Redwoods Marathon (vol. 2, issue 3), 809 points; Idaho Great Potato Marathon (vol. 7, issue 2),771 points; Key Bank Vermont 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; Space Coast Marathon (vol. 9, issue 5), 815 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

Alberto Salazar Was a Marathoner Who Hated Interviews. He Chose to Do His Talking on Race Day.

The first six installments appeared in our last six issues. This installment concludes Don’s book.

LBERTO SALAZAR, 1982 FRIDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1982

In the Air Over New York City

It’s almost impossible for me to imagine anyone but Alberto Salazar winning the 1982 New York City Marathon. The confidence, the brashness, the brazen assurance of the man have warped my powers of imagining.

If he were a salesman, I would have bought the Edsel. Or the swampland in Florida. Or the Brooklyn Bridge. Not from slick talking, but from the sheer certainty emanating from him. Two days before the big race, a few seconds before landing in New York to watch him live up to his expectations, I am still enveloped in that confidence. Though it’s dark outside, I can still see almost the entire marathon course below, and I can imagine the race developing only one way: Salazar, amid a slowly dwindling pack of contenders, cranking out mile after blazing mile, finally running alone in the streets of the Big Apple.

Try as I might, I can’t visualize him dropping off the pace, abandoning victory in the New York streets below.

Flashback: October 5, 1982

The Salazar Residence

“I’m happily getting to the point now where I don’t care about interviews or anything anymore,” says Alberto Salazar, at home in Eugene. “I guess from a business point of view every bit of publicity you can get is good, but it’s just not worth it to me. You get sick of talking about the same thing over and over again.”

No one said interviewing him would be easy.

The mood hasn’t been uneasy but the answers have been quick, to the point, and generally uninspired. I’m searching for a clue to this man who stood the running world on its ear by winning his first marathon in 2:09:41 and setting a world record in his second. I’m looking for the previously undiscovered personality trait, hidden under some unturned rock of dialogue. Instead, I only seem to be asking questions he’s heard before, and hearing answers that lead nowhere.

Well, not nowhere. Only to the same conclusion. The straight-forward answer. That Salazar has developed confidence based on exceptional training. That he, with Coach Bill Dellinger’s assistance, has analyzed himself and his opponents, and organized a training schedule designed to place him at the front of the pack. Training schedule adhered to, conclusion obvious. Victory at New York.

“T feel I’m a better runner than I was last year. Stronger, faster. I think ’’m in a minute better shape, at least. I’m prepared to go through the half-marathon in 1:03.”

One-oh-three.

Astatement like that may seem pretentious, cocky, outrageous. Salazar, though, has never been one to hide his feelings, whether those feelings relate to his fellow runners or his own abilities.

“I guess I am more blunt than the average person,” he says simply.

But the prediction of victory, the analysis of his own ability, and the absence of braggadocio when he considers a 1:03 first half are all supportable with hard data. In 1981, Salazar ran 27:40 for ten thousand meters on the track; in 1982, he set an American record of 27:25.6. This summer he also set the American record at five thousand meters (13:11.9) and ran a new course record at the highly competitive Falmouth Road Race. Clearly, he’s in the best racing condition of his life.

Kenny Moore has pointed to Salazar’s family history and Latin pride in explaining Alberto’s success. As Salazar analyzes his own abilities, though, I sense more the cold logic of systematic training and undisputed results.

He isn’t especially excited to describe his training. Not to hide a secret, but rather to avoid belaboring the obvious. Stress and rest. Mileage and intervals. Heal the injuries, strengthen the weaknesses. The end point, then, is predictable.

“T don’t feel there’s anything anybody can do in there that I can’t. I feel I’ve got the speed on everybody that’s in the race. By that I’m not necessarily saying hundred-meter sprint speed.”

Salazar laughs, his brown eyes twinkling. Indisputably, he is not a hundredmeter man. He knows that no amount of pride can change that fact.

“What I’m saying is that I could beat ’em all at the five thousand, so if I wanted to I could wait until the last three miles. And I feel I’ve got as much or more strength than any of them. Surging, uneven pace—I’ve done that. So I don’t feel there’s anything I have to worry about from another runner. I’m just basically trying to get myself in as good a shape as possible.”

Salazar’s tendency to downplay his opposition is unsettling. With the depth of talent on the roads today, with the myriad things that can go wrong during two hours of flat-out footracing, it is surprising that Salazar continues to develop his strategy as if there were no serious challengers in the New York City Marathon field.

Amore typical distance runner would at least pay lip service to his opponents, hedging his own bets by complimenting the prowess of a half-dozen other runners in the field and recounting his own weaknesses. Salazar, though, is not typical. He has entered three marathons and won them all. He has predicted a world record and run true to his word. He has climbed out on a limb and stood there, unabashed, insisting that he won’t fall. And he has climbed back unscathed.

This kind of behavior earns considerable respect among the public, but deep down it also awakens a peculiar sentiment. Even as they stand in admiration, people begin to yearn for a challenger, hoping that someone will cut the limb or that it will simply break. Life is not predictable, and the marathon even less so. Aman should not be so sure of victory, should he?

When asked what strategy he would use if he were Beardsley, Salazar pauses and says, “Not run.”

He laughs and adds, “No, I’m just kidding,” knowing the furor that some of his past remarks have caused, and seeming to genuinely want to avoid antagonizing Beardsley. Still, he insists on giving the answer he feels is accurate.

“Tt’s just that I really don’t think he’s as good a runner as me. I don’t think he’s prepared to beat me. That doesn’t mean he can’t beat me. Obviously at Boston he was only two seconds away. Anything can happen. But given that I’m running normally and he’s running normally, I know that I’m better than he is, and I feel I’m faster than he is. So I don’t really see how he can beat me.”

Other opponents in the New York field rate lesser responses. A shrug, a simple word or two.

