Your claim to fame

Not relevant to the topic, but my next door neighbor during law school was dating one of the girls at the time she was murdered by Bundy at Florida State.

Mid-1980's, UW wins NCAA cross title with all American kids, a rarity following the haydays of foreign dominated UTEP. A teammate knows a guy on the UW and asks him how they did it. UW runner explains that they started doing nude runs of 2-4 miles on Saturday nights at midnight on the theory that if you were mentally tough enough to run naked at the peak social hour on a college campus, you were mentally tough enough to handle anything in a race.

Naturally, we adopt the practice under the guise of helping our running. We get progressively more bold during CC season, taking runs across campus, over the President's lawn, down sorority row and other locations. Once, following a home meet, a visiting women's team discovers our practice and challenges us to run to their hotel and do a lap around the parking lot. We accept; unfortunately, the wedding party that was gathering in the lot had a unique experience when 10 of us appeared for our lap of honor. The nude runs work, and we upset the 5th-ranked team in the country for a trip to nationals.

Fast forward to spring. Big 8 meet over and finals done. We're have an end of year track party with 50-60 people in attendance. We decide to take one last run from the party for old times sake. Only this time a jumper decides to go with us. And not just any jumper. Kenny Harrison. We go out the door, around the block and one of the guys puts his hand on a parked cop car. Cop looks up from the ticket he was writing and and sees a dozen naked guys running down the street. We scatter, eventually get back to house and find that a couple of the women had stolen our clothes. The return them but not before Kenny gets picked up by the cop. Kenny gets released, no charge filed.

July, 1996. We're watching the Atlanta Olympics before we leave to attend. I'm watching with a couple of my old partners in crime. Kenny wins gold in the triple jump. I turn to my buddy and say, "We've now run naked with an Olympic Champion. How many people can say that?"

Reading over some of these posts has been cool. My personal moment came summer of '98 when I was in Prague, Czech Republic doing a missions trip with Athletes in Action. One of the coaches at the local track club we worked out at had connections and gave us the chance to meet Zatopek at his house. So here I am, walking up the front walk of Emil's house with two of my teammates, meeting his wife, having a snack, listening to stories, seeing his awards hanging up. He gave us an autographed picture and a Czech Olympic pin. It was a great time! Once in a lifetime!

It's the 1985 Rosemont indoor track meet. Girlfriend is now wife. Walker is running against Coghlan and Scott and Bayi. I cut out the famous Walker crossing the tape photo from his 3:49.4 from T&FN and see about having him autograph it.

No such luck. Track is way below stands, and Walker shows up, runs 3:59, and then leaves. Wife grabs photograph and says she get Walker's autograph, don't you worry. Runs outside. I follow.

A bunch of HS kids are standing outside stadium, wanting Walker's autograph. Walker brusquely blows them all off. Wife runs up to Walker, Walker sees famous picture, smiles, signs photo using limo for support, gives wife a squeeze, disappears into limo.

Bayi, at same time, is getting on airport shuttle bus,still in sweat suit. I yell out his name, Bayi steps back down onto pavement, we shake hands. Not a bad 30 seconds.

Some random "moments"

1) Teammate wins bronze in 200 in LA Games, boy did we get the royal treatments at meets in 85

2) At the 85 Central Collegiate indoor championships, throws coach gets me into hot heat of 1500 (which I had no business being in) and I line up between Tim Hacker (who whales on everyone) and Earl Jones (who I raced fairly often in conference meets) and I come within 2 seconds of Jones ;-0.

3) At the old K of C meet I get Filbert Bayi to sign my training log, then about 30:00 later Suleiman Nyambui comes by and I snag him. When he sees the "Tanzania" that Bayi wrote under his name, he asks who wrote that and I reply "oh, that's your boy Filbert." He laughed thus sparing me any embarrasment. Also got Eamonn Coghlan to sign as well.

4) Same meet the next year, I'm in the john taking the ceremonial last dump before the 4 x 800 and when I exit the stall, there is Steve Scott waiting in line. I want to shake his hand, but think better of it. So, I walk over to the sink to wash my hands and there is Sydney Maree sitting on a nearby bench and I wish him good luck. He graciously thanks me eventhough as it turned out he was injured and didn't compete.

4)I go to the indoor World Championships at Toronto with some friends who are Ohio State grads. Butch Reynolds wins 400 (or the 4 x 400?) and they yell something about Ohio State and he acknoledges them with a wave-pretty cool.

5)Same meet and we are staying in the same hotel that the athletes are in (at Skydome). We took one elevator ride with Dennis Mitchell and Kevin Young-get off the elevator and almost run into Steve Holman. One buddy phenangles us into Nike's room during the meet where we rap with Salazar and Chapa AND John Smith. Next day we somehow get invited to Nike's brunch and Salazar lets us take pictures with him (I didn't and regret it) and Smith talks to us about training. Alberto was incredibly gracious and it amazed me at how many people didn't even know who Chapa was!!!!

6) Last one, I swear. In 98, I was a volunteer coach at Kent State and Mark Croghan was doing some sessions in their fieldhouse and would hang out afterward and talk with us about his training etc. Fast forward to the outdoor season and we are at Searay and I'm walking around the track and he sees me. He doesn't just say hello in passing, but stops as though I'm important and chats while you could see Todd Williams and Tony Cosey trying to figure out who the heck this nobody was. What a classy guy!!!

