was viewed with suspicion and distrust. He had run some outstanding races behind the Iron Curtain, but the English had never seen him.

Emil’s running style was distinct—and disturbing. One reporter said Emil ran like a man who had just been stabbed in the chest. But no one can deny it worked for him.

“When they [the English] saw him startin the 10,000, they agreed that he was probably the worst runner they’d ever had the misfortune to watch,” I wrote in a profile of Emil in my 1983 book Masters of the Marathon. “He was wearing a faded Czechoslovakia shirt; although young, his corn-colored hair was already thinning, his tongue hung limply out of his mouth, he made noises that sounded like tortured huffs and wheezes, and his face contorted into such a pained grimace that people in the stands winced to see him.”

Little by little, as the race progressed, the sideshow that was Emil Zatopek running near the back of the field began to captivate the crowd. The sparse Czech fans began to chant “Zato-pek! Za-to-pek! Za-to-pek!” The chant was soon taken up by nonCzechs. The crowd knew no runner stood a chance against the great 10,000-meter world-record holder, Viljo Heino, but like a battered dog that people take to their hearts out of pity, the crowd cheered for Zatopek.

Itturned out that it was Heino who needed pity.

Inexorably, like a force of nature, Zatopek moved up through the field.

The heat of the day became a factor. Heino dropped. Emil pushed the pace. He crossed the finish line, victorious, only to discover that an official had counted wrong and there was one more lap to run. He rolled back into his painful gait and finished the race with anew Olympicrecord of 29:59.6. The crowd joined together to serenade him with the Czech national anthem as he circled the track.

Emil’s determination and drive earned him a slew of nicknames, including “The Czech Locomotive” and “The Beast of Prague,” but for anyone who ever interacted with him, his nickname could have been Golden Heart. His opponents on the track were, off the track, some of his greatest friends. Alain Mimoun of Algeria, an enormously talented runner, spent most of his career taking second place to Emil, buthe remained one of Emil’s devoted friends. When he finally beat Emil in the 1956 Olympic Marathon in Melbourne (where Emil placed sixth in the wake of a hernia operation), Mimoun shooed the officials and press away from him while he waited for his friend Emil at the finish line, where they embraced warmly.

Emil embraced everyone warmly. A stranger who approached him was merely a friend he hadn’t yet met. Joe Henderson, editor of Runner’s World from 1970 to ’77, tells the story of meeting Emil at the 1972 Munich Olympics. Joe and a small group of friends were at the Games as part of a Runner’s World tour. Emil was speaking to some German friends, but when

March/April 2001

Joe and his little band approached, Emil turned his attention to them while he switched smoothly from German to English. “We talked for five minutes at most,” Joe reports. “He would forget this encounter as soon as he walked away, but we would never forget that he took time to talk with doting strangers for the millionth time in his life.”

Amby Burfoot, editor of Runner’s World and 1968 Boston winner, remembers when he met Emil in New York when he was invited to the marathon. “He was in Bill Rodgers’s hotel room and, even though he was the invited guest, he was scurrying around serving tea and clearing dishes. His energy was unmistakable, as was his joy at being a member of the human race.”

Everyone who ever met Emil has a story. In 1991, a group of fans at Stanford University brought Emil over from Czechoslovakia to see if the medical experts there couldn’t do something to ease Emil’s encroaching arthritis. One of my friends called to alert me that Emil was in town for a few weeks. Although Stanford had assigned one of their press officers to control the press access to Emil, with a few phone calls, I managed to meet

him for two hours at a quiet house just off the Stanford campus. By that point, Emil had received word that the doctors couldn’t do anything to relieve his pain. But pain was the last thing on his mind as he told stories, added details to one of the incidents in his life I’d carried in his profile, and generally bubbled with enthusiasm for life.

There may be no runner in history who has the army of rabid fans Emil does. His dedication as a hard-training runner and joy in being alive (a joy we too seldom stop to contemplate) were inspiring—and continue to be after his death. Because Emil didn’t die. A spirit as vital as his en- | joysarebirth every time someone who he has touched remembers him and smiles a knowing smile after shedding a tear at his passing.

For the next issue of M&B, Emil Zatopek fan (and our favorite artist) Andy Yelanak is working ona special cover to honor “The Czech Locomotive”; I’m reviewing the 1991 interview with Emil to update my 1983 profile; and a dozen or so of his closest friends in running are preparing brief favorite memories of Emil, the running legend and legendary human being. —Rich Benyo

March/April 2001

On THE Road

WITH Joe LeMay

I’LL NEVER PLAY THIS GAME

I Never Played the Game was the title of Howard Cosell’s autobiography detailing his years as a broadcaster for Monday Night Football (American football, that is). One of the most well-known names in the profession, Cosell never played organized football himself, but he sat on the sidelines for decades watching and giving the public his take on every NFL drama he could find. He felt his “outsider” perspective gave him an insight into the game that his peers lacked.

