1983

George Sheehan wrote: Everybody has their story, I just don't want to hear it.

In college 1977-80, I trained very hard and intensely, and came up with mostly mediocre-poor results, even for DIII. The next couple of years I was doing lots of hard outdoor field work, and long hours, and didn't improve but I kept running, simply because it was there.

Went back to school in 82-83, and my fitness came back very quickly and easily. I also changed my attitude. In college running was tightly associated with my self-esteem. I gave up on that, and took the attitude just to train, race, and have fun. Running would not get in the way of other things (school, work, social life).

Through most of '83 I trained fairly hard (70-80 mpw), but only once a day (that modest mileage regime is no doubt really lame). School/work were my priorities, and I balanced running with going out with friends, going to concerts, etc. That meant I wasn't going to let the weekend's training or even a race get in the way of going out and getting crazy until the wee hours of the morning (pretty much every weekend). After college, I realized that my talent was modest at best, so why be a complete running nerd?

However, my first marathon was an eye-opener when I ran a 2:30 with about 8-9 weeks of 70-80 mpw (coming off a maintenance schedule of about 50 mpw). This gave me aspirations of maybe going for the OTs. But a 2:18:50 seemed so so fast. That summer I was faced with a choice with staying on campus and taking stats and calculus, or working in the mountains as a volunteer for the government. I chose the latter, even though the former might have been better for running (coaches and top quality runners were abundant in the area).

I basically did hard labor 40 hours a week, building log fences mostly, for $60/week living expenses. Enough for beer, gas, and food. Race entry fees were on my own. About half the time I lived in a tent, but had a great summer. I was in the best shape of my life, and my goal was to run 2:25 or 2:26 in a fall marathon, and then go back to school, find a coach and a training partners, and shoot for low 2:20s in 1984.

At the end of summer I caught giardia, became pretty sick, and decided to alter my marathon plans by running a regional race (instead of Twin Cities), and running just whatever time I could. I kept on 2:28 pace until the last few miles and ran high 2:29. Ended up with ITBS and hip bursitis from the race and my last long training run. Did not compete for nearly a year, and thus ended my marathon career.

A lot has changed since then. I still have race results from the era. In one race, a 10k with about 2000 people, something like 70 to 100 broke 34 minutes, and 25 or so were in the 31s or faster. The same race these days, with at least as many people you might get 4 or 5 in the sub 34 range. Road running has become corporate and boring.

And my story is long and boring!

I think I was the worst high school runner in the world in the 60s. But I became fascinated with the idea that you could tell from race to race whether you were improving or not. That became the basis for a life in the sport.

Eventually I figured out that if you ran a lot you got faster and I thought qualifying for the OT marathon was a worthy goal. I had three races where I was on pace for it but managed to find a way to blow it in the late stages. For some reason, the 1980 Olympic boycott coming on the heels of those failures changed my perspective and I decided a Trials berth wasn't going to happen. For several years I followed the sport marginally, though continued to run but with very little focus. By 1983 I was racing again, though on less miles and with no real goals. When I hit 40, I got interested in age group placing, but the bottom had fallen out of my performances and I often think it's the price to pay for all those miles (over 5,000 a year) I did in the 70s. But I still count myself lucky because I can get out and run each day, and run hard at times, while many of my contemporaries can't run at all, or only a little.

What's changed? There's money and that's changed the relationships between runners. The "just finish" mentality that exists today existed then as well. But it wasn't as widespread as now. There were loads of foreigners around in those days and they ran well, but not all were Kenyans and there wasn't much of an outcry when a Rod Dixon or Nick Rose won a bunch of money races. There was loads more depth on the US distance lists. And I think training was not as "formulated" as now. Certainly there were specific sessions that people planned on doing. But I think there was less emphasis on the need to structure "hard/easy" work. If you'd run a hard interval session on Tuesday and felt good on your Wednesday 10 miler, you'd just go ahead and hammer it. Today you'd think "gotta go really slow on this 10 because I did those halves yesterday." Top guys raced more than now, usually a lot more and I think that was to their advantage.

Anyway, thanks for the excuse to prattle on. Just remember, you asked for it.