It was 40 years ago when Frank Shorter won at Munich and led us astray.

40 years since Frank Shorter’s Olympic marathon win at the 1972 Olympic Games. I reflected on the moment. Those Games were as memorable as any. They included Mark Spitz, Lasse Viren, Steve Prefontaine, Olga Korbut, Dave Wottle, the USA men’s basketball team’s loss to the Soviet Union, and also the Munich massacre—the killing of the Israeli athletes. But for many road runners old enough to have seen it, our most vivid, most enduring memory was that of Shorter’s win.

It wasn’t just the fact that no American had won the event since 1908. Here before our eyes, on live television, this seemingly average American man was able to train hard enough to win against the world’s best. For me, the image of Shorter entering the Olympic Stadium ahead of everyone else (except an impostor) will forever be etched in my memory.

Of course, I understand that Shorter is anything but average, but that was the thought at the time. And that’s a large part of the reason that his win marked the start of the running movement. It certainly got me going.

A watershed moment if there ever was one, Shorter’s gold medal sparked running as we know it today. Before the 1972 Olympics, only a few odd, skinny people ran. There were only a handful of marathons and other road races available around the country. After the 1972 Olympics, truly average people began to believe that if they just went out and trained, great things could happen.

Great things did happen. With all the new runners hitting the roads, several big cities inaugurated marathons and other road races to accommodate them. The growth of road racing began to accelerate further; with more road racing in the spotlight, even more people began to run.

\ sudden thought occurred to me during a recent sleepless night: it has been

b> Frank Shorter wins the 1972 Olympic Marathon, and the running revolution begins.

And the trend continues to this day, although not without some setbacks and lulls. But now the growth is accelerating to levels unfathomable in 1972.

It started with an American guy entering the Olympic Stadium and crossing the finish line 40 years ago.

Before Munich

Yes, there was running before the 1972 Munich Olympics. Track and field enjoyed perhaps a little more notoriety than it does today. US sprinters led the world, as they do now. Among distance runners, Marty Liquori, Jim Ryun, Billy Mills, and most recently Steve Prefontaine had all become well known in the previous decade.

US high schools and colleges fielded track and cross-country teams, as they do now. Football and basketball programs grabbed more attention, as they still do today, but some young athletes dedicated themselves to running.

Two factors limited the future for runners after their college days were completed. First, it was virtually impossible to make a living by running. With amateurism as the rule for the Olympics as well as for most other events, sponsorship opportunities were almost unknown. Professional runners were nearly nonexistent.

The second limiting factor was that there were only a handful of opportunities to compete in road races. The Boston Marathon had a proud tradition, and there were some other marathons and road races of other distances. But these events were so few, and so small, that most runners didn’t bother with them. In fact, most people weren’t aware of road races at all. Most didn’t know what a marathon was. Road running, for most practical purposes, did not exist yet.

Five years before the 1972 Olympic Games, Kathrine Switzer had her famous encounter with Jock Semple at the Boston Marathon. At the time, the Boston

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