[…] time and won’t be tired all the time from running 110 miles a week.

Not so for me. Not at all. I was sleeping in until I had to actually get up and go to work. Or, even worse, I was waking up at almost my usual hour but then doing nothing but starting a fire (it’s how I heat my house) and surfing the Web.

PUMPKIN PIE AND DEVIL DOGS

I don’t give my diet the usual attention, either. With nothing to train for, what’s the point in watching your diet? Pumpkin pie is one of my greatest weaknesses, and since it was the holidays, there was an ample supply around (until I got to them). I ate pumpkin pie whenever! could get my hands on it. In more recent weeks, there has been ice cream (though less tempting during cold-weather months) and one of my childhood favorites, Devil Dogs.

In between bites one day, I took my blinders off and had a look around me, as I’m prone to do every once in awhile. I noted that my current world resembled a Dilbert cartoon, populated with doughy, pasty, cubicledwelling middle-aged men. Some of them have offices instead of cubicles, so they have that going for them, but, given the choice, I’d rather have the healthy, chiseled, cut-like-a-rock body I’ve become accustomed to carrying about over the years.

It’s enough to scare you to the nearest and most readily available means of alternative training real fast.

14 m™ MARATHON & BEYOND

Fortunately, my company, small as it is, has a gym equipped with two elliptical training machines. While I’m not preaching the use of these things as a substitute for actual running, I’ve never found a machine that makes me sweat quite as much as an elliptical trainer. It’s the most bang for your buck you can get if you can’t run. The motion is somewhere between climbing stairs and cross-country skiing. The elliptical machines are comfortable, unlike exercise bikes, which my bony ass can’t take.

Ellen is convinced I’d also be good onarowing machine—specifically, on aConcept II ergometer, for which competitions are held. While the idea of two people going at it on exercise machines doesn’t sound too exciting at first, you have to see the competition to appreciate it. Check out the concept2.com Web site for a better idea of what’s going on. For the record, after six or seven tries, my 2,000-meter time is 7:17, andl’ mconsidered alightweight at 160 pounds. The best in the world goes at around 5:40, but anything under 6 minutes gets the attention of the national team coach. These competitions also provide an excellent aerobic workout; maybe when I retire fromrunning I’ ll enter one of the races.

YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’VE GOT UNTIL IT’S GONE

T’ve always been thankful for my abilities. Not just that I can run faster than most other runners but that I can

[…] run at all. But maybe it takes immobility to really appreciate how nice it is to be mobile. Three weeks into my forced break, it dawned on me that I hadn’t seen my afternoon loop in that long. My loop circles a small lake in Connecticut called Wolfe Park. I wondered what had changed on the loop since I had stopped running. Probably not much. I’ ve been running there for four years, and not much has changed in all that time. But I want to see what’s going on down there anyway. Even if I can’t be a champion, I still need to get outside and see my corner of the world for at least 45 minutes a day.

When the time came that I decided to stop elliptical training and start actual running, Icouldn’t manage any better than about 7:30 pace; still, it was good to be outside in December. Idon’t mind temps in the 20s and 30s. I was out for about 15 minutes one morning, running around the block, when someone waiting for the bus with her kids informed me that it was “too cold to be doing that.” I guess I was supposed to say something cute back, but all I could muster was, “Whatever—” I didn’t mean to be rude, but I think this woman is one of my dear neighbors who uses me for target practice on the roads inher SUV.

HOW MUCH LONGER?

I look forward to being recovered, which is taking much longer than I expected. Down time is dull. Sometimes I wish I could sit at the top of my driveway and watch me finish one of my runs. I like to switch my routes from time to time, but I have my favorites and I pretty much do the same thing every morning—somewhere between 9.4 and 9.8. On my better days it takes me 59 minutes and change to finish it.

I’d like to sit on the wall looking down my driveway and watch me finish up all theruns I’ ve ever taken. I’m guessing it would take about 20 minutes to run the whole film from the best workout I’ ve ever had to my worst run ever. On at least two occasions, I’d have to watch myself get out of a car because something happened out there and I just couldn’t make it home on my own two feet. But no matter how bad the run, I always knew that a good run was coming soon enough. That’s what gets me through now, as I wait to recover: replaying my past runs and imagining all the good runs ahead.

You can check Joe’s Web site at www.joelemay.com

TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE

Many of you have been extremely enthusiastic about telling your running friends about Marathon & Beyond. In appreciation, we have a policy of adding an issue to your subscription when a friend subscribes to M&B because you turned him or her on to the magazine. Have your friend give us your name when they subscribe, and we’ ll add another issue to your current subscription. Some of our subscribers may never need to renew again!

ON THE ROAD WITH JOE LEMAY @ 15

Triple Play

Emil Zatopek Went Where No Runner Had Gone Before—Nor Has One Gone Since.

By RICHARD BENYO

I T SEEMS

preposterous to number among the greatest marathoners in history a man who competed at the marathon distance only twice and who placed sixth in one of those two races. Yet it is that seeming contradiction that exemplifies the career—and legend—of Emil Zatopek.

Emil Zatopek was born in Koprinivince, Czechoslovakia, the son of a poor carpenter, and moved to Zlin at the age of 16. Short and wiry, with straight, straw-like hair, he was a young man filled with ambition and good humor, and he was a tireless worker. He worked in a shoe factory and attended school in the evenings.

In Zlin the diverse strands of fate that would allow him to fulfill his ambitions came together. In 1941 the shoe company sponsored a race through the streets of the city. Emil had run a few races for fun against his fellow workers but had never competed formally. He actually tried to get out of the race, but as an employee of the company, he had no choice but to run along with about 100 other young men. He finished second, perhaps motivated more by the desire to get it over with than the wish to shine in the event.

In the year that followed, Zatopek ran a few more races but did not develop any burning interest in the sport. By the end of the year, however, trainers and coaches had singled him out as a young man with a future, despite his awkward running style. Although outwardly nonplussed by the selection, inwardly Emil was happy. Running provided a road on which his ambitions could travel.

His first official race was a 3,000-meter contest in which he finished only three seconds behind his trainer, recording a 9:12. The local newspaper called his run: “A good performance by Zatopek.” This seemingly minor remark was the spark that accounted for Emil Zatopek’s burning down the track world. His humble beginnings had primed him to take advantage of the first opportunities

16 mM MARATHON & BEYOND May/June 2001

Emil Zatopek, The Czech Locomotive.

that came along to become someone. He read that single sentence in the newspaper over and over and carried the clipping with him until it fell apart.

Training became the mainstay of his life. His interpretation of what it took to excel at running quickly took on its own unique flavor. Instead of looking for races with inferior competition that he could easily win, he sought out the toughest competition available and, in doing so, improved his times dramatically. Zatopek also began studying other runners and their methods, dismissing what he found unworkable, modifying and customizing what seemed to make sense to him.

Richard Benyo TRIPLE PLAY @ 17