Mayor Daley Marathon. By then] was no longer capable of challenging younger (and faster) runners for the lead.

THE BEGINNING OF THE BOOM

That was the beginning of my involvement with variously named marathons in Chicago. Indirectly, I deserve some credit for the founding in 1977 of the event that is now The LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon. The previous fall, [had been among several individuals approached by the First National Bank of Chicago, which was interested in sponsoring a running race. This was at the beginning of the first running boom, inspired by Frank Shorter’s victory in the 1972 Olympic Games Marathon. The bank saw race sponsorship as part public service and part public relations (the same causes that motivate the LaSalle Bank today). Investment counselor Wendell Miller, cardiologist Noel Nequin, and University of Chicago track coach Ted Haydon were among those serving on our race-planning committee.

Originally, the plan was to run a marathon. Street savvy, I told the bank, “Nobody’s going to run 26 miles. You’d be lucky to get a few dozen runners.” I talked the organizers into a 20K race instead, particularly since they wanted the race on the Fourth of July.

The First Chicago Distance Classic, as it was called, did prove to be a success, attracting approximately 5,000 runners including Shorter, who won. In fact, so many runners appeared at the last minute that the organizers ran out of numbers and told late entrants to simply run unregistered. Meanwhile, a second group proceeded with plans for a fall marathon. The group included several of the 20K organizers plus Wayne Goeldner,

Hal Higdon (left), with then Mayor Michael Bilandic, receiving a proclamation for his help in making the First Annual Mayor Daley Marathon a success.

physical education director of the Hyde Park YMCA; Bill Robinson, executive director of Friends of the Parks; and Sharon Mier, director of women’s sports at the Loop Center YMCA. Many of those who ran the Classic decided that, with a little more training, they might be able to run the marathon. More than 4,000 entered the race, although only 2,128 succeeded in finishing the first Mayor Daley Marathon. (Runners had been urged to participate even if they planned to run only a few miles.) It was one of six marathons I ran that year and the only one I dropped out of. Dan Cloeter won in 2:17:52 with Dorothy Dolittle running 2:50:47 to lead all women.

Staging a race that large cost much more money than its organizers had anticipated. When cash ran short, Miller sought support from Lee Flaherty, a businessman and 3:14 marathoner. Flaherty owned Flair Communications, a design company, and saw the marathon as an opportunity both to do some good and promote his business, but he absorbed a $70,000 loss that first year. To limit losses the second year, he began to offer an impressive array of clothing items. He also enlisted Chicago’s glitterati to add class to this sweaty running event. “We set the standard for taste in marathons,” Flaherty would claim. My peak experience was participating in a marathon fashion show and sharing a dressing area with a bevy of bustless models, who shamelessly shed clothes before my eyes. Inspired, my time that year was only a few minutes slower than my winning time from a decade earlier, although I placed 27th overall.

Hal Higdon in his Mayor Daley Marathon uniform en route to a 2:39:40 in the second Mayor Daley Marathon.

TOO MUCH, TOO LATE

Not everybody in Chicago, however, appreciated Flaherty’s high-society approach to race organization, nor the fact that he doubled the entry fee from $5 to $10 and moved the starting time from 8:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. to make the event more attractive to spectators and sponsors. Dr. Nequin argued that the late start meant that slower runners would be forced to run in increasingly warmer weather, a threat to their safety. Protesters on race day wore black armbands and hoisted signs saying, “$10Too Much. 10:30 Too Late.” This irritated the Daley family, who had not forgotten how protests marred the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. The family asked that the late mayor’s name be removed from the marathon’s title. (Tyvek jackets with “Mayor Daley Marathon” on them would probably now sell well on eBay.)

The protest temporarily fractured the Chicago running community, but it would have a long-range positive effect. Among those wearing black armbands was Erma Tranter, who had served as race coordinator for the first marathon. When a group of the protestors founded the Chicago Area Running Association (CARA), she became its first executive director. Tranter went on to occupy the same position with the Friends of the Parks. Anyone who follows Chicago politics knows that she has not abandoned her early militancy, much to the city’s benefit.

By the marathon’s third year, I moved from the course to a TV camera beside the course, becoming color commentator for the telecast of what had been renamed “America’s Marathon/Chicago.” The entry fee was lowered to $8 and the race date was moved four weeks back to October to still critics, but unseasonably warm weather still slowed runners. Dan Cloeter won for the second time in three years but in a 2:23:20, 10 minutes slower than his best. The women’s runner, Laura Michalek, ran 3:15:45. Fifteen years old, she trained with the boys’ cross-country team at suburban Morton West High School.

In an article in The Runner magazine, I wrote, “Superbly organized, run on Chicago’s magnificent lake front, America’s Marathon/Chicago suffers only in comparison with the more lavish New York race on the same day. Even Bill Robinson, one of last year’s dissidents, conceded that this year’s race was an improvement: ‘I think they’ve finally gotten it turned around.””

I probably should have stopped at that point, but I couldn’t resist complaining about the new name, “America’s Marathon.” This was at a time when the Dallas Cowboys were promoting themselves as “America’s Team,” and the name made me wince. I wrote, “How about just calling (the race) the Chicago Marathon next year?”

My outspokenness both in print and during telecasts didn’t always endear me to Lee Flaherty. Lee and I always had a love/hate relationship, still do.

Hal Higdon CHICAGO TURNS 25 M21

COURTESY OF THE LASALLE BANK CHICAGO MARATHON

Minutes before I took my seat as color commentator several years later, Flaherty pulled me aside and complained, “You’ ve never said anything good about the marathon!” Not entirely true, but the following year when I warned against hiring Bob Bright as race director, a flamboyant promoter with a shady background, Flaherty chose not to listen.

Bankrolled by a conglomerate giant, Beatrice Foods, Bright soon entered into a bidding war with the New York City Marathon. Beatrice, a Flair client, provided as much as $3.2 million in sponsorship funds annually. Bright proved adept at spending that money, and soon the world’s best runners were flying past New York en route to Chicago. Steve Jones set a world record of 2:08:05 in 1984, then returned the following year and ran 2:07:13, missing by one second the world record that Olympic champion Carlos Lopes had set elsewhere during the interim. That same year of 1985, Olympic champion Joan Benoit set the women’s world record of 2:21:21 ina stunning duel with Norway’s Ingrid Christiansen and Portugal’s Rosa Mota, who would succeed Benoit as Olympic champion in 1988.

Steve Jones (left) set a world record of 2:08:05 at Chicago in 1984, while Joan Benoit (right) set the women’s world record of 2:21:21 in 1985.

Jones said after his first victory, “I had no idea what kind of pace I was running and no idea how fast they were running. I got to 25 and the press truck left to go to the Finish Line. A writer from London shouted that if | kept it under the five-minute pace, I had a chance for the record. I was confused and thought he meant a course record!” The fast performances attracted increasing numbers of slower runners, who hoped to use Chicago’s quick course to qualify for the Boston Marathon or set personal records. In 1986 a record number of 8,173 runners finished.

A SKYBOX APPROACH TO SPONSORSHIP

Standing on the sidelines, I had to applaud the athletes’ performances, even though I winced at the “skybox” approach to sponsorship. Bright flew first class, stayed in the best hotels, used his expense account to dress like he was part of the Royal Family and rented stretch limousines while attending marathons all over the world to recruit runners. Those who later examined the marathon’s books said money flowed down the drain like dirty dishwater. “We were hemorrhaging cash,” recalls Miller. “We lost enough in T-shirts alone to bankroll most road races.” Basking in success, the Beatrice executives cared little how their money was being spent. While $3 million for a marathon sounds like a lot, the conglomerate’s annual marketing budget was more than $100 million. Beatrice spent $13 million a year on its auto racing sponsorship so that executives could hang out in style at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

The moral level of Chicago’s marathon would improve, though not overnight. In 1983 Carey Pinkowski ran his first and only marathon in Chicago. Pinkowski was a cross-country and track state champion from Hammond (Indiana) High School, one of three runners at that school to break 9:00 for the twomile run in the same year. Pinkowski recalls, “In one day I went from the fastest kid in the country to third fastest in my high school.” The other two runners were Rudy Chapa and Tim Keogh; the trio’s coach was Dan Candiano. In the quarter century since, no other high school has had three distance runners that fast.

Pinkowski attended Villanova University and continued to compete after graduation but proved to be a better miler than marathoner. “I trained for four marathons, but only started one because of injuries caused by overtraining,” he admits. His time in Chicago was 2:20:48, good enough for 26th place. “I used to brag about the time until the women started running faster,” laughs Pinkowski.

Pinkowski’s time would come, although not in competition. Despite its successes, the Chicago Marathon soon faced hard times. Conglomeration might have seemed the business wave of the future in the 1970s but not in the 1980s. Beatrice Foods had gotten too big and spent too much money getting there. The

conglomerate went belly up, its executives riding their golden parachutes into retirement. In 1987, because of reduced sponsorship, America’s Marathon/ Chicago was cancelled and a half-marathon was run in its place. (That’s one reason why this year’s race is the 25th anniversary and not the 26th.)

The following year, the marathon returned with a new sponsor, Old Style Beer, anda new name, The Old Style Marathon. Iran the marathon in 1988 with my daughter, Laura, who was then publicity director for Carson Pirie Scott. Unlike her older brother Kevin, who once qualified for the Olympic Trials, Laura was mostly a recreational runner, when business duties didn’t get in the way. Laura tripped and fell while passing McCormick Place (then the nine-mile point) but got up and finished in 5:37:55 for her first marathon.

This was before the boom in even slower charity runners, so we were near the back of the pack. The course in 1988 ran clockwise around the city rather than its current counterclockwise route. As we ran through the North Side, I ducked frequently into bars to check the Chicago Bears score. Soon I began to hear the loudspeaker of a police car several blocks back asking trailing runners to move onto the sidewalks. When we reached Lake Shore Drive with about five miles to go, we were diverted onto lakefront paths instead of the drive. Laura and I found ourselves running in step with former Mayor Michael Bilandic, an early supporter of the marathon, who showed no embarrassment about being so far behind. We spent most of the last miles in conversation. My daughter and the former mayor didn’t realize it, but they were the wave of the future in running as more and more “nonrunners” took to the sport.

The Old Style sponsorship lasted only three years. For the 1991 race the winner’s prize money was reduced from $30,000 to $7,500. Winning times of 2:14:33 and 2:36:21 by Brazil’s Joseildo Rocha and Sweden’s Midde HamrinSenorski paled in comparison with times posted in the previous decade. Numbers of competitors also were down. Only 5,908 runners finished. Bright had departed the year before to be replaced by Carey Pinkowski, at age 32, the youngest director of a major world marathon. At that time the marathon reportedly was $1.4 million in debt. Flaherty later confessed to me that, world records aside, he probably should have listened when I advised him not to hire Bright.

As for Pinkowski, he admits, “I got the top job partly because nobody else wanted it.”

Despite its prominence on the world scene during the 1980s, the variously named Chicago marathons lacked one essential item other than money: the respect of the local running community. A residue of ill will still remained from the black armband days. With no budget for jetting around the world, Pinkowski focused his attention within the city, talking to Chicago runners, appearing at their club meetings, enlisting them as race-day volunteers, encouraging them to enter their local marathon rather than run out of town.

Executive race director Cary Pinkowski began rebuilding the race by focusing on Chicago-area runners.

