Marathon Man

by Bill Rodgers

  Confidence is everything in the marathon. You can’t run scared or you’ll be eaten alive by the competition. Winning road races built me up. My victory at the National Championship in Gloucester gave me a huge psychological lift. I had defeated some very good runners there. Then I got a call from the local New England representative of the AAU and he suggested that I run at San Blas, Puerto Rico, and represent the United States. The thought of competing in my first international race sent shivers down my spine.

  I remember that trip very well. On the plane ride down, I was reacquainted with my deathly fear of flying. Once I arrived in San Blas, I met up with my teammate Tom Fleming. Brash and outgoing, he spoke in a rapid-fire Jersey accent. He liked to make good-natured wisecracks. The gaudy uniforms of another country, for instance, would certainly draw a sharp one-liner. But while Tom was loose and cavalier off the course, he was a ferocious competitor on it. He was one of those guys who trained, trained, trained.

  Tom and I stayed in a little guesthouse on the edge of town, surrounded by goats and chickens and fields of corn. Today, runners would be put up in luxury hotels. The simple accommodations offered a beauty all their own.

  I remember Tom and me waking up at four in the morning to roosters crowing. We walked down the dusty street and stopped at a little café for breakfast. We used our per diem to get these very greasy eggs with bacon cooked in with them. They were delicious. Later, I met up with my old friend John Vitale, an old college rival from the University of Connecticut. We embarked on a five-mile run through the steep, narrow streets of the village. Afterward, Tom and I went for a boat trip and I stole a live sea creature—an urchin. Later, I attended a festival named after St. Blaise, the patron saint of throat sufferers. At the festival, we enjoyed singing, dancing, and carnival rides. In the evening, we attended a Spanish Rotary dinner. Here, I met some of the foreign runners, including Lasse Virén of Finland, Ron Hill and Don Faircloth of Great Britain, and Henry Rono of Kenya. Virén, who had recently won Olympic gold in the ten thousand- and five thousand-meter events at the 1972 Munich games, was the best distance runner in the world. I also bumped into Amby Burfoot. Once again, I was following in his footsteps.

  On Friday, I went out and ran most of the mountainous course, about ten miles in the heat. Looking back, I was crazy to exert my effort like that two days before the race. I was also finding it hard to adjust from the winter air of Boston to the warmth and humidity of Puerto Rico. Practically overnight, I went from running through a blizzard to running in sweltering heat. I never considered that the sudden shift in conditions would have such a strong effect on me. Another lesson learned.

  Back at the guesthouse, Tommy was telling me about his experience training in Finland.

  “You hear what I’m saying, Bill?”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’m talking about the Finish runners,” said Tommy. “They’re training full-time.”

  “How do they do that?” I asked.

  “How do you think?” said Tom. “The government sets these guys up with some job that doesn’t even exist.”

  “Lasse Virén?”

  “Lasse Virén is supposedly a policeman. He’s about as much a policeman as you and I are.”

  “Huh,” I said.

  “Virén isn’t out their fighting crime on the mean streets of Finland. He’s training for the Olympics. He’s running a hundred fifty miles a week.”

  “One hundred fifty miles. Are you serious?”

  “He doesn’t have to hold down some crappy job like us. He can train to his heart’s content. Day or night.”

  “If Virén’s running one hundred fifty miles a week…”

  “We should be doing one hundred sixty,” interjected Tommy. “We’re waking up at the crack of dawn. Slipping and sliding all over the road in the pitch dark. Freezing our butts off. What are the Finns and Russians doing?”

  “What?”

  “They’re here! In Puerto Rico! Or some other warm-weather climate. They’ve been sent down here by their countries. Set up with training facilities. All their expenses have been taken care of. All they have to concentrate on is getting fitter and stronger.”

  “We need that kind of support.”

  “From who? The AAU? It’s a joke. Joe Namath makes four hundred thousand dollars. We can’t make a penny. He’s got endorsement deals. What do we have?

  “Zilch.”

