Note: The name that I have used is a pseudonym; hopefully, very few who know me will read this tale. Everything is true, even if that truth has been stretched a bit.
To a kid growing up in an inner city in the late 40's and early 50's, running was an alien concept. The exception to this was when it was absolutely necessary to escape from a situation usually brought on by one's own stupidity.
The first time I actually thought about running was at the age of thirteen. It was April and I happened to read the coverage, in what I seem to remember to be the old Boston Record-American, of the Boston Marathon. I was inspired and decided that I would see how fast I could run a mile.
The house that I lived in bordered an old, dirt road, and our property line was 175-feet along that road. Finding a pen and a piece of paper, I divided 5280 by 175 and figured out that if I ran back-and-forth a little more than 15 times, I would have my mile. I put on a pair of sneakers, grabbed an old alarm clock and made my way to the starting line. I waited until the minute hand clicked to the start of a new minute and off I went - as fast as I could go.
Before I had reached the first turnaround, I was in trouble. I began slowing down, but I was determined not to stop until I had my mile time. I continued on, back-and-forth, slower-and-slower. Somehow, I managed to finish. I staggered back into the house, collapsed on the floor and gasped in pain for what seemed like hours. The time? Just under 12 minutes.
It would be another eleven years before I would do any running other than up-and-down a basketball court. I was drafted into the Army in the mid-60's and, of course, had to do the five to six times a week morning runs attendant to basic training. While I was thin at the time and found that I could run the two or three mandatory miles without much difficulty, I forgot about running after the last day of basic training.
Not until 1973, when I was 30, did I discover running as a sport. Over a two-year period, I built myself up to the point where I was running five miles a day, six times a week. Other than the fact that I was aware of the existence of the Boston Marathon, I had no idea during this time that such a thing as road racing existed.
Late in the summer of 1975, I found out about a three mile race being held a few miles from where I lived. I ran the race, finished 37th in a field of 50+ with a time of 22:32. I was hooked. Two weeks later, I ran my second race, a hilly 6.5-miler in which I finished almost last in a field of 92. I was totally unprepared to run a step beyond five miles.
During the next twenty years, I raced over 600 times. Like so many others, I wanted to become fast. I ultimately built my mileage up to as much as 70 miles per week. This included the perfunctory long run and all manner of speed workouts.
Improvement came slowly. As the years rolled by, I always held to the hope that I would find the "secret" to speed. At my very best, I recorded PR's of 63.5 for the quarter, 18:10 for 5K and 29:10 for 5M. That was it. As reality set in, the level of training lessened and the times worsened.
Other than those PR's, the highlights of my "running career" were two first-place finishes. In one of the two, seven of us showed up for a 5K held in a snowstorm. Five who were running ahead of me at about the two-mile mark went the wrong way. The other race was a two-miler held before a main attraction five-miler. Only 24 runners started and, in a statistical anomaly, everyone was slow. I happened to be the fastest of the slow.
Over the past few years, I have raced less and less and my weekly mileage has rarely gone above twenty. This year, I raced a single 5K back in February and decided that was it for racing. Since then, I have been content to run thirty minutes a day, five days a week, at about a ten-minute per mile pace.
All that changed on Friday, September 8th, when I unexpectedly won a race and ran - literally - away with prize money. My car was being serviced at a garage located about two miles from my house. I decided that when it was ready, I would run to pick it up. When I received a mid-afternoon call telling me the car was set to go, I prepared for the run. Since I had to pay for the servicing, I left my street shorts on and put a money clip with a credit card and a dollar bill in one of the pockets. The bill was to buy a soft drink from a machine when I made it to the garage. There was also a nickel in a second pocket.
Off I went at my usual pace. About halfway through the run, as I was running on a pathway bordering a small pond in a residential neighborhood, two kids, probably nine and ten years old, came up from behind on Razor Scooters. One of them yelled at me, "Hey, mister, you ought get one of these, you'd go faster."
It was probably some evil spirit that took possession of my mind at that moment that caused me to come to a stop and reply, "Do you guys want to race?"
"Sure," the same kid responded, "how much you wanna bet?"
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the nickel. Holding it up, I said, "A nickel!"
"A nickel? Are you kidding, how about some real money?" At that, they both reached into their pockets and began pulling out crumpled bills.
"Look kid," the evil spirit in me said, "I've only got a dollar with me plus the nickel. It's the best I can do unless you accept Visa.
"So what are you telling me?" the same squirt asked.
I had figured out that I could easily out accelerate these two kids and beat them at a short distance before they had a chance to pick up speed. (One of the neurons still left in my brain brought to mind that old example of a sprinter out accelerating a Corvette off the line.) "Tell you what, we'll race from here to the where the sidewalk turns left. (That was about 150 yards.) If you win, you get the dollar and the nickel. If I win, you give me a nickel."
"Okay."
We lined up, the mouthy kid, one foot on his shiny Razor and the other toe to the sidewalk, yelled go and I took off just as I did when I ran the mile back when I was thirteen. As I knew would happen, I was halfway to the finish line before they picked up any appreciable speed. I crossed the line, both arms up in the air - and gasping. As they caught up to me, the mouthy one said, "Let's try it again, mister."
"No way, kid. Give me my nickel."
He flipped a nickel at me which, fortunately, I was able to catch. Before he could say another word, I sprinted off as I hard as I could. Once I was out of their line of sight, I slowed down to my usual pace.
With this win, I'm going out on top. I've run - and won - my last race. The nickel is going to be framed. A win is a win.
Sunday, January 07, 2007 01:59 PM