Salazar’s contagious confidence notwithstanding, though, one can’t help but wonder whether there might be a surprise or two in store for Alberto. Hot weather, a twisted ankle, a progressive tightening of the muscles and weakening of resolve that so many runners face after twenty miles, or some previously untested yet formidable opponent. Is there anything that might upset his plans?

“The only thing that worries me,” he confides finally, “is my tendency to have stomach problems.”

It is a small concession to uncertainty, but an important one. A man who admits the possibility of surprise is a man in touch with reality. That Salazar has accepted the unpredictable shows that his analysis of the marathon is based on fact, not pride. He has thought things through—his own training, his weaknesses, the things that can happen during a twenty-six-mile race—and only then has he dared to predict, simply, proudly, not boastfully, that he plans to win.

The small concession to uncertainty has put me squarely in the Salazar camp. As the interview winds down, we discuss other things—business, friends, fatherhood—and I watch as Salazar’s wife Molly works ultrasound treatment on Alberto’s foot, massaging the plantar fascia. I find myself hoping the twinges in his arch will not become Salazar’s achilles heel. That there will be no surprises, no hitches, no wrenches in the machinery of his performance at New York.

Saturday, October 23, 1982

Race Headquarters, New York City

We are supposed to be enjoying a prerace press luncheon. Instead, the roomful of reporters is hearing poorly translated answers from the U.S.S.R. marathon contingent. Several times I urge myself to pay attention, thinking perhaps there is a surprise for Salazar in their Soviet midst. In reality, though, the only possible surprise in the room would seem to be in the form of Anna Domoratskaya, whose 31:48 10K last summer suggests her long-distance talent and possible threat to Grete Waitz in tomorrow’s race.

None of the other principals is at the luncheon. Not Beardsley, not Gomez, not Waitz. Not Salazar.

At the interview in Eugene, Salazar had given his opinion of prerace interviews.

“T remember Henry Rono, when he first came to the States, saying he wouldn’t do interviews because they robbed him of energy. I used to laugh at that and think, “What nonsense. How could just talking about something bother you?’ But now I’m starting to feel the way he did. You get tired of talking about it.”

So Salazar is hiding somewhere today, storing energy. Since our meeting in Eugene, he has decided not to make a prediction for the race. He will run to win, of course, but there is no talk of a world record.

Throughout the press luncheon and the rest of the day, speculation will center on the likely battle between Beardsley and Salazar, the questionable challenge of first-time marathoner Carlos Lopes of Portugal, the relatively untested marathon talents of Jon Sinclair, and a few other possible threats to Salazar’s dominance. Marathon headquarters and the trade show will be their usual high-powered bizarre collection of snake-oil salesmen, long-distance groupies, and famous cartoon characters of the running scene.

At the end of the question-and-answer session at the press conference, as the table of edibles becomes uncellophaned, Gary Fanelli steps into the food line dressed in a black suit, black hat, black tie, and sunglasses, a la Elwood Blues, as is his custom. His appearance startles one of the Russian runners, who moves out of the way to let Fanelli through, eyeing him suspiciously.

Later, Fanelli wonders aloud whether the Blues Brothers have made it to Soviet television yet.

“They have,” I tell him, “but censors change a lot of the lines. For example, Elwood is translated as saying, ‘We’d be on a mission from God, if there was one.””

Fanelli smiles slightly, just as our waiter comes by to ask if he’d like his coffee freshened. “‘No, thanks,” he says, his smile gone. “It’s already so fresh I’ve had to slap it twice.” The waiter stares at him. “And this cheese here is so sharp it cut the roof of my mouth.” The waiter smiles and pours someone else’s coffee.

Fanelli is the only marathoner I can recall at that moment who has run the first half of a marathon in 1:03, as Salazar has claimed he’s ready to do tomorrow. And with Salazar and most of the rest of the top runners resting, it is up to Fanelli to represent a 1:03 half-marathon runner. Now, he is looking at the waiter through dark glasses, saying, “You know how to whistle, don’t you? You just put your lips together and blow. .. .”

Sunday, October 24, 1982

Fort Wadsworth

There is something dangerous-feeling about marathon morning in New York. Whether it’s the early-morning scramble to the shuttle buses, or the long ride to the starting line, or the crush of sixteen thousand runners at Fort Wadsworth, huddling in green garbage bags for warmth, or the surge of bodies through the gates near the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, or the chop-chop-chopping of helicopters above, or the pungent aroma of analgesic and sweat, there is something threatening and yet energizing in the air, like aerosol adrenaline. War, or a riot, is afoot.

In the press room at Fort Wadsworth, Mayor Koch walks in, wearing an “I Love NY” scarf. A few people gather around him to shake hands and smile inanely.

Much of the speculation about Salazar has now turned to whether he’1l show up wearing his Athletics West jersey and Nike shoes, or whether his agent has sold his chest and feet to someone else. My own feeling is that Alberto will make no major change before the race. If interviews are draining, business is worse,

and I can’t imagine him risking a marathon victory for any amount of money. To his credit, Salazar has avoided the majority of road races to protect his ability to race well in a few, keeping his sights on long-term goals. “My goals are of ultimate improvement, and running more races isn’t going to help that,” he had said in Eugene. “The money isn’t really that important.” Important or not, Salazar shows up in his usual gear and begins loosening up with the rest of the runners in the gymnasium.

Sunday, October 24, 1982

On the Bus

As Ken Kesey once said, ““You’re either on the bus or off the bus.” I’m on.

There are eighteen reporters and several dozen donuts on the media wagon. The rig, a Hertz courtesy van, is full, and marathon media guru Joe Goldstein has the unenviable task of refusing admission to anyone who hasn’t qualified for this New York City Marathon Holy of Holies. Goldstein has checked my credentials at least four times, and he’s thrown maybe twenty people off the bus. He is friendly, nasty as nails, and seemingly wired on adrenaline and caffeine. Goldstein is the perfect Ahab for our media ship.

