Walk allows the walkers to share the thr, excitement and the same perks as their running counterparts. And our other two events are a 24-hour ultra track run, and a three mile run ‘and shoot biathlon, both held on Saturday, October 2, 1998.

Our other weekend events include a fst-class race directors’ conference, a spectacular sports and fitness expo, the best pasta party in the west, and a great post-race/awards party. In short, we coffer an event for everyone in the family.

Course and Weather

The marathon course is roling with a few long gradual hils on the first part of the course. The Toute wanders through downtown Portland, China Town, Old Town and neighborhoods with treelined streets. There are plenty of dramatic views of the Cascade mountain range, our city skyline and river front.

The second half ofthe course can easly produce a ‘negative spit” for our runners. An average of 83% have set PRs! The weather is normally in the low 50s, It is the best time of year to be in Portland,

Organization

‘Our event has gained its reputation for excellence through organization: 3,500 volunteers, 20 enthusiastic aid and medical stations, splits called data points on the course, over 40 entertainment groups, and a finish line where every marathoner’s name is announced to the thousands of spectators, All of our event participants share in a great array of food and beverages.

The Portland Hilton Hotel

2>ORTLANID MARATIHON

Be a part of what is ranked

The Best Organized Marathon in North America!! — te utimate Guide to Marathons

1999 PORTLAND MARATHON ENTRY*

rpcoccccccr

THIS IS AN IMPORTANT LEGAL DOCUMENT. READ CAREFULLY BEFORE SIGNING. Waiver of Liability: In consideration of your accepting I this erry. 1, the undersigned, intending to be legally bound, hereby, for myselt, my fay, my heits, executors, & administrators, forever waive, | release & discharge any and al rights & claims for damages & causes of suitor action, known or unknown, that | may have against The Portiand J | Marathon, The Orogon Road Runners Cub, The City of Pertand, Multnomah County and all ther ola! ene, to Portand Terminal RCo, 4 and its owners, including PDC, Union Pactc, Southern Pacific & Burlington Northem Railroads, al independent contractors & construction firms | wo nr he cro on Soe Cnn etn Ci & Yura 5 lepro t o 8 fed Marathon Events & their officers, director, employees, agents & representatives, successors, & assigns for any and all injuries sutfared by me | i* this event, | attest that | am physically ft, am aware of the dangers & precautions that must be taken when running in warm or cold conditions., ! | Eve sulicenty tained or he compan of his event | ao epee o abide by any decison tan appented medical fil eave tomy ability to safely continue or complete the Run. | futher assume and will pay my own modical & emergency expenses in the event ofan accident, E I inoss, or other incapacity regardless of whether | have authorized such expenses. Further, | hereby grant fll permission to The Oregon Road J | Runners Cub and/or agents hereby authorize by them to use any photographs, videotapes, motion pictures, recordings, of any thor record of | | SY” evn! or any lgtmate purpose at any ir. Ihave ead this waver caelly& understand i

I signature — Date

1 ata adseoss (optional) —_ This form may be reproduced, duplicated or enlarged.

MARATHON HOTLINE: (503) 226-1111

e-mail: info @portlandmarathon.org

‘IF YOU WOULD LIKE A COPY OF OUR 16 PAGE MARATHON ENTRY BOOKLET OR AN ENTRY BOOKLET THAT ALSO DESCRIBES THE FIVE-MILER, THE MAYOR’S WALK, THE MARAFUN KIDS’ RUN OR THE 26.2-MILE MARATHON WALK, PLEASE SEND A LEGAL SIZE SELF ADDRESSED STAMPED ENVELOPE (55¢) TO THE ABOVE ‘ADDRESS.

Or visit our website:

www.portlandmarathon.org

July/August 1999

in May, need not commit when others have to for “The People’s Marathon.” Perhaps some people are more equal than others?

I’m not saying that charity runners have noright to be in “ourraces.” If they’re running the race (or run/ walking, coffeebreaking it, whatever), who am I to say they shouldn’t be there? We’re all slower than someone, so I see neither merit nor value in some of the arbitrary standards offered to supposedly settle this matter (don’t bother if you can’t break five hours, no walking allowed, and so on). By the one-foot-off-the-ground-at-alltimes standard, Orlando Pizzolato would have to turn in his 1984 NYC winner’s medallion. The point is that charity runners often take numbers without full knowledge of what the marathon entails, thereby not only taking that slot but forcing others to commit earlier than is desirable. Perhaps linking charity groups to running clubs would help the novices see that there’s plenty of time and plenty of marathons; maybe then marathon fields could swing back toward being filled mainly by those really ready for the race.

Some say that even this degree of criticism is unwelcoming, that new runners need all the encouragement they can get. Perhaps. But I’ll side with Dawkins about how patronizing the you’ll-frighten-the-children approach can be. Besides, someone committing to running a marathon shouldn’t need perpetual pats on the back from every aspect of the running community, especially when that person is unconnected to the running community in most other ways, as is the case with most charity runners. It would seem that committing to the marathon would signify a degree of self-directedness that can survive environments other than those where never is heard a discouraging word.

For my part, next time someone comes collecting for her inaugural marathon, I’ll give her a check for $52.40. But I’ll also point her in the direction of the nearest running club in the hope that, five years from now, Iwon’t again be the only runner in the office.

July/August 1999

Events

Edmonton Journal Festival Marathon Aqualta Half Marathon

West Edmonton Mall Mini Marathon 50 km Ultramarathon

August 22, 1999 @ 7 am Marathon course of the 2001 World Track & Field Championships

To enter or for more information,

contact: Leah Tanner, 120, 10050 MacDonald Dr., Edmonton, AB,

Canada, T5J 053 Tel (780) 428-1421

(ext. 3) Fax (780) 428-1031 or

E-mail bltanner@telusplanet.net

Web site www.edmonton-marathon.com

coo Journal

west aA = = fae’ adidas Bee

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The Essential Encyclopedia of Marathoning

For the Digest-Oriented, a Manual of Essential Marathon Listings, Each Held to 25 Words Or Less.

A LTHOUGH MARATHONERS like to trace their avocation and lifestyle back to the often misrepresented legend of Pheidippides, for all intents and purposes the marathon as we know it is barely into its second century. For newcomers and hoary vets alike, here’s a pocket guide to the basic names and concepts that form the foundation of modern marathoning:

adidas. Major German sport shoe manufacturer well known throughout the world but able to get only tentative toehold in the U.S. market.

AIMS (Association of International Marathons and Road Races). Group of concerned marathon directors banded together to promote, market, and standardize marathons throughout the known universe.

air sole. Late 1970s Nike solution to providing ultimate impact protection for distance runners while buoying Nike sales through the 1980s, especially in basketball via “Air Jordan.”

AAU (Amateur Athletic Union). Governing body of amateur U.S. sports in 1970s, a.k.a. “Antiquated Attitudes Updated” as it struggled through women’s rights to compete in distance events.

Anderson, John Robert “Bob” (see Distance Running News, Runner’s World). Eccentric, prickly Kansan boy who pioneered many of today’s taken-for-granted institutions, including Runner’s World (originally DRN, 1966-69), expos, Corporate Cup, and more.

Asics (see Tiger shoes). Modern name of Japanese Tiger running

shoe, a brand made popular from the car trunks of Nike creators Phil Knight and Jeff Johnson.

Athens, 1896. Modern Olympic Games added a novelty event called “Marathon” to commemorate a fabled run from the Plains of Marathon to Athens; event may outlive Games.

Averoff, Georgios. Shipping magnate patron saint of first Modern Olympics went so far as to offer daughter’s hand in marriage to Marathon winner (if a Greek).

Barron, Gayle. Winner of 1978 Boston Marathon, author of Beauty of Running, coach of Atlanta-based Team Spirit marathon training group.

Beames, Adrienne. Before any woman had broken three hours in the marathon, this Australian ran a dubious 2:46 in 1971. Beardsley, Richard “Dick.” Accident-prone Minnesotan half of classic “Duel in the Sun” (with Alberto Salazar) at Boston 1982; still holds third best U.S. marathon time.

Belokas, Spiridon (see Ruiz, Rosa). Third-place finisher of first Modern Olympics Marathon in 1896 later dumped for taking a car ride through middle miles.

Benoit (Samuelson), Joan. Tough competitor and pioneer, once described by her coach as “a bowling ball with legs”; won first-ever Women’s Olympic Marathon in 1984. Berlin Marathon. After a 10-year stall, men’s marathon best time fell here in 1998 with Ronaldo DaCosta’s 2:06:05.

Bikila, Abebe. Consistently voted best male marathoner in history, the Ethiopian palace guard won Olympic gold in 1960 and 1964, setting new world’s best both times.

blood doping. Controversial performance aid where blood is extracted and stored for reinfusion before race in order to elevate red blood cell count and hence oxygen transport.

Blue Ribbon Sports (see air sole; Bowerman, William “Bill”; MARK SHEARMAN Johnson, Jeff; Knight, Phil; Nike shoes; Tiger shoes). Company formed in 1970s to sell Japanese Tiger running shoes in U.S.; eventually evolved into Nike.

Bonner, Beth. Generally acknowledged as the first female to break 3:00 in the marathon, Bonner was killed in a biking accident in 1998.

Bordin, Gelindo. The only male Olympic gold-medal winner (1988) to also win Boston (1990), the well-respected Italian serves as race director of Prague International Marathon.

“Boston.” Cradle of American marathoning; begun in 1897 after a group of BAA members returned from the first Modern Olympic Games impressed by the “marathon” event.

BAA (Boston Athletic Association). The group designated to oversee the famed Boston Marathon; met in official “Jock” Semple’s massage room before moving to better quarters in the 1970s.

Richard Benyo THE ESSENTIAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MARATHONING mt 17

Bowerman, William ‘Bill.”’ Famed University of Oregon track coach also famed for using his wife’s waffle iron to create the revolutionary soles for Nike’s “Waffle Trainer” running shoes. Brasher, Christopher “Chris.”’ Accomplished British steeplechaser, Brasher saw the future of marathoning at New York and transported the concept to England by founding the London Marathon. Breal, Michel. Frenchman who offered a special cup for the winner of the novelty “marathon” event at the first Modern Olympic Games in Athens in 1896. Bridges, Cheryl. First woman to dip into the 2:40s in the marathon, with her 2:49 several months after Beth Bonner’s initial smashing of the 3:00 barrier. Brown, Barry. Long-running U.S. masters marathon record holder (2:15:15, St. Paul, 1984); ultimately committed suicide in the wake of business deals gone sour. Brown, Ellison Myers “Tarzan.” Brilliant but erratic Indian runner who would either win Boston or stop along the course to take a swim in a convenient lake. Brown, Julie. Prominent American marathoner of the late 1970s and early 1980s was blessed with consistency but always just off the world’s best level. Buniak, Peter (see Drayton, Jerome). Immigrant to Canada changed his name and, with trademark sunglasses and sinister mustache, became Canada’s greatest marathoner; won 1977 Boston. ____ Burfoot, Amby. Only American to win Boston in the 1960s (1968), – = “The Ambulator” (low-to-ground style) became well-respected PHOTO Ente editor of Runner’s World magazine in 1986.

Cabrera, Delfo. Second Argentinian in three Olympics (1932, 1936, 1948) to win (see Zabala, Juan Carlos); no Latin American has won since 1948.

Campbell, John. Broke fellow New Zealander Jack Foster’s 16-year-old world masters record with 2:11:05.

carbohydrate loading. The process of superloading the body with carbohydrates (fuel) in anticipation of a marathon or long run.

ChampionChip. One giant step for moving running farther into the Brave New World by allowing fully computerized scoring.

Chicago Marathon. During the late 1970s and early 1980s dueled with NYC to be biggest and best; after decline, the race is back strong as ever.

Cierpinski, Waldemir. Didn’t take to steeplechase so changed to marathon and won 1976 and 1980 Olympic gold; now felt to have been object of drug experimentations. Clayton, Derek. Fierce Australian competitor who twice in the 1960s set world’s best marathon time, the latter of which (2:08:34, 1969) lasted 12 years.

Commonwealth Games. In preprofessional era, one of the world’s great races, with winners including Ron Hill and Rob de Castella.

Cooper, Dr. Kenneth. Former Air Force doctor, his book Aerobics in 1968 started a generation of Americans jogging for health; founder of Cooper Institute in Dallas. Corbitt, Ted. Likeable African-American masseur and distance runner was the father of American ultrarunning and cofounder of the RRCA.

Costill, Dr. David. Ball State University professor was pioneer at using distance runners as guinea pigs for experiments in human physiology.

course certification. Gives meaning to records by assuring distances are as advertised; pioneered in U.S. by Ted Corbitt.

da Costa, Renaldo. In 1998 broke the decade-old world’s best marathon time with a startling 2:06:05 (a 45-second improvement) at the Berlin Marathon.

Davies, Clive. Welshman transplanted to the U.S.; ran in the low 2:40s in his 60s, which was the fastest in the world at the time. Daws, Ron. U.S. Olympic marathoner (1968) of limited natural talent but tremendous insights into racing; coached then-wife Lorraine Moller in her early years as a marathoner.

de Castella, Rob. Tough, focused Australian who nearly did to _ marathon records in the 1980s what Derek Clayton did to them in PHOTO RUN the 1960s.

De Coubertin, Pierre. Frenchman who created the Modern Olympic Games—only to have the Greeks attempt to make him persona non grata once they got going. Dellinger, William “Bill.” University of Oregon coach (and Olympian) responsible for a raft of star distance runners, including Alberto Salazar.

DeMar, Clarence. Mild-mannered but opinionated typesetter who won the Boston Marathon a record seven times from 1911 to 1930; ran to and from work many days. depletion phase. Now discredited practice of depriving the body of carbohydrates in preparation for superloading of carbs before marathon.

Derderian, Thomas “Tom.” Top New England runner (2:19 PR), running scribe, and author of the monumental epic history, The Boston Marathon.

Dickerson, Marianne. America’s first female medalist at a world level with a silver at the first World Championships in 1983.

digital watches. Put instant results on the wrist of every runner, beginning in the late 1970s.

Dinsamo, Belayneh. One-race wonder who set a world’s best of 2:06:51 in 1988 then all but disappeared; record lasted a decade.

Distance Running News (see Runner’s World). The original publication (1966) from which Runner’s World evolved; begun on Bob Anderson’s bureau top in a Kansas bedroom.

Dorre, Katrin. Incredibly consistent competitor for more than a decade, with a2:25:15 win at Berlin 1994 to her credit.

Drayton, Jerome (see Buniak, Peter). Canada’s fastest marathoner for more than two decades; the acerbic Drayton ruffled Boston feathers by once suggesting they put water on course.

Durden, Benjamin “Benji.” Member of U.S. Olympic team-to-nowhere in 1980; sub2:10 at Boston 1983; later a widely respected coach.

Edelen, Leonard “Buddy.” Last American man to hold world record, with 2:14:28 in 1963; sixth at Tokyo (1964) Olympics.

EI Oaufi, Mohamed. North African who won 1928 Olympic gold for France; early hint of the wave of Africans to arrive decades later.

European Championships. Another once-great race that suffered at the hands of professional big-city marathons in recent years.

Exceed. Worthy sports drink competition to Gatorade; produced by Ross Labs, when it began to show its muscle, Quaker Oats’ Gatorade beat it back.

First U.S. marathon, 1896. NYC Olympic fans came back in 1896 and put on a marathon from Stamford, Connecticut, to Columbus Circle in Manhattan; John McDermott won in 3:25:55.

Fixx, James “Jim.” Overweight, smoking magazine editor took up running, became addicted, and wrote The Complete Book of Running (1977), which is still the sport’s bestseller.

Foster, John “Jack.”” New Zealander proved age is not a barrier to performance; ran in the 1972 Olympics at age 41 and for 19 years held masters record.

Frank, Norm. America’s most prolific marathoner, with more than 600 run and still going; broke Sy Mah’s “record.”

Fukuoka Marathon. Japanese race that was for many years the unofficial world championship; Frank Shorter won four years straight.

Gailly, Etienne. Gutsy Belgian hobbled into Olympic stadium in London 1948 in the lead only to be passed twice before he staggered across the line in third.

Galloway, Jeff. Olympian in 1972 at 10,000 meters; rose to prominence in the 1980s with Galloway’s Book of Running and in 1990s on walking breaks.

Gatorade. When first released, tasted like the sweat it was meant to replace; today the largest-selling sports drink in the Americas.