Pinkowski also mended fences with CARA. In 1989 CARA board member Brian Piper had started a marathon class that in its first year attracted 35 runners. I spoke at the group’s postrace banquet at the Como Inn in a very small room. Piper enlisted me to help design a training program for class members. Over the next several years, with the help of many volunteer coaches, we fine-tuned an 18-week training program for novice, intermediate, and advanced runners that | now is used by runners all over the ec world preparing for Chicago and other marathons. (The training schedules are available online at www.halhigdon.com or in an interactive “Virtual Training” format through www.chicagomarathon.com.) Within the next decade, the CARA Marathon Training Class would blossom to more than 2,000 runners with clinics in five areas of the city and 13 separate weekend workouts. The class provided CARA with an enormous cash cow, allowing the organization to professionalize its office and staff, the better to serve area runners. The protesters from 1978 have long since removed their black armbands.

BRINGING THE RECORD BACK TO CHICAGO

Success did not come overnight, however. Lee Flaherty, whose Flair Communications had provided the organizational base for the marathon through the good years and the bad, sold his ownership in 1993, with Pinkowski remaining as an equity partner. The LaSalle Bank became title sponsor in 1994 and three years later purchased the race. This was the first time that a marathon race sponsor became the owner of the race it sponsored. “The bank wanted a longterm relationship,” says Pinkowski. “Buying the race, though unique, seemed to be their best option.”

With its solid community-based support, the numbers of runners began to gradually increase from 7,513 in 1991 to 10,925 in 1996 to 20,063 in 1998 to

‘COURTESY OF THE LASALLE BANK CHICAGO MARATHON.

33,171 in 2000, until finally for 2001, the marathon office placed a limit on the number of entrants at 37,500. Few races handle large numbers as well as Chicago. “With our wide starting area on Columbus Drive, we can accommodate more runners than most marathons,” says Mike Nishi, the race’s general manager. “Use of the Champion Chip also helps relieve pressure on the starting line, but we recognize that there’s a point when you can become too big and too successful.”

The numbers posted by the elite runners also improved. As more talented marathoners began to pick Chicago as their fall racing destination, Pinkowski frequently stated his goal as bringing the world record back to Chicago. He achieved that goal in 1999 when Khalid Khannouchi, a Moroccan soon to become an American citizen, ran 2:05:42 and again in 2001, when Kenya’s Catherine Ndereba ran 2:18:54. For a moment in time, Chicago held both the men’s and the women’s world records. Then, in April of this year at the London Marathon, Khannouchi lowered his record by five seconds in beating Kenya’s Paul Tergat and two-time Olympic 10,000-meter champion Haile Gebrselassie.

Khalid Khannouchi (left) and Catherine Ndereba (right) both broke world marathon records at Chicago.

“That just raises the challenge to get the men’s world record back,” says Pinkowski.

But the important numbers don’t appear on the finish line clock. According to the Regional Economic Application Laboratory, The LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon now brings $90 million into the city each year. During the down years, the mayor’s office rarely paid much attention to ceremonies surrounding the race. Finally, in the mid-1990s, Mayor Richard M. Daley showed up at a press conference to say a few words before departing. Within a few years, he started to stay for the entire conference, seated next to and chatting with bank chief executive Norman Bobins. Lately, Mayor Daley has begun to hang around afterwards to chat with anyone who wants to talk, his aides gently tugging at his sleeve. Chicagoans have a word for what their marathon now possesses: “clout.”

It has been my pleasure over a quarter century to watch from both the inside and outside as Chicago has become perhaps the world’s best destination marathon. It’s more than just the world records or a chance for runners of all abilities to seek their personal bests. Never has the city looked better, particularly in October. The Loop is awash with flowers. The lake sparkles. The weather is generally mild, ideal for running. Chicago has become a great destination city for travelers from all over the world, not just for runners. Add to that an expo unmatched in running, a gala prerace pasta party, and a postrace celebration at Navy Pier that ends with fireworks over the lake. Little wonder that runners from all over the world now want to come to Chicago, the Windy City.

I can’t help looking back at the Windy City Marathon in 1964 when only a few dozen runners appeared, allowing me to claim my first victory at 26 miles, 385 yards. I continue to savor that win, but I appreciate even more what

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Marathon has become.

Hal Higdon CHICAGO TURNS 25 Mi 27

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A Record Blown Away in the Windy City

Half As Fast As the Winners, I’m Better Than | Thought.

S IX HOURS. That was my goal for The LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon on Sunday, October 7, 2001. As a below-knee amputee whose recent street marathons have averaged roughly 6:30, speeding up a half hour or more posed a significant but attainable challenge. I had two reasons to finish by 1:30 p.m. I wanted to meet the official cutoff for clock times and medals, and new airport delays could make it difficult to catch my 4:55 p.m. return flight to Miami (which I had scheduled months before).

I was up at 4:30 a.M., gone from my Evanston hotel by 5:00, and parking the car at the Rosemont train station by 5:30. I caught a train for downtown at 5:45 and arrived by 6:30. After checking my gear bag and finding an overlooked group of portapotties, by 6:45 I was ready to stroll around, warm up, and take it all in.

In its preceding 23 years, Chicago’s fall marathon has faced a manic-depressive range of weather, from 12-degree wind to sweltering 80s, snow to sleet to rain, and whatever else comes, it’s the Windy City. Saturday night’s predictions of morning freeze and frost got my attention; I was glad to find that they applied farther inland. At the 6:55 a.m. sunrise in Grant Park beside Lake Michigan, the temperature hung in the high 30s. Ideal.

Executive race director Carey Pinkowski had brought together a great staff to make sure that this major event was meticulously organized, to the point of details such as announcing, “Five minutes (and three, two, one) to a moment of silence in memory of the events of September 11.” “Profound” hardly begins to describe that quietness from the crowd of nearly 32,000 participants, plus spectators. The “Star-Spangled Banner” followed that reverent moment, and we cheered the 14 wheelchair racers on their way at 7:25.

The runners move en masse through the early miles.

With five minutes to the start, runners removed and discarded extra gear they had worn for warmth. A peculiar storm of sweatshirts, trash bags, toques, and scarves began flying out from the race crowd toward the spectators lining the street.

From the starting horn’s blast at 7:30 a.m. sharp, I walked for almost 3 1/2 minutes before crossing the starting line. I usually walk my first mile or two at a 14-minute pace or even 14:30, but today I jogged from the start. After we crossed the Chicago River, I found I had done my first mile in 11:25. (Remember, this is from an amputee carrying 260 pounds of caloric reserves.)

Had J already slightly overextended myself? Would I pay for this in the last few miles? And as we headed south on State and crossed the river again, I did feel a little tightness in my hamstrings. I usually don’t feel that until perhaps miles eight or nine. Well, I would gut it out if I had to. I had a plane to catch.

A MOBILE MESSAGE

North on LaSalle a blues/rock trio on the sidewalk pumped us up. Just after the third river crossing I took a photo of three girls running side by side, each with one word of “God Bless America” on the back of her shirt. That drew my attention to how many flags were being waved, worn, and carried by both spectators and participants.

Chuck Bryant A RECORD BLOWN AWAY IN THE WINDY CITY 31

Meanwhile (as I would later find while watching four hours of taped TV coverage), celebrity commentators Frank Shorter, Joan Benoit Samuelson, and Mark Coogan agreed that the leaders weren’t showing much effort for any sort of record (Joanie has held the American women’s marathon record since 1985 with her 2:21:21, set here). Pacers were hitting their marks on time, but a gap was slowly growing between them and the competitors. The panelists sounded increasingly anxious as they kept repeating: once you get too far behind, you can’t make it up.

That didn’t apply to 23-year-old hired-gun pacer Ben Kimondiu. Near the halfway mark, he was deliberately slowing, per Pinkowski’s instructions, to let the men’s pack catch up. His fellow Kenyan, track and cross-country champion Paul Tergat, made use of the opportunity. They began arunner’s duet that would evolve into a duel.

Catherine Ndereba, also of Kenya, pulled away in the same general area. As Ndereba had won 12 of her 13 races so far that year, it wasn’t surprising that she also left behind a male runner assigned to accompany her (for “protection,” not pacing). The commentators admired her evident effortlessness. It’s true; on video she is liquid strength, flowing down the streets.

By now the commentators had given up speculating on records and were focusing on the likelihood of who would win. Ndereba seemed a done deal in

CHUCK BRYANT

Near the 10K point on the marathon course.

the women’s race, barring an injury (and anything can happen in a marathon). For the men, the consensus was that Tergat’s proven strength would give him a vicious kick against anyone who might be unfortunate enough to be near him in the final stretch. Who that might be, if anyone, was unknown at this point. For now Tergat stayed with Kimondiu, but his pacing work would be done at mile 18 and he would be free to leave the course and collect his rabbit feed of $5,000.

Kimondiu would eventually leave the course but not at mile 18.

Not that I had any clue of any such drama emerging. I was back in miles five and six, jogging past other male runners as they opted for express lane service at Lincoln Park’s ad hoc tree urinals.

As we headed south on Broadway into the tremendously enthusiastic Lakeview crowd, the Pom Pom Boys cheered us from the east; a few blocks later drag queens choreographed “YMCA” to the west. More conventional cheers greeted us politely in Old Town and River North. On Wells an Elvis impersonator sang to us just before spectators cheered us from the L station above. The course turned right at the Sears Tower and headed west on Adams through Greek Town.

A RABBIT WITH HEART

While I jogged and walked this stretch, commentators were wondering why Kimondiu had decided to stay on the course after mile 18. They also thought it odd that Tergat hadn’t passed him, especially when the two made mile 22 the race’s slowest segment. One announcer riding alongside the race insisted at about mile 24, “Paul Tergat, barring disaster, has got this race sewn up…. He can blow [Kimondiu’s] doors off.”

“Disaster” has rarely presented itself so calmly, quietly, and gracefully as it did today. With less than a mile to go, Kimondiu simply pulled away as he turned north up the ramp along Lake Shore. Tergat followed closely, but Kimondiu was in the zone, dude. Stress? Tension? Fatigue? None of them was evident as he cruised across the finish line in 2:08:52. In the Chicago Tribune photo, his face appeared as blissful as a Zen master floating in a pool of Gatorade. Tergat followed four seconds later.

Kimondiu left the course 8.2 miles farther along than he was required to go. He collected $75,000 for first place and $15,000 as a time bonus. Having finished almost seven minutes better than his only previous marathon, the much warmer LA Marathon, he remarked pragmatically in an interview, “It was not as difficult as I thought.”

One commentator reminded us that Kimondiu deliberately slowed up at midrace. “Mmmmm,” the others astutely replied. What might have happened

Chuck Bryant A RECORD BLOWN AWAY IN THE WINDY CITY 33

if he had simply kept on, with that extra lead? No one knows. What we do know is that Kimondiu’s decisions decisively set him high in the world-class status.

With comparable elegance, Catherine Ndereba simply continued gliding through Chicago’s neighborhoods. Several excellent male runners had their egos slightly injured by the windburn when she sailed past them.

Japan’s Naoko Takahashi had just set a new women’s world marathon record one week earlier in Berlin (2:19:46). That still-warm record fell at about 11 minutes before 10 o’clock this morning. Breaking into marathon history, Ndereba blew a minute off it, dashing across the Chicago line in 2:18:47!

Her closest competitor, Elfenesh Alemu, took second place more than six minutes later. Over the second half, Ndereba had no challengers anywhere near visible to urge her on. She was a self-propelled vial of mercury running a onewoman race.

For her determination, discipline, and magnificent achievement, she received $75,000 for first place plus a $100,000 bonus for breaking 2:20. (No one anticipated the women’s field breaking 2:19!)

Though my chances for victory were now clearly shattered (I had yet to cross the halfway mark, while Kimondiu and Ndereba pondered the tax ramifications of their morning’s work), I persevered. At the halfway mark I checked my pace band and was encouraged to find that I was 11 or 12 minutes ahead of the mark corresponding to a six-hour pace. Though I was jogging more consistently than I have in previous marathons, my thighs still felt OK, and my hamstrings weren’t significantly tighter, or at least not painfully so.