On another vehicle, a truck with a multitiered platform facing backward, are several dozen photographers. It’s not easy getting on that vehicle either, and those guys don’t even seem to have donuts and a TV monitor as we do. As it turns out, they won’t have any good camera angles either.

The temperature is just shy of fifty degrees, and the wind is uncooperative to the tune of a ten-mile-an-hour head wind. As sixteen thousand people settle into their blocks, there is a kind of stillness, punctuated by helicopter noise overhead. The runners have left behind cheap sweats and garbage bags to be donated to New York’s needy, and now they pause, ready to go. An aerial burst says they’re off.

Just before the start, there’s a TV close-up of Salazar at the starting line. The image strikes me as unusually tense. The normally calm, confident Alberto looks tight and worried. Is there a surprise in store? Has someone gotten under Salazar’s skin?

For the next couple of hours, our bus is part of a wailing, careening, gawking, vehicular entourage for the leaders of the New York City Marathon. Our driver, Barbara, follows the blue line across bridges, through crowds, around tight turns, and over potholed New York streets, trying always to satisfy the needs of the writers within. Theoretically, we are to follow the instructions of field general Fred Lebow, relayed from his jeep to the radio operator on board the bus, then communicated to Barbara. In reality, we are in a two-hour battle for viewing supremacy with the photo truck, with twenty reporters barking instructions at once.

“Speed up!” someone shouts.

“Slow down! We can’t see!” someone else screams from the back.

“Don’t let the photo truck get behind you!” yells Goldstein.

“What’s the hurry?”

“Stop, Barbara! Don’t go any further!”

“What the hell! We’re miles ahead! Slow down!”

“Fred says to keep moving!”

“The cop says to move over!”

“What’s wrong with our driver, Joey? Can’t she understand English?”

Whatever drugs Barbara might have been on, she handled the constant abuse wonderfully, with only slight lapses into exasperation. With Barbara at the helm, our bus caught momentary glimpses of Salazar and friends whenever we were fortunate enough to outsmart one or two of the other vehicles. Most of the time, though, we all watched TV at the front of the bus.

In spite of the difficulty of our vantage point, it was a genuine kick to be at the front of the pack, watching as best we could as Salazar plummeted along, shadowed by a dwindling pack of contenders. The pace, slowed by the wind, was still under five minutes per mile, as Alberto managed to shave runner after runner from the lead group.

There is indeed a transcendence to sport. As we headed across the Queensboro Bridge, the Manhattan skyline seemed suddenly to leap into view, while helicopter blades whipped the air, sirens wailed, and a small pack of marathon runners headed into the bosom of Manhattan, where thousands upon thousands of spectators stood waiting to welcome them. It was hard to believe there was anything happening anywhere else in the world. There was only this group—A lberto Salazar, Rodolfo Gomez, and a handful of other runners—striving to outrace one another in the streets of New York.

Salazar had passed the half-marathon in 1:04:53, not the furious 1:03 anticipated. Still, there had been few runners left, and by twenty miles only three—Salazar, Gomez, and Lopes—were in contention. Suddenly, Gomez made a break, moving a few strides ahead.

We had learned later that a side stitch, the kind of stomach cramp alluded to in Eugene, had been bothering Salazar. Alberto tried to relax without letting Gomez get away, and in fact it was only for a few hundred yards that Gomez had the luxury of a lead. Just as suddenly, Salazar was back running with the Mexican.

The brief but clean break suggested that Gomez might yet pull an upset, that Salazar’s side might bring him to his knees. I wondered if Salazar remembered calling Gomez unpredictable in Eugene. I wondered if Rodolfo had him worried.

In truth, it seemed not. As early as twenty-three miles, as the two went headto-head in Central Park, I was picking Salazar. Though Gomez was tenacious, answering every surge with a countersurge, it seemed that Alberto was calling the shots, defining the race. Later, he would say he felt a need to soften up Gomez with repeated surges, knowing the Mexican’s formidable finishing kick.

With a few hundred yards to go, in a cloud of dust and with a hearty heigh-ho silver, Salazar sprinted one final sprint to the finish line, leaving Gomez behind, winning the 1982 New York City Marathon by four seconds. It had been one hell of a race.

Sunday, October 24, 1982

Minneapolis

I have beat a hasty retreat from New York City, running from the postrace press conference to the hotel to the taxi to the airport to the plane. A long flight to Minneapolis has gone by quickly, lost in a stupor of fatigue.

With a layover in Minneapolis, I head out for a run in the dark, soon finding my way to a nearby state park. I run quietly along the dark trails, remembering Salazar’s stunning, third-time victory at New York a few hours earlier.

At the postrace conference, an exhausted Dick Beardsley had sat confused, wondering why, on that day of all days, his legs had decided to cramp. In answer to a question about Salazar’s seeming dominance of the marathon, Beardsley had said, “No one is unbeatable.”

Gomez, looking somewhat fresher than Beardsley, had answered a similar question by saying, “Salazar is a great runner. But I don’t think he’s invincible.”

Invincible or not, it had been Salazar’s day. On that Sunday in October, he had beaten the best. There are other runners remaining—De Castella, Seko, a few Ethiopians—but on that day Salazar had proved himself king. He had won what New York City sportswriters were calling “The Duel in the Sun.”

As I run in Minneapolis, though, with only the moon for companion, it would seem to be a day for dreams, not dueling. A time to wonder if Salazar—confident, proud—would be able to continue to put together the training needed to remain at the top, to shake off the determined, bold challenges of people like Gomez.

“More and more people seem to be moving from the track into the marathon,” Salazar had said at the press conference. “By 1984, it’s going to be tough to win a medal.”

Still, running in the dark, with the moon as my witness, it already seems impossible to imagine anyone but Salazar winning any marathon in which Alberto Salazar is a participant.