Gibb, Roberta “Bobbi.” Before Kathrine Switzer ran Boston with a number, Bobbi Gibb ran it numberless, just for the joy of it. GoreTex. A revolutionary fabric with weave tight enough to keep out raindrops but loose enough to allow perspiration to percolate through. Gorman, Niki. First great female masters runner won both Boston and New York after passing her 40th birthday. Green, Norman “Norm.” One of the few human beings who lived a half century and then broke 2:30 in the marathon. GU. The original sports gel. Gynn, Roger. British writer who worked with Dr. David Martin to capture the statistical history of marathoning.

Hansen, Jacqueline. First woman to go under 2:45 and first to go under 2:40, in both instances setting tough new standards in the world’s best performances. Hartshorn, Gordon. Texan who ran 74 marathons in as many weeks, a “world record” at the time, while fighting a losing battle with prostate cancer.

Hayes, John “Johnny.” America’s Olympic Marathon winner in the 1908 race where Dorando Pietri was disqualified after receiving assistance inside stadium. Henderson, Joe. Editor of Runner’s World from 1970-77, propagator of LSD (long slow distance), and author of two dozen popular books on running.

Hicks, Thomas. American won first Olympic Marathon held in USS. in St. Louis in 1904 after Fred Lorz was DQ’d for taking aride. Higdon, Hal. Prolific writer and runner; has been covering the sport and performing at a national level for more than 50 years. Hill, Ronald “Ron.” Second runner (after Derek Clayton) to break BARBARA SHAW 2:10; winner of both Commonwealth and European titles. Hirsch, George. Publisher of The Runner, a competitor to Runner’s World, founded in 1978; became publisher of RW when Rodale Press purchased The Runner. Honolulu Marathon. Largest international race held in the U.S., with two-thirds of entrants coming from Japan.

Human Kinetics, Inc. Most prominent U.S. source of running books and original publisher of Marathon & Beyond.

Hussien, Ibraham. Genial Kenyan runner who provided one of the greatest-ever Boston finishes in 1988, outkicking Tanzania’s Ikangaa in the final yards.

Hwang, Young-Cho. Twenty-two-year-old South Korean winner of the 1992 Olympic Marathon who soon after retired with injuries.

Ikangaa, Juma. Talented Tanzanian runner best remembered for his stirring finishing duel with Ibraham Hussien at Boston in 1988.

Ikenberry, Judy. First U.S. women’s marathon champion after the AAU finally gave full approval to the event in 1974.

IAAF (International Amateur Athletic Federation). The international federation charged with trying to regulate amateur sports on the world stage.

Irvine, “Sister’’ Marion. Oldest American to qualify for U.S. Olympic Trials; ran the 1984 Trials Marathon at age 54.

Johnson, Jeff (see air sole; Blue Ribbon Sports; Bowerman, William “Bill”; Knight, Phil; Nike shoes; Tiger shoes). With Phil Knight founded Blue Ribbon Sports to sell Americans Japanese running shoes; legend has Jeff thinking up the company name Nike in a dream.

Jones, Steve. Welchman considered one of the toughest, most focused marathoners ever; three sub-2:08:30s in one year (1984-85).

Kardong, Donald “Don.” President of RRCA, founder of Bloomsday race, fourth-place Olympic Marathon finisher in 1976, columnist, writer, and all-around good guy.

Kee-chung, Sohn (see Son, Kitei). Japan occupied Korea and made . Koreans run under Japanese flag with Japanese names at Berlin 1936; Kee-chung won gold.

Kelley, John A. The Grand Master ran in more Boston Marathons than anyone else (61), winning it twice (1935 and 1945), taking second seven times.

: Kelley, John J. The only American to win Boston during the deiMwFERSe cades of the 1950s; took second place five times.

Kellner, Gyula. The Hungarian ultrarunner was one of only four non-Greeks in the first Olympic Marathon; took third after protesting Belokas’s accepting a ride. Kempainen, Robert “Dr. Bob.” Fastest U.S. marathoner ever with a 2:08:48 at Boston 1994; two-time Olympian (1992 and 1996).

Kenya (1960s). Integral part of the African invasion of distance running during the 1960s led by Ethiopians Bikila and Wolde.

Kenya (1990s). A bottomless well of world-class marathoners.

Keston, John. World’s oldest sub-3:00 marathoner (at 69) and record-holder for 70+ (3:00:58).

Kolehmainen, Hannes. Finnish winner of the 1920 Olympic Marathon, the first in which there was no controversy.

Knight, Phil (see air sole; Blue Ribbon Sports; Bowerman, William “Bill”; Johnson, Jeff; Nike shoes; Tiger shoes). Started by selling Japanese shoes from trunk of car; now sells Nike shoes to the Japanese—and everyone else.

Kristiansen, Ingrid. Held world’s best marathon mark (2:21:06; London 1985) for 13 years, butalso held many other distance world’s bests.

: Kurtis, Doug. World record for most marathon wins (39) and most sub-2:20s (73).

Kuscsik, Nina. American women’s pioneer and first official women’s winner at Boston (1972: 3:10:26).

Larrieu (-Smith), Frances “Francie.” Five-time U.S. Olympian, starting with the 1500 at age 19 and advancing to the marathon at 39.

Lawson, Jerry. Only American other than Kempainen to break 2:10 in the 1990s, with a 2:09:35 at Chicago in 1997.

Lazaro, Francisco. Portuguese runner died the day after collapsing at too-hot Olympic marathon at Stockholm in 1912.

Lebow, Fred. Impresario of big-budget, big-city, big-field marathon at New York City, the template for modern megamarathons.

Leonard, Tommie. For decades the “host” of the Eliot Lounge, the most famous of Boston runners’ water holes.

Lindgren, Mavis. Began running in her 60s and continued marathoning well into her 80s. Lismont, Karel. Consistently good Belgian runner was second to Frank Shorter in 1972, third to Shorter’s second in 1976.

London, 1908. The Olympic marathon at which, to accommodate the Royal Family’s viewing, the course was set at 26 miles, 385 yards.

London Marathon. One of the world’s largest and best-executed marathons.

Long Distance Log. Scrappy little results-centered magazine published by Browning Ross; predated Runner’s World.

LSD (long slow distance). A form of marathon training widely credited to Joe Henderson, who credits it to Arthur Lydiard and Ernst van Aaken.

Lopes, Carlos. Oldest man (at 37) to ever win an Olympic marathon (Los Angeles, 1984), setting Olympic record in the process.

Loroupe, Tegla. Broke 13-year-old marathon best time in Rotterdam in 1998 with a controversial (male pacing) 2:20:47.

Los Angeles Marathon. One of three U.S. races with a history of 20,000+ fields (along with New York City and Honolulu).

Loues, Spiridon (also spelled Louis). Greek winner of firstever Olympic Marathon in 1896; only Greek to win a gold. ” Lorz, Fred (see Ruiz, Rosa). Tried to accept gold at 1904 St. xoou «Louis Olympics after catching a car ride at mile three.

PHOTO RUN

Lydiard, Arthur. Acknowledged as the father of modern marathon training, famed New Zealand coach made believers at the 1960 Olympics.

Mah, Sy. One-time world-record holder amassed more marathon finishes (524) than anyone until surpassed by Norm Frank.

Marathon & Beyond. Bastard offspring (birthed January 1997) of defunct The Marathoner (1978-79). Marathon, Plains of (to Athens; in Greece). Site of epic battle from which Pheidippides supposedly ran to Athens with news of victory, birthing marathon legend.

Marine Corps Marathon. The alternative to New York City, also run in the fall, with no prize money but a five-figure field.

Martin, Dr. David. Famed human physiology expert at Georgia State University and fine scientific author.

Martin (Ondieki), Lisa. Consistently strong contender; silver at Seoul; win at NYC in 1992.

masters marathoning. A one-time fringe movement for over-40 runners now accounts for nearly half of any U.S. field.

Matson, Shirley. Fastest American woman over 50 with a marass thon time of 2:50, which broke Sister Marion Irvine’s record. McArthur, Kenneth. The only South African to win Olympic gold (in 1912) until Josiah Thugwane sated the drought 84 years later.

McDermott, John. Won first marathon in U.S. (Stamford to NYC) in 1896 and first Boston in 1897.

Melpomene. Greek female who reputedly ran the marathon course in Athens in 1896, although there is no real evidence.

Meyer, Gregory “Greg.” Last American to win Boston (1983) is often overshadowed by Bill Rodgers in spite of a better PR (2:09:00).

Mimoun, Alain. Consistently second to his dear friend Emil Zatopek, Mimoun finally won Olympic Marathon in 1956.

\ A/ » Moller, Lorraine. Amassed three victories in the pioneering Avon Marathon series (1978-1986) and won bronze at Barcelona.

Moore, Kenneth “Kenny.” Sports Illustrated writer and consistently strong racer; Olympian in 1968 and 1972 (fourth place).

Mota, Rosa. Overshadowed by Waitz/Benoit/Kristiansen, j she was more consistent in major championships; OlymPHOTO RUN “ = pic bronze in 1984, gold in 1988.

New Balance shoes. First widely distributed shoes for road runners; U.S. company offered $1 million for breaking national record.

Newton, Arthur. Represented U.S. at Paris in 1900, finishing fifth to runners who knew shortcuts through city.

New York City Marathon. The grandfather of all big-city megamarathons continues to set standards and unleash innovations.

Nike shoes (see air sole; Blue Ribbon Sports; Bowerman, William “Bill”; Johnson, Jeff; Knight, Phil; Tiger shoes). Reportedly named by Jeff Johnson, Phil Knight shoe company evolved from selling imports to selling own brand after Bowerman made waffle sole.

Nurmi, Paavo. Pioneer and innovator of long-distance running, inspired Emil Zatopek— and everyone else who wanted to go long fast.

Olympic Games. Created by the Greeks back in B.C. and revived by a Frenchman in Greece in 1896.

Olympic Trials Marathon. Race used to pick U.S. Olympic marathoners; previously they were picked by committee based on performances.

Ondieki (Martin-), Lisa. See Martin-Ondieki.

Osler, Thomas “Tom.” Ground-breaking author with his 1966 booklet, Conditioning

of Distance Runners.

Palm, Evy. No woman her age (47 at the time) or older has run a faster marathon than the Swede’s 2:31 at the 1989 London Marathon.

Peters, Jim. Most famous for heat-induced collapse at the 1954 Vancouver Commonwealth Games; reset world best mark four times; first under 2:20.

Pfitzinger, Peter “Pete.” Two-time Olympian (1984 and 1988) and leading American finisher in both.

Pheidippides. Marathon patron saint; Greek hemerodromos (messenger) legend has him dying at the gates of Athens but he was too good a runner for that.

Pietri, Dorando. Gutsy Italian runner came into London Olympic stadium (1908) in the lead, repeatedly collapsed, and was disqualified when helped up.

Pinto, Antonio. Based on average of five fastest marathon times, Portugal’s Pinto ranks third at 2:08:25 (Thys Ist, Jones 2nd).

Pippig, Uta. Recent drug allegations have not dimmed mulPHOTO RUN ‘ tiple Boston winner’s popularity with the crowd.

Plaatjes, Mark. South African-born American won at the 1993 World Championships—only U.S. marathon gold-medalist in this meet.

polypropylene. Miracle fabric introduced in early 1980s revolutionized distance runners’ clothing.

PowerFoods (PowerBar). Brian Maxwell’s (Canadian Olympian) Berkeley (California)—based company pioneered energy/sports bars.

Puma. German shoe company was at one time a fierce rival of Adidas; the two companies were owned by feuding brothers.

ARE: RRCA (Road Runners Club of America). Grassroots organization is 42 years old; flourished as “official” organizations ignored road racing.

RRIC (Road Running Information Center). Keeps national statistics and records for long-distance racing.

RRTC (Road Running Technical Committee). Sets standards for course measurement. Roba, Fatuma. Ethiopian 1996 gold-medal winner dominated the race in impressive fashion; won the last three Boston Marathons.

Rodgers, Bill. Arguably most popular of U.S. marathoners; won Boston and NYC four times each.

Roe, Allison. New Zealander with movie star looks and talent to match; set since-disallowed world record at NYC in 1981.

Ross, Browning. Publisher of seminal Long Distance Log and spark plug behind founding of RRCA.

Rotterdam Marathon. Consistently fast April marathon was built with world records in mind.

PHOTO RUN,

Ruiz, Rosa “Rosie.” Took the “T” in Boston in 1980, jumped in for final miles, claimed to be winner; later arrested on cocaine possession charges in Florida.

Runner, The (see Hirsch, George). Created in 1978 to compete with Runner’s World; eventually purchased by RW’s then-new owner, Rodale Press.

Runner’s World (see Distance Running News). World’s largest running magazine was founded in 1966 by Bob Anderson in his Kansas bedroom.

Running Times. One of the country’s oldest and largest running magazines, dating from 1977; edited by top marathoner Gordon Bakoulis.

Ryan, Michael “Mike.” Won 1912 Boston; U.S. Olympic marathon coach was despised as overbearing by his charges.

Salazar, Alberto. Consistently tough-minded, hard-training, and cocky racer who backed up his promises when it mattered.

Samuelson, Joan (Benoit). See Benoit (Samuelson), Joan.

Scaff, John “Dr. Jack.” A medical doctor who originated, in the 1970s, the nowpopular concept of marathon-training clinics.

Segal, Erich. Bestselling author was also consistently sub-3:00 marathoner at Boston and did stint as Olympic marathon commentator.

Seko, Toshihiko. Consistently tough-minded, hard-training Japanese marathoner who liked to “run on the edge of death.”

Semple, John “Jock.” Eccentric, volatile guardian of the purity of the Boston Marathon; famous for trying to beat up on Kathrine Switzer in 1967.

Sheehan, Dr. George, Jr. The guru of running writers, the Red Bank (NJ) cardiologist turned “an experiment of one” into one of millions.

Sherring, William. Canadian who won the “extra Olympics” of 1906, held for the only time at a two-year interval.

Schiro, Cathy (-O’Brien). U.S. Olympic Trials at 16, still the country’s only two-time female Olympic marathoner (Seoul and PHOTO RUN Barcelona).

Shorter, Francis “Frank.” Won gold in 1972, silver in 1976, credited with inspiring millions of fellow baby boomers to hit the roads on the run.

. Smith, Frances “Francie” (Larrieu-). See Larrieu-Smith, Frances “Francie.”

Smith, Joyce. One of the best-ever female masters runners; won first London Marathon in 1981.

So (or Soh) brothers. Japanese twins who, for several years in late 1970s, were world-class competitors and contemporaries of Seko. Son, Kitei. See Kee-chung, Sohn.

Spiridon. Popular German running magazine.

Squires, William “Billy.” Coach of the famed GBTC (Greater Boston Track Club) during its heyday as spawning grounds of great 42Kers: Rodgers, Salazar, Meyer, Hodge, etc.

Stenroos, Albin. Second straight Finn to win an Olympic title (after Hannes Kohlemainen in 1920); no Finn has won since. Switzer, Kathrine. Pioneer of women’s running, she was the first female to run Boston with a number; managed Avon marathon program.

Takahashi, Noako. From Japan, the fastest female marathoner in an all-women’s marathon with a 2:21:47 in 1998.

TAC (The Athletic Congress). First there was the AAU, then TAC, and now there’s USATF as U.S. amateur track and field governing body.

Theato, Michel. French delivery boy who, by knowing shortcuts through the city, beat favored Arthur Newton at Paris Games in 1900.

Thugwane, Josiah. This slight South African runner won gold at Atlanta in 1996; stresses education to his offspring.

Thys, Gert. Top five marathons average 2:08:02! Set second fastest time ever in

Tiger shoes. (see air sole; Asics; Blue Ribbon Sports; Bowerman, William “Bill”; Johnson, Jeff; Knight, Phil.)

Turnbull, Derek. New Zealander sheep rancher regularly ran marathons in the 2:30s

in his early 60s.

Ullyot, Dr. Joan. Medical doctor who wrote Women’s Running, the first great book on the subject; ran 2:47 at age 48.

USATF (USA Track & Field). The sport’s current governing body in

the U.S. Van

PHOTO RUN | Van Aaken, Ernst. Crippled German coach who in the 1970s did much to advance women’s marathon, including hosting a championship marathon in the town of Waldniel.

Viren, Lasse. Finn placed fifth at the Montreal Games in his first marathon after winning 5,000 and 10,000; tried to match Zatopek.

waffle sole (see Bowerman, William “Bill”; Nike). First great marketing advance for fledgling Nike shoes, created by Bill Bowerman on his wife’s waffle iron.

Waitz, Grete. Brought the women’s marathon into the modern era when she ran her first marathon at New York in 1978 and broke the world’s best mark.

Welch, Priscilla. Still world-record holder in the women’s masters marathon with 2:26:51 at 1987 London.