Two left turns sent us back toward downtown on Jackson. On Halsted we passed the University of Illinois at Chicago and again went west. Weather held steady. The Windy City tossed us only the occasional light breeze.

RECALCULATING MY FINISH

The colorful Pilsen neighborhood brought out the mostly Latino residents. The mariachi band had stopped performing when I passed through at mile 15, but a group of sidewalk musicians helped me trudge through mile 18. Tiring but not fatigued, I calculated that, even if I were to lose 5 to 10 seconds per mile for the rest of the race, I could still smile for a finish line photo by 1:30 p.m. That margin of safety actually gave me a little more freedom to push myself just a bit more vigorously.

An aid station in an industrial area offered PowerGel (tangerine flavor has double caffeine!) before I reached Chinatown. Near Comiskey Park, as an old lady and a younger guy passed me, the guy yelled back to us, “C’mon, are you all gonna let an 80-year-old nun kick your ass?” I’m not sure that she had asked

him to say that, but the nun certainly was doing well after 20 miles of running. Maybe it was penance for past sins.

Some marathoners hit “The Wall” at about this point. I move so slowly that T’ve never hit The Wall. Occasionally I’ ve perhaps bumped into The Wall, but it’s just a slow-motion dull thud. With a few grunts I simply crawl over it and keep moving.

The clear day had warmed to the 50s when I crossed over I-90/94 and turned north toward several tall public housing buildings. Eyeing a few of downtown’s skyscrapers in the distance, I was still eight or nine minutes safely ahead of the six-hour pace. East on 33rd took me toward some scattered but wonderfully supportive crowds in The Gap. African percussion briefly revived my running rhythm on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive.

The marathon was down to a 5K with an attitude.

A right turn on 31st led straight to Lake Michigan. I felt as if I could run faster and farther, but that was overridden by the knowledge that a steady brisk walk would safely bring me in under six hours. Even 5:59:59 would be my best time in a few years. I was ready to set it on cruise control and coast on in.

Once I made the turn onto Ft. Dearborn Drive, though, with the sunlit lake to my right, I got a little kick in the butt from the Adrenaline Fairy. At the 24mile sign I began what might loosely be called a rally. All right, a rallyette. A little faster, a little farther, and still I felt pretty good. Yeah, this is why I’m here.

MUSIC DRAWS US ONWARD

As Tentered the tunnel under McCormick Place, the distant echo of the stereo blaring “Eye of the Tiger” sounded a little surreal. It segued into “Start Me Up” by the time I exited into daylight to see downtown just over a mile away. I trotted past the polka band (nice touch!) and passed underneath the interstate before the final turn northward taunted me with the first of two inclines, each maybe 100 to 150 feet long. (This was where Kimondiu began to pull away from Tergat, some three and one-half freakin’ hours earlier.) That slight climb drained a bit of my resolve, but I managed to jog maybe half of this last section, off and on.

As I neared Roosevelt and mile 26 at the top of the second Death Ramp, Grant Park came into view. I heard the angelic chorus! I saw visions! I smelled Gatorade! Firing up my last few ultra-slow-twitch fibers and a half dozen

Chuck Bryant A RECORD BLOWN AWAY IN THE WINDY CITY M35

Chuck smashes his goal of breaking 6 hours with a 5:49:20 at The 2001 LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon.

remaining brain cells for a valiant push over the final two-tenths, I hit my best time since 1997 at 5:49:20, seizing the highly coveted 27,597th place of 28,585 finishers. This was my 29th marathon in 22 states since 1992.

After turning in my Champion Chip, I stocked up on the ample refreshments, including Tropicana, a bag of chocolate-covered peanuts (the fitnessenhancing variety), bananas, water, PowerBars, and whatever else they offered.

And, oh yeah, my medal.

Thad no time to savor the moment, to relax and swap stories, to scrounge trash cans for leftover morphine-enhanced GU packets. I had to get to the airport before I turned into a pumpkin at 4:55. As I made my 15-minute Parade of Triumphant Stiffness to the train station, I found the city sidewalks much steeper than they had been when I arrived that morning.

The train zipped along toward O’ Hare. I congratulated myself on my travel strategy as I watched highway traffic constipated at maybe 20 to 30 miles per hour, sometimes stalling. After checking in and clearing security, I had just enough time to treat myself to lasagna, after which I made an increasingly rigor-mortified shuffle to Gate 18. I left Chicago very, very satisfied.

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To the Peak

The History of the Peak Busters Is a Unique Chapter in Women’s Running.

J USTAS Mother Nature is the dominant force in the natural world, the Peak Busters has been a major force behind women moving not only forward in the running world but also upward to the peak of marathon competition in a tough long-distance course: Pikes Peak. For the past quarter century, Peak Busters has encouraged women to take the challenge of running to the peak of central Colorado’s Pikes Peak (14,110 feet) and back down again.

Ironically, the groundbreaking women’s group has a man to blame for its existence. He was a very unlikely, very much politically incorrect man, but Peak Busters glories in its long-running association with one of running’s most famous iconoclasts, Walter Stack.

The group has been taking on the challenge for 25 years and continues to do so. In August 2001, 107 members of Peak Busters met in Manitou Springs, Colorado, to participate in what had gradually become a weekend of celebration that went above and beyond Pikes Peak itself. The whole weekend served as a celebration of just how far, and how high, women’s running had come. Forty-one of the Peak Busters were first-time Pikes Peak aspirants, brought to the group by friends or relatives (mothers, aunts, grandmothers) who are Peak Busters themselves or by the lure of the promotional material that Peak Busters sends to each female Pikes Peak entrant. They come from all over the country to experience the support, camaraderie, and success of women who have used running, and especially the challenge of the Pikes Peak Ascent or the “round trip” marathon, to overcome smoking addictions, the deadly dull routine of small-town flatland life, and medical, health, and weight problems. They also come to compete with themselves for a personal record at Pikes Peak and to compete with the field in general. Regardless of individual motives, Peak Busters, true to its founding mission, provides unity, identity, and unconditional support along with an unspoken expectation for success.

THE UNLIKELY ORIGINS OF THE PEAK BUSTERS

As with the secret identities of any comic book superhero, whether it’s Batman or Wonder Woman, who throws off street clothes to become an overachiever, the origin of the Peak Busters comes from unlikely origins.

One of the intriguing aspects of this all-woman band of superheroines is that the group was founded by (egad!) a man.

Of course, the founding of such a long-running and energetic women’s group wasn’t left to just any man. Mere mortals need not apply. The man who founded this group was the legendary Walter Stack of San Francisco.

Stack, a gnarly, barechested, tattooed hod carrier with a sailor’s vocabulary was about as politically incorrect as any man could be in the second half of the 20th century. He was also a man who felt running should be all-inclusive, that it should include every nationality, every age, and certainly both sexes. [See Walt Stack profile in this issue beginning on page 53.]

As president of the Dolphin South End Runners from 1966 to 1986 (Walt was born in 1907 and died in 1995), Walt cajoled, coached, encouraged, nudged, and lured 10 San Francisco Bay Area women into running the 1975 Pikes Peak Marathon. Walt, who used to go up to complete strangers on the street and encourage them to jog along with him on a Sunday morning DSE “race,” persuaded these sea-level pioneer trail runners to run up the side of a mountain

Ivor Welsh (left), Annabel Marsh (then Peak Busters’ President), and Walt Stack at Pikes Peak Summit in 1980.

that was 1,500 miles away from Baghdad by the Bay. Walt’s passion for running was legendary, as was his ability to persuade anybody to do just about anything, no matter how far-fetched it seemed at the time.

Walt’s approach to running was “mellow.” It was he who originated the DSE motto of “Start slowly and taper off.” He once said, “I’ve been running 8:30 miles so long that if I fell out of an airplane I’d drop at an 8:30 pace.”

The Pikes Peak Marathon and Walt’s women were a perfect match. Pikes Peak was the first marathon to allow female entrants, which it has since its second running in 1957.

Walt’s “everybody’s welcome” attitude ensured a good showing for his women in 1975. His encouragement to just take it easy and you’ Il make it was augmented by the fact that he had arranged for some rewards for his charges, who ranged all the way up to 83-year-old Brenda Ueland. His first group of 10 Peak Busters received Dolphin South End trophies, United Nations International Women’s Year T-shirts, the first edition of the Peak Busters’ T-shirts (picturing a male runner), and a feminist button. Walt also made it plain that he was authorized by the power vested in him to perform marriages at the top of Pikes Peak, a service he performed several times.

Inspired and motivated, as well as rewarded, by Walt’s initial expedition to Pikes Peak, Annabel Marsh and Kay Atkinson decided that the women should become more formally organized, and they decided to host the first as-yetunnamed Peak Busters’ meeting in 1976. From the start, the Peak Busters’ meeting was held before the race itself, and in a unique approach to running, trophies and T-shirts were presented to the firsttimers (13 of them in 1976) before the race.

SPACE FOR ANNUAL MEETINGS

The meeting venues have — } ee varied from Manitou Springs City Hall to the

3 silt > eae. Lt longest-lasting location, Kay Atkinson (left) and Annabel Marsh, Peak the Manitou SpringsComBusters co-founders. munity Congregational

Church Fellowship Hall, to a big outdoor race expo tent in Memorial Park at the race-start location.

Members of Peak Busters are accepted by each other unconditionally. All are welcome. Women who, because of health and fitness conditions, have to walk, hike, or jog up the mountain and who are not successful on their first attempts are treated with the same acceptance and expectations for future success as are champion, experienced, multiple finishers of the Pikes Peak challenge. There are also no age limits. The spread goes from teenage girls to great grandmothers. The “Golden Girl” category (60 years and older) accounts for 25 percent of the group’s membership.

Bess James was one of those Golden Girls. Bess set a 75-79 age-group record in 1988 before the six-hour cutoff was established in 1993 by completing the ascent in 8:10. Her record still stands.

Then there’s 78-year-old Po Adams, from California, who began running in 1979 when she was 55. She claims that she began her running career out of vanity. She wanted the perfect figure. She waited until 1995 when she was 71 to run her first Pikes Peak Marathon and found it more relaxing than merely doing the ascent. Since then she has graduated to ultradistance races. At the 2001 Peak Busters’ dinner, Po told the group that she is proud to be a woman

Bess James (white hat, white gloves) setting a 75-79 age-group record near Pikes Peak Summit.

and that her involvement with the group has built her confidence that “you can do almost anything in your life.”

Another sizeable segment of the Peak Busters is the first-timers.

First-timer Lisa Dorn, from the lowlands of Minnesota, came to Pikes Peak through the ultrarunning and trail-running achievements of her father and her Peak Busters’ stepmother. After recovering from a prerace training climb up another of Colorado’s 14ers (peaks above 14,000 feet) that left her suffering from altitude sickness, she was excited to receive her first-timer award and the expectation of success that goes along with it. She lived up to the Peak Busters’ expectation and thrilled herself with her accomplishment by completing her first Pikes Peak Ascent in 5:47.

Race champions and age-group record holders also fill the ranks of Peak Busters, providing inspiration and role models.

Visiting VIPs make it a point to recognize and support the mission of the Peak Busters. Perhaps to assure himself of good weather by getting some good vibes transmitted to Mother Nature from the Peak Busters’ contingent, former race director Dave Zehrer made annual visits to the Peak Busters’ awards dinner. Matt Carpenter, multiple champion and course record holder for both the ascent and the full marathon, occasionally makes visits to the Peak Busters’ dinner so that he can provide tips that might help them succeed on the mountain he knows so intimately.

