Marathon (vol.6, issue 6), 937 points; Boulder Backroads Marathon (vol. 7, issue 4), 886 points; Calgary Marathon (vol. 3, issue 2),876 points; Cape Cod Marathon (vol. 7, issue 5), 863 points; Cincinnati Flying Pig Marathon (vol. 3, issue 6), 901 points; City of Los Angeles Marathon (vol.8, issue 1), 788 points; Columbus Marathon (vol.8, issue 4), 866 points; Crater Lake Marathon (vol.7, issue 3),790 points;** Dallas White Rock Marathon (vol. 4, issue 6), 856 points; Detroit Free Press Marathon (vol. 5, issue 3), 892 points; Edmonton Marathon (vol. 2, issue 2), 814 points; Fox Cities Marathon (vol. 3, issue 4), 865 points; Glass City Marathon (vol. 6, issue 1), 862 points; God’s Country Marathon (vol.6, issue 2),695 points;** Governor’s Cup Ghost Town Marathon (vol. 2, issue 1), 795 points; Grandma’s Marathon (vol. 3, issue 1), 968 points; Greater Hartford Marathon (vol. 6, issue 3), 898 points; Honolulu Marathon (vol. 2, issue 4), 906 points; Humboldt Redwoods Marathon (vol. 2, issue 3), 809 points; Idaho Great Potato Marathon (vol. 7, issue 2),771 points; Key BankVermont City Marathon (vol.4, issue 2),888 points; Kiawah Island Marathon (vol. 6, issue 5),825 points; Lake Tahoe Marathon (vol. 6, issue 4), 867 points; Lakefront Marathon (vol.9, Issue 3);898 points; Las Vegas International Marathon (vol. 1, issue 5), 831 points;* Lincoln All-Sport/National Guard Marathon (vol. 8, issue 6), 843 points; Motorola Marathon (vol. 5, issue 6), 876 points; Napa Valley Marathon (vol. 2, issue 5), 913 points; Nokia Sugar Bowl Mardi Gras Marathon (vol. 7, issue 1), 837 points; Ocala Marathon (vol. 7, issue 6), 810 points;** Ocean State Marathon (vol. 5, issue 5), 886 points;t Park City Marathon (vol. 8, issue 2), 837 points; Philadelphia Marathon (vol. 1, issue 4), 838 points; Pittsburgh Marathon (vol. 1, issue 6), 904 points;t Portland Marathon (vol. 3, issue 3), 943 points; Quad Cities Marathon (vol. 4, issue 3), 885 points; Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon San Diego (vol. 9, issue 1), 919 points; Royal Victoria Marathon (vol. 5, issue 4), 918 points; San Francisco Marathon (vol. 1, issue 2), 903 points;* Santa Clarita Marathon (vol. 4, issue 4), 866 points; Shamrock Sportsfest Marathon (vol. 2, issue 6), 866 points; Silver State Marathon (vol. 9, issue 2), 778 points; Steamtown Marathon (vol.3, issue 5),892 points; SunTrust Richmond Marathon (vol. 9, issue 4), 870; Twin Cities Marathon (vol. 8, issue 3), 888 points; Vancouver International Marathon (vol. 1, issue 1), 851 points;* Wineglass Marathon (vol. 1, issue 3), 839 points; Yonkers Marathon (vol.8, issue 5),751 points;** Yukon River Trail Marathon (vol. 5, issue 1),870 points

The Las Vegas Marathon score went up due to the race moving its expo from tents at Vacation Village to one of the major downtown hotels and expanding the expo. The finish line area has also been improved: with the new finish line area, the 90-degree turn into the final 70 yards is now a thing of the past.

The San Francisco Marathon score rose in the wake of a half-dozen years of enjoying an increasingly stabilized race organization, gradual growth in size, and attention to detail. The course, although not perfectly agreeable to fast times in a city built on seven hills, has been much improved, as have the prerace activities.

At Vancouver, the score has gone up based on several factors: many of the bridges (major uphills) have been removed from the course, as has the industrial area on the far end of the Lions Gate Bridge. In addition, the entire event has been consolidated into one area (the BC Place complex, which is one of the few remaining structures from Expo ‘86), which contains the Vancouver Marathon offices, fitness and health expo, seminars, and the start/finish areas.

SPECIAL BOOK BONUS

The Year the Taunt “You’re Not Going to Let a Girl Beat You, Are You?” Died on the Vine.

The first five installments appeared in our last five issues.

(APRIL 1981) THIRTY PHONE BOOTHS TO BOSTON

The premarathon press conference was nearly over. Dozens of reporters, almost half of whom seemed to be Japanese, had scattered to the winds, except for a handful who surrounded Billy Rodgers in the hope of eliciting a quote, a look, or even a telltale belch that hadn’t already been written down during the typically inane pre-Boston briefing.

A Japanese television company that had traveled thousands of miles to film a full-length version of the 1981 Boston Marathon for prime-time showing back home was wrapping up an interview with Jacqueline Garreau. Caterers were moving tables half-full of coffee and jelly-rolls that had been provided to sweeten the perspectives of the assembled media junkies.

Will Cloney was in good spirits in spite of having endured several weeks of threats to the life of the BAA’s annual showcase event. A local township had denied access through their town. The Boston police had vowed to demonstrate against department cutbacks by blocking the race at Cleveland Circle. Will had weathered the various storms in typically unruffled style. Responding to the police challenge a few days earlier, he had told the press, “For many of the runners, Monday’s race is the Olympic marathon they were forced to miss last year. To have them disappointed for a second time would be cruel beyond the conscience of any true Greater Bostonian.”

The police later voted not to block the course.

In today’s conference, Cloney had announced in jest that the last seat on the twelve-passenger lead van was up for grabs to the highest bidder.

“T just had an offer of seventy-eight hundred dollars a few minutes ago,” Will quipped. “If anyone is willing to go higher than that, let me know.”

I found him later and shoved a twenty-dollar bill his way. “This is for starters,” I whispered. “I’ll pay you the rest later.”