Western Hemisphere Marathon. Oldest U.S. marathon west of Boston has run continuously in Culver City, California, since 1948.

Wilt, Fred. FBI agent invented the modern running book with How They Train (1959) and coached Buddy Edelen to his world record.

Wolde, Mamo. Teammate of Abebe Bikila won the Olympic marathon in 1968; treated dismally in home country of Ethiopia.

World Championships. Inaugurated in 1983 at Helsinki, with Grete Waitz and Rob de Castella winning.

World Cup. The first attempt at a worldwide race soon gave way to the World Championships.

Yegorova, Valentina. Winner of Olympic gold in 1992 and silver in 1996; extremely consistent. Yonkers Marathon. Longtime site of the U.S. Championships; tough race won eight

times in a row by John J. Kelley.

Zabala, Juan Carlos. First Latin American to win an Olympic title (1932 at Los Angeles).

Zatopek, Emil. In his first-ever marathon he won 1952 Olympic gold in record time after also winning the 5,000 and 10,000. Zuna, Frank. Boston winner (1921), Olympian (1924); laid-back in the extreme; staid friend Clarence DeMar called Zuna PR.

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Dos Amigos

A Tale of Addiction, Recovery, Running, and the Boston Marathon

C ONSIDER THIS: before 1994, Luis Martinez was so messed up on heroin, cocaine, and alcohol that some days he lacked the strength to walk the few steps from his bedroom to the bathroom. Now, Luis is alcohol- and drug-free, and he has pursued running with the passion he once put into maintaining his addiction.

Luis was born in Puerto Rico in the village of Manasco, near Mayaguez, and came to live in Willimantic, Connecticut, when he was 13. He had begun abusing alcohol when he was 9; his heroin addiction started at the age of 15 after a serious car accident in which his legs were severely injured. A “friend” introduced him to heroin to help dim the pain. Luis developed a love for the drug, a love that ruled his life for the next 20 years.

In spite of his substance abuse, Luis managed to run for a time, and he even participated in some marathons. But his ruinous lifestyle eventually exacted its toll, and in the final years of his addiction he was unable to run at all.

Luis at age 15, after the car accident. “The doctors said | would have a hard time walking right. | ran and rode a bike to make my legs strong. But | found out heroin killed the pain.”

After finally freeing himself of drugs and alcohol at the age of 39, Luis made a frightening promise to himself: “If I ever go back to drugs or alcohol, that’s it. I’m dead. I’ll get a gun and shoot myself before I go back to the way I was.”

In the months prior to the 1998 Boston Marathon (his 4th Boston and 12th marathon since quitting drugs and alcohol), Luis met with his former counselor, Steve DePolito, who is now his running partner and friend, and Roger Zotti, a fellow runner and teacher. What follows is an exchange between Luis, Steve, and Roger that takes a retrospective look at Luis’s recovery and his running career. They also discuss a bond that developed between Luis and Steve and their dream of running the Boston Marathon together.

Luis shortly before his overdose and getting into treatment. “I call this my ‘Chupacabras picture,’ after the legendary Puerto Rican creature whose name means ‘goat sucker.’”

OPENING UP

Roger: Luis, what was life like for you four years ago, when you were on drugs? Luis: Well, I spent a lot of time living and sleeping in alleys. Living in dirty rooms. Hanging out in bars. I was all over the place. You see, anyone taking drugs or drinking the way I did, that’s the way you travel. Go here. Go there. That way, you can’t be seen. You’re running away from other people and especially from yourself. Roger: And then you got away from the drugs and started getting into shape? Luis: Yes, I did, and I began to think clearly. I saw that the time I spent doing bad things to myself could be used doing good things. So I began running. I always dreamed about running the Boston Marathon, ever since I was a boy in Puerto Rico. That motivated me. Roger: Steve, when did you first meet Luis?

Mutual Ground

Steve: I first met Luis a few days after he came into the treatment program where I worked. He entered the detoxification unit on February 25, 1994. After he was detoxed from heroin, he was transferred into the rehab program, and I was

Luis Martinez and Steve DePolito, with Roger Zotti DOS AMIGOS m 33

assigned as his counselor. During our first meeting we talked in my office, just chatting informally. I was trying to get to know him. He talked about his love for running and mentioned that he actually ran the Boston Marathon years ago. Roger: When was that?

Luis: [think it was 1985.’ mnotsure. That was in my other life. That’s when I used to sniff a bag of dope and go for a run.

Steve: The next day when we met again, I brought in my copy of Tom Derderian’s book, Boston Marathon, to try and figure out what year Luis ran. Coincidentially, [had just started running seriously again the previous November after taking a few years off. I got the Boston book as a Christmas present and once I started reading it, I couldn’t put it down. As a result, I got hooked on the idea of someday running Boston. I told Luis that I hoped to run it.

Luis: That’s when I told Steve that when I get out of the program, maybe he and I could train and run Boston together.

Steve: I’ll always remember that day. I said something like, “Sure, why not?” But in my mind I’m thinking: “Yeah, right! It’s a nice idea, but this guy just kicked dope. He looks like shit!” I thought he was nuts.

Luis: That’s what I saw in Steve’s eyes when he looked at me. “Are you still high on drugs? Still drunk? Are you crazy? The way you look, and you’re talking about running a marathon!”

Roger: But at some point you did get together for a run.

Steve: Yes. Back then I used to keep a running log, and on March 15th my entry says that I “Ran with my new patient Luis on the hospital grounds. Luis handled the run well. Four miles at about 8 minutes per mile.”

Roger: That’s not bad for someone just getting off drugs. Did you have to get permission for him to run? After all, he was still a patient.

Steve: As a matter of fact, I had to fight like hell to convince the doctor to let him run. The doctor didn’t want to take any chances. He thought he might twist an ankle or have a heart attack or something. When Luis finally got permission to run, he was limited to just running around the treatment center building. People who had to be in to work at 6:30 in the morning told me they would see Luis out there every morning, running laps around the building.

Luis: [ranevery morning. And every afternoon. I was also working out with weights and hitting the heavy bag. You know, when you’re out there doing drugs for a long time, your body gets run down. So it wasn’t easy. When it was snowing or icy and I couldn’t run outside, I’d go into the rec room and run back and forth. Over and over again. Back and forth.

The Cemetery Run

Steve: Luis, talk about the cemetery run—when you buried yourself.

Luis: Oh yes, yes. It was early in the morning, and everything was frozen outside, and I said to myself, “Wow, I’m free. I’m outside. I can feel and smell the air.” So I took a chance and ran through the cemetery.

Roger: You mean the one right next to the hospital?

Luis: Yes. It was off limits to patients. But I took a chance. I jumped the wall and ran inside the cemetery for a while. When I finished and jumped back over the wall, I stopped running for a second and said to myself that I had just buried all that bad stuff from my past, all the drugs and alcohol, the negative thinking. It’s all in that cemetery and it’s going to stay buried. I know I can do anything I want to do as long as I keep that bad behavior buried. Now every time I drive past that cemetery, I say, ““That’s where I’m buried. Part of me. The bad part.”

Roger: Steve, why did you take Luis seriously? How was he different from your other patients? You said you thought he was crazy at first.

Steve: Well, yes, I did, especially when he suggested that we run Boston together. But part of me didn’t think so at all. It’s hard to describe. He had this look in his eyes that said he was dead serious. Maybe that’s the best way to describe it—dead serious. You see, it was during our first meeting, Ithink, when Luis told me he came into treatment after he tried to kill himself, and failed.

Luis: That’s right. I had gotten to a point where I just locked myself in a room. I didn’t want to have anything to do with anyone. I was just so tired of my whole life, of just drinking and drugging. I decided that I’d commit suicide by overdosing on heroin. But I made a promise to myself that if I woke up, if I survived, I would try to get some help. So I put the needle in my arm… and 12 hours later I woke up, with the needle still stuck in my arm. I got down on my knees and asked God for help. Soon after, I went into the program, and then I met Steve.

Roger: How long were you in the program?

Luis: Close to two months. Steve was able to get me into a halfway house in Mystic.

Steve: We had developed a pretty good relationship by this time. I was convinced that Luis was very serious about his running and his recovery from addiction. We had run together a few times. We were both getting into good shape, and it was around this time we started thinking seriously about running a marathon. When Luis was discharged from the program, I received permission from the halfway house to see Luis on weekends so we could run together. Talso took him to run races that summer. Our first race was a 3.5-miler in New London. Luis had been off drugs for only 10 weeks, but he was getting stronger and already showing his ability. At the time, I was racing 5Ks at around 7:30 per mile, but even at that first race Luis got under 7 minutes per mile. Back then, he got into a habit of going out way too fast, usually under 6 minutes for the first

mile. This hurt him later when he began to run marathons. It was that summer we decided to train for the East Lyme Marathon in September. Roger: So, you and Luis trained together that summer?

Steve: Well, not a lot together. We did some races and some long runs on the weekends, especially later in the summer, to get ready for the marathon.

The Daily Runs

Roger: Luis, how much were you running?

Luis: Back then I ran every day. I usually ran around the Mystic River. That’s about 8 to10 miles. I didn’t have a car, so I rode a bike to work. That’s about another five miles. Sometimes I would get a ride from someone, but I didn’t mind riding the bike because I wanted to get in shape fast.

Roger: Steve, how about you?

Steve: Not as many miles as Luis, but I did okay. I did one 20-miler by myself and a bunch of 15-milers. The one I remember best was a planned 20 with Luis on a 90-degree day that turned into a 16-miler. Man, that was brutal! Roger: What was your longest run, Luis?

Luis: I don’t know. Some days I just ran and ran. I ran for hours.

Steve: Luis and I had two different styles. I was scientific. I read all the training books. I had schedules, charts, graphs. Luis, he just ran and ran and biked—and then ran some more.

THEIR FIRST MARATHON

Roger: So you both did the East Lyme Marathon?

Steve: Yes. September 25, 1994. Luis had been clean exactly seven months.

Luis: I thought I was in good shape for the marathon, but I wasn’t. After 23 years of using drugs and 30 years of drinking, there was probably still some bad stuff inside of me.

Steve: It takes a year or so for someone who abused substances like Luis did to really feel physically healthy again. It’s amazing he did as well as he did. Anyway, I think what happened is we both overestimated our abilities, and Luis went out way too fast again. I wanted to run under four hours, and did the first 10 miles in 85 minutes. The problem with the East Lyme course is it’s mainly uphill for the first eight miles, and big downhills for the next two miles. The rest of the course is pretty flat, with some rolling hills. It’s the kind of course that will get you if you go out too fast, and Luis went out way too fast. He did just over six minutes a mile for the first few miles.

Luis: [had to walk at around 11 miles. I was getting bad chest pains.

Steve: Thad to walk at around 17 miles. Luis was way ahead of me. But he was struggling more than I was. I got a second wind at 22 miles, and then at 23 I saw him in the distance. I remember laughing out loud and thinking, “I guess it’s meant for us to finish this thing together.” Which we did, in 4:33:57.

Luis: I learned I wasn’t in marathon shape. I knew I had more work to do, and if I did it, I’d get better.

Steve: After the race, when we were feeling a little better, I remember Luis saying, “So when do we do the next one?”

Roger: Was the next one Boston?

Luis: Yes. I trained over the winter and got into good shape. So I decided to run the Boston Marathon as a bandit. Steve wasn’t ready for another marathon so soon. So he drove me to the race. I was slow at the beginning because I was way in the back. I saw Steve at the halfway point. He gave me a bottle of Gatorade, and I felt good, so I took off.

East Lyme Marathon, September 25, 1994. Luis (left, with Steve) had been off drugs and alcohol exactly seven months.

Steve: And that’s what got me into trouble. I waited for him in Wellesley Square, right at the halfway point. I was at the start in Hopkinton and had my watch going, so I could have an idea of his time. After he ran past me, I jumped back into my car. I was hoping to meet him at the third Newton hill, at 19 miles. On the way, I figured out his pace. Anyone who has ever tried to follow the Boston Marathon by car can appreciate the logistical nightmare I faced. Anyway, when I got to mile 19, I knew that the only way he could have beaten me there was if he picked up the pace significantly. Of course, that’s what he had done, but I didn’t know it then. So after waiting for about an hour, and after looking in the dropout bus at the first aid station, I headed for Boston. By that time, though, Luis had already finished. I estimated his time was about 3:39.

Luis: After the race so many things went through my head. I figured Steve got stuck in traffic and couldn’t find me with all those people. But I knew he would eventually find me. So I didn’t mind waiting. Plus, I was happy. So happy…

Steve: When I finally found him, he talked and talked. He kept telling me that I had to do this race next year.

ACHING TO QUALIFY

Roger: And so the next big one for Luis was the 1995 East Lyme Marathon. I understand his goal was to qualify for the 100th Boston Marathon in 1996 .

Luis: I was in good shape for that one, but I knew I needed to push myself harder than I ever had to run a 3:20 and qualify. After using drugs for so many years, I knew it was going to be extra hard. I was hoping that I’d qualify. But at the same time, I knew the drugs took a lot out of my body. My heart was telling me I could quality, but my head was saying I couldn’t. I was about six minutes short. My time was 3:26. I was happy with it. I wasn’t happy with not qualifying, but I told myself to just keep trying. So I tried again at the Hartford Marathon. Roger: That was right after East Lyme, right?

Luis: It was two weeks later. I remember thinking that morning it felt like a good day and that I had a chance. But I also knew I had just run a marathon two weeks earlier, and I’m not Superman. Still, I wanted it so bad I could taste it. So I just tried to run the way my body felt; I tried to keep the pain away from my mind. It was a little too much for me to handle, but I did my best. I missed by four minutes.

Roger: And then you learned you had hit the lottery for the 1996 Boston.

Luis: That’s right. [had just moved from Mystic to New London. On the day before the Hartford Marathon, I called the halfway house in Mystic to check if

Thad any mail, but they said no. So after Iran Hartford, when I got home, they called to say there was some mail, after all. They said it was something from Boston. And I knew what it was.

Year of the Bandit

Roger: And Steve, you decided to run as a bandit.

Steve: I was hoping to get into Boston through the lottery. But I didn’t get picked. I had long ago accepted that qualification was out of the question for me.

Roger: You even tried talking to Johnny Kelley “The Younger.”

Steve: Yes. Johnny, you see, had written about Luis and me in his Sunday running column in the New London Day ona few occasions. In fact, one of the nicest things about running with Luis is that it enabled us to get to know Johnny and his wife, Jessie. They are two of the nicest people you could ever meet. But even Johnny couldn’t pull any strings with the B AA that year, not with the 100th running.

Roger: Did you talk to the BAA?

Steve: I got a very nice letter back from the BAA explaining why they couldn’t make exceptions. So I knew the only way was to run as a bandit. It was a difficult decision because I was aware of the controversy about bandits running in the 100th Boston due to the size of the field, which ended up to be around 40,000. But I had done the training, and it meant so much to us to run together. The plan was for Luis to start slow, me to go fast, and hopefully I’d catch him at some point. But that turned out to be impossible. It took me about 25 minutes to get to the starting line. Later, I figured there were probably around 15,000 people between us.

Luis: J tried to run slow for the first 10 miles. I hoped Steve was going to catch up with me, but by 12 miles I knew he wouldn’t. SoI picked up the pace. I felt very strong. Iremember thinking, “Here Iam again, running Boston. This time I’m official, and it’s the 100th Boston Marathon.” I remember when I was going up the hills, I looked around at all these people trying to get to the top. I’m surrounded by all these people, and it’s so different from being around people in the barroom, or the jail, or whatever. I kept running, and I felt myself crying. ButI was happy at the same time. It’s hard to explain. My emotions were all mixed together. I started laughing, too. I remember seeing the finish line. I looked up at the big building, and it was like seeing the Statue of Liberty. I felt like I was free.

Roger: You must have some memories of the race, too, Steve.

Steve: I have a lot of memories from this race. When I was trying to catch up with Luis, I saw arunner carrying a Puerto Rican flag. I told myself that Luis

was probably running with him. So I worked hard at trying to catch him, but Luis wasn’t there. I remember a brief energy rush at Wellesley College. And I remember finding my mantra between mile 22 and 23. It went like this: “OhmyGod. OhmyGod. OhmyGod.” I also remember thinking, in the last four miles on Beacon Street, how ironic it was that here I am, in Boston, in the largest marathon field in history, and I never felt so alone in my life. Finally, I remember hitting the finish line and looking to my right to see paramedics pounding on arunner’s chest. It turned out to be a runner from Poland who collapsed and died after crossing the finish line. Roger: So what came next?