SISTER MARION SPEAKS; RUNNERS LISTEN

Atthe Peak Busters’ 2000 dinner, legendary Sister Marion Irvine, a Peak Buster since the 1980s and the oldest woman ever to qualify for the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials, was the main speaker and gave this bit of advice on how to get up the mountain. “Take the foot that is behind and move it to the front. Repeat this as many times as necessary until you get to the top.” (Sounds like she studied at the feet of Walt Stack.) When runners make use of Sister Marion’s advice and make it to the summit, more often than not she’s waiting there to welcome them into a very special sorority with a sweaty, heartfelt hug.

Margie Loyd-Allison, who lives and trains in Colorado Springs and hence has something of a home-course advantage, has won the Pikes Peak Marathon twice, in 1983 and 1986. Her winning times are impressive but not her fastest. She surpassed her 4:39 (1983) and 4:54 (1986) winning times by running 4:36 in 1982 when she placed second, 11 minutes behind the winner. She started running in 1980 and by 1984 was good enough to qualify for the first U.S. Women’s Olympic Marathon Trials. Margie ended her 15-year marathon career when she ran her 15th Pikes Peak Marathon, which was also her SOth marathon overall.

Margie Loyd-Allison (kneeling), two-time winner of the Pikes Peak Marathon, with Annabel Marsh (left) and Caroline Merrill (right), displays the quilt she made from her collection of Peak Busters T-shirts.

Margie’s most memorable Pikes Peak race is what she referred to as the August “blizzard of 1981,” when Mother Nature once again showed her pique. These days Margie supports the Peak Busters by displaying the quilt she created from her collection of Peak Busters T-shirts. For the first 1975 Peak Busters’ T-shirt, mentor Walt Stack pulled one of his usual politically incorrect moves and pictured a male runner silhouetted against a mountain background. Annabel Marsh and Kay Atkinson, the ladies who got the organization onto its feet, corrected that slight indiscretion by displaying a female runner against a mountain backdrop for 1976. They ordered a mere 35 T-shirts in 1976, wildly underestimating the popularity of the first “novelty” running T-shirt with a female runner on it.

Margie also works the sign-in table at the annual dinner and offered racing advice for attendees in 2001. Her advice includes the admonition to go “minimalist” by wearing very light running clothes and using only three miniature safety pins to attach bib numbers. She also observed that the only reason women tend to pack so much gear (such as jackets tied around themselves, fanny packs, and “stuff hanging from everywhere”) is that their donkey dies under the weight of carrying all that gear to the start line.

NO LIMITS, NO BOUNDARIES

For a running group that is focused solely on the achievement of running the Pikes Peak Ascent and Marathon, the Peak Busters’ membership is a group with very diverse running accomplishments.

At the 2001 banquet, it was discovered that members have run at the Everest base camp, they’ ve run marathons in each of the 50 states, and they’ ve even run a marathon around the steel deck of a boat anchored off Antarctica.

The greatest encouragement for the group comes from the senior members and from those who have overcome tremendous difficulties.

Some members find inspiration in the achievement of President Emerita Annabel Marsh, who in 1984 ran 3,261 miles in crossing the United States. The journey took four months and ate up 30 miles of American countryside per day. Annabel was accompanied by Caroline Merrill, current Peak Busters

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president. Their effort was documented by the Guinness Book of World Records as the first transcontinental run by women.

Peggy Plonka, of New Castle, Pennsylvania, had been running since 1979 when in 1993 she decided to act upon the Pikes Peak tales she had been hearing from two male runners in her local running club and entered the race. She immediately joined Peak Busters as much for the unique all-women’s aspect as the fact that it was dedicated to one single objective: to race on Pikes Peak. She continued to return to run the Pikes Peak Ascent each year and in 1995 PR’d with a 5:37.

But Peggy’s joy was diminished in 1996 when she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. She went back to Pikes Peak to wait at the summit to cheer on her fellow Peak Busters, but that wasn’t enough for her. Multiple sclerosis or not, she was determined to again accept the mountain’s challenge, and in 1999 she was back. She reached the top of the mountain and declared that “it was a gift from God.”

It is a fact of life that we all age, and as we age our performances deteriorate. In recognition of that fact, each year at the banquet there is a “sick call” to recognize Peak Busters who can no longer make the trek up the mountain. At the 2001 banquet, Mae Horns was recognized; the 67-year-old mother of U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials winner and ultrarunning legend Janice Klecker, Mae now suffered from Lou Gehrig’s disease, a progressive neurodegenerative ailment that affects muscle coordination. From her home in Minnesota, Mae

Peggy Plonka (right) with fellow Peak Buster Susan Scott (left) and Penny Bever’s husband Edd, in drag.

speaks of the memories that she has of her “Peak Buster sisters, of the courage it took to climb the mountain, of the beauty all around while running, and the determination to do the final steps to the finish line. I still have two legs and although can’trun anymore, I’mstill arunner at heart,” she says. “Once a Peak Buster, always a Peak Buster.”

NOT FOR WOMEN ONLY

In spite of their pioneer status as a “feminist” vanguard of women runners, the Peak Busters have a special place in their hearts, and in their programs, for men. After all, it was legendary manly man Walt Stack who first brought the female Pikes Peak aspirants together and who entertained them on their long bus trek to Manitou Springs, Colorado. Walt was named an honorary Peak Buster and wore his title proudly until his death at 87 in 1995.

Although Walt basked in being the only male member of the Peak Busters, his status was shaken in 1980 when he was joined by Ivor Welch of Pacifica, California, a dapper elderly gentleman whose carefully trimmed goatee made him look much like Colonel Sanders of finger-lickin’ chicken fame. Ivor set a Pikes Peak age-group record at age 85 that still stands. Ivor decided not to die until age 99, and the Peak Busters feel he set a high standard for them to emulate.

But the Peak Busters do not limit their association with men only to those who run. In the early 1980s an auxiliary to Peak Busters (called Peak Cocks) was established to provide a social group for malerunners and nonrunners whose significant others were Peak Busters. Concurrent with the Peak Busters’ annual Thursday evening banquet, Bill Harvey, of Fort Myers, Florida, convenes the Peak Cocks’ dinner at Mike Milar’s Keg establishment in Manitou Springs. Peak Busters join the male festivities when their own dinner is over.

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ENDURANCE FOR MORE THAN MERE RUNNING

Peak Busters’ officers and past presidents are as committed to their group as they are to their sport. Perhaps it is the

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energy, youthfulness, vitality, and graceful expectations that the Peak Busters exude, but members sign on for the long haul.

President Emerita Annabel Marsh, at age 79, has guided the Peak Busters since its inception and continues to provide historical perspective. Annabel’s founding partner, Kay Atkinson, supported and inspired the Peak Busters until her death in 1984. The newsletter editor, Cheryl Willis, has been performing her duties for 16 years.

Longevity seems to come with a Peak Buster membership. Now at retirement age, Caroline Merrill has been president since 1986. She toyed with the idea of using her presidential clout to establish a Fountain of Youth of sorts. In 2001, as her 60th birthday loomed, she contemplated increasing the age for admission in the elite Golden Girls division from 60 to 70 just so she could put off that honor for another decade. She thought better of it, and proudly joined the Golden Girls.

In looking back on the group’s history, Annabel Marsh puts it simply. “When we began Peak Busters we didn’t know that it was going to grow to be so successful and include such a broad spectrum of women.”

Perhaps it’s the honorary male Peak Busters who have set a precedent for longevity in life and in running. To celebrate their birthdays in 1987, Walt Stack (who was 80) and Ivor Welsh (at 92) participated in runs in support of the Peak Busters.

Ivor’s death at 99 set a high bar for Peak Busters to aspire to. Certainly, the group welcomes such challenges. And with Mother Nature as the unofficial metaphor for Peak Busters, the ladies will be an ongoing inspiration for each other for a long time to come.

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Walt Stack

One of Running’s Most Colorful Characters Made the Sport an All-Inclusive Celebration of Life.

reprinted with permission.

ALTER STACK stood at the edge of a pier looking out toward the

ruffled waves of the San Francisco Bay. The pier was worn from the constant pawing of the rough water against its underpinnings and the frequent assault of wind against its flanks, and Stack’s tattooed skin had the texture and appearance of the wind-worn wood: dark and harsh.

Stack was wearing only a pair of blue swimming trunks and his tattoos. The trunks proclaimed the Dolphin Swim Club; the tattoos chronicled his association with the sea. The cold, choppy bay, which he swims every morning as part of his routine, made sucking and moaning sounds under the pier, making conversation difficult. He shaded his eyes from the sun while he used his other hand to point out the 17-mile course he runs every morning before his swim. It starts at the swim club, runs up to the Golden Gate Bridge, across it and down into Sausalito, then back.

On his runs, Stack wears no more than when he swims, just a pair of trunks. Stack’s chest is huge, as though he spent 30 years blowing up balloons. His legs are slim and knotty with cordlike muscles, as though they have carried great weights. His feet are more like those of ajungle native than the feet of acivilized man and the nails look as though they never receive the courtesy of being allowed to grow back healthy.

Walter Stack’s pointing finger has swung in an arc toward Alcatraz, the crumbling fortress on the bare rock in the middle of the Bay that is now deserted except for tourist cruises. Stack was incarcerated in Alcatraz for four and onehalf months and he has swum from The Rock to the piers of San Francisco many times.

Richard Benyo WALT STACK M53

One of the legends of the American penal system is that it was impossible to swim from The Rock because of shifting tides, strong currents, extremely cold water, and the presence of sharks. “Of course there’s a strong current there and the water is cold,” Stack said into the strong wind. “There were cases where inmates spent a lot of time in ice-cold showers and even worked out some way to get ice cubes in the tub to try to acclimate themselves.

“So far as is known, there’s nobody that actually escaped. But it isn’t that tough a swim. We swim it once a year and some of our outstanding swimmers swim it on New Year’s Day when it’s ultracold. I’ve swum it several times. We have 15 to 20 people every year, men and women, who swim it. Some of our champions swim it both ways. That’s rare. Jack LaLanne swam over there with his hands tied behind him, handcuffed, underwater (using a snorkel) pulling a boat with two people and about 800 pounds behind him. He’s one of our members. He’s over 60, so he’s no growing boy.”

AT THE SWIM CLUB

Done speaking into the wind, Stack walks back along the pier, toward the bluepainted Dolphin Swim Club, where members lie about in midafternoon somnolence, sheltered from the persistent wind by wooden walls, the sun beating down on them; their weathered skin resembles Stack’s. At the end of the pier two seagulls, looking as though they had been mugged, move slowly out of Stack’s path.

Stack walks to the side of the club’s weight room, sits down on a piece of beach, and closes his eyes as the sun luxuriously browns his 70-year-old body. He still works about six months each year as a hod carrier on construction sites. A hod carrier balances a V-shaped wooden receptacle on his shoulder. The receptacle is filled with 100 to 160 pounds of mortar or plaster that Stack walks up a ladder, balancing himself with his free hand, delivering the mortar to the bricklayers.

When he isn’t working, he gets up with the sun, rides his old three-speed bicycle 5 miles to the swim club, runs 17 miles, swims in the 50-degree bay for ahalf hour, rewards his ancient body by spending a half hour ina sauna and then spends the next few hours as unofficial host at the club before riding home for supper. During the six months he is working, he wakes at 2:30 in the morning so he can get his training routine in before he is scheduled to report for work at seven.

Stack has been working in the building trades for the past couple of decades after spending 25 years at sea. He started taking swimming seriously when a great deal of free time between jobs gave him the opportunity to train. “I went to all the different pools in San Francisco taking turns at all of them, passing

the time away. It was pleasant and recreational. Iused to swim the Fleishacker Pool every day. It’s 1,000 feet long and 10 lapsis two miles and I’d swim one hour deals.”