The ploy was unsuccessful. My last-ditch efforts to weasel my way into some sort of position of insight for the eighty-fifth Boston Marathon had failed. One possible spot on the van, one I had thought definite, had vanished a week earlier. By then it was too late to beg myself aboard. And now my attempt to bribe my way into that seat of wisdom with a twenty-dollar bill had fizzled. Twenty bucks wasn’t buying what it used to.

Now what? How to cover this thing?

While I pondered the problem, reporters continued to surround Billy like the president’s men, and he endured their reverence patiently. After all these years of being Mr. Marathon, the Dalai Lama of the sport is still able to offer sincere and relatively unfettered responses to reporters’ questions. He still looks to be the Gee Whiz Kid, surprised to be on stage, honored to be answering questions.

What do you think of your chances?

How good is Seko? Are you afraid of him?

What about the weather?

What about Virgin? Pfeffer? Thomas? Meyer? Kita?

Do you think a woman will ever win the Boston Marathon?

What do you think of Johnny Kelley?

Why do you run?

Et cetera.

Finally, though, Bill offered some sort of justification for having to be on his way, and the group of reporters disbanded. Bill started to leave, but was cornered by a couple of representatives of a marathon in the Philippines, who gave him what looked like rosary beads and a box to store them in, an attempt to woo him to Manila to run.

“That ought to convince him,” I thought.

Meanwhile, George Kimball of the Boston Herald American came over to where a few of us were standing. His upper body was packed into a blue T-shirt that said, “Slim Whitman Appreciation Society.”

“Did you get that when you bought his album collection?” I asked.

“No, a friend gave this to me. He’s trying to get me into the society.”

“You mean,” I asked, “you can’t just get in by yourself? You have to have a reference?”

Kimball didn’t answer, although he later volunteered that Slim wasn’t hitting all the notes so well anymore. “When he gets to the high ones,” he said, “he has to have someone yodel for him.”

Be that as it may, Kimball had about had it for the day with the marathon. “Let’s get out of here,” he said to Boston’s inveterate and genuinely knowledgeable long-distance chronicler, Toni Reavis.

Reavis declined at first, saying something about wanting to talk to a few of the runners.

“F – – – the runners,” Kimball responded in good-natured disgust. “Let’s go get a Bloody Mary.”

And something about that statement, good-natured or not, triggered my response. For good or ill, for this year at least, I had had it with trying to scramble my way onto the lead van with a bunch of sports writers.

“F – – – the reporters,” I thought. “I’m going back to my room.”

It was 11:30 a.m., April twentieth. In thirty minutes the marathon would begin in Hopkinton. My hotel room phone was ringing.

“Well, good morning there, reporter,” said the caller. Unmistakably, it was the accent of the South. “Jeff Galloway calling.”

“How’re you doing this morning, Jeff?”

“Fine. How’re y’all doing?”

“Great. What’s up?”

“Say, what are you planning on doing for the race? Are you going to watch it on TV?”

“T’ve got about thirty phone booth numbers here in front of me. I’m going to sit right here in my room and call ’em. If you want to come up and help you’re welcome.”

It was true. The night before, while the marathoners slept with pasta-filled stomachs, I had driven along the course from Framingham to the Pru, making periodic stops to write down the telephone numbers of key phone booths along the way. The Framingham Railroad Station. Natick Square. Wellesley. Auburndale. Heartbreak Hill. Coolidge Corner. And so on. I would cover this damned encounter between Seko and Rodgers and Catalano and whoever from the comfort of my hotel room, where I had access to Magical Fingers and room service and the telephone. Someone would answer when I called along the course. I was certain of that.

Thad a couple of aces in the hole, too, just in case the caper failed. Roy Kissin, who had helped hatch the idea, would call from the start. So would Pat Owens of the New York Road Runners Club. Ned Frederick would be at Wellesley. And of course, if all else failed, there was always the TV.

I got a call from Roy, right on schedule, from Hopkinton a few minutes later.

“The whole place here reeks of liniment and sweat,” he reported dutifully. “There’s urine on the floor and the walls, and a couple of courteous runners have spit rather awesome oysters on my shoes.”

So far, it was sounding like a typical start to a typical marathon.

With the kind of coverage I was expecting to provide, my room was soon filled with eager marathon enthusiasts. There was, however, some skepticism about our chances of keeping up with events. Showing my list of phone booth numbers didn’t seem to reduce the level of cynicism. Nor did showing off the extraordinary bird’s-eye view of the finish line we had out the hotel window.

“Hey, this is a great view of the finish, isn’t it?” said one enthusiast. And then, in feigned surprise, “Hey, you can actually see the finish!”

We watched the start of the race on TV, and since there were no phone booths until the town of Framingham, we had to settle for helicopter shots of the runners for the first five miles or so. Someone was obviously playing the role of rabbit, burning out an early lead. The television showed a tiny speck of red traveling over the rolling hills west of Framingham.

“That’s Fanelli,’ someone in the room said.

“Tt sure is,” someone else added. “Up to his old games.”

Ten minutes later the television crew let us know that Gary Fanelli of Pennsylvania was the mysterious rabbit of the race.

Rabbit indeed. I had first met Fanelli at a prerace banquet a few years earlier, when we had spent some time discussing his vegetarianism. At the time, he had seemed extremely serious and intense about things. Especially when I told him that I didn’t really enjoy the taste of meat, but that I did enjoy the thought of grinding up animals and eating them. He had stared at me in horror, and I felt ashamed of my joke. Later I would learn of his pranksterism, his love of the Blues Brothers, and his affinity for puns. Now, at the Boston Marathon, he was off to a pace that would bring him through the halfway point in 1:03:10, in an attempt to set up the race for Rodgers or Seko or whoever might want to set a new world mark.

It was about time for the runners to be in Framingham, so I called my first booth. Busy. I called another. No answer. Desperately, I looked in the phone book for the number of a Wendy’s hamburger place we had seen along the route the night before. A man answered.

“Can I help you please?”

“Uh, yeah,” I answered. “Are you along the marathon course?”

“T beg your pardon?”

“Are you along the marathon course?”

“No, we’re not. We’re in downtown Boston right across from Filene’s.”

I was off to a bad start.