Something about the face was familiar. Perhaps it was the expression. The eyes of a hunted animal.

I had just boarded a plane in Spokane, headed for Kansas City by way of Denver. I had been busy jockeying my bag under the seat in front, trying to catch an unnoticed glance at the girl sitting next to me and watching other passengers board, when I saw those eyes.

Double-take.

(“I know I’ve seen that face somewhere,” /Big Jim was thinking to himself./ “Maybe down in Mexico,/Or a picture upon somebody’s shelf.” )

Bob Dylan! Songster, star, semireluctant guru of the rebellious sixties. The rest of his band was boarding the plane too. I turned as discreetly as I could to catch another look, but he had already found his seat. My pulse had picked up.

“Wasn’t that Bob Dylan?” I asked the girl to my left, the one I had been peeking at before.

She looked at me. Young, blonde, dull. “I don’t know,” she said indifferently. “T didn’t see him.”

Probably into New Wave, I guessed, thus explaining her lack of enthusiasm for Dylan. I tried to stand up to look for the Jester again, thought better of it, and sat down. I vowed to get another look later on.

Fame, as we all know, is a two-edged sword. Fame is a flame. It warms and enlightens. It burns and destroys. It blazes and flickers and is gone.

In 1976, a few months after a surprising, gratifying fourth-place finish at the Montreal Olympic Marathon, I was sharing a taxi ride with the man who was a supposed failure because he had finished second in that same race: Frank Shorter.

Frank had won a race in Charleston the day before, and I had finished way, way behind. As we rode toward the Charleston airport, I in the front seat of the taxi, Frank in the back, the driver noticed Frank’s trophy.

“You won yourself some hardware, eh?” he said.

“Yep,” Frank answered quietly.

“You musta done pretty well in the race yesterday, eh?” the driver added.

“T guess so,” Frank responded.

By this time it was obvious that the driver didn’t know who was riding in his cab. I took it upon myself to introduce the two.

“This is Frank Shorter,” I told him. “He won the race yesterday.”

The driver looked in the rearview mirror. “You’re not really Frank Shorter, are you?”

Frank nodded. “Uh-huh.”

“Nah, you’re not Frank Shorter.”

“Hey, really,” I said, amused. “He’s Frank Shorter, and that’s the trophy he won yesterday.”

“You’re really Frank Shorter, eh?” he said, looking in the mirror again. There was a long pause. “What happened to you at Montreal?”

Frank looked at me, shrugged, and began some sort of explanation.

Back on the plane to Denver, I had pieced together a theory. Dylan had played a concert in Spokane and was now on his way to Denver for another. As a bornagain Christian, he had rejected unnecessary vanities like his own plane. He was flying coach with the rest of us normals.

I wanted to discuss my theory. The blonde to my left was obviously out. To my right, across the aisle, an impressive-looking woman was reading a track

article in Sports Illustrated. Another double-take. I know I’ve seen that face somewhere. . . .

I sat back. I know her too, don’t I? Didn’t I? I put my hand over my eyes, concentrating.

When I was in the seventh grade, parochially incarcerated, it was difficult for us boys to find a decent role model among the assorted nuns who made up the teaching staff. A nun who would step up to the plate and take a few swings during noontime softball games was an instant hit, so to speak, among us guys, but none of us hoped to grow up to be like her someday. You know what I mean.

One day, though, a miracle occurred. Our principal hired a P.E. instructor who played baseball for the Seattle Rainiers.

We were in heaven. A baseball star in our midst! He had an instant rapport and several hundred new fans. We worshipped him. We begged our parents incessantly to take us to a Rainiers game so we could watch our hero play. Imagine: our P.E. instructor up to bat with the best.

Imagine our disappointment in learning that he was not listed in the official baseball program. He was never in the paper, or on TV. When we finally went to watch a game, he was nowhere to be found.

This was his last year as an unheralded third-string Seattle Rainier. That was his only year as our adored PE. instructor. The disappointment and disillusionment I experienced were the beginning of my understanding of the responsibilities and pitfalls attached to “fame.”

Riding to Denver with Bob Dylan, I had just figured out who was across the aisle from me. I leaned over.

“You’re Kate Schmidt, aren’t you?”

She was. The top-ranked U.S. spear-chucker, fourth-place Olympic Games javelin competitor. We discussed track and field for a while, the impending boycott, and the Athletics Congress, until I finally had to say what was on my mind.

“Did you see Bob Dylan get on the plane?”

Her eyes lit up. “That was him. I thought that’s who it was.”

We talked a little more, but I was agitated. I wanted to look again. I got up from the seat and, pretending I needed to visit the bathroom, I sauntered to the back of the plane. He was nowhere to be seen.

In the bathroom, I stared at myself in the mirror. Where could Dylan have been that I hadn’t seem him on my way back? But then again, what difference did it make? I headed back to my seat, still without catching sight of him.

A friend of mine does a great impression of a certain type of customer who comes into my store. In my friend’s parody, he comes awkwardly up to the counter, staring in mock admiration, thrusts out his hand, and says, ““You’re Don Kardong, aren’t you? I just wanted to shake your hand. I saw you on TV in the Olympics.”

I cringe when he does this. And as I sat flying to Denver, I imagined myself confronting Bob Dylan, trying to come up with an approach that would be genuine and unique. But all I could think of was, ““You’re Bob Dylan, aren’t you? I just wanted to shake your hand. Et cetera.”

In Montreal I remember facing hundreds of people I had never met before, but who felt they knew me by virtue of my place on the Olympic team. Generally these were people who wanted to sit watching an event and say, “Hey, I met that guy down there yesterday, and he said . . .” We all know what it’s like, right?

I got so used to the hoopla and attention, and all the assorted duties and responsibilities of being the spectatee, that it began to warp my perspective on how people were perceiving me, and even on what I was doing there.

Was I running for their benefit, for the benefit of my country, or for myself? Or what?