What Cosell was to NFL football, I am to the ultramarathon. I run 10K through standard 26.2 marathons, but I’ve never run, nor ever plan to run, an ultra. But I have watched quite a few of them and will share some observations on the recent Chancellor Challenge 100K I witnessed in Boston, where Ellen McCurtin (my wife) competed.

WHAT QUALIFIES AS AN ULTRA

Ultras are defined as anything longer than a conventional 26.2-mile marathon; they start at SOK and go all the way up to distances no one should even consider running (i.e., the Race

Across America). In my mind, ultras are between 50 and 100 miles. Fifty kilometers is only five miles longer than aregular marathon, so that distance is not putting your body through much more suffering than a regular marathon. The distances between 50K and 50 miles are infrequently run “orphaned” distances. They’ re sort of like the 2,000meter event in track—people run them every now and again, but Track and Field News puts them in a little box in the corner of one page for their rankings issue, and people generally look at them trying to figure out what they mean in terms of other events. Does someone’s performance in the 2,000 mean he has potential at 5,000? That sort of thing.

Fifty miles, on the other hand, is a distance nearly twice as long as a standard marathon, so it’s plenty of hurt, and 50 is a nice round number that even track-stupid Americans can relate to. Of course, the standard ultramarathon distance is 100K (or 62.5 miles), sort of like 10K is the standard road-racing distance. This is the most popular distance and the one used for the World Championships.

© PHOTO RUN

March/April 2001

One hundred miles is another good standard, as it’s a distance somewhat commonly run. Over a dozen 100mile trail races can be found in North America, and some people, such as Janice Anderson of Georgia, try torun all of them. She has run at least seven this year, nearly winning one of them outright.

ULTRAS ARE TIME CONSUMING

There’s a time investment in running an ultra that some runners might not want to accommodate. For instance, this year’s Chancellor Challenge 100K started at 7:00 a.M., and the winner didn’t cross the line until after lunch. The back of the pack arrived after sunset. (If you’re not that fast, you’ d better be good at running in the dark if you want to finish an ultra—I recommend bringing the most powerful headlamp you can find.) So, an ultra can eat up an entire day, and if you factor in prep and recovery time, your entire weekend is pretty much shot.

For me, attending the Chancellor Challenge meant missing the season premiere of “Baywatch.” (A show I watch for its brilliant plot twists and exceptional photography. For example, once the female lifeguards were forced to perform a rescue—of all female victims—in their underwear, which of course was the latest stuff from Victoria’s Secret.) I’m one of those rare sorts who knows how to

March/April 2001

program his VCR, but imagine some people at the Chancellor missed the episode altogether. Committing to an ultra can require a sacrifice.

ULTRAS NEED A CREW

Although somerare ultrarunners pride themselves on doing without a crew, most find it convenient to have one. It helps to have someone to make sure all the stuff you need is ready when the time comes. Typically, ultramarathoners will pack at least one extra pair of shoes, an extra pair of socks, extra articles of clothing, and an assortment of drugs (Tylenol, Advil, Tums). Then there’s all that food. Not just the usual Gu, Gatorade, and PowerBars. Ultramarathoners also need easy-to-digest stuff, like turkey sandwiches or peanut butter and jelly.

I crew for my wife (see me in a recent Ultrarunning magazine helping her during the Vermont 100Miler). As acrew person, being ready with all the necessary stuff at every point you’re going to see your runner presents a set of challenges. I might add, at the risk of sounding like a fashion model, that it’s actually hard work. Fortunately, at the Chancellor, I was able to stay in the same area the entire race and see Ellen three times per each 10K loop. At the Vermont 100-Miler, Thad to drive from point to point, never knowing exactly when she’d turn up. Plus, you never know exactly what your runner is going to want when they come in—and when they want

ON THE ROAD WITH JOE LEMAY 13

something, they want it now. You’ ve heard the phrase “hurry up and wait”? Well, for a crew member, it’s just the opposite: you wait and wait and wait, then hurry, hurry, hurry. In fact, ve been told that CREW is the acronym for Cranky Runners, Endless Waiting, and I believe it.

At the Chancellor, Ellen began in a three-way race for third place. The first two runners, Edit Berces and Valentina Shatyayeva, started out well ahead of the other women and stayed that way. Ellen hung in her three-way race until about 40K, when things started to break up. She was having trouble with one leg dragging. We had discussed what to doif that happened. We’ re both 33 and have been running for a long time. Neither of us is too proud to drop out of a race if it’s not going well. My ownrule is that I drop out only when I’m forced to (if I pull a muscle, for instance), but I don’t run ultras. People who run ultras really hate to DNF because it’s an event where finishing is most of the challenge.