By now the runners should have been at eight miles, and I hadn’t scored a phone booth yet. I tried a number outside of Natick, at about the eight-mile mark. It rang.

“Hello?”

“Hello,” I said. “Who’s this?”

“This is Catherine.”

“Hello, Catherine. Are you there along the marathon course?”

“Yes.” The voice was tentative. “Why?”

“Have the runners gone by there yet?”

“No. Only the wheelchair persons. People.”

I convinced Catherine (or was it Katherine?) to wait at the phone until the runners came by. In a minute she was back.

“Number one-twenty is in the lead, and number three is second,” she reported. “Then fifteen, then forty-two, then eleven, seven, twenty-seven, forty-nine . . .”

“Okay, that’s good,” I told her. “Do you know the name of the first one?”

“T don’t know,” she answered. “All I know is that he was long and tall and skinny.”

Fanelli.

Catherine agreed to wait at the phone until the women came by. When I called her back in a few minutes, though, the voice sounded a little different.

“Ts this Catherine?” I asked.

“No, this is Karyn. I’m her sis-tuh.”

“Oh, okay. Have the women come by there yet, Karyn?”

“No, not yet.”

“Okay. Well, let me know.”

A couple of minutes passed, and Karyn reported that a van with TV cameras had just gone by. I advised her that the first woman should be close behind.

“There she is. From North Carolina. Julie Shea.”

About twenty seconds later, number two, Patti Catalano, passed Karyn’s phone booth, followed shortly by Joan Benoit.

“Thanks for your help, Karyn,” I said.

“What magazine is this for?” she asked.

“Running Magazine,” I answered, and for some reason I felt compelled to spell it. “R-U-N-N-I-N-G.”

I seemed to be hitting my stride now, so as soon as I hung up I called the next phone number right away, a booth at Natick Square, just past the ten-mile point. A man answered and identified himself as Tom.

“Tom,” I said, “have the lead runners come by there yet?”

“Yeah, they just came by.”

“Who was in the lead?”

“T don’t know. Just a second.” There was a pause while Tom checked with his friends. “Oh. It was a cop. A motorcycle.”

A few seconds passed, and Tom gave a second report. “Number one-twenty was in the lead. Farelli [sic].”

“Fanelli?”

“Yeah, right.”

“Did he look tired at all?”

“No, not at all. He’s a big tall guy. He had long, tall strides.”

“How about the second guy?”

“He’s a short guy.”

Tom also agreed to wait to see who the first woman runner would be. Meanwhile, l asked him a little about himself. After all, a writer has to know his sources.

“Have you ever run yourself, Tom?”

“Nah, I’ve never run the marathon. I would have liked to, but I can’t seem to get the time or energy. No spunk, I guess.”

“Do you watch this race every year?”

“Oh, yeah. Every year.”

“Are you a Bill Rodgers fan?”

“Yeah, we’re all rooting for him. And we’ll be rooting for the Red Sox this afternoon.”

A few minutes passed.

“There’s a big cheer now,” Tom reported. “That might be the first girl.” Pause. “There she goes. I didn’t catch her number, though.”

“Did she have dark hair?”

“No, she was tall with brown hair.”

I thanked him and hung up. Putting together the information from television and the phone booth at Natick, it appeared that Julie Shea was leading, followed by Patti Catalano, Allison Roe, and Jackie Gareau. I placed my next call to Wellesley Square.

“Hello?”

“Hello,” I said, “have the runners come by there yet?”

“Yes, they have.”

“Who’s this?” I asked.

“This is Peter. Who’s this?”

“This is Don Kardong. I’m covering this for Running Magazine. How’d the runners look to you when they came by?”

“They looked real good. Fanelli was in the lead by about a hundred yards, and then number six, Kirk Pfeffer, out of Thousand Oaks.”

“Great. By the way, where are you located?”

“T’m right down the street from Wellesley College.”

“Can you see the scene at the college from there? Are the girls screaming?”

“Oh, yeah. It’s wild there.”

The first women runners had already gone by, and Peter reported that Patti Catalano was leading, followed by Jackie Gareau. I thanked him and hung up. My next call, a sure thing, was to the Nike store at Wellesley, where Ned Frederick had promised to file a report. I soon had him on the line. “Hey, listen,’ Ned told

me, “the eating level here is really high. There’s some intense eating going on. A lot of beer-drinking, too. People are throwing down three or four at a time.”

“Into the street?”

“Yeah, everywhere.”

Indeed. I was to learn later that Garry Bjorklund, only semifit for this year’s race, would spot a friend at Wellesley who was drinking a beer and holding out a sponge for him. Garry would stop, take the friend’s beer, and call it quits for the day.

Ned agreed to go back to the street, watch the leaders go by, then return to the phone. In about five minutes he was back.

“Don?”

“Yeah?”

“They just went past. Fanelli is in the lead, but not for much longer. It looked like he was sort of blacking out. He was blinking and looking down a lot. He had his arms up. He really looked tight.”

“How about the other runners?”

“Rodgers is leading that second pack, followed by Seko and Kita. Rodgers looks real good.”

“Better than Seko?”

Ned laughed. “No. Seko and Kita were handing water back and forth, kind of joking with each other.”

“Well, you know how those Japanese are,” I said. “Never a straight man.”

“Right,” Ned laughed. “Oh, and Virgin didn’t look too good. He was right in that first group, but he had that frown on his face. It’s hard to tell, though. He always looks like that.”

I flashed back to a conversation I had had with Craig two days earlier. He had talked about strategy, about staying with Rodgers and Seko, about the uncertainty of the marathon, about having been “beaten up by the marathon” in Fukuoka. Now, at fifteen miles, he was within striking distance. Was he in trouble or not?

“Ned,” I asked, “how much of a lead does Fanelli have there?”

“About nine or ten seconds is all. But he looks really terrible. I give him another two miles, maximum.”

“All those carrots and lettuce are failing him at this point.”

“Yeah, right.”

The rabbit was fading, but at fifteen miles he had set up one hell of a race.

Marci’s Restaurant, about one mile farther down the line, was next on my list.

“Is Marci there?” I asked the woman who answered.

“Who’s calling?”