By the time I returned to Spokane, the relative importance of the Olympics and my own participation and success there were distorted. I was reminded of this one day when I went to get my hair cut.

The stylist was bemoaning the state of my coiffure, saying in disgust, “Where’d you get this cut last, anyway?”

“In Montreal,” I told her, sensing the next question.

“What were you doing there?”

“T was running.”

I waited for her to tell me how excited she was to be cutting the hair of an Olympic runner. Instead, after a confused pause, she said, “Running from what?”

My ego shrank. I had learned something about athletic fame.

(“There must be some way out of here,” /Said the joker to the thief./“There’s too much confusion./I can’t get no relief…” )

When we landed in Denver, Kate and I got off the plane and waited. After a minute, Dylan and his band came walking down the gangway. We stared. (“J just wanted to shake your hand .. .” ) We walked ahead.

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Halfway down the passageway to the main terminal, Kate and I stopped. A group of Hare Krishnas were campaigning. Or were they Moonies? Certainly they were not born-again Christians, which Dylan and his group were. Kate and I stood by to watch the confrontation of the century, from which lyrical pearls of Dylanesque wisdom were bound to fall.

It didn’t happen. The Dylan group eased through the others like a breeze through the branches of a tree. Slight rustling.

Kate and I walked behind them. It had begun to dawn on me that we were acting foolishly, but we continued to follow anyway, keeping our distance.

The group came across a man holding a sign that read, “Krishna Never Died . .. Because He Never Lived!!!” This was a Christian, campaigning to throw the Hare Krishnas out of the airport. There was an exchange between Dylan and the man, then the group went on.

T hurried up to the man. “What did he just say to you?” I asked.

“Oh, he just said that if I needed help getting the Krishnas out of the airport, he and his friends would be willing.”

“Don’t you know who that was?” I asked, hoping to enlighten him.

“No, who was it?”

“That was Bob Dylan.” I waited for the amazement to show.

“Who’s that?” he finally said.

We walked on into the main terminal. Kate, tired of the game, left to visit some of the shops. I followed Dylan down to the baggage area. As he stood with friends, waiting for bags to arrive, I took a good look at him and decided I was never going to get up the nerve to talk to him. It was time to stop star-gazing. I walked away.

Ten minutes later I was back, wandering slowly by, eating an ice-cream cone. I wanted one more look.

Up until this point I imagined I had been discreet, I had watched without interfering. I had enjoyed proximity to a great star, but I had not bothered him. He did not even know I was there. So I thought.

As I walked by for my last look, Dylan suddenly looked right at me. Stared at me. Glared at me. I looked away.

I headed sheepishly back to the plane, with Dylan’s eyes still in my mind. There had been some anger and some pain in them, but mainly they held a desire to tell me something. “I know you’ve been following me. Leave me alone.” The eyes were human, the same hunted eyes that had spoken of the cutting edge of fame when I first saw them, when he first got on the plane. They were eyes that told a lot about fortune. They were eyes that were difficult to look at.

(People called and said,/““Beware, doll, you’re bound to fall.” /You thought they were all . . . kiddin’ you.)

In 1977, Frank Shorter was injured. Having committed himself to run a tenkilometer road race in Seattle, though, he showed up in spite of the pain. He finished fortieth, having to swallow a lot of athletic pride.

Afterward, a young runner noticed him in the crowd, and went quickly over to him.

“Hey, you’re Frank Shorter, aren’t you?” The young fan spoke in admiration.

“No,” Frank said, with considerable wit and wisdom. “But I used to be.”

(SPRING 1975) PEKING, OUT MY WINDOW

It was 1975, my first year of teaching. A year earlier, I had run a personal best of 12:57.6 in the three-mile, following in the slipstream of Steve Prefontaine and Frank Shorter. I had chased Prefontaine in particular for several years, never quite able to beat him but always inspired by his example.

As I remember, when training or racing on a track, I would often discover myself trying to imitate Prefontaine’s style, his self-assuredness, and even his irritating habit of getting just far enough ahead of the rest of the pack to be able to cock his head slightly to the left around each turn, keeping the competition in view, letting them know who was in control. Truly, he led a lot of his competitors to their own best efforts, through inspiration, intimidation, and excellence.

And then in 1975, a year after being pulled along by Prefontaine to a personal record at three miles, and largely on the basis of that performance, I was invited to join a U.S. track and field delegation to the People’s Republic of China. I left my classroom behind to take advantage of the unique opportunity.

Gerald Ford was in Washington, and George Bush was in Peking. So were Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai, the Oscar and Felix of the Chinese Revolution, though both were teetering on death’s edge. Great changes were occurring in China, as evidenced by the invitation to ninety U.S. track and field athletes to tour the country in the spirit of friendly competition.

We entered Red China (we were advised not to call it that) along a narrow footbridge outside Hong Kong and went on to Canton by train. During the next two weeks, we competed three times—in Canton, Shanghai, and Peking—and learned as much as we could about the country. The Chinese were friendly, inquisitive, subdued. They were patient in tolerating the strangeness of their Western guests, though wherever we went we were greeted with intense curiosity. Very few Americans had been in China for nearly thirty years.

Our first impressions were positive. The Chinese had gone a long way toward solving the age-old problems of hunger, disease, and shelter. After two weeks, though, virtually all of us were anxious to get out. For cowboys and cowgirls, this was a land with too many fences.

I recall Gary Tuttle, one of the strongest defenders of China’s achievements, jogging around a practice track in Peking on our next-to-last day. Somewhat disillusioned after two weeks, he was yelling at some workers, “In the States you guys would be making eight bucks an hour. How do you like your jobs since Liberation?”

Unaware of what he was saying, they seemed to like them just fine.

Today, almost ten years later, those of us who made the trip still relive those two weeks of unusual travel whenever we get together. These are some of the other memories that have stuck with me, distilled through time, edges blurred. With luck, most of the facts are there. I know the essence is right.