As a senior in high school I went down to the Mt. Sac Relays. It was the spring of 1998. Anyway, I had ran a 3km race on the Saturday, and was on the way to pick up my medal the following day when some buddies point out Ato Bolden doing his victory trot after running a very fast time (although it was clear that he had caught a "flier"). I'm pretty sure it was in the 9.86-88 range at a time when Bailey still held the world record with his 9.84 from Atlanta '96. Anyway, Boldon was pretty pumped and was strutting around the track like he was the greatest thing since beer. So one of my buddies dared me to yell "Bailey's still the best" at Bolden. Never one to pass up on a bet I yell "Bailey's still the best!" He doesn't acknowledge me, so I yell out again (much louder this time): "BAILEY'S STILL THE BEST!!" This time he hears and replies: "Yeah for about 2 weeks!" I then fire back with something sarcastic that I don't remember and the "smack" ended at that point. Anyway, when I turn around to boast to my buddies about me and Ato's "conversation" they have taken off. Seems they were a little embarassed that I had made a bit of a scene. Pussies. I had to live up to the bet, and I enjoyed the pleasant conversation me and Ato shared!

Oh and by the way, Boldon obviously didn't break the world record within the next 2 weeks.......or ever. In fact, I'm pretty sure he hasn't ran a race faster since that spring day in 1998.

working with the kenyan running coummunity, i don't get too worked up about encounters with the elites, but there have definitely been a couple of standout moments.

once i was at a party at kip keino's home celebrating his selection to the IOC. it was a total who's who of kenyan running (keino,tanui,komen,kiptanui,elijah lagat,ereng, sang,ngeny,et al). i had just started working in the running community there and didn't really know too many people at the time. the party pretty much took care of that.

among my experiences that day:

1)having kipchoge himself hand me a "drinking yogurt" and tell me that he appreciated what our club was trying to do - i hate drinking yogurt, but i drank that one.

2)eating lunch at the keino's dining room table and having kipchoge ask me if i would like coke, sprite, or fanta - and then bring it to me.

3)having the guy across the table from me introduce himself as "patrick" and tell me he once lived in texas and say hook 'em horns. of course it was patrick sang.

4)getting up to go to the restroom and having my chair stolen by elijah lagat.

5)while in the restroom seeing that someone in the keino family had put up a poster of a monkey sitting on a log with the words "don't just sit there - do something." under the picture. of course it was situated so you'd see it when you were sitting. i don't know why, but it struck me as particularly funny that kip keino would have that in his home.

6)this was probably tops as i'm originally from arkansas - hearing martin keino tell patrick sang - "you may have two medals, but i was on a team that beat arkansas." of course this was said in jest, but it was still pretty funny.

a couple other cool experiences would be

1)watching elijah lagat's personal copy of his boston win along with tapes of all of john ngugi's world xc wins and "mr. bean - the movie" in his living room.

2)falling asleep on wilson boit kipketer's couch and waking up to find him watching "teletubbies." he insisted his two-year-old niece who was watching it, but she had left for school before i fell asleep.

my personal claim to fame - as in something i actually did - i was once playing air guitar at my table while enjoying a particularly good all black funk band in south dallas. the guitarist, probably trying to embarass me - one of only a few whiteys in the place - told me to get up on stage if i wanted to play. he handed me a second guitar and told me we were going to play in "E." i proceeded to hold my own well enough to have the bartender give freebies to me and my friends and get invited to play with the band for their second set. other than that i guess my own accomplishments have been pretty inconsequential.

My claim to fame... well, I'd have to say:

I ran the fastest quarter (5 seconds faster than the next guy) at the last beer mile (because I chugged the first beer the fastest). I may not be speedy, but I can damn well chug beer better than most.

Cut me some slack, that's all I got.

Alright I cant believe that I am going to tell this story, but here it goes...

I was training in the Mountains in CA last Dec-Jan to build my base up a bit for track and to get some hardcore training in... Anyway, the weather was perfect..the trains had about an inch of powder on them.. it provided an awesome running surface, and it was mid 50s during the day so it wasnt that cold.

This one day me and my friends had this tight run planned out... the only catch was that it had snowed quite a bit that night before. But we were stoked to do this "18 mile" run so we went out anyway. Well after about an hour.. it started to snow again..then blizzard snow came.. and the temp dropped to below 30. Having run in conditions much better than thisall week..and living in CA my whole life..we weren't real prepared for this type of shitty weather. The snow got so bad that it was a real struggle to keep moving since your foot sank like a foot everytime you stepped..

After 2+ hours we were real fatigued.. and as it turns out the "18 miles" I mentioned earlier actually turned out to be about 25 (this is what happens when thouse f***ers who make trail maps dont do such a swell job)

I started getting real tired, in fact after about 3 hours of running I had to stop every now and then.. running up hills in deep powder during a heavy training week is tough.

Anyway the stopping was a mistake, soon I got really cold. I couldnt feel my feet and i thought for sure i had frostbite.

Since we really couldnt tell how far we had to go on this trail.. things got pretty scary. I started eating snow because I was real dehydrated and I was seriously like 95% sure that I was going to die. I was even thinking about how i could build like an igloo and shit..

Well over four hours and 25 miles later we stubbled out of the mountain and practically crawled into this Ski lodge place where we completely freaked everyone out because we probably looked half dead. This being a small mountain town.. word got around about the crazy runners who almost died.

Claim to fame: I had stared death in the eye and like any distance runner would..I ran right through it!