“This is Don Kardong with Running Magazine. I want to see if I can get an update on the runners coming by the restaurant there.”

There was a pause.

“All right,” the woman said at last. “Hold on.”

A minute passed.

“You want an update?” Marci said, picking up the phone, obviously in good humor. “I’m the winner!”

“You’re the winner?” I replied. “What’s your name? I’ll need it for my article.”

“Tt’s Marci Hanes.”

“Marci, this is Don Kardong from Running Magazine. Can you give me some information on how things are going there at Marci’s Restaurant?”

“Oh, it’s going soop-uh.”

“Do you have a lot of people outside waiting for the runners to go by?”

“They just went by. The leaders did.”

“How’d they look?”

“Good!”

“How about the guy in the lead there. Did he look like he was fading, or did he look strong?”

“He looked pretty strong to us as he went by. But of course the others weren’t far behind him.”

“Did you offer him anything to eat or drink there at the restaurant?”

“He went by too fast.”

I thanked Marci, hung up, and called a booth outside of Newton-Wellesley Hospital, near the seventeen-mile mark, where I had dropped out of the 1979 race with leg cramps. A woman answered.

“Hello?”

“Hello,” I answered. “Who’s this?”

“Oh. Well, who do you want?”

“I’m trying to get an update on the marathon runners. I’m with Running Magazine out of Eugene, Oregon.”

“From Ory-gone! Oh, my goodness.”

As it turned out, the lady I was talking to was waiting for her son Harvey from Harvard to come by. In the meantime, she gave me some information on the race.

“The gentleman who was leading, some unheard-of guy, Falelli or something, is still up front. He has maybe a hundred-foot lead. Bill Rodgers is with a group of eight or ten others right behind, and he looks good.”

Between the hospital and the next phone booth, just past eighteen miles, things changed drastically. I spoke with a man named Mike, who, as it turned out, was helping report for the radio pool. The lead runners were just approaching the booth.

“Seventeen, twenty-two,” he reported. Grey Meyer had taken the lead, followed by Chettle of Australia and Seko. “Twenty-four, seven, one twenty.” Malcolm East, Kyle Heffner, and Fanelli. Mike couldn’t see Rodgers.

I hung up and called back to Marci for an update on the women’s race. Marci reported that Patti Catalano had taken over from Julie Shea and that Jackie Gareau was in third. It wasn’t clear who was in second place. Maybe Shea, maybe Allison Roe.

The lead runners were now into the set of hills that climaxes, at about twentytwo miles, with Heartbreak Hill. I called the number of a booth just past the wall. Just past twenty miles.

“Hello?”

“Hello, who’s this?”

“You’re calling Commonwealth Avenue. This is a public phone.”

“Right. I’m doing a report for Running Magazine. Have the lead runners come by there yet?”

“They should be about a minute away.”

“Okay. Were you just standing there by the phone,” I asked, “or did you want to use it?”

“T was just standing here.” Minding my own business, he might have added.

“Okay, good. Say, would you mind giving me your impressions on how the lead runners look when they come by? Who actually looks, in the face, like he’s going to win.”

Pause.

“Tl give it a try.”

The man, whose name was John, turned out to be a longtime resident of the area who watches the marathon pass through his neighborhood every year. As I waited, I could hear helicopters, police cars, and then the rising cheers of the crowd.

According to John’s reading of the situation, Rodgers was somewhere around tenth place, but not far behind Seko, the leader.

“The front runners all look pretty relaxed,” he said after the group had passed. “Rodgers looked like he was working the hardest.”

As the leaders challenged the hills, the race was beginning to shape up as a battle between Seko, Virgin, and Rodgers, with Rodgers clearly in trouble. I looked at my list of numbers, found one at the thirty-five-kilometer mark, and punched the numbers. The phone rang over and over again. Finally a woman answered.

“Hello?”

“Hello, this is Don Kardong from Running Magazine. Have the runners come by there yet?”

Hysterical laughter. Then finally, “No, just the wheelchairs.”

“Would you mind watching the runners when they come by and letting me know who looks the best?”

“Oh.”

“Tt’ll be Craig Virgin in yellow, and the Japanese runner, Seko, in white.”

“Do I just leave you here?”

“Just leave the phone hanging.”

She laughed. “We were debating for twenty minutes whether to answer the phone or not.”

“Oh, yeah? How come you answered it?”

“T don’t know. I just thought the hell with it.”

The voice on the other end belonged to Caroline Conley, who was watching for some friends of hers to pass. She returned to the phone after a minute or two. “Bill Rodgers just went by,” she said.

“How does he look?”

“He’s pretty far behind. I don’t know. He looks strong. The other two, Virgin and Seko, are neck and neck. Rodgers is a full fifteen or twenty seconds behind, but he looks great!”

“What would your bet be between those first two, Virgin and Seko?”

“T think Seko’s going to do it. He didn’t even look like he was breathing hard. The other guy looked sweaty and tired.”

“Okay, thanks.”

“Hey, wait a minute. What’s your name?”

“My name? Don Kardong.”

“Well, the friends we’re waiting for—actually there are three of them, Kevin, Kenny and Jeff—are going to be running from New York to Boston next month to raise money for a disease that Kevin’s daughter has.”

“What’s the disease?”

“Tuberous sclerosis. Anyone who wants to help out can send contributions to the Tuberous Sclerosis Foundation in Carver, Mass. They know about the run there and they’d be the people to get in touch with. Can you spell your last name again?”

I spelled my name, promised to send money, hung up, and called the Bill Rodgers Running Center at Cleveland Circle, at about twenty-two miles. Not surprisingly, there was no answer. But if I had known, I could have gotten a good race report by calling one of a number of top runners who had dropped out or failed to enter this year’s Boston race, preferring instead to watch TV and play the video machines at Chip’s, a bar down the street from Rodgers’s store.

Mike Roche, who had had his foot stomped by a police horse while watching for the lead runners at Cleveland Circle, had screamed in pain and hopped across to Chip’s in search of ice. Garry Bjorklund, after quitting at Wellesley, was now scoring well at Space Invaders.