He slides down the wall alittle bit, pushing his legs out in front of him, crossing them casually at the ankles, and squints his alarmingly blue eyes against the sun. “I was swimming there for a while and Tom Tronin, an 80year-old man who was only a young boy of 70 at that time, was the lifeguard,” Stack continued. “He said to me, ‘Stack, you seem to be very interested in swimming. Would you like to swim the Golden Gate?’ I said, ‘I would love that.’ He said, ‘Why don’t you join the Dolphin Club? T’’ll sponsor you.’

“From then on, all of my orientation was to try to make the minimum qualification requirements to swim the Gate and Alcatraz and some of these rough-water swims. That’s how I got involved in swimming. I’ve swum in South Africa, the Indian Ocean, South America, Singapore, and all over the world. It’s just a fun thing. I never swim competitively, I’m strictly a slob. Idon’t have any technique or anything. All I’ve got is stamina.”

Although there is no resentment toward Stack, he is an aberration from the norm. An occasional member glances at him out of the corner of an eye as

Richard Benyo WALT STACK M55

though he is a cinder that has blown in. Stack’s notoriety, his bluster, his colorful language, his background in prison, and his having been a card-carrying Communist for decades does not ingratiate him to all club members. For most of the people who know (and love) Stack, to take any of his color away would be to rob San Francisco of one of its great natural resources.

WORTHY OF A BOOK

Since a book is being written by Bob Bishop about Stack [The Ancient Marathoner}, | asked him: “How do people react to you and your life?”

“Tt’s just like my personality. I may appear abrasive to some and may appear shocking to others,” he says, “but on the other hand, a great many people are pleased by me, identify with me and think I’m colorful. But my general attitude is if anybody doesn’t like my personality, it’s too late for me to change it. That doesn’t mean I’m insensitive. If see someone who frowns or looks like they’re about to frown when I’m talking, especially a woman, and I’m using any of those seven words that were up for litigation before the Supreme Court, I’Il restrain myself.”

“Have you ever thought how interesting your life is compared to the quiet lives some people lead?”

“No, I haven’t. I don’t really feel that way, but the more I’ve been thinking about it based on some of the stuff that’s been written, I guess there’s a lot of colorful aspects.” He leaned his head back onto the blue boards, closed his eyes for a brief moment and whether he was once again enjoying the sun or sorting through memories was uncertain.

“Twas in the army at 15, then Alcatraz at 17, and worked ina slaughterhouse on the kill floor for years and I’ve been a bum. But it seems to me this has happened to a lot of other youngsters. You remember the Trilogy about Chicago?” he asked.

Stack makes innumerable references to “The Trilogy,” as though, for him, it is the Bible. The trio of novels he refers to is the story of Studs Lonigan by James T. Farrell. Lonigan was a poor Irish kid in the slums of Chicago around the time of the Depression who led a down-and-out life.

“Maybe it isn’t so common now,” Stack said, “but a life like mine was common then. I got screened out during the war on the basis of being a so-called subversive. Of course, nine out of the 10 people who were screened-out didn’t know communism from rheumatism, but I’ ve been a card-carrying Communist for going on 50 years. So they didn’t make any mistake about me except that it was a lot of bullshit screening me out. Of course, they were more concerned with my being a top trade official in the waterfront union. They tried everything trying to get me out of there.”

Seemingly, every discussion leads back to his politics, a topic Walter is still vitally interested in although he’s not nearly as active as he was in his younger days. His politics are, of course, pre-dated by a stormy childhood:

Born and raised in Detroit, Walter’s parents were, in his words, “feuding off and on and separated off and on.” He spent a good deal of his time in orphan homes. His father, an autoworker, was killed by an automobile while riding his bicycle when Walt was 13. He was placed in the Henry Ford Trade School, where he was expected to learn a vocation. Instead, he skipped out after a year and became a vagabond while trying to find little jobs so he could eat.

THE LIFE TO WHICH LIES LEAD

At 15, Walt lied his way into the army, but nine months later decided it wasn’t for him and he went AWOL. Stack began to drift and, as with most drifters, spent a lot of time in small-town jails, including one in North Carolina where he was taken because he was the spittin’ image of a local rapist (Stack was released after three days when his beard did not grow in as coarse as the rapist’s was supposed to be). When Walt was 18 he used a false identity to join the army again, having found that life as a bum was not what it was cracked up to be.

The army sent him to the Philippines, where the constant monsoon rains depressed him. After weighing the consequences, he admitted to his earlier AWOL charge, preferring prison in the United States to rain in the Philippines. He was sent to the U.S. Army Disciplinary Barracks on Alcatraz.

When Walt was released, he escaped to sea, where he labored on coalburning freighters. While there he took up two avocations: he began reading voraciously and he joined the Marine Firemen’s Union. Five years after going to sea, Stack joined the Communist Party, a vastly different political organization than it is now. He was banned from ships, found it increasingly difficult to find jobs, and, with the 1951 passage of the Magnuson Act (one more step toward McCarthyism), seaman’s certificates became harder to secure, squeezing Stack out of the shipping industry. For four years, he worked on a slaughterhouse floor looking cattle in the eye before killing them with a precise sledgehammer blow to the forehead. When an opportunity came along to become a hod carrier in 1955, Stack was only too happy to switch from the slaughterhouse floor to the ladders on construction sites. Almost immediately he became active in the union and he still is active as a delegate to the San Francisco Labor Council and the Building Trades Council.

While there are those who resent Stack’s fame by way of infamy, some find it charming and very much in keeping with San Francisco’s image as a haven for the colorful and eccentrics, while others, like Stack himself, think it may be exaggerated.

Richard Benyo WALT STACK Mi 57

If Stack has a private self that is different from his public image as a “character,” few people know it. We do have a private evening scheduled with Walter Stack a few days hence, though. Maybe there are two Walter Stacks.

THE WAY TO WALT’S HOUSE

There is no way to get to Walt Stack’s home without going uphill. It is situated halfway up a block that is one of the highest hills in San Francisco, in what is paradoxically called the Eureka Valley section of town. Cars park against the curb with their wheels turned toward the sidewalks so that they don’t roll toward the bay should the emergency brake fail. The neighborhood is old, quaint, and well maintained. The Stacks live in one of three apartments in a modest building clinging tenaciously to the side of the hill. There is arose bush beside the entrance.

Atthe appointed hour Walt and his wife Marcie come to the door. To complement the public image of Walt Stack, one expects to find a wife who is a cross between Annie Oakley, Tugboat Annie, and Typhoid Mary; instead, Marcie Stack is a quick-moving, petite, very cordial woman. She is on her way to their Volkswagen Rabbit parked in the small driveway; she’s taking an evening class in women’s studies. “Nice to meet you,” she says on the run. “I’ll leave you two to yourselves tonight so you can talk about anything you want.” Marcie is Walt’s third wife. Each of his first two marriages lasted 10 years; this one is in its 18th year.

The apartment is functional, somewhat old-fashioned, and speaks of a different Walter Stack than the one most people meet on the outside. When asked what he would like to have changed in his life, Stack’s answer was: “I would have liked to have lived a more comfortable life, but I’ ve really never thought about it much.

“When younger people come here,” he said, gathering up the day’s garbage in a shopping bag so he could take it downstairs, “they all comment on how much of an antique our stove is. It’s old, sure, but it works a mite better than some of the fancy new stoves.” He laughs and grabs a brew from the refrigerator, the garbage bag tucked under his arm. “Here,” he says, “have a beer, I’ll be right back.”

Upon his return he gives a tour of the apartment, pointing out the view of San Francisco from the bedroom window. He shows the visitor the flat roof where he and Marcie sunbathe when they wish, taking a lungful of the air outside the window. A copy of Walden is on the table beside the bed.

In the next room are Walter’s button collection (everything from presidential election buttons to political statement buttons from the mid-1960s) and his trophies. He points out a small trophy with a runner atop it. On the base are the

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Richard Benyo “WALT STACK 59

words ““Champeen Runner”; it was presented to him by the men who maintain the Golden Gate Bridge, who see him run by every day as regularly as they see the sun rise. There are age-group trophies from major races and there are a few loving cups.

The dining room and the parlor have prints of French Impressionist paintings on the walls, paintings by Walt’s 30-year-old daughter, Mary, and there are several book cases.

IN THE STACK LIBRARY

His favorite writers reflect his interest in politics and sociology. “I enjoyed a lot of stuff like Sinclair Lewis and Upton Sinclair,” he said. “Of course, Upton Sinclair was a socialist author and all of his books are much more exciting. I like books relating to socialist consciousness. Then, of course, there are books like Exodus and stuff by Michener. [like historical novels. Then there are books by Simone de Beauvoir, who has written some very socialist books. Then there have been some anthropological books by Margaret Meade, not to mention leftwing classics by Lenin, Marx, Engels.”

Although he has a degree of political consciousness, Stack has never actually been involved in politics. “I’m still going strong and the same ideas I had 50 years ago are just as important to me and just as valid except I’ve reached the age now where I’m not an altruist or a philanthropist. I figure that if there’s going to be basic social change made, it’s going to be somebody else besides me. I had 40 years of this kind of stuff. I don’t begrudge it. It was great experience. I feel the same but I’m not willing to give it the same time.

“For example,” he continued, sipping the highball he brought with him to the conversation, “the Esmarelda came in from Chile, this yacht, and all the local citizenry who are socially conscious are going to be picketing because of Chile’s attitude toward free expression. Well, I’m sitting on my butt and not busting to get out there. I’m as strongly concerned with my beliefs as ever, but there is a hiatus in my political activities at the present time. I’m very involved in what could possibly be my ‘lost laps’ in running at this time of my life.”

The always-present phone rings and Walter excuses himself to answer it. This time it is an AAU official who is trying to locate one of the women in Walt’s club who won the women’s division of the Bay-to-Breakers race; they have a trophy for her and they would like to deliver it.

A MAN WHO LOVES WOMEN

Inthe San Francisco Bay Area, Walter Stack is higher on the popularity list with more womenrunners than Robert Redford. Arunner since 1965, Walter pushed

Walt Stack, Peak Busters’ mentor, and Annabel Marsh, Peak Busters’ co-founder, on the Bar Camp trail.

a proposal through the Dolphin Swim Club that year to create a running department. At first the new department had only 20 to 25 people. He got the health club next door, the South End Club, to join forces in the running effort. They later also absorbed the runners from the San Francisco Rowing Club, and their joint organizations became the San Francisco Dolphin South End Runners. Still, there were only 60 to 70 members, but they began going out to hustle runners in Golden Gate Park, on Marina Green, or Lake Merced. There are now several thousand members in the club, which puts out its own newsletter, holds Sunday races with hundreds of participants, and is second in size only to the New York City Roadrunners Club. Stack’s proudest accomplishment is in the statistic that 35 percent of the members are women, a figure that is considerably higher than any other club in the country.

“The women in our club got together and set up a perpetual trophy which named the outstanding woman of the year. They named it the Walter Stack Trophy,” he explained. “I was deeply touched because I didn’t know anything about it. I throw so much bullshit around about women that I was really overwhelmed because I figured the last thing they’d do was to pick me.”

Another call comes in, this one from a woman wanting some information about the club. Three out of five calls about the club come from women. Walt uses the excuse to mix himself another drink. When he comes back and settles himself back into his chair he seems almost less than Walter Stack; he is becoming, almost by degrees, a normal, regular person sitting in a comfortable chair as the room darkens and as the cool air ruffles the curtains.

Stack started running at the suggestion of one of the members of the Dolphin Swim Club. “One of our fellows decided that my stamina could be

enhanced if I took up a little running,” Walter said from out of the shadows. “I eased into it. I started off with running out to the end of the municipal pier, which is about a mile and a half. I did that for a few months and then doubled it. Then I sort of doubled it every six months or so. I was doing it mainly as an adjunct to my involvement in other sports. It took a little while for me to find out that running was becoming fun to me, something beyond a health thing.