  “A tiny per diem and a jersey with our name on it. Good luck, pal. Even the land Virén built his house on was given to him by the Finnish people. I’m telling you, he’s treated like a rock star in his homeland. We’re treated like freak show oddities.”

  “Lasse Virén. The Big V.”

  “Is that your nickname for him?”

  “You like it?” I asked.

  “The Big V is going down!”

  I laughed. “I’m not too sure about that.”

  You couldn’t find two guys with more different personalities. Tom was clearly a bull in a China closet, or whatever the expression was. He probably felt the marathon should have been a fifty-two-miler, rather than a twenty-six-miler. Tom was one of those guys whom the energy just emanated from whenever he came into the room; wherever he was, you felt the electrons zapping out from him. As for me, Amby used to joke that he wasn’t sure if I was awake or asleep most of the time. But on some level, runners are runners. From that trip on, we became lifelong friends.

  The race started at four in the afternoon. It was about 85 degrees with high humidity. We were bused out to the starting line, a dusty road in the middle of the hilly countryside. We were way out in the middle of nowhere. Tom had run this race before, so he was less overwhelmed than me. It was exciting to be there, wearing the American uniforms, representing the United States.

  San Blas was a wild and sometimes harrowing race that ran through narrow streets and mountain passes and then back again. Thousands of screaming fans flanked the tight, winding lanes, cheering us on. As we raced down the steep descent into the town, I could see the church spires at the finish line far in the distance. All the way down this long, long hill, we heard the roars of the thick crowds that lined the course. It reminded me of Boston, minus the Red Sox caps and pasty drunks.

  San Blas was the most grueling race I’d ever run. I went out trying to compete with the Finns. I stayed with them for about seven miles, but then they started to pull away. The pounding on the rough and bumpy terrain caused bad blisters to form on the soles of my feet. I also got painful side aches in the heat. I estimated that the blisters and side aches had cost me at least a minute. I faded. A few runners started to pass me on the course. The Finns took the top three spots. Tom was the top American finisher, in fifth place. I hung on for seventh place, the next highest American.

  An hour later I was lying in bed with a wet washcloth on my head, thinking about the lessons I’d learned racing for the first time against a bunch of international long-distance assassins. One: I needed to put in more miles. Big V miles. Two: A full-time marathoner has a major advantage over a part-time one. It was only a matter of time before the city of Boston made me an honorary policeman. Or not.

  After all the official postrace celebrations and award ceremonies, Tom and I partied with the other runners at a local bar. Hours earlier we were trying to decimate one another along sharp-curved mountain roads, baking to death, and now we were enjoying ourselves with beer and cocktails, telling jokes and sharing laughter. The rum and Cokes flowed all night, which helped bridge the language gap between our respective countries. Ron Hill was dancing around, wearing a big grin on his sunburned British face. I spotted Lasse Virén take a big swig of rum from the bottle. There was a real macho “I can party as hard as you can” attitude to this sport. No fistfights, but a certain intensity lay beneath the raucous times. Maybe because a certain intensity was required as a distance runner—you trained hard, you raced hard, you celebrated hard.

  TWELVE

  Racing for Blenders

  APR
IL 21, 1975

  NEWTON HILLS, MASSACHUSETTS

  The runners who ran Boston many times—Tarzan Brown and John “the Elder” Kelley, and Young Johnny Kelley and Amby Burfoot and Tom Fleming and Alberto Salazar and Joan Benoit Samuelson—understood how the intensity of the race grows throughout the course, climaxing along Heartbreak Hill, six miles from the finish. The crowds that lined the six hundred-meter ascent cheered so loudly when the leaders approached you could hear them a mile and a half away. The crowd really let loose a wall of sound as runners crested the top of the torturous hill. This is where you get down into the nitty-gritty. The race is usually down to two or three runners. It was here in 1979 where I really had to duke it out with Toshihiko Seko of Japan, who was running his first Boston Marathon. “If you didn’t have Heartbreak Hill,” he would later say, “you would have an easy course here.” True, and if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