Not knowing they were available for update duty, I called instead to a booth somewhere between twenty-three and twenty-four miles. A girl answered.

“Hi,” I said. “This is Don Kardong with Running Magazine. Can you give me an update on the race?”

There was no hesitation. The girl, whose name was Paula, told me the runners had already come by.

“The first guy, the Chinese guy, probably came by about forty-five seconds ago. Virgin is about twenty yards behind him.”

“How’s Billy doing?”

“Oh, he’s pretty far behind. He’s got a lot of catching up to do.”

I called back quickly to Caroline at 35K and found that the women had just passed.

“W2 just went by,” she said. “Is that Patti Catalano?”

“Right.”

“She was running with a group of guys. And there was a van next to her. It looked like a Japanese film crew.”

“They’re filming the women’s race,” I told her. “How did Patti look?”

“She looked pretty strong. There was another woman not that far behind her, a blonde, number W8. She was only two or three seconds behind.”

And that was the first clear indication I had of the upset-in-the-making for Allison Roe of New Zealand. I had caught a glimpse, through the magic of phonebooth reporting, of almost the exact instant she made her move on Patti, a move that would bring her to a resounding Boston victory.

Time was running out on the men’s race, so I called the phone number of writer Ray Krise at Hereford Street, only a few hundred yards from the finish.

“The wheelchairs just went by,” Ray told me. “The top three were all within two minutes of each other, with Bob Hall in third. He’s a personal friend of mine, so he’s the guy I was looking for most. Curt Brinkman just went by in fourth. Number four, Jim Martinsen, was first, from Washington. I’m not even going to try to pronounce the name of the city he’s from. You’d probably do a lot better than I would.”

“Tt’s Puyallup, Ray. By the way, where exactly are you located there?”

“I’m at the corner of Newbury and Hereford Street, a hundred yards from the Pru. We’ve got three cases of beer in the fridge, and half the people I’m expecting are still trying to find parking. Coach Bill Squires has officially recognized this apartment as the best place in the world to watch the Boston Marathon from. Why don’t you guys come on over and get drunk?”

“Sounds great, Ray. See you in a bit.”

Back in the room, we had shifted our attention from the television to the scene out the window, in anticipation of Seko’s finish. It was clear at that point that, barring a confrontation with a Boston Police horse, nothing was going to prevent

him from securing the victory he had been planning for months. Seko’s intense hill training, three weeks of acclimatization in Boston, and the protection of his coach from the ravages of the media had provided the strength necessary for his triumph. Now, outside the hotel, helicopters swarmed in expectation of his victory, while hundreds of spectators ran across the roof of the Sheraton to watch Seko’s final steps along Boylston Street.

After what seemed like an unnaturally long run down the final stretch, Toshihiko Seko broke the tape at 2:09:26, one second better than Rodgers’s previous Boston record.

Rodgers seemed to have closed the gap some on Virgin, but Craig held on for a 2:10:26, eight seconds ahead of a teeth-gritting Rodgers. John Lodwick and Malcolm East finished fourth and fifth a minute later, clocking 2:11:33 and 2:11:35. Greg Meyer, who had led at eighteen miles, was eleventh at 2:13:07, and the rabbit, Gary Fanelli, cruised in at 2:22:25, just making the top hundred. It was a day made for racing, as nearly three hundred runners slid in under two-and-a-half hours.

I thought I might be able to catch the latest development in the women’s race, so I called one of a set of four booths at a little past twenty-five miles.

“Have the women come by there yet?” I asked the woman who answered.

“No. Nobody here,” she replied.

It sounded like I had reached a wrong number, so I called another of the set of four. The same woman answered.

“Ts this the same number I just called?”

“Yah, but this is a public telephone.”

“TIsn’t this a phone booth along the marathon course?”

“No, no, sorry,” she replied, laughing.

Whether it was or wasn’t (and of course it was), it was clear I wasn’t going to get much of an update from her. I hung up and called Coolidge Corner, the twenty-four-mile mark. A man answered.

“Have the women gone by yet?”

“Yeah, two.”

“Was Patti in the lead?”

“No, she was second, probably twenty yards behind.”

“The blonde?”

“She was in first.”

It still hadn’t been reported on TV yet, but it seemed clear that Allison Roe was about to seal her upset victory. While we watched Seko and Rodgers being interviewed, my phone rang. I was hoping it might be any one of several people who had offered to phone in reports.

“Hello,” a woman said. “Do you need maid service today?”

That call signaled the end of my telephone escapade. I decided to quit letting my fingers do the running, sit back, and join the crew watching TV. In a few

minutes, Allison Roe crossed the line in 2:26:46, as close as anyone has come to joining Grete Waitz’s class of female marathon runner. She was whisked through the crowd by two police, one on each arm.

“Hey!” Jeff Galloway said in mock horror. “They’re taking her away!”

“They’re searching her for subway tokens,” said erstwhile Running Magazine publisher Jack Welch, who had been making similar comments for over two hours.

Next came Patti Catalano, setting a new American record of 2:27:51, yet obviously upset at having to play the bridesmaid at Boston for the third straight year. She was followed by Joan Benoit (2:30:16), early leader Julie Shea (2:30:54), and last year’s Boston winner, Jackie Gareau (2:31:26).

We all enjoyed a few minutes of the Allison Roe conference, but there’s something about hearing a beautiful blonde Kiwi talk about “undulating terrain” that makes one not want to sit in one place for too long. We decided to accept Ray Krise’s invitation to join the crowd at his place on Hereford Street.

A few minutes later we were in an apartment that is deemed “the best roadracing apartment in the U.S.” and “the best place in the world to watch the Boston Marathon, according to Bill Squires.” The latter was certainly true, as we found out by standing on the fire escape, where we could overlook the hundreds of Boston marathoners as they made their way over the last few paces of the course.

Ray did, as promised, have a fridge full of beer, and before long our enthusiasm over the various runners finishing reached fever pitch. We greeted George Sheehan as he passed without a shirt, and Jim Fixx as he finished without a smile. We watched the winners of various divisions that Jack Welch invented on the spot.