“The club we formed set up races almost immediately. Three, four, or five miles. I didn’t get into marathons for about a year and a half.” Stack now runs about a dozen marathons a year, usually right around four hours. His constant banter and his fame have made it a popular practice for novice marathoners to run with him during a marathon, where they can be sure of constant encouragement and equally constant entertainment. Stack has run more than 70 marathons and schedules them regularly, although he doesn’t train any special way for them. (He has also run eight 50-milers and has done a 100-mile run.)

AN INFAMOUS ULTRA

His most memorable race was the famous (or infamous) JFK 50-miler in Maryland. “They had interservice rivalry between West Point, Annapolis, and Quantico,” he explained. “They’ re all within pissing distance of each other. The army even sent a man from Mill Valley, George Stewart, who came in second. This is a hike-run sort of thing, so the only reason it had such a big turnout is because many people regard it as a hike. There were nearly 2000 people who signed up for it. But it rained for three days in a row and it was real, real cold. Seventeen of the 50 miles were up in the Appalachian Mountains and it was around 30 degrees there. All of the bushes were full of icicles. Every time you went by one you got switched. In the 36 miles or so of the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal there were big holes. I must have fallen 40 times, not counting the times on the mountain.

“Up to the time I was within 100 yards of the finish, I didn’t know if I was going to make it. Usually after 10 miles of a marathon, I figure it’s in the bag. That was my most memorable race, though. Of all the people that ran, 190 finished and they were all these gung-ho young Marines. I came in 34th and broke the record for my age division. I was real proud of myself because of all these young fellows, which proves again that it’s not the best man that wins, it’s the best trained man.”

Walt had become animated talking about the 50-miler. Now he leaned back into his chair again, lost in the shadows, a disembodied voice.

“Can we get together for a run tomorrow morning so I can talk some more about running?” I asked, feeling reluctant to push Walt too far into the shadows.

“T’d love to,” the voice said, “as long as you follow my one rule.”

A few minutes of aimless political talk followed and turned into an hour with the tape recorder turned off. It had become dark by the time we walked down to the street. My wife had met Walter Stack at the Runners’ Night Banquet of National Running Week. He had been wearing a three-piece suit and, as he always is when around women, was exceptionally charming. “He reminds me of an older version of Robert Shaw [see the film “Jaws’’], the actor,” my wife had said. I was beginning to feel that Walter Stack was a poet trapped in the rough skin of a pirate.

ON THE ROAD WITH WALT

The morning was typical of what Walt Stack likes about San Francisco: it was perfect for running. The sun was bright, the sky was clear and there was a cooling breeze off the ocean. Traffic was thinning down on the Golden Gate Bridge from the morning rush. There were several tourists in the vista park on the San Francisco side of the bridge taking pictures of each other with the bridge, the bay, and the city in the background.

From the direction of the Presidio, a military reservation between the city and the bridge, Stack came, three minutes ahead of schedule on his daily run. It was 9:02. He usually hits the water fountain in the vista park at 9:05. Working his way through the parking lot at his normal 8:30-per-mile shuffle, perspiration glistening on his naked chest and back, he greeted tourists as he passed.

“Sure is another good day for a run,” Stack said, grinning as he bent over the water fountain for a sip. His ice-blue eyes glistened as though his perspiration had reached even into their depths. “Come on,” he waves, moving off in his shuffling style up the slight grade of the two-mile-long bridge.

A bus went past us heading for Marin County and the bus driver blew his horn and Walt waved back. Far ahead on the bridge a runner approached. “Years ago no one ran on the bridge,” Stack explained, “now it’s always got runners onit. Where could you find a more scenic place to run? How could you get tired of running up here?”

The talk turned to goals in running. “The important thing is to set a goal,” Stack started. ““You’ ve got to be motivated. Once you’ ve got a goal, you know where you’re going. My goal, aside from continuing to run, is to run the London-to-Brighton 52-miler and I would like to run the Comrades Marathon in South Africa. I’ve run Boston twice and I’ve run Pikes Peak nine times. This, in itself, is like bathing in the Ganges, going to Mecca or Jerusalem for a Moslem or a Christian, or Wimbledon for a tennis player.

Richard Benyo WALT STACK Ml 63

“There was atime,” he continued, talking easily as he shuffled along, “when I figured I’d like to run around the world in terms of miles, but I passed that 24,000-mile mark some years back, so that’s nothing now. I’d just like to keep in fair shape and do it as long as I can without strain. If it gets to the point that it’s getting too hard for me, I’m just going to quit altogether. It doesn’t make sense. I’ ve come to this conclusion about running. In amateur sports, there’s no financial remuneration for the participants so it’s got to be based on something else. There is the idea of keeping in shape, removing tension, reducing weight, things like that, but that only applies to people who are doing a minimum of running. The man that’s running ultramarathons and marathons over and above one or two or three of them a year, it’s got to be something else. Why is he doing it? It’s a matter of one’s self-esteem or one’s ego.

“We don’t usually talk about that too much because the word ‘ego’ has a negative connotation. But really, when you come down to it, it’s man’s pride in developing self-esteem. Any number of people can do what we’ re doing, but they’re not doing it.”

We had passed the huge upright on the San Francisco side of the bridge and some workers on the suspension cable waved to Walt. He waved back and smiled a smile they were too far away to see. “I think more older people should get into running. It’s not going to hurt them and in most cases it’ll help them a lot. I remember when I first ran Boston in 1968. Two days later we had a marathon out here, the Santa Rosa Marathon, and I decided I’d run that. It was such a shock in those days that an old man of 60 was going to run a marathon. Now nobody would think a thing about it.

“A few years later Iran a 100-mile run where we did it in three days, which is equal to four marathons in three days. It was a big thing for an old man to do it, but nowadays you’ re getting more and more people in ultramarathoning. In other words, what was big 10 to 15 years ago is not so big now. When I run these things [marathons], I’m strictly a recreational runner. I couldn’t be anything else if I wanted to be. I’m not too concerned with the time. I try to make a respectable showing, but I realize that I’m not going to do anything sensational other than what I can do. The longer I can do it, the more credit to me as a human being.”

DOWN BELOW 8:30

Despite the contention of many people who know Walter that his 8:30 pace is engraved into his genes, there is a perceptible increase in speed as we move down the far side of the bridge. The pace approaches 7:30. A young woman is running toward us with her dog on a leash. “He won’t bite us, will he?” Walter asked as she came within hearing distance. “He’ ll get poisoned if he bites me.”

Approaching the vista park on the Marin County side, Walter talks about mileage and training. “I run over 5000 miles a year, 17 miles a day. Then I ran 14 marathons last year and I’ve run 7 so far this year. I run at least a marathon a month, sometimes 2 or 3 depending on what the situation is.

“As far as special training goes, I don’t do a thing. I just maintain the same routine year in and year out. I figure if I can’t make it on what I’m doing, it’s just too bad. The only difference is that for a 100-miler I’ll jack up my mileage for a few weeks before. When Iran my first 50 and 100, I did an overdistance run. In other words, I ran 100 in practice and I ran 50 in practice. Iran 10 laps around Lake Merced to be sure I could do it. When the run came, I could say, ‘Look, you did the thing on your own. Now do it again!’ I figure if you get into a marathon or an ultramarathon and you haven’ t psyched yourself you might as well stay out of it because that’s the essence.”

The descent into Sausalito was slow and steady. An occasional car chugging up the

7 hill blew its horn at Stack in recognition. Walter talked about injuries he has had from running at three and four in the morning down dark streets where city workers had failed to mark excavations, and he talked about some stress injuries he’s had that proved he isn’t the iron man everyone thinks he is. A hot spot was developing on the sole of his Tiger Montreals; it was the third day in arow he had worn the shoes and he was going to stop wearing them if the hot spot continued.

He passed more runners in Sausalito and he offered a Stackism to each of them. He smiled at and waved to tourists as though he were a representative of the Chamber of Commerce. He made his daily pit stop in the restrooms behind the bus terminal and then he headed back. Working our way slowly up the hill out of Sausalito, Walter said:

“Tm sort of a sun freak, so I got in the habit of keeping my shirt off for the sunshine. Then swimming every day in this cold water, my metabolism became somewhat modified. So I can sit around like this all day and my wife will be shivering. So I got kind of used to it. Then it becomes sort of a source of pride

Richard Benyo WALT STACK M65

after a while. I don’t get goose pimples, so I know I’m not cold. It’s a kind of showing-off thing in a way, but it’s not a 100 percent showoff because I’m comfortable.

“I went to Boston this year and it was 43 degrees. I said to myself, ‘Jesus Christ. This is pretty cold. Should I wear a shirt? Should I break the tradition? I don’t want to be a horse’s ass.’ If it had been 40 degrees or under, I would have put on a shirt because I would have figured, why get sick? The 43 degrees wasn’t too cold. I got up a sweat. When I got to the finish line, I was standing there very comfortably. Everybody was looking at me like I was some freak. So it’s not a big macho thing.” He worked his way slowly through the parking lot at Vista Point, took a drink of water at the fountain, and limped down to a stone bench, favoring his right foot. Taking off his shoe, he massaged the toes and the ball of his foot. “Hot spot’s getting worse,” he said. He paused amoment to soak up some of the sun that was striking the bench.

At the toll booths we parted. Stack continued on back to the Dolphin Swim Club where he would take his morning dip in the bay followed by his sauna and some sunshine. “We’ll see you Sunday,” he called over his shoulder. “Ocean Beach at 10:00 a.m.”

ON THE OCEAN BEACH

The Dolphin South End Runners had been making every attempt to cooperate with other races in the Bay Area. The annual Bay-to-Breakers had been shifted by a week and the DSE’s beach run (two miles south on the beach, turn around, and two miles back) had been postponed for a week on account of it. The Bayto-Breakers had drawn 16,000 runners, many of whom run no other race all year, while the DSE’s beach run drew 300 runners who run every Sunday morning.

The DSE’s run was blessed with a typical morning along the Pacific: chilly winds rolled in off the ocean as they had for a millennium, so much so that the trees across the road have grown bent away from the sea. There was a gray overcast. One intrepid sailboat was out beyond the breakers tacking against the wind.

A huge cluster of runners ran down the beach. Walter Stack was among them, barechested as usual. A mile down the beach a huge, concrete structure ran out toward the ocean. The runners, who had begun to string out, passed the massive structure and continued on down the beach, heading for the turnaround point. Two of the women were running with Walter. Occasionally he would spot someone along the beach, bundled up in warm clothes and he would wave.

The last of the runners had passed the concrete structure when the leaders came back, working their way back up the beach. The race was being held a

week later than planned, so no one had studied a new tide schedule and the tide had begun coming in. The waves were beginning to lap at the edge of the concrete structure, herding the runners farther up the sand, into the soft stuff, and some of the runners were running through the salt water, ignoring the effect it would have on their expensive running shoes. The leaders pounded through the low surf at the jutting concrete structure, but the tide was moving in relentlessly, claiming that route for itself.

The runners took alternate routes, like cross-country runners, climbing over the concrete, jumping off into the sand on the other side, continuing to run. Some had removed their shoes and were splashing through the surf. Finally, Walt Stack appeared in the distance, still running with and talking to one of the women he had begun the race with.

FINALLY—A FINISH

By the time Stack reached the finish, the bedraggled runners were clustered around tables, getting their times and confirming their places. There is a nominal fee (usually 50 cents) to enter each DSE race; the money is used to purchase ribbons, which are given to all finishers, while the top three men and women get special ribbons. Some people who hadn’t gotten their ribbons came by to see Walt to make sure that they could get one. Two men standing on the edge of the crowd snidely commented on how jealously Stack protected the ribbons. “With running growing like it is,” Walter would say later, “there are some people getting into it who are less desirable than the people who used to be in it two years ago. If I left the ribbons out on the table, some people would take a handful of them and then people who’d worked hard to run the four miles wouldn’t get anything. This sport has to be fair to everybody. And as president of the DSE, I intend to see that it’s fair to everybody in my club.”

