Running the Chicago Marathon , October 26, 1978
In the fall of 1977, I returned
to Kalamazoo College as an Assistant Professor of Education, having graduated
from K in 1963 with an English Major and a career as a track athlete, high and
low hurdles and the quarter mile, and football player, defensive end, and my
football coach, Rolla, now Athletic Director, asked me to coach the men and
women’s cross country teams, and I said, “I have never even seen a cross
country race,” and the sly fox said, “OK, why don’t you be Ed Baker’s Assistant
Coach ng in track this spring, and I said, “OK,” and I was hooked, I had
forgotten how much I knew about running and, I just loved working with the
guys, and I went up to Rolla and said, “I want to coach cross country, starting
next fall,” and then I looked in the
mirror and realized I was about 30 pounds overweight and I hadn’t done any
walking or running for years, and in January, 1978, I was reading the magazine,
“Runner’s World,” and saw an article that said if you want to run a marathon,
26.2 miles, this is the way to train,
and I went to the track the next day, telling myself I would run a mile, ran
two laps, a half-mile, and said that’s it for today, completely winded, and so it began, going to the track every day
and slowly increasing my distance and in a couple of months I hit the road,
running two miles a day, and then over the months I increased it, until I was
running about 5 miles a day, 6 days a week, and then in June I began increasing
my speed until I was running 8 minute pace per mile, for 6 miles, and day after
day I built-up my stamina, my speed and my distance, occasionally, some of the
guys from the cross country team would join me on a run, particularly Joel
Menges, and kindly run my pace, and I had long ago picked out the Chicago
Marathon in October, and in late September, I ran my longest distance, 15 miles
at 8 minute pace, and that was the farthest I had ever run, 11 miles shy of a
marathon, and on the day of the marathon, it was 89 degrees F, and I began, at
5 miles, 40 minutes, 10 miles, 1 hour 20 minutes, and at 20 miles, it was
2:41.19, that is, 79 seconds off pace, it looked as if I were going to do it, and
then….at 24 miles, I hit the wall, suddenly, I could hardly put one foot in front
of the other, let alone keep my pace, I had never experienced anything like it,
and I said to myself, “Look, you fucker, you are going to finish, even if you
crawl in,” and I shuffled to the end, taking 24 minutes to run the final 2
miles, and the reason I hit the wall is because, stupidly, I didn’t drink any
water along the way, although it was offered every couple of miles, I was
stupidly thinking that if I slowed down for water, I wouldn’t be able to keep
my pace….well, I ended up completing it in 3 hours and 36 minutes, my goal was 3 hours and 30 minutes that would
have qualified me to run the Boston Marathon in the spring. . . and, I did finish what I set out to do.
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