Steve: Well, Luis really showed his durability in the fall of ’96. Three marathons in six weeks. East Lyme, Hartford, and Ocean State. His times were 3:30, 3:31, and 3:31.

Happy to Run

Luis: was happy with all three of them. I’m just happy that I can run at all, not just marathons. I ran every one of them comfortable. I learned a lot from these marathons. Roger: I know the way you and Luis finally ran together at the 1997 Boston Marathon was to run for charity. How did that come about?

Steve: Around September a friend told me that the American Liver Foundation sponsored runners in Boston who raise money for the foundation. This

Luis (left) with Steve, somewhat delirious in the last 100 yards of the 1997 Boston Marathon.

was the perfect solution for Luis and me, since it was the only way I could get in officially. When Luis missed qualifying again, we made it a joint fundraising effort, and the Liver Foundation sponsored us.

Luis: For me, the great thing about running for the Liver Foundation was that the Liver Foundation had helped my father. He had liver disease, and they helped him out before he died. I didn’t know that until my family told me a few days before the marathon. It made me feel good to help other people with liver disease.

Roger: So, one more time, you both got ready for Boston.

Steve: Yes, but training had become difficult for me, because of my knee. Many years before, I had torn the cartilage in my right knee. Back then, they removed the whole cartilage. I was having some knee pain in September, so I went to the doctor, who told me I had arthritis in the knee. He told meI shouldn’t run. I got a second opinion, but it was the same. I didn’t dare tell them I was planning to run a marathon. I did ask, though, to be fitted for a knee brace. To save the knee, I did minimal training—three days a week, a short run, medium run, and a long run.

Roger: And then together you finally ran the one you wanted to.

Steve: It was great to do what we had dreamed about—but it hurt. I knew Iwas in trouble when I started to hurt after only 12 miles. What an awful feeling that was, because I knew what was ahead. I had to do some walking on the hills. Once I got to Beacon Street, I didn’t walk, but I didn’t run too fast, either. Still, it was worth it—all 5 hours and 18 minutes of it.

Luis: It was slow, but it was OK. It was something that we had talked about fora long time. In 1996, we tried, but we just couldn’t do it. There were too many people. Steve couldn’t get through all those people to catch up to

The dream realized: Luis and Steve after the 1997 Boston Marathon.

me. This time, nothing was going to take this one away from us. That was the great thing about this one. We did what we dreamed we would do. I learned a lot from it. I learned that no matter what, if you plan for it, you can do it. We planned for this one, and we did what we wanted to do. I remember all my marathons, but this one was special. Steve was my counselor, and he came to be my training partner in the marathon, and now he’s my friend. We made a plan, and God gave us the chance to do it. I mean, is there a better picture than that?

FUTURE TENSE

Roger: So, Steve, what about the future?

Steve: Despite my knee problems, I still like to think I have another marathon in me. I know what the doctor said about arthritis and a knee replacement, but I don’t care. It’s what “Bricklayer” Bill Kennedy said years ago: “All marathon runners are dreamers; we are not practical.” Dreams keep us going; just look at what we’ ve accomplished.

Roger: And you, Luis?

Luis: Someday, I still want to qualify. [hope God gives mea chance. I know I’m going to stay away from drugs and alcohol. Over the next few years, I’m going to try to do my best to qualify. But I’ll be happy with whatever happens. I’m just so lucky Ihave the chance to run, after over 20 years on heroin, cocaine, and alcohol. I’m lucky I can run 3:30, four hours. But I still think I can qualify someday. For a long time I’ve been trying to get to the top of the mountain to see what’s on the other side. I think I have a pretty good idea what’s on the other side, but I can’t see it yet. But I see the light, and one of these days, I’ll get there. I’ve just got to put my mind to it a little more and go for it. I know I can do it.

ONE MORE BOSTON?

Luis Martinez completed the 1998 Boston Marathon in just under four hours. Luis and Steve still continue to run together whenever possible, occasionally joined by Roger Zotti. Luis has taken a night-shift job, which has made running more difficult, and of course Steve has the bad knee. Still, the two friends are eyeing a return to Boston.

“T turn 40 in December,” says Steve, “and doing one more Boston would be a nice 40th birthday present to myself. Besides, my daughter told me she doesn’t think I can do it, which is the wrong thing to say to a marathoner.”

“I’m hungry again for the marathon,” says Luis. “For me, the mara- 4 thon is like life— I’m ready for the challenge again.” ec

There’s only one

Mississippi River. Sept. 26, 1999

FOR RACE FORMS

And, only one marathon

The Quad Cities Marathon …the river runs through it.

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Ny Son,

Sometimes We Encourage Our Children to Do Things That Confound Us, Simply Because They Are Ours and We Love Them.

M Y SON is a little crazy. A terrific son, great father, fine husband. But a little crazy. At 39 years old he started running. Like Forrest Gump, he just kept running.

Now, five years later, when I total up 22 marathons, 5 ultras (including four 50-milers), several triathlons, countless numbers of 10Ks, and an average of 60 miles exercise running each week, I realize he could have run to Timbuktu and back. He probably would if the Atlantic Ocean didn’t get in the way.

For five years now, running has been my son’s mantra, his raison d’ etre, his obsession. It began in the foothills of the Gold Rush country, in a small California town called Mariposa, where he has lived for 25 years. Middle age, that time between youth and senior citizenship, suddenly struck, and my son, alittle bloated from too much country cooking and too many Sunday barbecues, decided to make his move. Like an aging, slightly creaking cowboy in a John Wayne movie, he headed for the hills. Well, not the hills—he took off down his dirt driveway and ran the 300 yards from his home to the road. He huffed and puffed. For a brief second he thought he was about to die. But he didn’t.

Three weeks later, he left his driveway for the open road. Soon he was running up and (thankfully!) down hills. Every day before or after work (depending on the season), he ran the highway on grades steep enough to demand middle gear from eight-cylinder cars. He was like the postal service used to be: deterred by neither rain nor snow—nor panicked deer, nor drunken drivers hurling taunts and empty beer cans while speeding past.

Soon he entered local 5Ks and 10Ks, completing respectable times for his age. Another year later, he felt ready for the big time, and he signed up with his

Mel Bloom MY SON, THE RUNNER @® 45

sister (a marathoner out of San Diego) to run the Long Beach Marathon. While not elated with his time (4:50), he was pleased to find he could go the distance.

Marathons followed in Santa Cruz, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston, New York, Sacramento, Big Sur, Santa Clarita, and Honolulu. Sometimes he ran five a year, which “experts” tell me is a bit excessive.

He had become a runner, all right. He even looked the part: gaunt, tapered, just a few pounds to the plus side of cadaver. His 200-pound 6’1″ frame had slendered to a javelin-like 160 pounds of bone and sinew. He says he feels like a million dollars (or maybe two million, with inflation).

Running, and all its accoutrements—shoes, nutrition guides, timing watches, books and magazines, the internet—have taken over his life. In the last year, against the advice of his father (so, what else is new?), he has run three 50-mile races. His day job takes him all over the country—have running shoes, will travel—and of course the first thing packed is his running gear (who needs a toothbrush and underwear?).

Most recently, he has qualified to run this summer in the infamous Western States 100. Doctor friends tell me this race is for masochists and fanatics. While it may inflate the ego and elate the soul, this race plays havoc with the body. I passed this information on to him.

“Uh-huh,” he replied, which I know means he’s going to do it anyhow.

That crazy 100-mile race begins at 8,000 feet near Lake Tahoe. In all likelihood it will be starting in snow. The course zigzags through all manner of terrorizing terrain including mountains, high desert, low desert, and uncharted trails best left to the likes of Lewis and Clark. The ordeal can last 25 hours. Medical stations are interspersed on the route, which is a relief, yes, but they also indicate that the course is a killer. I just hope he doesn’t get nipped by a mountain lion as he’s scrambling through the underbrush at midnight.

He was always acrazy kid. Crazy, but wonderful. remember 33 years ago how he stood in the rain in front of a supermarket soliciting signatures for a petition to boycott grapes because Caesar Chavez’s farm workers were getting the short end of the stick.

I drove up and rolled down the car window.

“C’mon home,” I yelled through the downpour. “Do this tomorrow when the sun is out.”

“T can’t!” he shouted back. “It has to be done now.”

Jerry always marched to a different drummer. He still does, God bless him. Only now, he runs (and runs) to that beat. I don’t think Thoreau ever said anything about that. But keep on running, son. You set a good pace for the rest of us to follow—if only we could keep up. Pe

[Editor’s note: Former literary agent Mel Bloom penned this story as his son Jerry prepared for his first Western States 100 in 1998.]

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¢ Volume 1.2—The “Real” 100‘ Boston Marathon. Featuring: Boston Lite and The Art of Peaking.

¢ Volume 1.3—Where Are America’s World-Class Marathoners? Featuring: In Search of the Perfect Marathon and Trends in Elite-Level Marathon Performances.

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¢ Volume 1.5—25 Years of Marathon Madness. Feature article by Michael Sandrock and special feature, 25 Who Reinvented the Marathon.

¢ Volume 1.6—Tribute to Frank Shorter and Bill Rodgers. Featuring: Simplifying the Marathon by Frank Horwill and Fire and Ice by Dr. Robert Johnson.

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| The Inca Way

In Peru to Experience the Northern Andes, the Runner Encounters Gripping Tales of Lost Treasure and Sights Unforgettable.

\ N ] E HAD been traveling nearly six hours, heading north by bus from

Lima. For the last 90 minutes we had been climbing east into the mountains. A perpetual gloom shrouds the coast of Peru for five months each winter—something to do with the warm Pacific currents suddenly encountering South America and the cold air of the Andes.

The higher we went, the clearer the sky became, finally taking on the deep blue hue of high altitude. As we topped the pass, we came upon a scene that struck me as a good omen. In the foreground were several hundred square miles of altiplano, the high plateau country that makes up the bulk of the Andes. Towering on the horizon from north to south were a series of snow-capped peaks, glaciers sliding down their sides. And presiding over it all was a statue of St. Francis, patron saint of my hometown, San Francisco. St. Francis had his arms raised protectively over an Andean condor and a llama. All the indicators were there—this was going to be a great trip!

A LITTLE BACKGROUND

In the spring of 1997, a friend and I were looking for an adventure vacation. We wanted to combine running with travel to a remote spot outside the United States. I found an article about a trip running the Inca Trail to Machu Pichu. It sounded like just what we were looking for.

We signed up and spent two wonderful weeks in Southern Peru exploring the region near Cusco. What made the trip work was Devy Reinstein, the owner of Andes Adventures. He’s Peruvian, so understands the culture. He also handles complicated logistics with ease. And, most important, he knows where all the best restaurants are hiding. Hunger was never a problem on his expedition.

Devy and I kept in contact through the winter. Three years earlier he had made a solo run around a remote mountain range in northern Peru called the Cordillera Huayhuash. In the summer of 1998 he decided to test the region as a possible destination to expand his program of adventure running vacations. He rounded up four volunteers, including myself, to be his guinea pigs. (Note that in Peru, roasted guinea pigs are a delicacy.) The plan was to run two separate loops over 136.5 miles with a total altitude gain of 32,185 feet and a loss of 29,885 feet! We’d test the logistics, run the miles, try out the lodgings, and get in one hell of an adventure!

In July we gathered in Lima, Peru. The group was made up of Devy and me and three other strong runners. Here’s a thumbnail sketch of each:

Dale Petersen, a chiropractor from Denver, has run Western States four times with a best in the 20-hour range. He has lots of mountain experience— he’s climbed 40 of the 54 14,000-foot peaks in Colorado, as well as Mt. Rainier. (Since he and his wife added two daughters to the family, he has promised he won’t do any more dangerous climbs.)

Jonathan Said, a medical doctor in the division of Anatomic Pathology at the Center for the Health Sciences at UCLA, had plenty of adventure running on his plate. Besides running in Peru, he planned to run the Grand Canyon rimto-rim-and-back in the fall and planned to trek in the Himalayas before the end of the year.

Ron Lake, a psychiatrist from San Diego, also has a strong mountain background: he’s climbed Mt. Blanc in France, Monch in Switzerland, and Kilimanjaro in Africa, and he has run Western States twice.

Devy Reinstein, the owner of Andes Adventures out of Santa Monica, California, has accomplished what most runners can only dream of: starting up a business to combine his love of running trails and mountains with a devotion to his native country. Luckily, Devy has a flare for organization and maintains great contacts all over Peru. For the past three years he has led hiking and running tours on the Inca Trail to Machu Pichu, as well as a circuit of Mt. Ausangate, one of the highest peaks in the Andes. He came up with the idea of taking running groups on the Inca Trail while running the John Muir Trail from Yosemite Valley to the peak of Mt. Whitney in California. Devy’s trail-racing experience is extensive: he’s done the Angeles Crest 100 four times and the Old Dominion once, and he has run many shorter ultras.

The support team was led by Hidalgo Arbaiza Huaranga (head guide, Llamac, Peru), who has led several expeditions in the Cordillera Blanca and Cordillera Huayhuash, including the first ascent of Jirishanca (19,994 feet), six successful climbs of Huascaran (22,205 feet, which is the highest peak in Peru and second highest in South America), and two successful climbs of Yerupaja (21,766 feet), the second-highest peak in Peru.

Pausing ina canal tunnel enroute to Llamac are (left to right) Jonathan, Devy, Ron, Mike, guide Eddy, and Dale (seated).

Eddy Pizarro (trekking guide, Cusco, Peru) has a degree in tourism and is anawesome trail runner (living at 11,000 feet does wonders for your lung power.) Eddy told us a story about earlier work he had done. About 15 years ago a girlfriend enticed him to follow her to a small jungle settlement just over the Peruvian border in Brazil, where gold mining was booming. Eddy got a job running illegal gold shipments on a motorcycle over the border. This was a tough, dangerous area. He carried a gun for his own protection. He remembered watching one bar fight where one drunk smashed a rock into the face of another drunk who had offended him. This failed to knock the guy out. The injured drunk left, but came back later and said, “I want to fight you again!” He lurched forward, but his target pulled a machete and severed his hand.

If Eddy could survive that kind of environment, I figured he could take care of himself. If the Shining Path or Tupac Amaru guerrillas decided to hold a resurgence of activity while I was in Peru, I planned to have Eddy nearby!

COURTESY OF MIKE DUNCAN

CORDILLERA BLANCA: DAY 1

Our first loop began with a four-hour bus ride from Huaraz to Cashapampa, with a stop in the town of Jungay to visit the memorial to that town’s great tragedy.

On May 3, 1970, over 25,000 people in this town were killed in an avalanche caused by an earthquake that was among the worst natural disasters of the 20th century. In all, over 70,000 people were killed in northern Peru. The story goes that the town was crowded with people who had come to watch a World Cup soccer match involving Peru. At 3:23 in the afternoon the earthquake dislodged

over 100,000 tons of ice from a glacier on the side of the Huascaran. The ice crashed into a lake at the base of the mountain and then continued in a huge wall of ice, rock, water, and mud into the town of Jungay. It took only two and a half minutes from the first shock of the earthquake until the moment the avalanche hit town. People had no time to escape. The site of the former town lies 30 to 40 feet below the current ground level. An occasional chimney or truck chassis protrudes from the ground, indicating the chaos that lies below. No attempt was ever made to recover the bodies. The entire town is a memorial, with a large white cross dominating a nearby hillside.

The final 90 minutes of the ride were on a rough dirt road that climbed 2,500 feet to the town of Cashapampa. We began the run there and established the pattern that we’d follow through the course of the trip. The Arrieros would set out before daybreak with the horses and equipment and have that night’s camp set up in advance of our arrival.

The six runners would set out carrying fanny packs with emergency clothing, plus food and water for that day’s mileage. Finally, Hidalgo would follow us on horseback, watching for stragglers and providing a safety backup in case of injury.

Devy supplied us with four handheld radios so that we could keep in touch. Even in our small running group of six, we tended to spread out, so we got a lot of use out of the radios.

The first day’s trail was a perfect introduction to running in the Andes. We weren’t acclimated yet to the high altitude, but the trail was easy to follow, climbing steadily beside the Rio Santa Cruz. The first three miles were through anarrow gorge that breached the nearly 7,000-foot high wall of the Cordillera in front of us.

Then the canyon opened up and proceeded with just a gentle climb in the last four miles to Laguna Ichiqcocha (12,450 feet). The campsite was spectacular with two 6,000-meter peaks on either side of the valley, Caraz (19,768 feet) and Quitaraju (19,803 feet), plus Taulliraji (19,128 feet), ajagged pyramid with nearly vertical sides, dominating the head of the valley.