We are on the outskirts of Hong Kong on the train, having stopped at a village to pick up passengers. An old man, perhaps eighty, is pushing a handcart, stacked high with milk bottles, along the loading platform. He is bald, with a stringy beard that hangs from his chin like gray moss.

As he moves his cargo past the train windows, one wheel of the cart hits a rut, and the load falls over. Dozens of milk bottles hit the pavement, spraying glass and milk everywhere.

For a moment the old man stares at the mess. Then, like an actor, he slowly turns to face his audience watching from the train windows. A wonderful smile wrinkles his face.

Ican still see his toothless grin. Chinese philosophy could not be better represented.

We are in Canton, where the weather has been warm and humid. I decide to go for a run with Dick Buerkle, a 5000-meter runner who will later set the American record for the mile indoors. In China he is mischievous and irreverent. He has already decided that what the Chinese need is not improved technology or greater political freedom or fewer hassles from the Soviet Union. What they need is eight hundred million joy buzzers.

Buerkle is known for many things. He runs, at least at times, with bells on his feet. Tiny bells like the Hare Krishnas wear, but for Buerkle they hang on his shoelaces like the sun and the moon, establishing a rhythm for his running.

Buerkle has also been known to let out loud grunts during a race. Just his way of forcing trapped air out of the diaphragm. Fellow runners consider the practice unnerving.

Now, Buerkle and I are running through the streets of Canton. People are everywhere—working, walking, transporting goods, selling food, performing various jobs. They scurry antlike in the street, appearing confused but in reality following carefully prescribed plans.

Buerkle and I follow the Pearl River for five miles, then turn for home. Heading down a side street, we pass through a busy market area. As we pass, thousands of Chinese turn to stare.

Is the sight of a tall, skinny American and his short, bald companion, both of whom are running clad only in shorts, so unusual? Judging from the crowd reaction, yes.

We have arrived in Shanghai, which must be the grayest city on earth. The sky is overcast, the buildings are stone, the people dress in drab colors, and the river moves like a lazy rat toward the sea. The only color billows in pink from the top of a chemical-factory smokestack.

During the afternoon, a small group of us have traveled to a meeting with Dr. Chen, who has gained worldwide recognition for his success in reconnecting severed digits and limbs. Fingers, toes, feet, arms, and legs need not fear a premature separation from the bodies to which they belong when Dr. Chen is around. With tremendous skill and microscopic surgery, he has allowed the workers of China to remain the workers of China, machinery notwithstanding.

lam sitting next to a reporter from one of the wire services while the doctor is talking. Dr. Chen describes a case of bone cancer, where an arm has been removed, the cancerous section cut off, and the remaining, shortened arm reunited with its host. He tells of a man whose thumb was smashed by a machine, crushed beyond hope of restoration. In the interest of health and production, though, a big toe had been sewn back on in the thumb’s place. And so on.

Someone asks Dr. Chen how such operations are paid for, and the doctor describes a health-care system that includes contributions from the commune and the province, resulting in no expense to the patient.

“That’s amazing,” I tell the reporter next to me. “In the States, an operation like that would cost someone an arm and a leg.”

“Yeah, right,” he replies, with no hint of amusement.

We have traveled to a commune outside of Shanghai. On the way, we have passed a virtual parade of vegetable carts, mostly human-powered, transporting produce to the city.

Wherever we go in China, whether to a factory, school, hospital, or whatever, we begin our tour by gathering in a meeting room for a brief preview of what we’ll be seeing. The scene is almost always the same. There is an electric fan on the ceiling, and pictures of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin on one wall. On the other wall, Chairman Mao. We sit at long tables and are offered green tea and cigarettes. The Chinese themselves smoke like greasers, and seem surprised that few in our group do.

In short order, the manager, the headmaster, or in this case the production chief arrives on the scene to tell us how the operation fits into the overall scheme of things in the country, with frequent references to Chairman Mao.

In the case of this particular commune, the man is obviously pleased with its record of production, whereby over two tons of veggies are being shipped to the city daily. This makes his operation one of the most successful in all of China.

“You may have noticed on your trip here,” he tells us through an interpreter, “that most of the vegetables are transported to the city by bicycle power. In the future, we hope to switch to a more modern system, with gasoline-powered vehicles.”

We all nod politely.

“On the other hand,” he says, tongue-in-cheek, “maybe our present system isn’t so bad, since we end up promoting the health of the commune through physical exercise.”

We chuckle.

“In fact, though,” he adds seriously, “there is some truth to this idea, since one of our young men here finished second in the recent provincial cycling championships.”

We murmur our approval, while in the back of the room a hand goes up. It belongs to Dick Buerkle, who asks politely, “Does he ride a ten-speed vegetable cart?”

The interpreter struggles to translate.

We have finished a trip to a turbine factory, where we hear of China’s plan for increasing production without relying on the fickle support of other countries. China will do it, we are told, through educating the masses to the goals of communism, thereby encouraging diligent work.

Throughout the tour, Dick Buerkle has been irritated by the constant attention to his bald head. The Chinese, whether in an athletic stadium, on the street, or in the factory we have just visited, cannot seem to help staring at this bald foreigner. At the track meet in Canton, Buerkle has confessed to feeling “like a damned monkey in a cage” as he jogs around the track accompanied by incessant murmuring in the stands.

Outside the factory, we reboard the buses, while favorite interpreter Fong Hsu answers our questions about the tour. Buerkle seems intent on being a burr in Fong Hsu’s saddle, although he clearly enjoys the man. On another day, Buerkle has let Mr. Fong save him from a contrived tumble into the Pearl River, and it is not uncommon for a tour to be delayed while the interpreter goes searching for the errant Buerkle, who is generally looking for Chinese graffiti on restroom walls. In return for Mr. Fong’s concern for his safety, Buerkle has let the man in on the secret of fitting six elephants into a Shanghai automobile (“Three in the front, three in the back”), though Mr. Fong does not understand this example of Western humor.