  But in 1975 I was four years away from my duel with Seko on Heartbreak Hill. Right then, I didn’t have another runner pushing me. I only had the sense of going for it, and wild-eyed Jock cheering me on with his Scottish accent that you couldn’t understand. Here was the father figure to Young Johnny Kelley rooting me on, himself a top competitor forty years earlier. He wasn’t just some bureaucrat or a number pusher. Today, there are more race officials and coaches who really know the marathon, but in those days it was different. Few people understood the marathon. Jock did. He knew the punishment runners put themselves through to run the race—the cramps, the blisters, the dehydration—and the significance of conquering the ultimate test of stamina and endurance. It’s crazy that Jock had fired up his protégé Johnny Kelley around this same spot along the course in 1957 on his way to victory, and that the same encouraging voice had lifted my roommate Amby Burfoot over Heartbreak Hill in 1968, and now his booming voice was bolstering my courage through the most critical part of the journey.

  Huge crowds screamed and yelled on both sides of the narrow strip of road I sliced through. To acknowledge them would have been a dangerous waste of energy. This was no time to be distracted. I needed only to let my mind wander for a moment to invite disaster. I focused my eyes straight ahead. Just because I wouldn’t disengage from the battle, not even momentarily, to smile and wave to the cheering crowds didn’t mean I wasn’t emotionally feeding off them.

  When I reached the base of Heartbreak, I caught sight of my shoelace flopping around. I stopped and bent down on one knee to tie it. I glanced up calmly to see Jock Semple barreling toward me like his hair was on fire. “Whatya doin’, lad?” he screamed. “Don’t stop! Don’t stop!”

  It looked like Jock’s big Scottish head was about to explode. I didn’t share his sense of panic. Just the opposite. I felt calm. In control. I knew I had time to stop and tie my shoes. This was as good a place to do it as any. And, of course, this wasn’t just any pair of shoes, but “lucky” shoes sent to me by Steve Prefontaine, the magical distance runner who put Nike on the map.

  But what if Drayton or Fleming or Ron Hill caught up to me? Okay, first of all, I felt I was far enough ahead of them that stopping for a minute to tie my shoes would not put my lead in jeopardy. But let’s assume the worst-case scenario—I look back and there’s Drayton charging toward me. Why panic about that? I had plenty left. I could match anybody’s pace. If he came up on me then I would put it into another gear. We would have a fun race over the last six miles.

  Nobody wants to give up a lead. The point is that stressing about losing your position at the front won’t make you run any better; in fact, it will make you run worse and the fear itself may actually cause the thing you fear to happen. On the other hand, if the concern had never entered your mind, it would never have manifested itself in a reality.

  Some runners won’t stop for anything. They run with blinders on. I remember Amby running with this kind of singular purpose even on our casual training runs together through the trails around Wesleyan campus. He was baffled how I could take in the scenery, how I could stop to pick up items I spotted on the side of the road. But I didn’t think there was anything strange about this—observing the world around me was a large part of what made running so fun. There were no rules. You could run faster or slower or stop altogether to examine a strange, glittering object poking out of a babbling brook.

  Of course, some will say that’s all well and good so long as you’re talking about a training run. After all, the stakes are nonexistent. But a serious competition is different; it requires a serious, intense, grit-your-teeth attitude. But running maniacally is a good way to burn yourself out. I think we run best when we are calm and relaxed; at least, that’s what I’ve found. I focus better when I’m calm and relaxed. I have a better idea of what strategy to employ; I can hear what my body is telling me; I can hear what my opponent is telling me. Because marathon racing is so brutally competitive, so physically intense, so mentally challenging, it’s imperative to keep your head. You need to maintain a clear picture of what’s happening in the here and now.

  I’m not sure the leader of the Boston Marathon has ever stopped to tie his shoes, let alone six miles from the finish line. But stopping to tie my shoes gave me a chance to collect myself. Then, a little farther along the ascent, I stopped for water. The crowd lost their mind.

  “What are you doing?” they yelled out. “Keep going! Keep going!”