“There’s the first finisher in black high-tops!”’ Jack yelled. “There’s the first sweater finisher! There’s the first finisher in fluorescent shoes! There’s the first hoodlum! The first illegal alien! The first Halloween finisher!” And on and on in descending levels of absurdity.

We watched from the fire escape as Jack identified the gold, silver, and bronze medalists in the punk division, the latter with curly hair, a long-sleeved striped shirt, dark glasses, and red high-tops. The man was also second in the high-top division. We watched the gold medalist in the women’s punk division run by dressed entirely in green, including, of course, her face and hair.

We also watched and yelled for everyone who had their names on their shirts: Paul, Tricia, Barbara, Super Sue, Carol, Harold, Pat, Marty, Rocky, and the Havliceks (Muriel and Ed). Our chants of “Fred! Fred! Fred!” usually brought some sort of tired response from the identified runner, and a chant of “Pretzel! Pretzel! Pretzel!” to the local vendor below actually resulted in a couple of the salty biscuits flying our way. Free of charge.

When we didn’t have a name to yell, we yelled whatever was on the runner’s T-shirt. “No Nukes! No Nukes! No Nukes!” and “Small Is Beautiful! Small Is

Beautiful! Small Is Beautiful!” and “Save the Whales! Save the Whales! Save the Whales!” and “Oregon! Oregon! Oregon!” and “Free the Shah! Free the Shah! Free the Shah!” and “Spam! Spam! Spam!” Finally, when someone on the fire escape asked us, “What magazine did you guys say you were from?” we decided the fun was over.

It was about time anyway. Johnny Kelley was coming by, flanked by two motorcycles and dozens of runners. After he had passed to the thunder of the crowd’s appreciation, everyone began to leave. Police protection ended at four hours. The cool weather became light snowfall, and the wind was blowing harder. The last runners passed below us amid swirling trash and horse apples.

Thus ended my Boston Marathon. It was the first one I had followed by calling telephone booths along the way, and the gambit provided excellent coverage by on-the-spot reporters Catherine, Karyn, Tom, Peter, Marci, Ned, Mike, John, Caroline, Paula, Ray, Roy, and a few others. Generally, they gave better coverage than the networks.

When it was all over, when we were watching those last few bandits finishing their twenty-six miles below, I realized what a great day it had been. Excellent conditions, exciting racing, and the joy of screaming our inebriated heads off from Ray’s fire escape in raucous encouragement for the vast parade of Boston Marathon finishers. It was the most fun I’ve ever had at a Boston race.

Next year, though, I don’t intend to fly all the way to Boston just to follow the damned race by calling phone booth numbers from my hotel room. After all, I’ve still got those numbers, and I’ve got a phone in my bedroom. Next year, I won’t have to fly to Boston at all.

(OCTOBER 1980) GRETE WAITZ—NEW YORK 1980

We sat, we sprawled, we huddled in the room for invited runners at Fort Wadsworth, waiting for the start of the New York City Marathon.

Outside, the wind gusted above thirty miles an hour. It had blown down the runners’ tent shelter and knocked over the world’s largest urinal. Fourteen thousand runners cowered behind bushes, under blankets, and inside garbage bags, hoarding their warmth while they waited for the race to start.

In the invited-runners’ quarters there was very little noise. Some quiet discussions, a flurry of excited greetings from Patti Lyons-Catalano to everyone when she entered, then more subdued quiet.

Suddenly, so it seemed, the Finns, led by Lasse Viren, were up in the middle of the room, rubbing some sort of ointment on their legs. The powerful analgesic scent brought back memories of high school cross-country meets, when we used

the lotion in liberal quantities before races. I hadn’t used it since, nor, I suspected, had most of the other runners in the room. Everyone stared in rapt attention.

After a minute or two, a few other runners followed the Finnish lead. They began borrowing dabs of analgesic and rubbing it on with grim determination.

By now the Finns were down to jockstraps, and the analgesic balm was being applied to arms, torso, and buttocks. It didn’t take long for the rest of us to be drawn in. In a few minutes the entire room was alive with runners rubbing themselves with analgesic. Lasse looked up, noticed the result of the Finnish example, and said something in his native tongue to Eino Romppanen, a Finnish-born American in the room.

Eino nodded. “Lasse says,” he announced to us all, “that he’s rubbing on reindeer shit.”

And to emphasize the point, he added on his own, “That’s Lasse’s secret—reindeer shit.”

To my left, Grete Waitz stood, several large dabs of liniment punctuating her thighs. She rubbed the stuff in. Even Grete had been caught up in the analgesic mystique.

Even Grete. The phrase suggests the uniqueness of the individual, the uniqueness of her excellence among female distance runners. Twice she had run the New York City Marathon. Twice she had set the women’s world record on the difficult New York course.

She had never lost a marathon. Or a road race. Or a cross-country race. No other woman had run under 2:30 before.

She has been to women’s distance running what Viren has been to men’s. And now she stood rubbing Lasse’s secret into her legs, preparing for a cold day in New York.

“Have you used that before?” I asked.

One day she may learn to lead reporters on, the way Lasse does. To lead them around in circles of reindeer and blood-doping and Nordic nonsense when they search for the secret. For now, though, she answered simply and truthfully.

“Yes, when it’s cold.”

I was searching for the secret, too, or at least the essence, of Grete’s astounding successes. I hadn’t told her so, for fear of upsetting her race plan, but as she attacked the New York streets in her third marathon, I would be tracking her, trying to learn how it was that Grete always managed to humiliate the roads she traveled.

There were many questions on my mind.

Would this be the day Patti Lyons-Catalano would seriously challenge her friend and athletic foe, Grete Waitz? I had spoken with her the day before, and she seemed fit and eager for a good race. Having set American records on the

roads at every distance from five miles through the marathon during the preceding months, she seemed a likely bet to oust Grete as Marathon Queen that day, if anyone was a likely bet.

What about the weather? Was the wind going to help or hinder performances? At a press conference Saturday, while gusts of wind and rain pounded the windowpanes behind him, Alberto Salazar had come as close as he ever would to retracting his predicted first-marathon time of 2:10.

“T want to set the record straight on that. What I meant to say was that if someone else runs 2:10, I’ll run 2:10.”