While the times and places were figured out, runners continued to mill about, waiting patiently for the final results. Although straight competition isn’t stressed in the DSE, each Sunday event is a race and is treated like one.

Following the cleaning up, Stack stood in the sand watching the ocean crashing in and talked about the Bay-to-Breakers race, the country’s largest, and about the importance of the DSE club.

“T discussed the size of the Bay-to-Breakers and the problems it’s presented for the last 10 years. There are all kinds of theories and ideas. The latest one is they might decide that it’s too congested through the city and it’s very likely that next year they’ Il go around the town some way, a perimeter sort of run.”

The sky was brightening behind the low clouds but there was no warmth coming as Stack sat down on the abutment from which he had just made the day’s awards. “The crowds don’t bother me at all,” he said. “I love people and

Richard Benyo WALT STACK Ml 67

I love this whole business. The psychiatrists say that when you get some nut that’s real active, it’s a minority in every culture. The religious people call it toiling in the Lord’s vineyard. I’m one of the toilers. What we say at sea when you work without overtime is you’re working for Jesus. I’m one of these fellows who’s working for Jesus. I get a bang out of it. I don’t give a shit if I get a hundred calls a day. I’ll respond to them in a friendly, lovable manner and identify with the people who are asking the questions. I don’t give a shit how big the run gets. If it gets to the point where it becomes too much for me, I’ll tell them to stick it.”

Somehow, with the endlessly rolling sea crashing its way to the shore, the conversation turned to longevity. “You’re in great health for a man of your age, Walt. How long do you think you’ ll be around on this earth?”

“I’ve thought of that a number of times. I decided to donate my cadaver to the University of California Medical School back in 1959. I don’t give a shit what they do. The kids will work with it and when they get through, they’II just throw it in the lime pit and dispose of it, so I won’t be maggot shit, not that it’s important.

“T’ ve seen so many people get hit in the ass with the Big C [cancer] that were in top shape that I figure I could be gone three months from now deader than a damned mackerel. And everybody who was sitting on their ass and not doing anything will say, ‘Look at that. There’s that damned Stack. He was busting his ass for years. Deader than a mackerel.’

“T’ve come to the conclusion that since most people in old age are dying of a heart attack or cancer and since I figure that I’ve developed a good healthy immunity to heart attacks, then it’s going to be cancer. When that happens, how soon, or whether I’ll survive is a question of time.

“People tell me, ‘Hey, Walt, you’ re going to live to be 100 years old.’ I say, ‘Look, I’m liable to be dead before the year’s out!’ don’t have any feeling that I’m going to be around for a long time. I feel that all this juggling around of this old cadaver and stimulating the circulation might help me a little bit based on whatever genes I’ve got that are doing me some good.

“Nobody lives forever. Not even a runner. We’re not supposed to live forever. We have enough trouble living right [at] the distances we go now.” i,

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For the Long-Distance Athlete, Not All Fatigue Is Muscular.

BY MATT FITZGERALD

NY RUNNER who has gone 26.2 miles or beyond knows the feeling. ’m

not talking about the leaden, tenderized feeling you get in your legs or the sapped, hollowed-out feeling that spreads throughout your body in the latter miles of a long run or race. I’m talking about the misery and suffering that overtake your brain at about the same time—the brooding, the negativity, the fantasies of quitting. Yeah, that feeling.

Scientists have actually given a name to this most unpleasant state of mind so familiar to all long-distance runners: central fatigue. What’s more, they have even gathered evidence to suggest that central fatigue may have as important a limiting effect on performance as muscle fatigue, which usually gets all the credit, or criticism.

“We don’t know exactly what central fatigue is,” says J. Mark Davis, a professor of exercise physiology at the University of South Carolina and one of the world’s leading researchers in the study of the phenomenon. “It appears to have two components. One is a group of psychological factors, including loss of motivation and will, negative mood state, and lethargy. The other is an automatic, inhibitory mechanism in the brain that actually prevents the transmission of electrical impulses to the muscles and may exist to protect us from going too far into exhaustion.”

The causes of central fatigue are only partially understood. In general terms, it appears to result from the accumulation of certain neurotransmitters associated with negative mood states in specific parts of the brain during extensive exercise. The primary culprit, or at least the one we know the most about at this time, is serotonin, which is familiar to many as a culprit in relation to various mood disorders.

The factors that lead to these changes in neurotransmitter concentrations are closely related to the factors that lead to muscle fatigue, which is why they tend to happen at about the same time. “Blood glucose is a primary muscle fuel

during exercise of moderate to high intensity and is the only fuel for brain activity,” Davis explains. “The longer an effort is maintained, the less glucose remains to fuel both neural and muscular activity.”

WHAT TURKEYS DO TO US

But that’s not the whole story. As blood glucose is depleted, hormones trigger the release of other, less preferred fuels into the bloodstream. These include branched-chain amino acids and free fatty acids. For reasons that are a bit too technical for this discussion, the increased use of branched-chain amino acids and free fatty acids as fuel causes a corresponding increase in the concentration of an amino acid called free tryptophan in the blood. Tryptophan is best known as the ingredient in turkey that makes you so darn sleepy after Thanksgiving dinner. It is also capable of crossing into the brain, where it is converted into— you guessed it—serotonin.

Exactly when this process begins to occur depends on the intensity of exercise and one’s level of fitness, but it always unfolds in virtual lock step with muscle fatigue. Its first and primary symptom is an increase in perceived effort. The more fatigued the brain becomes, the harder it feels to continue running at the same pace. Motivation and mood head due south, and even the ability to concentrate and make decisions begins to suffer.

Delaying central fatigue as long as possible is therefore clearly in the best interest of every distance runner. How is it done? At this time, the prescription for extending brain endurance is identical to the recipe for prolonging muscular endurance: train well and consume plenty of fluids and carbohydrates during races and longer workouts. By training properly and consuming a well-formulated sports drink when you need it, you can maintain blood glucose levels much longer than you could otherwise and thereby postpone the muscular and neural consequences of glucose depletion.

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In one study led by Davis, cyclists exercised to exhaustion at 70 percent VO,max while drinking either water or a sports drink containing carbohydrates and electrolytes. On average, the cyclists who consumed the sports drink lasted a full hour longer than those who drank only water, and they had 80 percent less free tryptophan buildup in the blood. While the better performance of the carbohydrate group must have been due in large part to delayed muscle fatigue, Davis notes that the degree of the performance gap “could not be explained by typical markers of peripheral muscle fatigue involving cardiovascular, thermoregulatory, and metabolic functions.”

Scientists like Davis are currently searching for other nutritional factors that might address central fatigue specifically. One candidate is caffeine. “It’s far too early to begin recommending caffeine intake during exercise,” says Davis, “but we do know that caffeine leads to increased levels of dopamine, which is basically the opposite of serotonin in terms of its effect on psychological states.”

PROTEIN REPLACEMENT

Might we one day find ourselves using sports drinks that contain such things as caffeine? “It’s possible,” says Davis. In the meantime, some sports drink makers have already begun fiddling with the water-electrolytes-carbohydrate formula that has been the norm for many years now. For example, a small amount of protein is being included in some of the newer sports drinks because of research into its effect on the hormone insulin.

“Tnsulin plays an important role in delivering glucose through the bloodstream to the working muscles and the brain,” explains Edmund Burke, Ph.D., author of Optimal Muscle Recovery. “Both carbohydrate and protein stimulate insulin release. Research shows that when protein is consumed with carbohydrate in the proper ratio (about one gram per four grams), insulin release is maximized and therefore so is glucose fuel. This delays both muscular and central fatigue.”

Ina study performed at the University of Texas, one of the new sports drinks containing carbohydrate and protein in a 4-to-1 ratio (Accelerade) was compared to a conventional sports drink containing no protein. Subjects who used the former lasted 24 percent longer than those who used the latter. However, to what degree the difference was owing to delayed central fatigue is not known.

Runners are notoriously more casual about midexercise nutrition than some other types of endurance athletes, such as cyclists and triathletes. In light of what we have recently learned about central fatigue, this oversight now seems doubly detrimental. If you want to finish strong in body and mind in your longest runs, you need to make proper use of a quality sports drink. And keep an eye out for the newest (and future) formulations that take the latest 4 knowledge into account. os

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| THE 3RD ANNUAL

Sunday, aye 27th, 2003 | OKLAHOMA

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| MEMORIAL q | MARATHON |}

Preordained Peak Performance

Genetics and the Barrier to Athletics.

BY JON ENTINE

Le S START with a few safe predictions. All of the sprinters in the men’s 100-meter final at the Athens Olympics in 2004 will trace their ancestry to West Africa. Almost all of the world-class throwers, shot-putters, and weightlifters will be white, mostly of Eurasian ancestry. And distance races, from 800 meters to the marathon, will be dominated by North and East Africans.

Of course there will be exceptions to this pattern, perhaps a breakthrough marathon by an Ecuadorian or a 1,500-meter scamper by a Russian woman. But by and large, don’t place your bets on the long-promised and ever-elusive resurgence of the United States, Britain, or Europe in distance running: won’t happen, can’t happen.

Not too long ago, distance running was dominated by a bloodline of the Flying Finns, the British and Scottish middle-distance contingent of Sebastian Coe, Steve Ovett, Steve Cram, and Peter Elliott, and a potpourri of great Australians and Americans. Today, runners from countries of European stock are invariably the also-rans in a field dominated by Africans. In the world rankings, which combine race results from the 800 meters to the marathon, Kenyan men and women head the list and hold 8 of the top 10 places. Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco, an undefeated double world champion, and the fastest woman marathoner in history, Catherine Ndereba of Kenya, were named Runner’s World magazine’s male and female Runners of the Year for 2001.

NATURE VERSUS NURTURE

What’s behind this extraordinary phenomenon? There are two conflicting theories. While one is heard in the back of the local pub, sotto voce—we’ ll discuss this ina moment—the common wisdom proclaims that the eclipse of the Western

runner demonstrates the affliction of affluence and the incredible hard work of desperately poor but ambitious Africans.

There is some—if limited—truth to that. But common sense—and overwhelming scientific evidence—forces one to ask whether hungry athletes can somehow transform themselves into elite competitors through dedication alone? Or, put another way: do hard work and opportunity trump innate capacity?

That’s Sebastian Coe’s belief. “So where is the problem [of the failure of the rest of the world versus the East and North Africans]?” mused Coe shortly before the 2001 World Championships in Edmonton, where African athletes swept two-thirds of the running medals. “The answer, I rather fancy, as Shakespeare said, ‘lies not in the stars but in our hands’—run faster.” Coe exhorted aspiring runners to train with the “brutal” commitment of the Kenyans. “The mental and physical intensity of what was commonplace 20 years ago,” he added modestly.

Here’s a wake-up call, Sebastian: one might as well look to the stars because the epicenter of world distance running has shifted decidedly—and permanently—to East and North Africa. And cultural trends have little to do with it.

“Very many in sports physiology would like to believe that it is training, the environment, what you eat that play the most important role,” states Bengt Saltin, director of the renowned Copenhagen Muscle Research Center, who has outlined his findings in Scientific American. “But we argue based on the data that it is ‘in your genes’ whether or not you are talented or whether you will become talented. The extent of the environment can always be discussed, but it’s less than 20, 25 percent.”