“There’s one thing I don’t understand, Fong Hsu,” says Buerkle as we sit in the bus outside the factory.

“Yes, what is it?” replies Mr. Fong, eager to educate us on the ways of his country.

“Tf the Chinese workers are so interested in increasing production and achieving socialist goals,” he says, pausing to let the seriousness of his question impress Mr. Fong, “then why do they all seem to have the time to stop and stare at a bald head?”

Laughter reigns, while the irritated Fong Hsu scolds Buerkle for asking questions that do not need asking.

We are at the Great Wall of China. I am on the Great Wall of China.

It has taken three buses—two to ride in, one to follow as a spare—to get us to the top of the mountain pass where the wall is, and even then we almost don’t make it, as two of the buses break down on the way up.

I try to take a picture of one of the Red Army soldiers, but he waves the camera away. Instead, I focus on the distance, where ruins of the ancient structure zigzag in ribbons across the hills. I look toward the arid regions of Mongolia, where the enemy once gathered to attack, and I look back at the wall, built over generations and generations.

It speaks eloquently of China’s historical regard for foreigners.

We are in the stadium in Shanghai. Russ Hodge, our team captain, has asked us to gather, coaches excluded, in the middle of the field before the meet. As we listen, Russ informs us that it has come to his attention that some members of the squad had been smoking marijuana in their hotel rooms the night before, unbelievable as it seems.

“We’re here as ambassadors of the U.S.,” he says, or words to that effect. “We really don’t need to create an international incident. Whatever you do, please get rid of any of that stuff that’s around. Enough said.”

That evening, I imagine, marijuana that entered China in a pair of socks or a pole-vault pole exits via the Shanghai sewer lines, never to interfere with Sino-U.S. relations.

We are in the main stadium in Peking, a few days before our final meet. During our stay in China, many of us have had difficulty doing long runs. In Canton we had been chased by a taxi driver, motioned to stop, given confusing hand signals, and finally allowed to finish our run. In Shanghai we had been confined at one point to a walled park, later to the stadium, and finally to the courtyard of the hotel where we were staying, none of which had allowed us to run freely.

At other times, though, we had run without restriction through the streets, dodging bicycles and a few automobiles, enjoying the unique opportunity to see the sights of China without a tour guide.

Never had we been told by anyone—Chinese or American—that we could not run when and where we wanted. Our delegation leaders, schooled in the ways of China but blinded by enthusiasm for the place, had insisted during our orientation session that we would be able to run through the streets without objections from our hosts. “Just let them know where you’re going so they won’t worry,” one had said.

But the truth reveals itself abruptly as a small group of us try to leave the stadium to run back to the hotel. The Chinese shut the gates, and the guard motions for us to return to the track.

“Who says we can’t leave?” says Buerkle. He repeats this until an interpreter finally arrives. “Take me to the man who won’t let us leave,” he says. We are directed to our coach, Bob Giegengack.

“Our Chinese hosts don’t want you to get hurt,” he says. “They don’t want you running through the streets.”

This is the first we’ve heard of it, and it irritates me. Do they want us to be safe, or do they want us not to see something? In some sort of absurd ritual, I argue with Giegengack. I ask why the Chinese, if they don’t want us running in the streets, haven’t told us so. I ask what exactly the problem might be. I ask other stupid questions. Finally, Giegengack clamps down.

“T order you not to run in the streets,” he says.

“That’s easy for you to say,” I reply.

“No it isn’t. It’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to say.”

Fuming, I leave to go sit in the shade under the stadium. Nothing makes a whole lot of sense right now. Not Giegengack, not Chinese inscrutability, not my own overblown anger. The only thing that makes sense is an intense desire to be running freely wherever I choose.

We are in that same Peking stadium, a few days later, during the third and last of the U.S.—People’s Republic of China track and field meets. The Chinese have been hopelessly outclassed in this confrontation, just as the U.S. table-tennis crew had been hopelessly outclassed by the Chinese in the first athletic exchange between the two countries a few months earlier.

Now the Chinese athletes, most of whom have been in training for only two or three years, are having to eat humble pie. It must be difficult, I decide, to be embarrassed in front of sixty thousand people. The Chinese, urging “Friendship First—Competition Second,” handle it well. Someday, perhaps, they will be a track and field powerhouse.

My race, the five thousand meters, is near the end of the meet. I am expecting no competition from the Chinese, but my mind is on qualifying for the U.S. National Outdoor Championships in a few weeks. The time I need to hit is about 13:20 for three miles. Twelve laps, right?

Gary Tuttle, Ted Castaneda, and I have agreed to share the lead, trading twolap segments. As it works out, Castaneda is scheduled for laps eleven and twelve,

so I trail him into eleven-and-a-half laps and then kick, sprinting wildly to the finish of the twelve laps, crossing first.

Unfortunately, a 5000-meter race is twelve-and-a-half laps. I realize this after pulling up and watching the other runners continue sprinting toward the real finish line. “I was wondering why you were kicking so hard with a half lap to go,” Castaneda says later, after I follow him in.

I realize what it’s like to be embarrassed in front of sixty thousand Chinese. I also realize how difficult it is for a six-foot three-inch Caucasian to hide in Peking. Several Chinese fans point and grin at me later.

Itis the evening after the meet, our last night in China. For a group of American postadolescents, we have behaved ourselves remarkably well until now. But we have been confined a little too long, we have resisted various temptations, and we have been toasting profusely the health of our Chinese hosts all evening, our glasses filled and refilled with a Chinese distillate called mau-tai. The shot-putters called it “high test.” Chinese never drink more than a sip at a time, but the Americans are throwing the stuff down with no objections from Mother Respectability.

The Chinese are watching us with what I interpret to be cautious amusement. They have not had a chance to watch Americans at play for almost thirty years, and they are getting an eyeful.