During dinner that night, we coaxed Hidalgo to tell the story of how he became a mountain guide. He said it began accidentally, during a hunting trip back in the mid-’50s. He had gone into the mountains above his home village of Llamac, hunting for an Andean stag. His rifle was so old that he had to prime it with a metal rod before each shot. After a long hunt, he finally spotted a stag, but his shot passed through the stag’s neck, failing to kill it. The stag, knowing it was mortally wounded, headed far down the mountain to a lake. Hidalgo followed. The stag walked into the water and, in dying, sank to the bottom of the lake. Hidalgo waited, knowing that the carcass would eventually float back to the surface.

COURTESY OF MIKE DUNCAN

Jonathan, Ron, and Mike at the first camp, in Ichiqcocha.

While he was waiting, a group of French climbers came up to the lake and asked him what he was doing. Hidalgo told them. They replied, “Why not work for us instead, and we’ll pay you?”

Hidalgo agreed and they gave him a load to carry. Hidalgo said, “Is that all you give me to carry?” So they gave him more. Again he said, “Is that all?” Hidalgo Abraiza Huaranga eventually became the most famous guide in the Cordillera Blanca.

Another story from Hidalgo: in 1967 a group of Japanese climbers hired him to guide them to the top of Jirishanca. They chose a particularly difficult route that had never been attempted. The expedition required several successively higher camps. On the final day’s push to reach the summit, the ice ax of one of the climbers suddenly would not penetrate the snow. He tried several times and encountered metal. Digging into the snow, they discovered the fuselage of an airplane.

It was later learned that this plane had vanished in 1954 and been listed as missing ever since. All the climbers could find was the plane’s cabin. The wings had broken off and disappeared. Inside the cabin and nearby were the frozen bodies of 17 people, some partly eaten by condors. Also inside the plane were acouple of locked strong boxes. Hidalgo and his brother packed up 87 kilos of human remains and pulled them down the mountain.

When they reported the find to authorities, they were told it was an official Peruvian government plane flying from Iquitos to Lima with 100 bars of gold. Hidalgo and his brother tried for many years to find a sponsor to pay for an expedition to retrieve the gold, but with no luck. In the early 1970s a group of Englishmen hired Hidalgo, supposedly to climb Jirishanca, but with a hidden agenda of finding the gold. Unfortunately, they failed to reveal their true goal to Hidalgo, the only one who could help them. They spent their time climbing the wrong side of the mountain. The gold is still there. Hidalgo even drew me a map of where to find it!

Day’s totals: 7 miles; 2,950 feet ascended.

CORDILLERA BLANCA: DAY 2

We left camp at 8:00 AM and continued up the canyon past Laguna Ichiqcocha. A short trip up a side canyon gave us a close-up view of Alpamayo, one of the most beautiful mountains in the world. Alpamayo is a great pinnacle of ice and rock surrounded by glaciers at the head of a circular valley full of purple wildflowers—one of those spots where living the simple mountain life of a shepherd, tending the flock and playing pipes, actually sounds enticing for a moment or two. Then you get hungry, and the mood quickly passes.

Back on the main trail, we stopped at a prearranged aid station in a meadow. Devy impressed us with his language skills by giving an equally impressed group of Israeli students trail directions—in Hebrew.

After the break, Dale and Eddy led the way up the tough climb to the Punta Union Pass at 15,584 feet. A fast run down the backside of the pass got us to the

Dale at Punta Union Pass at 15,584 feet.

COURTESY OF MIKE DUNCAN

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next camp at Tucto (13,600 feet). Everyone in our group was moving well and handling the altitude without a problem.

The typical greeting in camp was a basin of hot water to wash in, a cup of coca tea, and snacks in the dining tent that usually included bread, cheese, peanut butter and jelly, and dried fruit. Coca tea, a staple in the Andes, helps with altitude problems and has been used for centuries to aid endurance. It is only very mildly narcotic. In most of the Andes, workers still chew coca leaves all day long. In the early afternoon, despite the altitude, it was comfortable to run in a T-shirt. But by 5:00 pm, we were all piling on layers to stay warm.

Day’s totals: 13 miles; 3,135 feet ascended, 1,985 feet descended.

CORDILLERA BLANCA: DAY 3

We knew this was going to be a long day: 20 miles plus two major and several minor passes.

The wake-up call came at 5:00 am.

“Sefior, coca tea with sugar or without?”

For the time of day and considering the altitude, the weather was surprisingly mild—probably in the mid-30s, with just a light frost on the tents. Along with the normal camp breakfast fare was an additional menu item: fried tuna and cheese. Not normally what comes to mind when I think of breakfast. I was the only one of us willing to try it. I knew it was going to be a long day and that tuna and cheese had lots of calories, so…

We began the steep climb up to the Alto de Pucaraju (15,256 feet) by flashlight. Again we made good time, climbing 1,600 feet in just over 45 minutes, enjoying more spectacular views from the pass, especially of Taulliraju and its vertical south face. Then we made a long descent to Laguna Huecrococha and an aid station.

During this day we didn’t see a single foreigner. Most commercial groups take the easy way, starting at Colcabamba, taking a more direct route to Tucto, and finishing at Cashapampa. Our route added two passes and perhaps 10 miles.

After the aid station break, we climbed to Punta Yanagrahirca (14,436 feet). This pass isn’t as high as the Alto de Pucaraju, but the vistas were more open. The views south toward Huascaran were especially good. Some old ruins near this pass contained rock walls that appear older than the Inca walls normally found in the Andes. No one has been able to identify the builders or the age of these walls.

The final destination of the day was the village of Colcabamba. Set at the junction of two rivers, the village was built with the typical Andean architecture

of sturdy stone homes with wooden balconies and thatched roofs, but also with a fairly high number of red tiled roofs, a more recent influence.

Our greeting in Colcabamba was one of the more memorable moments in my years as a runner. During the final hour, as we ran toward the village, each person we passed on the trail seemed to be asking a question: “Marathon?”

Id swear that two kids tending horses on the other side of the canyon were yelling, “Faster! Faster!” My replies were limited to the little Spanish I know.

I was thinking to myself, Guess they haven’t seen too many runners come through here before.

What actually happened was that several of the Arrieros from our camp lived in Colcabamba. They got back ahead of us by taking the shorter, direct route. The word spread that “the runners” were coming. (There’s not a lot of entertainment available most days.)

The entire village had come out to see the “marathon race.” Hundreds of people! The final 100 yards were uphill in a narrow rock-wall-lined path. Atop the walls were kids yelling and applauding us as we arrived. Have you ever run through the crowds at Wellesley College halfway into the Boston Marathon? Believe it or not, this was even better.

The mayor of the village, a woman who runs a small hostel, thanked us for coming and wrote down all our names in a guest book. Then came a nasty little surprise: a thousand-foot climb in less than one mile to Vaqueria, where our van

Mike among the children of Colcabamba, who yelled and applauded as the runners arrived in their village.

was waiting. (A cold Coke at the roadside store cost 2.50 Sol, or about 90 cents. Best damn Coke I ever had.)

The ride back to Huaraz was by way of the Portachuelo de Llanganuco (15,640 feet) on aroad made up primarily of hundreds of sadistic hairpin turns. Our driver managed to find a radio station broadcasting the World Cup final match between Brazil and France. It seems like everyone in Peru (and probably everyone in Latin America) loves the Brazilian team. In fact, it was hard not to get caught up in Samba fever that surrounds Romario and Bebeto and the other Brazilian superstars. We actually felt sorry for a group of French climbers who were hiking up the road with their ears glued to transistor radios. Their team was about to get its butt kicked. Or at least that was the common belief. But, as we found out later, the French upset Brazil, and the French climbers in the area spent that evening celebrating noisily in the main plaza in Huaraz. I guess they didn’t need our sympathy, after all.

Day’s totals: 17.5 miles; 4,962 feet acsended, 6,762 feet descended.

CORDILLERA HUAYHUASH: DAY 1

All of our bags had to be repacked into three different sets and sent ahead the next morning to future campsites. Hidalgo took care of the logistics. The last chore in town was to find a fresh supply of coca leaves. Our next loop was going to be considerably longer, with eight distinct passes over 15,000 feet, so a sufficient supply of coca leaves was imperative.

The second loop of our run started with a four-hour ride over paved and dirt roads to the town of Chiquian, beautifully perched halfway up the side of a canyon above a tributary of the Rio Pativilca. Unfortunately, we arrived during one of the periodic breakdowns in the town water supply. Water is a continuing problem in many of these high Andean towns. The mountains are in the rainshadow of the Andes. Except for the highest peaks, which can hold year-round glaciers, most of the region is in a constant state of drought.

The only hotel in town was full of foreign climbers headed for the high peaks. The charge was 15 Sol per night—about $5 per person—for a clean room anda bed piled high with heavy woolen blankets. We found a surprisingly tasty dinner in a small restaurant; our meal was highlighted by pumpkin soup, fresh trout, fried potatoes, and marinated vegetables.

CORDILLERA HUAYHUASH: DAY 2

This was the first of four consecutive high-mileage days. We were up before daylight and grabbed a quick breakfast of rolls, quinoa (an Andes version of

oatmeal), and papaya juice. A quick handoff of emergency clothing to Hildago, who would be in his usual position of trail sweep, and we were on the trail. We started with a knee-pounding 2,300-foot drop to the bottom of the canyon.

There were two mishaps this day that could have led to serious trouble. First, the four horses that Hidalgo had hired to ride behind us for emergency support had been stolen. He managed to find replacements, but the snacks we had been expecting for our midday aid break never caught up. Luckily, the more critical horse carrying our water supply had left before dawn and was waiting for us at the planned rest stop.

That’s when the second mishap occurred.

Devy was busy on the radio, trying to determine what had happened to the rearward horses and our food. He failed to pay attention to the water horse, which somehow got spooked and kicked Devy in the thigh. From my vantage point, it looked like he’d been shot. In an instant, he was on the ground, grabbing his leg.

We later figured that if Devy’s leg had been firmly planted, with the knee locked, the horse probably would have broken his thighbone. Instead, the horse caught his leg in midstride, and Devy was able to absorb much of the kick by spinning with the blow while falling.

The river was nearby and Devy soaked his leg in ice water within moments of being kicked. That helped keep the initial inflammation down. He was able to run the rest of the trail that day, sore but not disabled. The pain took several weeks to dissipate. For the rest of the trip, that horse took on the name “Son of a Bitch” and was considered fair game for an emergency barbecue if our regular food supplies ran out.

This was a bad day all around for Hidalgo. At the same time he was rounding up four horses to replace the ones that had been stolen, he received news that a cousin of his had been killed. The cousin had been helping build a stone wall, slipped, fallen into the river, and hit his head on arock. As we came running into Llamac, the funeral had just begun. A procession, led by a small brass band and the school children who lived in the area, moved up the one-lane stone roadway through town. In the plaza at the north end of town, the brother of the dead cousin performed a series of riding stunts on the dead man’s horse. I hadn’t expected to see such an intricate and difficult riding display in such an out-ofthe-way place. It was quite moving.

There was one final surprise before we arrived in camp at Palca (12,769 feet). In the three years since Devy had last been here, a mining company had bulldozed a road across the high pass at the north end of the valley. The last two miles to camp were on this new dirt road. This was a definite scar on the area. Until then we had been following trails that had been in use for hundreds of years. Eddy made up for the modern intrusion that night by showing us the Inca

COURTESY OF MIKE DUNCAN

Inthe village of Llamac, school children lead the funeral procession for Hidalgo’s cousin.

versions of the southern constellations. The “Llama Eyes” next to the Southern Cross, the Frog, and the Fox, whose tail touched the horizon, where it had been caught in an Andean landslide. These were the markers followed by the first people using trails through these mountains.

Day’s totals: 20 miles; 3,900 ascended, 2,295 feet descended.

CORDILLERA HUAYHUASH: DAY 3

The day began with a three-mile slog up the mine road. Eventually we turned off onto the trail that climbed up to the Cacananpunta Pass. Ahead, a group of German trekkers slowly wound their way up the switchbacks. We soon caught and passed them. For the most part they were amazed and supportive of the pace we were keeping. Regular trekking groups take a minimum of 12 days to complete the loop that we were running in five. The Peruvian guide hired by the Germans gave us a hard time about running the trails. In fact, he refused to move aside to let us pass on the narrow trail. He seemed to feel that we were not traveling in the true spirit of the mountains. This was the only time we encountered anything besides open support and true interest from the people who live in these high remote areas.

Mike at Laguna Carhuacocha (13,575 feet).

The bulk of the day was spent climbing two major passes: Cacananpunta (15,420 feet) and Carhuac (15,256 feet). Then came a final drop to our next camp at Laguna Carhuacocha (13,575 feet). When Devy did this loop solo in 1995, he made a point of stopping to talk with the people who live here year-round. Sometimes he’d stay overnight in their homes and supplement his food supply by buying cheese and potatoes or whatever else might be available.

One woman he remembered, named Alicia, lived ina stone hut near the lake above our camp. She is 24 years old and lives with her husband and two children, ages 5 and 1, and they have another child on the way. She has never had her hair cut or worn makeup or even seen a picture of herself. To earn extra money, she walks several hours to the nearest town to buy supplies to sell to the occasional trekkers who pass through. We offered to buy nine bottles of beer. She, in turn, offered to bring them to our camp, about a mile farther down the valley. She carried all nine bottles (the 24-0z. size!) wrapped in a blanket over her shoulder. It’s a heavy, awkward load to be carried over those rough trails, with a difficult river crossing involved. The cost was seven Sol each (approximately $2.25). When our cook mentioned that we were short of potatoes for that night’s dinner, Alicia walked back and forth to her home to get some to sell us. What an incredibly tough life she leads, and yet she appeared very content. She made a strong impression on everyone in our group.

Day’s totals: 17 miles; 3,816 feet ascended, 3,001 feet descended.

COURTESY OF MIKE DUNCAN

‘COURTESY OF MIKE DUNCAN

Alicia, who sold the runners beer and potatoes, with her family near Laguna Carhuacocha.

CORDILLERA HUAYHUASH: DAY 4

Up again at 5:30 to make sure we got an early start. On paper this looked like it was going to be the most difficult leg of the trip. We needed to cover more than 22 miles, with three passes, including the highest pass on the trip, Punta Cuyoc at 16,405 feet. The lowest altitude we would hit today would be our starting camp at 13,575 feet. This definitely qualified as a two-coca teas breakfast! We made steady progress over the first two passes, Punta Carnicero (15,092 feet) and Portachuelo de Huayhuash (15,584 feet), before stopping for lunch. It was spectacular terrain through which to run. To the south, parallel to the route we were following, was an unbroken wall of immense peaks: Yerupaja (21,766 feet), Siula (20,814 feet), Sarapo (20,102 feet), Carnicero (19,554 feet), and Trapecio (18,518 feet). We lunched near a beautiful lake called Laguna Viconga, the only artificially dammed lake we encountered. We stopped to talk with the caretaker of the dam’s outlet controls. His entire job consisted

of standing by a radio waiting for orders to release the water. There were no power generation facilities at this particular lake. However, six hours downriver is a set of turbines. With proper timing, his water would be released to coincide with the power needs of several small towns. The same caretaker had been staffing this station when Devy passed through three years before.

Dale and Eddy seemed to be energized by the beauty of the scenery and quickly disappeared up the first climb. Punta Cuyoc was a difficult scramble up loose rocks and sand. Above and to the right was a large glacier that looked like it could set off a small avalanche at any moment. The prudent method for passing through this area was with great speed. But that’s not that easy at 16,000 feet.

Finally, there was a long, easy 2,400-foot drop to the campsite at the southern end of the Huanacpatay valley. We were a little more spread out than usual at the end of the day, but everyone was moving along conservatively because of the difficult terrain.

Day’s total: 22.5 miles; 4,777 feet ascended, 4,372 feet descended.

CORDILLERA HUAYHUASH: DAY 5

This day began with the Andes version of a traffic jam. Just a short way along our route, we ran up behind a herd of Ilamas being driven to the town of

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Huayllapa. The trails were too narrow and the llamas too skittish to pass comfortably. We enjoyed a leisurely stroll for several miles until our route branched right for the climb to the first pass of the day. So much for relaxing. Tapush Pass was not the highest pass on our trip, but it constituted the longest continuous climb: a 3,950-foot altitude gain in fewer than three miles.