Cultural factors certainly play a role in which sports one might play. There are no great ice curlers or cricket players from Texas—black, white, or Hispanic. But all of the focus and training in the world are unlikely to turn a Texan into a Kenyan-challenging marathoner. Trainers, nutritionists, and coaches are not alchemists. One cannot turn clay into marble.

The driving explanation for African domination of running, it turns out, can be found mostly in the genes. “Africans are naturally, genetically, more likely to have less body fat, which is a critical edge in elite running,” notes Joseph Graves Jr., an African American evolutionary biologist at Arizona State University. “Evolution has shaped body types and in part athletic possibilities. Don’t expect an Eskimo to show up on an NBA court or a Watusi to win the world weightlifting championship. Differences don’t necessarily correlate with skin color but rather with geography and climate. Genes play a major role in this.”

Highly heritable characteristics such as skeletal structure, muscle fiber types, reflex capabilities, metabolic efficiency, and lung capacity are notevenly

distributed among populations and cannot be explained by known environmental factors. Though individual success is about opportunity and “fire in the belly,” thousands of years of evolution have left a distinct footprint on the world’s athletic map.

KENYA AND GENES

For decades, the “Flying Finns” were the world’s best distance runners, their wins multiplying in tandem with their growing nationalist tradition of success. The Finns were eventually eclipsed by the great Anglo tradition represented by such runners as Coe. But in the past 15 years, as the door of opportunity creaked opened to less-developed nations, the center of gravity in distance running has shifted to North and East Africa.

According to some, the cycle of history suggests that no population has a lock on distance-running success. Surely, they say, Kenyan dominance will fade, much as it did for the Finns, and the trend will shift once again to another nation? Notso fast. To flesh out this debate, it’s instructive to assess how a small East African country, with a population of less than 30 million, has emerged as the greatest per capita concentration of raw athletic talent in the history of the world.

Kenya’s national sport drives its countrymen to intense public displays of passion. It’s a cultural heritage. The national and occasional African championship events draw tens of thousands of adoring fans to the National Stadium in Nairobi. The best players are icons. The selection process to spot the great stars begins at a very young age. Government coaches comb the countryside to ferret out the next generation of potential stars. The most promising are sent to special schools. It’s not an exaggeration to call Kenya’s most popular sport a kind of national religion.

According to conventional and socially acceptable wisdom, this is a familiar story—the sure cultural explanation for the phenomenal success of Kenyan distance runners. There’s only one problem: the national sport, the hero worship, the adoring fans, the social channeling—all these relate to Kenya’s enduring love affair with soccer, not running! Yet, despite the enormous success of Kenyan runners in the past two decades, running remains a relative afterthought in this soccer-crazed nation.

Passion and cultural traditions go only so far. While Kenyans and other East Africans sweep upward of 60 percent of the world’s distance-running events, they are among the world’s worst soccer players—and sprinters. Despite an expenditure of vast amounts of the country’s sparse sports resources, Kenya has flopped in trying to replicate its wondrous distance-running success (which began for the most part with little state help) in soccer.

Jon Entine PREORDAINED PEAK PERFORMANCE 79

Science certainly does not support the popular notion that Kenyans prevail in distance running because they train harder or ran huge distances as kids, myths frequently peddled by the media. For every Kenyan athlete who ran 100 miles a week, there are others who got along on 30 and did not regularly run extraordinary distances as children.

“T lived right next door to school,” laughs Kenyan-born Wilson Kipketer, world 800-meter record holder. “I walked, nice and slow.”

Though individual success is indeed largely about opportunity and “fire in the belly,” when it comes to the patterns that we see in sports, genetic traits proscribe possibility.

As Dr. Saltin has noted, “Kenyans and other East Africans are born with a high number of slow-twitch fibers. More than other populations. That’s a critical factor in their success.” The Great Rift Valley adjacent to Lake Victoria is ground zero of world-class distance running, where evolutionary factors and social conditions reinforce each other in a feedback loop. Runners from the Kenyan highlands that snake along the western edge of the valley have won more than 40 percent of top international events. The Nandi district of 500,000 people—1/12,000 of earth’s population—boasts an unfathomable 20 percent, marking the greatest concentration of raw athletic talent in sports history.

No amount of political correctness can obscure the reality that East Africans and genetically similar populations of mountainous North Africa have a distinct body type and physiology. They are ectomorphs, short and slender, with huge natural lung capacity and a preponderance of slow-twitch muscle fibers, the vital energy system for endurance sports. It’s a perfect biomechanical package for distance running but a disaster for sports—like sprinting and soccer— that require anaerobic bursts of speed.

No amount of hard training can radically change what we are born with. Kenyans, other East Africans, and some local North African populations have an innate capacity, not an innate ability, to thrive in distance running; individual effort and courage separate the pretenders from the stars. Success in sports is a biosocial phenomenon.

“RACE” IS NOT THE ISSUE

This is not an issue of black and white but the consequence of evolving in varying terrains, say anthropologists. East Africans have a very different biomechanical and genetic makeup from blacks who trace their ancestry from West Africa. There is not even one—zero—elite long-distance runner who traces his or her primary ancestry to West Africa (which includes almost all American, British, Canadian, and Caribbean blacks).

In contrast, though dominant in distance running, East Africans are flat-out mediocre in the sprints. While the fastest Kenyan 100-meter run is10.28 seconds, ranking 5,000 on the all-time list, blacks who trace their ancestry to West Africa hold the top 200 and 494 of the top 500 100-meter times.

Based on genetically proscribed body type differences, we would expect to find that Asian runners (from Japan, China, and Korea) and their ancestral descendants in Mexico and South America (the great Ecuadorian runners, for instance) could be competitive in long-distance races. Their small frames and extra layer of energy-generating body fat, which is otherwise a hindrance in sprinting, is a biomechanical plus in endurance events. Note for instance the incredible success in ultramarathoning by the Tarahumara from Mexico’s Copper Canyon. The few great white male distance runners are almost exclusively from southern Portugal, Spain, and Italy, and share many of the physical and physiological characteristics—and some of the genetic makeup—of North and East Africans.

“Differences among athletes of elite caliber are so small,” notes Robert Malina, a Michigan State University anthropologist and editor of the American Journal of Human Biology, “that physique or the ability to fire muscle fibers more efficiently that might be genetically based . . . it might be very, very significant. The fraction of a second is the difference between the gold medal and fourth place.”

If genetics does matter in athletic performance, then we might expect to find noticeable differences in the ways different population groups sustain anaerobic and aerobic functioning. Timothy Noakes, long time director of the Sport Science Center at the University of Cape Town Medical School and author of many scholarly books, including Lore of Running, has observed that black South Africans, who share much of their genetic ancestry with East Africans, sweep more than 90 percent of the top places in endurance races held in his country, despite the fact that blacks represent no more than one-quarter of the active running population.

Noakes has attempted to figure out why. In a treadmill study, black marathoners consistently bested whites. Although white runners matched or exceeded the black runners at distances up to 5,000 meters, blacks were “clearly superior at distances greater than 5km.” The fine print in the data was particularly revealing. There was a dramatic difference in the ability of the blacks to run at a higher maximum oxygen capacity. In the case of the marathoners, blacks performed at 89 percent of the maximum oxygen capacity, while whites lagged by nearly 10 percent. The muscles of the African athletes also showed far fewer signs of fatigue as measured by lactic acid.

Noakes notes a link between his findings and the training habits of wellknown Kenyan runners who report favoring low-mileage, high-intensity

workouts. This presents a nurture/nature conundrum. Does hard training lead to a change in oxidative capacity and fatigue resistance or does it merely reflect a genetically well-endowed athletic machine?

TRAINING VERSUS GENES

The answer can be found in the wild card in performance: muscle efficiency. David Costill, former head of the Human Performance Laboratory at Ball State in Muncie, Indiana, has shown that the adaptability of the muscle fiber for aerobic metabolism— its oxidative potential—is more important than the basic composition of the muscle. More aerobically efficient fibers produce fewer fatigue-producing lactate toxins, resulting in better performance. And although fiber composition is genetically fixed, which effectively limits the pool of possible successful athletes in each event, exercise can help muscles better utilize oxygen.

A team from South Africa and Australia, including Noakes, has found an apparent link among oxidative capacity, resistance to fatigue, and population. The researchers measured “running economy”—the amount of metabolic work (and therefore oxygen consumption) that is required to run at a given speed, much like the fuel economy of a car. Running economy can be affected by a variety of factors, both environmental, such as running technique, and physiological, such as body mass distribution and muscle elasticity.

“We’ve shown that the oxidative enzyme capacity of the [East and South African black] athletes we looked at was one and a half times higher on average than the white runners,” reports Kathy Myburgh, a coauthor of the report and senior lecturer at the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa. Comparing black and white athletes with nearly identical race times, the researchers found that blacks were both more efficient runners and able to utilize a considerably higher percentage of their maximum oxygen potential—a decided advantage if two athletes otherwise have the same capacity.

“Whilst the current study does not elucidate the origins of these differences,” their report concludes, “the findings may partially explain the success of African runners at the elite level.” A subsequent study determined that the superior fatigue resistance during high-intensity endurance exercise is partially related to the higher skeletal muscle oxidative capacity and lower plasma lactate accumulation found more commonly in blacks.

Bengt Saltin has come to the conclusion that certain population groups, including northern Europeans, who are notable endurance runners and crosscountry skiers, may also have superior fatigue resistance encoded in their genes. He has found that Scandinavian distance runners, as well as Kenyans and South African blacks, have consistently lower blood lactate levels and perform more

efficiently than athletes from other regions, the likely result of their having evolved in mountainous regions. Population genetics—ancestry—is the key determinant.

To further test his findings, Saltin brought a half dozen established Swedish national-class runners to St. Patrick’s School in Iten, Kenya, where coach Colm O’Connell has developed many famous Kenyan runners. He wanted to see how they might match up against up-and-coming East African schoolboys. It was a demoralizing experience for the Swedes.

National champion after national champion was soundly trounced in races from 800 meters to 10 kilometers. Stunned, Saltin estimated that in this one tiny area of the Rift Valley there were at least 500 schoolboys who could best his national champions at 2,000 meters.

In a subsequent study, Saltin brought several groups of Kenyans to the Karolinska labs in Sweden, where he was then working. Muscle fiber distribution was similar for the Kenyans and Swedes. But biopsies of the quadriceps muscles in the thighs indicated that the Kenyans had more blood-carrying capillaries surrounding the muscle fibers and more mitochondria within the fibers. That’s important because mitochondria act a little like power stations, processing the glucose into energy with oxygen brought in by breathing. The Kenyans also were found to have relatively smaller muscle fibers than the Swedes, which Saltin speculated might serve to bring the mitochondria closer to the surrounding capillaries. This process aids in oxidation, bringing more “fuel” to the mitochondria, the engine of the muscles.

The Kenyans also showed little ammonia accumulation in their muscles from protein combustion and less lactic acid buildup. They have more of the muscle enzymes that burn fat, and their glycogen reserves are not burned as quickly, which improves endurance. Most impressive, they are able to take months off from regular training and then regain their old form quickly. When they do train, more than half of their total mileage occurs at heart rates of 90 percent of maximum, far higher than the rate for Europeans or Americans. In general, Saltin reported a 5 to 15 percent greater running economy at far less mileage but at a higher intensity. Saltin has privately suggested that Kenyans appear to be innately efficient, durable, and fast—with the most perfect aerobic potential measured so far on earth.

Could an American, British, or European runner defy the genetic odds and thrash the East and North African contingents in future World Championships or Olympics? Certainly, for genes only circumscribe possibility, and any race opens the door for the roulette wheel of the human spirit. As a result of natural human variation, there will always be great runners from every part of the globe. But don’t expect a return to the past—that is, unless we start tinkering with the genes themselves.

Jon Entine PREORDAINED PEAK PERFORMANCE 83