I’m not much of a coach. I don’t easily assert my will upon others, and I’m not good at reading people and telling them what they need to do ata given moment. At the Chancellor, I did manage to suggest to Ellen: “Go through SOK and get a split, then decide.” I was quite proud of myself for that. Ellen finished the first 50K in 4:07, which, if doubled, would be about her PR. So, she had a tough decision to make.

ULTRAS ATTRACT A CERTAIN KIND OF PERSON

Tregularly train over 100 miles a week and sometimes grow tired of the shocked reaction I get from “normal” (i.e., sedentary) people when I tell them that. People who run ultras get it even worse. To a certain extent, I understand the reaction. To be honest, I’m not convinced that running more than 20 miles at once is healthy. Yet, even though I rank pretty high among U.S. distancerunners and have competed in big races all over the place, it’s often Ellen whom people want to talk to when they meet us— and it’s not because they discern that I’m antisocial by nature (although I am). They want to hear all about how she trains for her ultras and how it’s possible to actually finish one in a reasonable time.

Maybe it’s the extremism of the event that makes it so interesting to others and pulls in those distance runners looking for something different and challenging. I was surprised when my friend Dan Held recently transitioned from conventional marathons to ultras. But, then again, he’s got that strong compact body with the big quads you see on successful ultrarunners. A 2:13 marathoner, in his first 1OOK, Dan’s finished fourth in the World Championships in 2000. When I asked him if he’d ever run another, he said, “Yes, probably,” although he had sworn otherwise during the final miles.

March/April 2001

Ellen got started on ultras when someone suggested she try a 50-miler in Central Park. She ran 6:29 and went home thinking, So this is what I’m good at. And she is good at it. But at the Chancellor, when things started getting rough after SOK, she fell into some of what she calls “normal person thinking.” Atnoon, the Tufts 10K for women started at the Boston Commons—all of maybe 800 meters from the start of the 100K. When Ellen saw them, she admits to thinking, Wouldn’t it be nice to race just one 10K instead of doing this all day?

Apparently not nice enough, as she stuck with the ultra until the end. She finished in 8:47, about a half hour behind where she wanted to be, but still good for fourth place and $750.

The amount of backing the Chancellor Corporation put behind this event was remarkable. It’s one of the only ultras with prize money. There was alsoa free dinner the night before and another immediately after the race.

As we were eating, Ellen’s friend Craig Wilson finished the course in 11:36 to beat the 12-hour cutoff. Even after finishing, he kept running because he wanted to run with some people still out there. I watched him go, then looked at Ellen and shook my head. This is one sport I’ll always be content to observe from the sidelines.

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March/April 2001

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The Deed Is Done

Struggling for Years to Wear Boston’s Laurel Wreath, the BAA’s Own Comes Through.

This is the fifth of an exclusive series of marathon memoirs by Johnny J. “The Younger” Kelley of Mystic, Connecticut. The other four articles by the 1957 Boston Marathon winner appeared in volume 1, issue 4; volume 2, issue 1; volume 3, issue 2; and volume 4, issue 3. Look for the next “chapter” in a future issue.—Editor

A GUST of frigid wind shakes the wheeled tunnel connecting the DC-7, in from Los Angeles, and Chicago’s air terminal. It’s a chilling ushering back to the North American life I left back in late October 1956, six weeks ago. I’ve flown out of Melbourne, Australia, via New Zealand, Fiji, a tiny equatorial atoll, Oahu (landing on the 15th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack), then to LA.

In Melbourne I had finished a deflated 21st in the Olympic Marathon. Flying high off my runner-up’s 2:14:33 at Boston in April (though a re-measured course revealed a 1,180-yard shortage), I had landed Down Under with high hopes. But it was not to be. My teammate Nick Costes, who placed 20th, ruefully summarized: “Kelley, we were part of a parade of zombies.”

Now, as I trudge into Chicago airport’s concourse lugging my big Olympic issue nylon suitcase beneath a bulging shoulder bag, my head is swirling with uncertainty.

No matter. I’m homeward bound.

And how did Robert Frost define home? “. . . the place where, when you go there, they have to take you in”? I don’t know. I do know I must get back to my wife Jessie, who’ ll take this little setback in stoic stride; as will my mother Genevieve, who lives in Groton, Connecticut, too, a hop and a skip from our Litton Avenue apartment, in her tiny government project house. I can almost hear Ma sighing now, saying, “Oh, Johnny, I don’t see how people can run that far—it seems so crazy.”