I had a memorable reality check at the top of this pass. After just under two hours of hard uphill, the climb opened up to another spectacular scene of mountains, glaciers, lakes, and valleys. I was feeling strong and a bit smug at “conquering the Andes” when who should appear at the side of the trail but a pretty young woman in a flowered hat, contentedly doing her knitting! High altitude? She had the red flush to her cheeks of someone who has lived a long time at altitude and whose body had compensated by producing numerous, efficient red blood cells. Cool temperature? Judging by the speed at which she was knitting, I’d say those fingers weren’t a bit cold. Desolate landscape? The red and yellow flowers on her hat and the beautiful blue and purple sweater she wore looked absolutely appropriate to that spot. I suppose she was tending some nearby sheep that I couldn’t see. That woman belonged in that setting. Me, I was just a temporary curiosity in my high-tech Drylete clothing and running shoes.

The next couple of miles consisted of a short downhill, then a climb to the second pass of the day (Yaucha at 15,900 feet). The final two miles dropped 2,600 feet to our camp at Laguna Jahuacocha, where we would be treated with a rest day. This lake is, deservedly, the single most popular destination in the Cordillera Huayhuash. The head of the valley contains two lakes perfect for photographing reflected images of the surrounding mountains. Plus, these are the tallest mountains in this range. Rondoy (19,259 feet) and Jirishanca (19,994 feet) compete with its lost goal treasure, Yerupaja (21,766 feet) and Rasac (19,741 feet).

Day’s totals: 17.5 miles; 5,850 feet ascended, 6,490 feet descended.

CORDILLERA HUAYHUASH: DAY 6

This was the day we met Henrietta. When I first saw her she looked a mess: her hair was dirty, and she was having great difficulty crossing the river to our camp. But then she slipped on the rocks and fell into the water—and when she came out, she looked much better.

Henrietta was a black sheep our camp cook had bought from one of the local herders. She was destined to become the main course of the Pachamanca that had been planned for that evening. A Pachamanca is the Peruvian version of a luau—a traditional dinner cooked underground with heated rocks. It is usually

served with several of the over 300 varieties of potatoes that are native to Peru. Henrietta was the preferred option for the main course of our Pachamanca. The other choice Devy gave us was to cook up “Son of a Bitch,” the water-bearing horse.

None of us stuck around for the slaughter of Henrietta. Instead, we explored the head of the valley and the glacier that dropped down from the top of Jirishanca. Hidalgo’s son led the way to the base of the glacier, which was continuously breaking off large blocks of ice. The icefalls poured down the mountain in a nearly continuous series of rumbling, white waterfalls. Near the base we found some old engine parts and pieces of clothing from the plane crash that Hidalgo had discovered 31 years ago. Like a giant conveyor belt, the glacier has slowly been passing chunks of the wreckage down the mountain. The debris finally comes to rest in the rock moraine at the bottom of the mountain. If someone is patient and hangs around here for another 31 years, maybe a gold bar or two will come spitting out of the glacier.

Back in camp Henrietta proved to be an excellent main course. Served with a fine Chilean wine, she was much enjoyed by a group of runners who had burned several thousand calories in the past few days.

CORDILLERA HUAYHUASH: DAY 7

The last long day. The planned route was to take us over a final pass back to the town of Llamac, where we would retrace our steps to Chiquian.

Unfortunately, we missed the turnoff to the pass and ended up too far down the Rio Pacllon. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Not far above us was an unfinished irrigation canal that the people of Llamac had been building to bring water to their town. The canal followed a contour around the mountain at an altitude of approximately 12,900 feet. Since the canal was unfinished, it didn’t yet carry water and formed a perfect running trail. This was almost the first flat surface we had run in a week.

The canal was six miles long and included a bonus “thrill” section. About halfway around the mountain, the designers of the canal had encountered a nearly vertical rock face. The only way to convey the water past this spot was to dig a tunnel through the rock for roughly a quarter-mile. We dug up one nearly dead flashlight and followed the tunnel route. It looked like an old mining tunnel (but we hoped it was safer), and it saved us several miles and several thousand feet of altitude change. When the canal ended, we were looking 2,000 feet directly down on our goal, Llamac.

The final miles back to Chiquian involved a grinding climb back up the 2,290-feet ascent that we’d had to run down on the first day of this loop. Eddy

‘COURTESY OF MIKE DUNCAN.

Mike, Dale, and Hidalgo (front row holding bag), and Devy at camp in Huanacpatay Valley.

and Dale again took the lead, with Dale edging out a win in the king-of-the-hill category. Day’s total: 22 miles; 2,795 feet ascended, 4,980 feet descended.

SAYING THANK YOU AND GOODBYE

Back at the hotel that evening, we held a small ceremony. Devy had requested that everyone bring used clothing, running shoes, notebooks, pens, and so on as gifts to the Arrieros. The people in these mountains are very poor and don’t have easy access to these kinds of items. Trekking is a relatively new activity in the area and doesn’t yet provide a reliable source of income. Each man who had helped carry the supplies, set up the camps, handled the horses, or cooked the meals received a bag that included a pair of shoes, a jacket, some T-shirts, and other miscellaneous goodies.

We saw Hidalgo the next morning as we left Chiquian. He was wearing a brand new pair of Raichle hiking boots and a smile that stretched across Bi the entire plaza. Pe

[Editor’s note: For information about Devy Reinstein’s Andes Adventures, see page 55]

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Man’s Best Friend Ate My

and Other Reasons for Not Training for a Marathon

BY MICHAEL L. SACHS, PHD & BRUCE COHEN, MS

Uns YOU’ VE been living in a cave the last 20 years, you’ve probably seen, if not read, dozens of articles on reasons fo run. Most of us know and appreciate the many physiological and psychological aspects of our lives enhanced by running. Sometimes, though, if you’re like the rest of us, your motivation wanes. You find yourself in a slump, a valley of decrepitude, wallowing in sedentary contrariness, fed upon by the dreaded couch-potato virus—or, worse yet, the vile Internet-potato virus. Yes, that’s you: www.can tgetoffmybutt.com. It can be difficult to extricate ourselves from the morass, and sometimes it’s just plain impossible. What do we say on these occasions? How do we answer our seemingly sympathetic friends when they ask us why we’re not running? Somehow the most honest response—“I just don’t feel like it” —is the hardest to admit. We are runners, after all. Why in the world would we not want to run?

But there must be something we can say during our down times, something ala MAD magazine’s snappy answers to stupid questions.

To help you through awkward times—should you ever suffer them—we’re pleased to provide this list of the Top 10 Reasons for Not Training for a Marathon. We hope to save you time, energy, and frustration and cut down on those long, clumsy explanations (well, you see, it’s not that anything’s wrong exactly … it’s just that, well, you know, I’ve been extra busy with work, and my kids are at the age when they need extra time, and, well, it’s just hard to fit everything in, so something had to, you know, go…)

THE TOP 10

Cee mony “Man’s best friend ate my running shoes.”

Your running shoes are minding their own business when your “best friend” catches a fragrant aroma that reminds him it’s time for lunch. The scent of your favorite, loyal, overworn running shoes is so enticing that poor Rover can’t resist a bite or two before striking rubber. Since few of us have trained to run Abebe Bikila—style, what do we do now?

Options: get new shoes . . . take your dog for a run (he doesn’t mind going barefoot!) … get anew “best friend” . . . buy stock in Nike or Reebok (or New Balance or Asics or Brooks or Puma or Adidas or Etonic—we’re not playing favorites here) and enjoy the perks.

By the way, once you get new shoes, it’s probably a good idea to hide them and save your old ones for your scruffy friend. They taste better anyway.

MICHAEL HUGHES

Reason #9: Ecological New running fad—recycle your sweat!

Most runners shower twice a day. At about 15 gallons per shower (and that’s ashort shower), you use 30 gallons or more of pristine life-enhancing liquidity. If you go without showering, the 200 gallons of water you save a week (over 10,000 gallons for the year) could form a small pond. The 50,000 marathoners who ran in the centennial at Boston could have made a lake if they all agreed to skip their postrace showers.

Of course, while we saved water we’d also be increasing our damage to the ozone, as each unshowered runner would go through at least two cans of aerosol antiperspirant per month. Quite a quagmire! Here’s a solution: run only in the morning before your daily shower, thereby cutting your number of showers in half. This will not only save water and the ozone (not to mention hand soap) but is more time efficient. Besides, who needs to smell good for a run?

eee eer ts No more T-shirts! Organize a Ban the T-Shirt Run.

Alas, you’ ve finally reached the point where your drawers and closets will not hold even one more T-shirt, and you have sworn to your family and friends that you will not run another step until you rehabilitate your T-shirt collection. Perhaps your spouse has given you an ultimatum: “Not one more T-shirt will enter this house!”

Unfortunately, nonrunners don’t understand that T-shirts are critically important to runners, so what’s a runner to do? Try these space-saving tips:

1. Turn the worst, most raggedy shirts into rags (you can reminisce about your favorite runs as you scrub the floor).

2. Give T-shirts to family and friends as gifts, stressing that each shirt was earned the hard way and is reeking with sentimental value.

3. Give shirts away to family to use as sleepwear (remember to get into the habit of getting XL).

4. Give shirts to charity—you’ Il glow with the generosity of helping a good cause.

5. Have some of your most-treasured T-shirts turned into acommemorative quilt. Then on those cold winter nights you can warm up in the musky smell of old sweat (hey, some people pay good money for that scent!).

Reason #7: Prudent

I’m not old! I’m chronologically gifted!

We know some of you think you’re not getting older, just better, but you need to face the fact that Father Time runs faster than any of us. Now that you’re slowing down, take a real break—take time to stop and smell the flowers. Those of us who are daily becoming more chronologically gifted may take longer to recover from those long training runs, but if a 90-year-old can finish a marathon (see the race list of the 1997 New York City Marathon), then your aging excuse begins to sound flimsy.

It may take us a bit longer to get to the finish line, or to get started on our regular training runs, and perhaps we enjoy talking more about our aches and pains and bowel movements than the younger set, but just think of all the advantages those years of experience give us. Sure, we may sometimes feel like that cartoon with the runner and the grim reaper, who’s saying, “I’ ve come for your knees.”

Cross-training may help, as will thinking about all the physiological and psychological benefits you’re getting from running regularly. And think of all those age groups we’ re aging into and might be able to win since there will be fewer competitors our age still around (or still alive). That 90-year-old at New York had no competition.

Reason #6: Versatile I’ve decided to spice up my life.

If you average SO miles a week for 12 weeks at 7:30 pace plus 15 minutes for warm-up/cool-down, shower, and dressing, you’ll spend roughly 6,000 minutes (or 100 hours) training. That’s a lot of blown nap time.

For those who know that variety is the spice of life, assuming cross-training doesn’t fill the bill for you, here are some things to do with your extra time now that you’ve decided not to train for a marathon. (Of course, we assume you’re still running, even if not at marathon level.)

1. Read a classic novel, such as War and Peace (not the Classic-Comic edition).

2. Do a 2,000-piece jigsaw puzzle with no flat pieces and every piece pure black.

3. If you do that, try solving a bigger puzzle, such as feeding all the hungry (extra points for the Nobel Peace Prize).

4. Declare peace on a war (keep notes so you can repeat the process as needed).

. Declare war on a former lover.

Make love, not war. Don’t worry, it’ll all come back.

Show more interest in a loved one’s interest—this has many rewards. . Interest a loved one in reading War and Peace.

. Interest a loved one in making peace.

. Interest a peaceful one in making love.

Srewrnan

There you have it. As you see, there’s never a reason to get stuck in a rut.

Dchaeaee ey sida: Jhsblhal

Great news, honey—a new training strategy!

Actually, marathon training is a good strategy for avoiding pregnancy—in many ways:

1. No time

2. Too tired

3. Low sperm count

4. Body fat too low (may result in amenorrhea) 5. Sore muscles

On the other foot, some consider getting pregnant as a training strategy (though we don’t recommend this), as pregnancy adds considerable stress on the body. Thus, you can increase the stress levels of your training without leaving town.

Of course, if you haven’t been running before you got pregnant, starting while pregnant is generally not recommended. But if you’ ve been running all along, many women have found it possible to continue running well into their pregnancy (always see your doctor, though, to be sure that running is OK for you while pregnant).

Reason #4: cua)

The family that sweats together sticks together! It’s time to design your family racing logo and come up with a slogan. Something like, Run with us… or be run out of the house!

Getting organized to run as a family can be challenging, especially for new parents. Unless your spouse is a runner and you can share time and family responsibilities with the understanding that running is a priority, the response you’ll get might be, “Running again! I need help with the baby!” As soon as the baby is old enough, a jog stroller is a terrific solution, getting both you and the baby into the fresh air.

Remember Hercules’s training principle. Every day Hercules lifted a baby calf. As the calf grew, so did Hercules’s strength. We don’trecommend running with your children strapped to your back, but that jog stroller will become increasingly heavy as the baby grows, maximizing your training (and your bonding) while keeping your mileage low.

As years pass, try to lull your children into loving the jog stroller—maybe you can avoid the cost of an extra car and car insurance while the kids are in high school.

en #3: Injured

! pulled my quads while thinking about my biceps. Runners are notorious for trying to run through nagging injuries. After all, who is ever 100 percent healthy and ready to race at top form? You ever hear someone at a starting line talk about how fit and healthy they are? Perhaps we need a psychologist’s tent at each race. The Doctor Is In. Five cents. Instead of the usual RICE therapy (Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation), we could try Relaxation, Imagery, Concentration, and Efficacy enhancement.

Training for and running long distances can magnify injuries beautifully. For example, if your toe hurts, your stride might be altered. Overor understriding can lead to excessive hyaline cartilage wear under the patella. Chronic pain and grinding over the next decade will eventually lead to knee replacement. Swinging your arms will twist your back, resulting in potential muscle fatigue, forcing the discs to bear the brunt of impact pressure, resulting in disc herta niation or rupture. It hurts just to think about it. Rules of thumb, then: “When in y, doubt, sit it out!” and wichaet HUGHES 44 “Livetorun another day!”

Reason #2: Bored

I’d rather watch the food channel. Blasphemy! Not possible! But, alas, this happens even to the best of us. Sometimes we find that we don’t enjoy the level of training we need to do to runa marathon, or even to run at all. Some people even begin to think that running is b-o-1r-i-n-g!

We know this is rarely the case, but perhaps those rarer occasions become more frequent. (Refer to #6 for suggestions.) Cross-training is always recommended to shift interests, at least partially, toward other activities.

You could always try “the shower phenomenon” for variety as well. The shower phenomenon suggests that the psychological benefits we get from running come not from the run itself but from the shower we take afterward. So, change into your sweats, hang out for a half-hour or so, and then step into the steam and luxuriate in the sensations of a wonderful shower. Imagine you’re under a warm waterfall in the tropics. You’ ll agree it’s a terrific refresher.

If your interest has waned for running, it’s probably best to take a break for a while. Just think of the phase as an extended rest day (recommended highly in most training programs), even if it becomes a rest month or so.

Use the time to escape into some really serious imagining. Imagine yourself running, and running well, even though you’re not actually doing it.

Let your zest for running, the intense physical pleasure that comes from those long strides, the euphoric runner’s high that envelopes you, the beautiful countryside, communing with nature, becoming one with the universe . . . well, you get the idea.

There will be many more marathons in the future, and saving yourself for another day is better than forcing something you really don’t want to do.

LAST BUT NOT LEAST (DRUMROLL, PLEASE)

Reason #1: Busy

How can | squeeze a 60-minute run into 45 minutes?

This is the most frequently cited reason for not running. Is running taking more time than it used to? Are 25 hours in the day not enough? Has your one-hour run become a two-hour run? Where does the time go?

If you wantto see time fly, you don’ thave to throw aclock out the window— just use the front door and run more frequently.

Instead of running fortwo hours at aclip, try running 40 minutes two to three times a day (but see #9 above if you shower after each run).

Marathoners will be affected by the time factor only if life changes and responsibilities increase unexpectedly. An understanding spouse or boss can be helpful here, but there are degrees to their understanding of our need to run.

Your choices are limited: find a more understanding spouse or boss. Sleep less. Improve time-management skills. Or increase the number of hours in the typical day (please contact us when you accomplish this one and we’ ll finance you).

Sometimes we do the best we can, and when added responsibilities at work come along, or when there’s a new baby in the house, it’s best simply to skip the next marathon and point to one farther down the road. After all, life’s journey is one of many steps, many runs, many races. Passing up a race now to get some important things done may actually help in the long run. And it really is about the long run, isn’t it?

We hope these suggestions have been helpful, and that these excuses . . . er . .. reasons will hit the spot the next time that “helpful” friend asks you why you’re notrunning today. We all need a break sometimes, although others don’t seem to know that. In the meantime, enjoy your time off. Better yet, enjoy getting back to running and the joy it brings to all of us!