As the noise level increases, a few of the athletes begin to cross the boundary between fun and poor taste. Sino—U.S. relations are perhaps threatened, or so the interpretation goes. Team leader Willie Davenport asks pole vaulter Terry Porter to tone it down. Porter objects profusely, vociferously, and physically, taking a swing at Davenport. Porter is carried out to the team bus, unconscious.

As the party winds down, Coach Giegengack is at the head table, making a speech in praise of Chinese hospitality, the achievements of the current leadership, his hope for future Chinese success in track and field, and/or many other things that a coach is expected to say at such times.

In the back of the room, an unnamed runner is standing on his chair, shot-glass raised, yelling, “Bullshit! Bullshit! Bullshit!” at the top of his lungs, grinning like a Cheshire cat.

We have arrived at U.S. customs in San Francisco, having had two weeks of good fun, a crash course in Chinese affairs, and enough adventures to fuel a storyteller for years. We are tired and anxious to get home.

As I wait to have my bags inspected, Dick Buerkle approaches. One final joke, I assume, although his face suggests otherwise.

“Did you hear?” he asks.

“Hear what?”

“Prefontaine was killed.” Pause. “In a car accident.”

Ihave no response. I sense only disbelief and a tightness in my guts.

(SPRING 1985) EPILOGUE

As I look back to 1975, Steve Prefontaine’s death seems to stand as a line of demarcation in my own life. Before then, I was a track runner. Afterward, a marathoner and road racer. Before then, I was a student and a teacher who ran. Later I became a runner, a race director, a shoe-store owner, an athletic politician, and a writer about running. Running became my work as well as my joy.

The sport of running, so simple and basic, has also changed its character since 1975.

Prefontaine would have been no more likely than the rest of us to predict what would happen to the sport he loved. Running would become unbelievably popular. It would become a profession for the world class. Both of these developments, I think, would have pleased him.

During the same period, though, the Olympic dreams of thousands of athletes would be disrupted by politicians. This wouldn’t have surprised him, but it would have driven him to a frenzy that even fifteen miles at full tilt wouldn’t have eased.

A year after Prefontaine’s death I finished fourth in this race, the five thousand meters, at the Olympic Trials at his track, Hayward Field, in his town, Eugene. The three spots on the U.S. team were filled by Dick Buerkle, Duncan Macdonald, and Paul Geis. “If those are our three best five-thousand runners,” I heard someone say later, “then we’re in big trouble.” It wasn’t true, of course. Macdonald, for example, went on to set the American five-thousand record, and Buerkle became our best indoor miler. But a year after Pre’s death, a race without him still seemed inconsequential.

Fortunately for me, I had already qualified for the Olympic team in the marathon, so my fourth-place finish in the five thousand didn’t cost me that experience. I was able to witness the Montreal Olympics firsthand, to feel the effect of politics on that event, to find myself representing other people’s dreams, to begin to understand what life in a fishbowl is like. One image from Montreal that has always stayed with me is that of a security guard sitting outside the eleventh-floor lodgings of the Israeli Olympic team, machine gun resting on his lap. Inside, I imagine, Olympic idealism kept its head down and stayed away from the windows.

In finishing fourth at the Olympic Marathon that summer, I was instantly transformed from a middle-distance runner to a marathoner. I didn’t lose interest in the track, but competitive opportunities seemed to flow more easily from the roads from that point forward.

Prior to the Olympics, I had won the Peachtree Road Race in Atlanta, somewhat mystified at the aura surrounding that event. Three thousand runners! When I returned home to Spokane after the Olympics, I suggested that we try to stage

a similar event there, even if we would never have anything on quite the same scale. In 1977, we had over a thousand runners for the first “Lilac Bloomsday Run.” Last year, 1984, we had over thirty thousand.

Those who study (if that’s the right word) the running boom put its beginning in 1972, when Frank Shorter won the Munich Olympic Marathon. The seeds may have been sown at that time, but before 1976 no one I knew ever mentioned such a thing. After that, though, the boom began to dominate things. Eventually, so many people were jogging on city streets that motorists stopped shouting “Hut, two, three, four!” at them.

With the growth of running in the late seventies, the opportunities for top runners to earn a living from the sport, whether as speakers, consultants, writers, quasi-coaches, or simply as top competitors, grew as well. Unfortunately, the rules governing international athletics didn’t allow such unseemly capitalizing on athletic prowess. Absurdly, amateurism stood in the way of earning a paycheck, claiming moral superiority while encouraging runners to cheat to pay the bills.

Prefontaine’s spirit couldn’t have been far removed when runners finally decided to challenge the rules. At the Cascade Run-Off in Portland, Oregon, in June of 1981, many of the sport’s top road racers ran and accepted prize money, in defiance of international amateur regulations. That act led to rule changes at the national and international level that would have amazed Pre, making it possible for many of today’s top runners to earn money from the sport without losing competitive opportunities. The existence of an athletes’ organization like the Association of Road Racing Athletes would have delighted him.

In 1972, Prefontaine had seen the worst the Olympics had to offer, when ters murdered athletes. But afterward, I think, it was still possible to believe that that sort of intrusion was a fluke, a vicious footnote in Olympic history. Today,

few people are quite so hopeful, and almost no one speaks with much conviction of the future of the Games. Will they survive? If so, in what form?

Much has changed in the ten years since I last chased Prefontaine, unsuccessfully, around the track. Today I find myself acting as writer, reporter, and interpreter of many of those changes, as well as showing up occasionally as a character in the story. This particular book has been filled with ten years of my attempts to define, enjoy, and reflect on the sport that has changed so dramatically during that time.

And the next ten years will bring .. . ?

I feel certain of only one thing. Ten years from now, I will find myself puffing up a hill somewhere, running a course that I’ve run many times before. And I will be enjoying myself immensely.