Thus did Alberto make a slight bow of courtesy to the New York City monsoon.

And what about my own performance? How easy was it going to be to run Grete’s pace? I considered the likelihood of dropping off a fast pace and hobbling home to Central Park, without dignity and without a story. I didn’t like the image at all.

I began rubbing more reindeer droppings on my thighs and calves.

Fifteen minutes before race time, I was still undecided about one thing. Should I start on the women’s side near Grete, or on the men’s side as the color of my number suggested?

Thad gotten permission to start with the women, which would be the surest way of keeping Grete in sight, but something about trying to link up with the lead group of females after three miles of divided running was intriguing. I was torn between the two starting positions.

I imagined myself on the women’s line, six inches taller than anyone else, showing up clearly in all the pictures. That was not a photo my friends would let me forget. The image sent me straight to the men’s section on the Verrazano Bridge.

The cannon shot beginning the marathon was deafening, prompting the horde of runners to take off like . . . well, like frightened reindeer, I suppose. We stampeded down the road, trying to avoid a good trampling.

A strong wind was at our backs, the New York skyline was ahead, and the cannon shot seemed to have opened a nest of helicopters above. Everywhere the buzz of blades.

My own thoughts were on the projected link-up with the women’s field in a few more miles. Was I running the right speed? Five-twenty pace seemed about right, but I passed the mile marker at 5:30. I picked up the pace slightly.

Suddenly a piece of yellow paper blew by. I looked over at the guy running next to me.

“There’s nothing I hate more,” I told him, “than getting passed by a piece of paper.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he returned. “He can’t hold it for the distance. He’ll crumple at twenty miles.”

We came off the bridge and turned onto Ninety-second Street, and in a minute or two we spotted the first runners from the other section. Photograph fiends, no doubt, sprinting madly to get their pictures in the New York Times. The actual lead runners, the top women, were likely close behind.

I followed other runners onto Fourth Avenue and looked behind to my left. I thought I could see the women’s group a short distance back, so I slowed down. In a few seconds Joe Catalano pulled up next to me.

“Where’s Patti?” I asked him.

“Right behind us.”

And there they ran, accompanied by several dozen male runners: Patti, Grete, and Ingrid Kristiansen, Grete’s Norwegian teammate.

One must wonder at the pack of males who ran with Grete and Patti through most of the race. There were at least two reporters I know of in the group, myself and Amby Burfoot, and for a while Joe Catalano ran there as well. But who were the rest? The guy on Grete’s left who offered her drinks at every aid station? The guy on her right who offered to shelter her from the wind? The guy who ran two paces ahead for miles and miles?

Responding to some kind of male protective instinct perhaps, or to a desire to be part of the phenomenon of Grete’s running ability, or maybe just caught up in the electricity surrounding the women’s race, they hovered around her like the queen’s court, following her from the very beginning through all five boroughs of New York City, until Grete finally left them all panting in the park, victims of her awesome speed.

True to her queenly bearing, Grete seldom acknowledged their offers of assistance, used them as shelter from the wind, or married her own pace to theirs.

One thing is clear. Grete needs no one’s help to break records. The men follow her, not vice versa. From start to finish she stares straight ahead, seeming to focus her concentration on a distant finish line, noticing no one around her.

I was amused to hear her answer to the question, “How long was Patti Catalano with you?” at the press conference following the marathon. I was amused not just because Grete’s answer of “Eight or nine miles” was way off, but mainly because, from start to finish, she never turned to see who was with her. How could she possibly guess the duration of Patti’s marathon companionship? The woman, quite simply, does not look back.

Patti’s own account of the separation of the two is more to the point. Hearing a five-mile split of 27:03, she decided the early pace might spell disaster later on. It was good-bye, Grete, at that point. See you at the finish.

Having raced the first five miles at a pace suggesting a 2:22 marathon, Grete was now all alone. Except, of course, for the gaggle of male runners, which included

fifty-year-old Piet Van Alphen of Holland, a 2:22 racer himself. Piet settled in next to Grete, where he ran for the next ten or twelve miles.

From five to ten miles, Grete’s pace slowed from 5:24 to around 5:34 per mile. As the crowd along Brooklyn’s Fourth Avenue watched the runners cruise by, they noticed Grete among the field.

“Is that Grete? That’s Grete, isn’t it? That is! That’s Grete Waitz!”

“Atta girl! Go get ’em!”

“You’re the foist goil!””

“She’s not a girl, she’s a woman.”

“Go, Grete, go!”

“Go, babe, you can do it!”

“Hey, there’s the first chick!”

“Yay, ERA!”

“Gret-uh! Gret-uh! Gret-uh!”

“Yaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyy!”

The men watching were appreciative, no doubt, but the women spectators went bonzo. The many images of females responding to Grete’s passage along the course merge in my mind into a single image of a screaming, smiling, cheering, shouting, multiracial woman waving both arms and jumping up and down in glee, emitting sounds that cannot be spelled.

They love Grete in New York.

Reindeer shit or no reindeer shit, it was bound to happen. After passing ten miles in 54:53 (projecting a 2:24 marathon), after cruising through a cluster of Hasidic Jews, and before reaching the marathon’s halfway point, we passed Lasse Viren. There was no photographer to chronicle the eclipsing of the best male Olympic distance runner of all time by the fastest female distance runner of all time. It happened quickly, quietly, graciously.

Lasse, out of shape for this event, had announced his impending retirement before the race. Shortly after we passed, he retired from the New York City Marathon and from active competition in general.

It happens.

Grete surged through the last bit of Brooklyn and onto the Pulaski Bridge. Her group of followers spread out a bit, thinned by the wind and the rising slope of the bridge. She passed the halfway point. 1:12:37. The woman who claimed she was racing for victory, not records, was on line for a 2:25:12, a time that would best her current world record by well over two minutes.

Off the Pulaski Bridge and through Queens, Grete’s pace continued at around 5:35. Her group of escorts had now dwindled to a half-dozen or so, some of them moving slightly ahead, some behind.