REFERENCES

Chair, Hy & Stroller, Lo (1998). Baby steps to giant strides. Philadelphia: Marathon Press Unlimited.

Jagger, Mick (1965). Time is on my side. London: Rolling Stones, Inc.

Nine, Kay (1998). Runners are tasty morsels. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.

Ruiz, Rosie (1980). Secrets of success: Reducing your marathon time and distance. Boston: Subway Press.

Samson, P. & Delilah, K. (26.385 B.C.). The Hercules principles. Athens: Zeus and Company.

Simon, Stacy (1995). Psychological factors associated with T-Shirts and runners. Philadelphia: Unpublished master’s thesis, Temple University.

Zone, O. (1997). Wither the layer of my being ? Washington, DC: Atmospheric es Press, Inc.

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Force Facts

Overtraining Injuries Occur When We Do Too Much for Too Long to the Same Body Parts.

BY MARY TROTTO, EDD, PT

I TIS the rare runner who consistently avoids injuries. The very act of running on hard surfaces invites injuries because the same body parts are

employed thousands upon thousands of times. Y . \ = Impact

To understand arunner’s injury, especially Forces pact, loading, and

a marathoner’s injury, you need to underW/ push-off forces.

stand how and when loads (forces) are See figure 1. GRF GRF ‘Tom roserrs

applied during the running cycle. The basic running cycle can be divided into the support phase, the push-off phase, and the swing phase. Push-Off Force

Most of the loads are

applied during the

support and push-off

phases. These loads J —

are called the imFigure 1 Forces involved in running. Although impact forces are high, they are notas high as the push-off force. Ground reaction force (GRF) will depend on the surface: streets will produce a higher GRF than trails; running on sand will produce a low GRF. Impact forces will depend on the speed of the run and the surface run on. The push-off force is high regardless of the surfaces and increases with running speed.

* Impact forces occur when the foot first strikes the ground.

* Loading forces occur after the foot hits the ground, when the foot and leg support the weight of the body.

¢ Push-off forces occur when the foot pushes body weight off the ground.

At one time we thought the greatest forces during running were produced at impact (at heel strike, for most runners), and most running shoes are designed to dissipate impact forces and cushion loading forces. However, recent research indicates that push-off forces and loading forces are greater than impact forces during running. Lab testing shows that impact forces remain the same regardless of the type of materials used in the shoe, whereas loading forces are reduced to a small degree in most running shoes. At this time, no running shoe is designed to alter push-off forces. So, the greatest forces we experience while we’re running—at loading and at push-off—are either slightly altered or not addressed at all. The message is that if you’re relying solely on your shoe to dissipate and absorb forces in running, you’re seriously overestimating the value of your shoe.

ABSORPTION BY BODY PARTS

Many runners don’t realize that push-off forces and loading forces must be absorbed by the muscles, bones, and other soft tissue structures in the lower extremity and trunk. In particular, the muscles play a key role in both the development and dissipation of push-off forces. When the muscles of the leg and trunk become fatigued, their ability to control these forces are compromised. When this happens, the loads are placed on the other musculoskeletal structures of the lower extremity.

These other structures can also fatigue when excessive or prolonged loads are applied. When these structures cannot control the loading and push-off forces, a high risk exists that the structures will undergo mechanical failure that increases risk of injury in the lower extremities. Injuries typically associated with this type of failure include

* increased risk for plantar fasciitis,

* patella-femoral syndromes,

* generalized knee pain,

¢ hip dysfunction, and

* stress fractures of the bones of the feet.

Inaddition to the forces we’ ve already discussed, the body must also control excessive motion and rotational forces created by the torso, legs, and arms.

These forces are controlled by the contraction of muscles of the trunk, called stabilizing forces.

Strength and Flexibility

During the running cycle your abdominals keep your pelvis neutral, while your obliques control rotational forces. Weak abdominals and obliques cause an increase in anterior pelvic tilt and thus can limit hip flexion and stride length.

Since running velocity is determined by the interplay of the stride length and stride frequency, any factors that decrease the optimal stride length will also adversely affect running velocity.

Runners who try to increase running velocity (speed) before addressing weakness in the abdominals and obliques risk abdominal pulls, sciatic nerve entrapment (sciatica), and lower back problems.

Runners must be concerned with both flexibility and strength. These two capacities need to be well balanced for runners to enjoy injury-free running. Limitations in flexibility contribute to two characteristics:

¢ Decreased stride length (hip and knee), which reduces running speed

¢ Loss of force at push-off due to tight triceps surae (gastrocnemius/ soleus; ankle).

A reduction or lack of strength contributes to these weaknesses:

e Decreased ability to dissipate both impact and loading forces due to a decreased strength in the hips, knees, or ankles

¢ Decreased ability to generate forces at push-off due to adecreased strength in the hips and ankles

¢ Decreased ability to generate stabilizing forces due to a decreased strength in the trunk and hips.

Because of the repetitive nature of running through a short range of motion, some muscles are more prone to be tight (to lack flexibility), while others are more prone to be weak. In some cases, muscles can be tight and weak. The following muscles are most involved in the running cycle and are thus more prone to problems:

¢ Hamstrings can be tight or weak.

¢ Quadriceps are usually tight (and, in females, more often weak).

¢ Gastrocnemius and soleus are usually tight (and weak after injury). ¢ Hip adductors can be tight or weak, but usually tight.

¢ Gluteus maximus can be tight or weak, but usually weak.

¢ Gluteus medius is usually weak but can be tight.

¢ Iliopsoas is usually tight but can be weak.

Dissipating Loads Elsewhere

As mentioned earlier, when muscles involved in absorbing and dissipating loads in running are weak, the forces are placed on other structures, such as the ligaments, tendons, fascia, and bone. These loads, when applied over and over again or in a prolonged way (such as running every day or running 50 to 80+ miles per week), eventually cause the structures to fail. Tendon, ligament, fascia, and bone injuries are commonly seen in the long-distance runner and marathoner. Ligament sprains and tears, tendinitis, fasciitis, and stress fractures of the lower leg and feet are widespread in the running population.

OVERTRAINING

Chronic overuse, or overtraining, is the most common cause of injury in runners, accounting for more than 70 percent of all running injuries. As the running mileage increases, the rate of injury increases substantially. Training effects and improvement in performance and fitness do not increase linearly with the training dose. Performance increases initially with an increase in days per week and miles per week run. But when the number of days per week exceeds five, or the miles per week exceed 50, the performance begins to level off and in some cases actually declines with further mileage. Overtraining is a leading cause for both muscle weakness and fatigue.

The following are the three most significant training behaviors leading to overtraining injuries:

1. Too many races run too close together without adequate rest and recovery 2. Sudden rather than gradual increase in intensity and/or duration of running 3. Increased emphasis on only one type of training program (e.g., running)

Nontraining behaviors can also increase the risk of injury in runners and lead to overtraining injuries. These include

° irregular work hours or heavy work schedule, ¢ dehydration, and * prolonged emotional stress.

Heed the Warning Signs

Overtraining can be avoided and the risk of injury greatly reduced if you heed the warning signs. If you begin to experience some of these warning signs, back off on the intensity, duration, or frequency of your training program. The warning signs of overtraining can be broken down into training-related, lifestylerelated, and health-related signs.

The training-related warning signs are

¢ unusual muscle soreness the day after a training session,

© progressive increases in soreness with continued training,

e aperformance plateau or decrement despite increased training, ¢ an inability to complete a previously manageable training load, e asense of elevated effort,

e delay in recovery from training,

e thoughts of either quitting or skipping training, and

¢ elevated resting or exercise heart rates.

Lifestyle-related warning signs include

¢ increased tension, depression, anger, fatigue, or confusion;

inability to relax;

¢ decreased vigor in completing daily activities (things once pleasurable no longer are); and

* poor quality of sleep.

The health-related warning signs of overtraining are

e increased incidence of illness (fever, head colds, etc.),

¢ increased resting blood pressure or increased morning pulse rate, ¢ constipation, or diarrhea,

¢ loss of weight or loss of appetite, and

swelling of lymph nodes (in extreme cases).

Here are 10 ways to avoid overtraining and decrease or avoid running injuries:

1. Develop flexibility in the back, hips, ankles, and feet (see pages 83-84).

2. Increase strength in the abdominals, hips, and lower legs. . Cross-train—alternate running with swimming, cycling, or brisk walking. . Plan training schedules by mixing hard days with easy days and racing. . Use logical progressions for both mileage increases and speed increases. . Alternate your running shoes during the week. . Run on soft surfaces often.

. Run barefoot for short distances (200 to 400 meters) once a week to develop foot muscles and keep your feet flexible.

eon nmn ss W

9. Heed early warning signs of distress by resting. 10. Run in places where you can enjoy the scenery, relaxing while you run.

Strength Development

All — eee tp flexion, parallel squats, abdominal

more hen 101 reps a are due before failure. If exercises can be extended 12 to 15 times or more, look for ways to add resistance so failure comes by 10 reps. In strength exercises, remember these guidelines:

3. Never use momentum to lift resistance. 4. Never hold your breath.

5. Seek professional help from a certified trainer if strength training isa new ‘experience.

FLEXIBILITY EXERCISES

Before performing the exercises described below, be sure to warm up, by doing an easy 5-minute walk/jog. Hold each stretch for at least 45 seconds. Try to relax into the stretch and hold at a point where the muscle is lengthening. There should be no pain in the muscle or around the joint.

¢ BACK AND HIPS. Place hands on floor next to feet for balance and support. Place one leg as far back as possible, weight on back toes and forward foot. Try to drop hips to floor, keeping back leg as straight as possible; forward knee must stay over foot (90-degree angle at knee in front). Drop head and release back. Hold position 45 seconds or more and then switch legs. Remember to keep front knee directly over shoelaces (knee at 90-degree flexion). Rock back and forth in this position to feel stretch in anterior thigh of back leg and posterior thigh of front leg. Also relax back and lower Tom nonents head. See figure 2.

Figure 2

Mary Trotto Force Facts Mi 83

« BACK.

Arch back and — > drop head. Hold

45 seconds, then

bring one knee =

to head. Repeat Figure 3 with other leg. See figure 3.

¢ BACK AND HIPS. Place hands around thigh and pull thighs in to chest. Hold 45 seconds and relax. Rocking on a soft mat is also helpful to relax back extensors. See figure 4.

« CALVES AND HAMSTRINGS. Place hands on floor. Place hips high into air and keep one leg straight, foot flat on floor. Alternate bending one leg at atime, keeping heels on floor. See figure 5.

‘TOM ROBERTS

Figure 4

e CALVES. Lean into wall. Keep leg straight and hold 45 seconds; then bring one leg back. Bend knee and try to keep heels on ground. Alternate feet and hold 45 seconds. See figure 6.

¢ HAMSTRINGS. Use stretch rope or towel to hold leg up behind calf. Keep both legs as straight as possible and do not allow knee to hyperextend. Try to bring leg as far toward head as possible. Ideally, hips should flex 90 degrees, with knee straight. Bend knee slightly if painful directly behind knee. Keep other leg straight. Place sack of sand or weight on bottom thigh to keep it straight on the ground. See figure 7.

“ TOM ROBERTS

Figure 5

&: TOM ROBERTS « .

Figure 6

TOM ROBERTS

Runners who train wisely and heed the early warning signs of overtraining can expect a lifelong relationship with

Figure 7

running. Those who plan their training to include flexibility, strength, rest days, and periodic peaking should be able to run injury-free throughout their life as well as maintain their competitive edge.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

. Alexander, R. McNeill. (1992) The Human Machine. Columbia University

Press.

. Burkett, Lee Nelson. (1970) Causative factors in hamstring strains. Medicine

and Science in Sports, Vol. 2, No. 1, 39-42.

. Clancy, Jr., William G. & Folts, Alexander S. (1976) Iliac apophysitis and stress

fractures in adolescent runners. The American Journal of Sports Medicine, Vol. 4, No. 5, 214-218.

. Cowan, David N., Jones, Bruce H., & Robinson, John R. (1993) Foot morphologic characteristics and risk of exercise-related injury. Archives of Family Medicine, Vol. 2, 773-777.

. Enoka, Roger M. (1988) Neuromuscular Basis of Kinesiology. Human

Kinetics.

. Fung, Y.C. (1993) Biomechanics: Mechanical Properties of Living Tissues, 2nd

ed. Springer.

. Gellman, & Bums, Sandra. (1996) Walking aches and running pains. Injuries of

the foot and ankle. Primary Care, Vol. 23, No. 2, 263-280.

. Jonhagen, Sven, Nemeth, Gunnar, & Eriksson, Ejnar. (1994) Hamstring injuries

in sprinters. The role of concentric and eccentric hamstring muscle strength and flexibility. The American Journal of Sports Medicine, Vol. 22, No. 2, 262-266.

. Lysholm, & Wiklander, Jorgen. (1987) Injuries in runners. The American Journal of Sports Medicine, Vol. 15, No. 2, 168-171.

Martin, David E. & Coe, Peter N. (1997) Better Training for Distance Runners, 2nd ed. Human Kinetics.

Norkin, Cynthia C. & Levangie, Pamela K. (1992) Joint Structure & Function: A comprehensive analysis, 2nd ed. F.A. Davis Company.

. van Mechelen, Willem. (1992) Running injuries: A review of the epidemiological literature. Sports Medicine, Vol. 14, No. 5, 320-335.

. Wen, Dennis Y., Puffer, James C., & Schmalzned, Thomas P. (1997) Lower

extremity alignment and risk of overuse injuries in runners. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, Vol. 29, No. 10, 1291-1298.

. ACSM (1997). 44th Annual Conference. Audiotapes.

Mary Trotto Force Facts MM 85

COLUMBUS MARATHON TWENTY YEARS IN THE RUNNING

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Fifty Years on the Run

You Run and You Run and You Run, and You Look Back Over the Path You’ve Taken and Find You’ve Run Forever.

BY JOE OAKES

COURTESY OF JOE OAKES

I TWAS in September of

1948 that Howie Borck told me I was a lousy shotputter. I had a perfect 2-0 record in the 135-pound subnovice Golden Gloves. I though I was as tough as nails.

But Howie took me by the arm and said, “Look at that big guy over there, Paul Baroncelli. He weighs about 220 pounds. He has already made the football squad, and he’s only a freshman, like you. And there are a half-dozen football players as big as he is who can put the shot better than he can.”

I watched Baroncelli with no form whatsoever effortlessly toss the iron sphere an easy 15 feet beyond the puny dent my best effort had left in the clay. “What I need are guys tough enough to get out there and run hard for a long time. Ineed guys who can take punishment without caving in. If I can find five guys like that, I promise that I’ll make champions of them. We’ Il win the BMWs. Do you think you’re tough enough?”

At Cardinal Hayes High School in the Bronx, coach Howie Borck instilled in Joe Oakes (shown here in 1949) a lifelong love of running.

In those days anybody who knew anything about track knew that BMWs were not automobiles but the Bronx-Manhattan-Westchester Track Championships. Coach Borck had me hooked . . . and he wasn’t just blowing smoke about the BMWs. In our senior year, we cleaned up.

I don’t know if Howie Borck was the greatest track coach of all time, but he gets my vote. Our school, Cardinal Hayes High School in the Bronx, did not have a track to work out on. The nearest track was at Macomb’s Dam Park near Yankee Stadium. To get there we had to run about a mile, a good warm-up— and Coach Borck always insisted on a good warm-up.

Incross-country season we had to take the subway up to Van Cortlandt Park at the opposite end of the Bronx for practice. Cardinal Hayes was a big-time football and basketball school, so the coach had to compete with these more important sports for money to operate the team. Somehow he managed to develop a strong track program, and I suspect that some of the nickels and dimes came from his own pocket.

RUNNING YEAR-ROUND

Running at Hayes was a four-season affair. In the fall we ran cross-country, mostly on the course at Van Cortlandt Park. We went inside in the winter for indoor season, competing in armories and field houses all over the metropolitan area. For workouts we set up a banked wooden track in the Fordham Roller Skating Rink. In the spring we went outside again on quarter-mile cinder tracks. The big meets were in the stadiums at Van Cortlandt Park and Randall’s Island. Coach Borck set up dual meets with most of the schools in the Bronx and Manhattan. Once he took us up to West Point for a dual meet against the freshmen—the “plebes”—at Army. We demolished them. When we were out of school in the summer, we ran on our own in PAL (Police Athletic League) or © other club competitions.

The kids at Hayes, an all-boys school, were mostly poor Irish, Italian, and German street kids from the South Bronx, and we had more than our share of the kinds

Joe Oakes at Van Cortlandt Park during the 1950 cross-country season.