  Meanwhile, up ahead on the lead vehicle, Jock Semple was having a small coronary. I didn’t see what the big deal was. I hadn’t taken a lot of water earlier in the day. Now I needed the water. I stopped because I was never skilled at getting a good swallow while running, and also I recalled my high school track days when I felt great after stopping for a cold drink of water partway through a workout.

  I ran a little farther up the hill and then stopped again to drink another cup of water. By now, Jock was pulling out whatever hair he had left. I swear you could hear his near-hysterical voice over the cheers of thousands: “Git goin’, lad. Yeev got a chance to break the record!”

  Here was Jock giving me the word that I was on pace to break Ron Hill’s course record. I just kind of let that go in one ear and out the other. I didn’t care. For me it was all about first place. I was fired up. I was racing the lead vehicle. I knew I was running better than I had ever run before in my life. I felt moderately strong when I won the Philadelphia Marathon the previous year, but not like this. I was floating along without any wasted motion, my mind focused on the rhythm of my smooth stride. No hamstring cramps, not even the slightest of muscle twitches. No blisters. No sores. No fatigue. Everything was just—perfect. Nothing would stop me now. That’s the way I felt.

  The road was narrow and the cheering crowds were up close and personal as I charged up the granddaddy of all the Newton Hills. The fans formed a funnel, guiding me into the heart of downtown Boston. Running through that narrow stretch was very intense—like the Tour de France for marathoners. I loved that! It was frenzied, but that was part of the excitement. I didn’t know what was going to happen. I wasn’t thinking about what was going to happen. I was just racing.

  In the end, I had stopped four times for water and once to secure an untied shoe along the stretch of Newton Hills even though I was leading the Boston Marathon, even though I was on a record pace, even though I had a crazed mob of fans imploring me to keep running, even though I was only six miles away from realizing my dream.

  At the end of the day, it didn’t matter what Amby thought or Charlie or Jock or all those thousands of people lining the street. I was going to decide when it was time to stop, not anybody else. Because, first of all, you can always stop. You can always decide here is where I need to take in the scenery, here is where I need to take a deep breath, here is where I need a cool sip of water, here is where I need to tie my shoes. And secondly, you know better what you need than all the people in the world combined. Let them call you crazy. They will anyway. Run your own race. I’ll repeat that: Run your own race. Trust me, you will find m
uch more success in life if you do. And you’ll have a lot more fun along the way.

  ONE YEAR EARLIER

  BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS

  It was the start of 1974. As they had for decades, iron-fisted governing bodies and backward-thinking race organizers controlled the sport of marathoning. Meanwhile, track guys dominated the races themselves. I was not a fast track guy. I was a road runner. More to the point, I was last in a long line of New England road runners. The tradition went all the way back to the early 1900s, to men like Clarence DeMar, Les Pawson, and Tarzan Brown. DeMar, who won seven Boston Marathons from 1911 through 1930, passed the torch to John “the Elder” Kelley, who passed it to Young Johnny Kelley, who passed it to Amby Burfoot. I was hoping to be the next to carry the flame.

  How could you not run through the city streets with your head held high, knowing you were a direct descendent of such great men? Throw a million empty beer cans at my head as I run along the road in my gym shorts. Yell out the worst, most obscene words you can think of. Hassle me with your hulking vehicles. Denigrate my passion. This the thing I love more than anything in the world. Tell me it’s worthless and idiotic. Tell me I’m wasting my time. Point out that there’s no money in it. Tell me I’d be better off looking for a job. Tell me that my focus should be on making enough so that I could afford to buy a nice home, drive a big car, and take a vacation to Club Med once a year. Do all this. I’m still going to run ten miles before work. Better yet, I’m going to run another six miles when I get home.

  That spring, I enrolled as a graduate student in special education. I had told my Greater Boston Track Club teammate Don Ricciato, who then worked at Boston College and is now director of the BC College Campus School, about how much I had enjoyed working with the mentally challenged people at the Fernald School. He encouraged me to enroll in the special education program at Boston College and used his contacts to set me up with the right people, for which I thank him. My dad spent his life teaching—it made sense that I would follow in his footsteps.