The crowd’s excitement had been continuous since we first entered Brooklyn, but as we ran up to the Queensboro Bridge, the noise faded. There were officials scattered across the span, but no spectators.

On the left, the Manhattan skyline stood impressively. From the left, the wind gusted without mercy. Shunning the protection of the male runners around her, Grete forged ahead, and all of us were buffeted continually, sometimes nearly tripping over the metal divider on the inside.

Aside from the wind’s pounding, though, the Queensboro Bridge was a quiet interlude in the race. As we ran across toward Manhattan, the skyline seemed inviting. This could almost have been a New York training run among friends. Except for the pace.

We came off the bridge onto First Avenue, and the Manhattan crowd exploded. Grete had arrived, they knew it, and they let her know it. Jack Waitz, Grete’s husband, rushed out to meet her as she passed sixteen miles, shouting words of encouragement that Grete could only dimly hear. Jack’s presence nevertheless seemed to give her a lift as she began her triumphant journey along First Avenue.

After the race, Grete would be asked how she felt about the New York crowd’s enthusiasm for her.

“New York is like a second home for me,” she replied, smiling.

Some home. The crowd on First Avenue was overwhelming. It’s easy to speak of being moved to tears, but it’s not an easy thing to experience in the middle of a marathon. I was surprised at my own emotional reaction to the uproar.

The response of the crowd, their enthusiastic endorsement of Grete’s athletic skill, was electrifying and emotionally devastating. At the time, I wondered whether the energy generated was a help or a hindrance to her. If figures can be trusted, her pace along the Avenue slowed to 5:45. But whether she slowed down or not, it was deeply moving and humanly reassuring to witness the ticker-tape response to the best female runner in the world.

Perhaps it hit a familiar chord in my own racing past, reminding me of one or two times when a large crowd cheered me on during a race. Nostalgic eyewash, I suppose, and I was glad when we finally left most of the First Avenue crowd behind and could concentrate again on the marathon itself.

At the end of First Avenue, where folks had hung a sign saying 19 /2 MILES—THE HARLEM WALL, we crossed the Willis Avenue Bridge and headed into the Bronx. For the first time during the entire race, I heard a shout out of running’s distant past.

“You’re not going to let a girl beat you, are you?”

Two or three years ago, this might have been every man’s favorite taunt. It is a measure of Grete’s greatness, of her influence on changing attitudes, and of her overall recognition among a New York crowd of marathon sophisticates that the taunt no longer seemed interesting.

When Grete Waitz passes Lasse Viren in a race, who can look the other way, pretending that women haven’t earned a place of respect in the world of athletics?

Next year in this marathon, maybe no one will yell, “Hey, you’re not going to let a girl beat you, are you?”

Grete passed twenty miles at 1:51:23, an average of 5:34, en route to a 2:26 marathon. The trick of the New York City Marathon, though, is that the course gets tougher as the legs get weaker. That 2:26 wasn’t guaranteed. At just past twenty-one miles we made a final bridge crossing and headed up Fifth Avenue into the wind.

Grete’s pigtail blew horizontally, and she almost stopped as the wind gusted repeatedly. In spite of this, she managed to stay close to her target pace. The record that she claimed not to want was within her reach.

By this point in the race, the rolling hills and gusting wind had withered most of her entourage. As she entered Central Park at twenty-four miles, she was the only leaf left on the tree, with the possible exception of this reporter, who was hanging on to the branch for dear life.

Grete, as she will tell you, is a track runner, not a marathoner. To prove that point, she began a startling race through Central Park to the finish. As she passed the flotsam and jetsam of the men’s race, her strength, speed, and determination spoke a story different from theirs: her face, strained but eager; their faces, drained of hope.

At about twenty-five miles, Jack again came onto the course, encouraging Grete’s sprint. She had just run the twenty-fifth mile in 5:13. On the digital clock at that point the time read 2:19:18.

The mad dash continued around the south end of the park, past spectators and lagging runners. Visions of Karel Lismont floated to mind. Grete ticked off another 5:13 on the twenty-sixth mile and sprinted the spare change to the finish.

I punched my watch as she crossed. 2:25:41.

As I crossed the line myself, announcer Toni Reavis said, “Don, Grete beat you again.”

Make that the only two times in the 1980 New York City Marathon that anyone spoke of girls beating boys.

The 1980 New York City Marathon was won in record time by a man who believes the marathon is just another distance race. Nothing unusual. Nothing sacred. A lot easier than some ten-kilometer races he’s run.

The women’s winner, Grete Waitz, ran start to finish without once glancing behind her to notice who was there. I ran undiscovered. The world record is unimportant to her, although her time of 2:25:41 would have won half the men’s Olympic marathons in history. She’s a track racer.

In the psychological slipstream created by Grete, Patti Lyons-Catalano, who stopped smoking and drinking a few years ago to become an athlete, became the second-fastest female marathoner of all time. The fastest American woman ever.

Bob Dylan, who has never run the marathon, who does not even own a pair of running shoes, and who scorns the excrement of reindeer, nevertheless summed up the race nicely.

“The times, they are a-changin’.”

Ten years ago, not one woman finished the New York City Marathon. In 1980, about two thousand finished, and only two spectators made comments about girls beating boys.

That, fellow runners, is what I call progress.

“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, step right this way for the wonderdrug of the decade. Made from lowly droppings of the princely reindeer, it is the Scandinavian secret of running success. Lasse’s lotion. Grete’s gift. You, too, can run with the stars. Step right this way… .”

Thirty Phone Booths to Boston will CONCLUDE in our November/December 2005 issue.

November/December 2005 M&B Sneak Peak

Here are just some of the stories we’re working on for our next issue:

– Adventures Along the Pony Express Trail by Davy Crockett (Honest!)

+ Part 2 of Guy Avery’s Half-Marathon Training Program

» Running Accomplishments Inspired by Mom by Judy Henderson

» Why Specificity of Training Is Important by Dr. Mary Trotto

» Bringing the Marathoning Body Out of Mothballs by Bob Seidenstein » Big Days at The Little Rock Marathon by Zoie Clift

+ Final Installment of Don Kardong’s Thirty Phone Booths to Boston

» Race Profile:The Houston Marathon