COURTESY OF JOE OAKES

of troubles of inner-city kids. Hayes and Coach Borck gave us a different way to look at life from what we saw every day on the mean streets. We learned to value honor, dignity, integrity, focus, and hard work. Coach taught us to want to win, and he drilled it into us that winning didn’t come easy. He also taught us that losing wasn’t all that bad if you had given it your best shot.

Istill have some of the medals I won in high school, including one from the BMWs. They belong as much to Coach as they do to me.

We usually worked out three or four afternoons a week, most often at Macomb’s Dam Park. When we got to the track Coach made all of us, sprinters and distance men alike, jog a mile for a warm-up (though I don’t think we used the word “jog” in those days). We would all then do a series of about 10 “strides,” running the straight portions of the quarter-mile track at about threequarter speed. We were a large squad, probably 50 of us, but he had an individual workout planned for each of us, all neatly written out, every day. He must have put hours into it.

At the end of my senior year, Coach Borck was able to get me a track scholarship to one of the top track schools in the New York City area. I wasn’t nearly as good a runner as he was a salesman. When I think back to what I got from Coach, I have a lot to be thankful for. But there’s one thing in particular I got from Howie Borck—something that all too many coaches, both then and now, deny to their charges because of their approach to the sport.

He gave me a lifelong love of running.

DRIFTING AND DREAMING

After high school, I drifted a bit. I put some time into college, but things weren’t working out well either at home or in school. Many of my friends volunteered for military duty because there was a war going on in Korea, soI signed up, too.

After a couple of years, I came home, got married, and returned to school, this time attending night school at the City College of New York. Sylvia and I had started a family. But, you know, I still loved to get out and go for a run.

Somehow I got together with a crew of like-minded nuts. We started the CCNY Night School Track Team. The routine was like this: work at a job fulltime, go to school in the evening, get your homework done, have some fun with the family, and somehow find time to get together for workouts and for meets. The guy who organized the insanity was a lunatic named Irving Rattner. Though there were never more than a dozen of us on the team, crazy Rattner somehow kept the team together and made it work. We even entered meets. The only time we didn’t finish last was when another team didn’t show up, so we beat them by default. And we loved it!

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, nobody ran after they got out of college. There was no such thing as a jogger. Everybody knew that running was bad for your bones, and it would be more than a decade before — Doctor Ken Cooper would publish his lifesaving work on the relation between exercise and heart disease.

Nobody ran, I think, but me. I can remember running from my home in Merrick, Long Island, to the track at the high school, dressed ina full sweatsuit. Did I draw snickers from casual onlookers? You bet I did. In fact, one summer the neighbors asked my wife to see if she could do anything about my running around the neighborhood in my underwear.

Nowadays you can go out on the street anywhere in the United States and see joggers, and nobody notices you anymore than they notice a tree or a fire hydrant. They are an accepted part of the scenery. But in the early 1960s, the only people who ran in courresyorso¢ oaxes public were nut cases. Like me. Joe worked asa lifeguard ina New

Oh, I gave myself excuses for my aber- York City Park Department pool rant behavior. I told myself that I did it be- in Harlem during the summers of cause I was getting a bit pudgy—andI was. 1950-57.

Maybe it would keep the waistline from

expanding too fast (it didn’t). I rationalized that running was a way to keep me fit for other things, like basketball, which I didn’t play anyway, or boxing, which I had given up years before, or soccer, which I had played exactly three times. But at that time I never admitted to myself that I ran because I liked it on its own terms, that I simply loved to run.

It wasn’t until 1974 that I understood I was not an ugly duckling but really a swan. By that time, in some remote outposts, an inkling had surfaced that running might be all right.

REVELATIONS IN CALIFORNIA

I had kept up my “closet running” as I moved my family from New York to Connecticut to Pennsylvania and, finally, to California. One Sunday morning

I took the kids up to the stadium at Foothills College in Los Altos Hills. I was planning to stash them on the infield of the stadium to play while I sneaked a secret run.

Lo and behold, what to my wondering eyes should appear but a whole herd of runners—not on the track, but on the road that runs around the campus! And they were not kids—they were real people, semi-adults like myself. There they were in their drawers, warming up, getting ready to run. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Had I wandered onto the grounds of an insane asylum?

That was the moment of my second birth as a runner.

It turned out this mob of underwear-clad joggers was known as the Foothill College Fun Runners, and they were encouraged in their insanity by a running magazine. I didn’t know that such magazines existed, but here were two of them—Runner’s Worldand Track & Field News—located right next door in the town of Mountain View. To say I was elated would be an understatement.

I began running with them the next Sunday, and Iran with them every Sunday for years. It was a family-oriented affair, which was another revelation to me. Didn’t only men run? Not anymore. The kids started coming with me when they felt like it. Even Sylvia ran once. The greatest thing was how low-key courtesy or sor oaxes we keptit. If youwantedto Joe at Randall’s Island Stadium during the 1950 run hard, you could. There outdoor track season. were always a few speed merchants on hand to deal out humility to lesser mortals. But if you wanted to cool it and just enjoy the experience of running, that was totally acceptable, too.

I was in my 40th year when I found the Fun Runners—or they found me.

SALVATION BY FUN RUN

By that time I had neglected myself badly. My weight had entered the 200+ pound level. My first few runs with the Fun Runners were an embarrassment

tome. They wouldrun three races every Sunday: a half-mile, a mile, thenalong one anywhere from two miles to six. At first I had trouble, but after a while I was able to run all three on the same day.

Yes, the running became natural again, taking less effort and bestowing more speed. I began hanging out with a fast crowd. A guy named Joe Henderson was experimenting with what he called LSD running: long, slow distance. Joe was a writer and a pretty good theoretician. We would go out every Saturday morning and run on trails in the hills for hours. I had always been addicted to running, but now I was becoming a hardcore mainliner. I was doing a lot, but Thad to have more.

The Fun Runners were no longer enough for me. I was doing 5Ks and 10Ks, and it just wasn’t enough.

IT suspect that you know what happened next. You got it: the marathon. The dreaded marathon. By then I was running 40, then 50, then more miles a week. I fell in with the likes of Walter Stack and the DSE (Dolphin South End) Runners. Their motto, run slowly and taper off, only meant that if Iran slower I could run more.

Running a marathon was the inevitable next step in my ever-deepening addiction.

My first was The Avenue of the Giants in 1975. It was the first of many. In the last eight weeks of 1978, I ran three marathons, a 30K race, a 15K hill race, and my first ultramarathon, a 50-mile run from Half-Moon Bay to Santa Cruz, California. (That 50-miler was the inaugural edition of the Recover From the Holidays Fat Ass Fifty, although nobody knew it at the time. Fat Ass Fifties are now run in at least 25 locations throughout the world, and 1997 marked the race’s 20th anniversary.)

Following that spree, I did no more racing for six months. Marathons were no longer enough for me. I needed bigger and bigger fixes. In June 1979, I toed the line at Squaw Valley and ran one of the unmeasured versions of the Western States 100-Mile Endurance Run, “The Ultimate Running Challenge.” It was my good fortune to cross the finish line in Auburn in just over 23 hours and get me a shiny silver belt buckle, still one of my most treasured possessions.

The tale goes on. There were more marathons, many of them. There were more ultras, multiday runs, supermarathons (on every continent, including one damned fool marathon in the Antarctic). I even took a whack at my head running from Death Valley to the top of Mt. Whitney.

I tried several cures from running. Triathlons were a good substitute for a while, including six Ironman Triathlons and a bunch of Alcatraz Triathlons. I got some relief by substituting bicycling, long-distance swimming, kayaking, and mountain climbing for my running. Sailing did nothing for my inner need, nor did scuba diving. And while I tried out these other sports, I kept right on

running. There simply was no real substitute. I had to run. I even ran with those filthy degenerates of the running world, the Hash House Harriers.

MORE … EVER MORE

There was no cure for me. “More,” my wretched body demanded, and I catered to its habit. In time, the excess took its toll. [had trashed my knees so badly that I had to have knee surgery. It was only arthroscopy, I told myself—not real surgery. Two more knee surgeries, one on each knee, got me to slow down a while, but not for long. I always went back to running, loving crashing fullspeed down a mountain trail. Until . . .

During one fast downhill in Golden Gate Park, I broke my foot on a rock on the way down and, as I straight-armed the ground to break my fall, I also broke my wrist.

Iam writing this just six months later, and, yes, I am back to running. Sort of. I’m not moving very fast, but I am moving.

I’ve seen guys run with artificial limbs, so who the hell am I to whine about my problems? If ya gotta run, ya gotta run. That’s all there is to it.

In September of 1998 I celebrated 50 years of running. I’m damned glad that Howie Borck was able to convince me I wasn’t a shot-putter. I’ve had more fun than he could have possibly imagined. If I ever get to heaven, I’m going to look up Coach Borck and take him out for a run. Just imagine what the jig. downhills are like from that height! Pi

Adventure Running At Its WORST!

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

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My Most Unforgettable Ultramarathon

(And What | Learned From It)

BY JOE PRUSAITIS

\ \ ] ASATCH MOUNTAINS, UTAH, Sept. 12-13, 1998—Under a canopy of trees, the darkness seems even more stark, changing some 200+ people into one large, gray shadow of unrecognizable shape and hue. The mass begins to move, and formless sounds turn to words. Only one word makes sense—the word “Go!” Slowly, the front of the shadow begins moving forward. In the early morning darkness of the Wasatch Mountains, Paul and I flow into the moving shadow and become one with it—the start of The Wasatch Front 100Mile Trail Run.

Just like that, and we’ re off. The two of us settle in for the long walk uphill on a narrow single-track trail that is both winding and steep and rugged with rocks and roots and over- 40€ Prusaitis heads out from the Big Mountain aid station during a short rain and hail storm in the 1998 Wasatch 100.

COURTESY OF JOE PRUSAITIS

grown with brush. We’ re repeatedly passed on this early climb by more than a few runners in a far bigger hurry than we are. My goal is just to finish. With flashlight in hand, we climb 4,000 feet over the first five miles.

Joe Prusaitis MY MOST UNFORGETTABLE ULTRAMARATHON & 97

As the dark stays with us for more than an hour, we can’t see how far or how high we’ re climbing. We’ re also fresh and full of energy. For either reason or both, the climb seems rather easy.

Occasionally, we catch peeks at the Salt Lake City lights below. Inspiring glimpses provide more reasons for being here, now, in the mountains above Salt Lake City. As we approach the five-and-a-half-mile mark, Paul points out the infamous Chin Scraper, now dotted with tiny specks of color, which turn out to be climbers clinging to her face. We come at it through a small bowl, and then we are on it as well, becoming part of the mosaic, climbing slowly. Itis not much of a climb, but we do end up on all fours as we near the summit.

Once on top, we revel in the scenery and a chance to finally loosen our legs with some running. The summit yields a few miles of lazy trails around high peaks that treat us to even more spectacular views of Salt Lake City and the Great Salt Lake. At 10 miles, we reach John Grobben’s pickup truck and top off our water from his tailgate. Paul’s buddy, Mike, connects with us at the truck, as does Kevin Sayers. Shortly after, we pass the large radar domes, fondly known as Paul Bunyon’s golf balls. We roll from a jeep road onto a wide, wellgroomed dirtroad that circles the mountain, beginning along descent to the first major aid station at Francis Peak (15 miles).

TOE THUMPERS, LUNG SUCKERS, AND BRITISH ELEPHANTS

Joyce and Mitch swarm me like a pair of excited bees on honey. (I learn later that I was areal grump here! I don’t remember being grumpy but defer to the ones not having run yet.) In less than six minutes, they load me up, feed me, water me, and shove me on my way. A swarm of us buzz on down the dirt road together, and in no time at all we’re back ona single-track trail with a long climb up to Bountiful B aid station (20 miles).

Rough dirt roads soon become trails completely hidden by overgrowth so thick that the trails are invisible even as we run on them. The brush scrapes and scratches our legs and knees while unseen rocks and roots attract our vulnerable toes. We run recklessly through this maze of toe thumpers and knee scratchers. Our caravan is rolling merrily along when I feel a big dip in my energy level. This does not bode well. My energy level rises and falls—I live and die so many times in a long ran—but I’m surprised that it’s happening already.

I hop off the back of the train as I begin to lag behind. I take a break at Sessions Lift-Off (24 miles) and, soon after, I’m waddling up Lung Sucker Hill. Ihad been working a decent power walk up the hills to this point, but I find it more difficult right now. My power walk becomes a dying man’s crawl.

Once on top, I sit down in the shade of a tree and suck down two GU packs and slowly drink a lot of water before continuing. Alone, I enter a barren wilderness of bald ridges, unprotected from the sun. A moonscape of naked beauty. I watch the tiny lines of runners on the next ridge, like army ants marching in formation to disappear into the top of the next mound. I begin to hum the Jungle Book tune where the British elephants march in formation: hup, two, three, four, to a military drill. Up, down, and round we go, tiny ants marching to different drummers. I’m moving so very slowly as the sun roasts my brain that a few folks going by ask if I’m OK.

“It’s just a lull,” I say (although a large one). There’s actually quite a bit of cloud cover, but they must be thin clouds, as I’m being cooked alive. Yessir, I’m way too hot! Descending a long set of switchbacks, I land in a field of weeds tall enough for the buds to whack me in the face as I pass through. For some odd reason, I’m too tired to put my hands up, and I think of Toto in the Wizard of Oz running through a field of poppies. Hmmm, I think: next thing you know, I’ll be seeing winged monkeys!

I’m way past stupid already. My mind is everywhere but here. I’m beginning to dread the downhills, knowing another climb starts at the bottom of each descent. Sure enough, another big climb starts at the bottom, leading me to more terrain like that I just left.

Neil Hewitt passes me with a badly swollen ankle and knee, fighting his own dragons. I limp into Swallow Rocks (32 miles) and am treated to a Popsicle. What a wonderful treat! I enjoy it as long as Ican while I slowly walk on down the road. Thaven’t noticed until [hear the crack of thunder that some nasty looking black rain clouds are building up and racing toward us with great vigor.

Joe, having just completed Chin Scraper, at mile 20. The trail is just off his left shoulder.

COURTESY OF JOE PRUSAITIS

Joe Prusaitis MY MOST UNFORGETTABLE ULTRAMARATHON M 99

The weather changed so suddenly that I didn’t catch the shift until now that it’s on me. Back home in the flatlands of Texas, you can smell the change long before it happens. Up here in the mountains, it sneaks up on you. I can almost reach up and touch the clouds as they whiz by just above my head. I want to study them more (being one of those hopeless dreamers that spends way too much time looking for interesting shapes in the clouds), but I’ll surely trip and bust my buns if I keep looking up.

Atthe moment, Ineed to hurry and get to the next station before the rain hits. Within a short distance I’m on another single-track trail passing through aspen groves leading to an overhang where I can see the next station. It’s still a good ways down and just off a paved road, but I can see it and know I’m close. . . I think! I’m right this time—it is close—but later, at Lamb’s Canyon, I would make the same guess and be very, very wrong. The trail wanders about a bit before becoming a series of switchbacks falling off the side of the mountain in the correct direction. I quickly transport myself down into the Big Mountain aid station (36 miles), just minutes ahead of the rain.

LIVING ‘N’ DYING IN HAILSTORMS AND CELL PHONES

Joyce and Mitch jump into action, trying to get me ready before the rain hits. Too late! Ihave just pulled off my shoes to treat my feet when the rain pounces. Ihave to finish the repair job and recharge behind the protection of two porto-lets as the wind whips the rain into us sideways. Mitch pulls two rain ponchos over my head as I replace my shoes and eat. The rain is freezing cold. I’m going to have a problem unless I get out of here quickly. Mitch walks with me up the trail while I eat, and he hands me more food as we split. (Thanks, Mitch. You da man! Thanks, Joyce. You’re the best!)

I walk uphill in the vicious rain while eating a turkey sandwich and a piece of baked potato; the wind whips the plastic poncho around my face and body ….And then it begins to hail! Little pea-sized pellets. I walk with my head down to protect my face, considering my options should the pellets begin to hurt. But it never becomes more than a tickle. I feel a smile creep over my face, and it warms my whole body. I’ mactually enjoying this storm. Why? Ihad been hot when I came into Big Mountain, and the rain has cooled me down. I’m invigorated and once again pushing the pace, power walking the uphills and charging the downhills.

The rain lasts only 30 minutes or so, it seems, but the overcast sky and cooler temperature serve me well. I’m back from the dead—again!

I pass through all sorts of terrain: woods, bald peaks, and lush valleys. By Baugh Bearing Hill, the sky has cleared and the storm departed. All sense of