Marathon Man (35 page)

After he won the Boston Marathon in 1968, Amby was invited to race at Fukuoka. To him, this was a dream come true. A chance to claim the highest status in the sport against the world's very best. Now it was my turn.

Before leaving for Japan, New Balance offered me five hundred dollars for the year to wear and endorse their shoes. I was on my way to Japan when I stopped off at the Nike offices in Oregon. They were a tiny shoe company at the time and didn't have much money. They offered me five hundred dollars. I told them I would think about it.

When I got to Japan, Asics, which was the number one athletic shoe company in that country, offered me three thousand dollars for a one-year contract—six times what New Balance and Nike had offered. For a special education teacher with very little income, that sounded like a lot of money. Of course, by making the deal I left myself open for stiff sanctions by the authoritative AAU. Therefore I had to keep the contract a secret. That bothered me a little. Still, three thousand dollars—I was rich! Things were looking up.

The moment we arrived at the airport, the press was waiting to take our picture. They put us up in the Nishitetsu Grand Hotel, a beautiful hotel in downtown Tokyo. Everywhere you went you were showered with gifts and kisses. I remember one schoolgirl presenting me a doughnut after the race. Others would gather in the hotel lobby for autographs. Back home, we were invisible. In Japan, we were rock stars.

Because the marathon was such an honored tradition in Japan, we were treated first class. We were wined and dined. We were given a tour of a factory where traditional Hakata dolls were made, shown around ancient temples, and taken shopping. I remember picking up a Nikon camera for Charlie because I knew he was into photography.

At the city hall the Saturday before the race, a beautiful opening ceremony took place with traditional folk dancers in kimonos. We were introduced on the stage, given bouquets of flowers by Fukuoka schoolchildren, and presented with gifts. Boston was the oldest marathon in the world, but all you got was a bowl of beef stew at the finish line.

Also, unlike Boston, the race was carried on live national television. The race itself was run like clockwork. I was stunned at how well everything was organized. Japanese officials, dressed in clearly identifiable uniforms, ensured an orderly race from start to finish. No kamikaze starts down steep hills. No shortage of water stations. In fact, they have officials who call out your splits at every water station. I thought, Why can't marathons in America be run like this? Why can't all people appreciate the marathon the way the Japanese people do?

I did not win. I came in third place. Jerome Drayton took the victory while setting a Canadian marathon record that, amazingly, still stands today. While I was a little disappointed to not win, I was thrilled to be soaking in the reverential pomp and pageantry.

The finishing ceremony inside Heiwadai Stadium was very formal, yet moving. Government officials and members of the royal family looked on as the top finishers were presented their awards. The whole feeling of running for my country was powerful. I could feel the lure of the Olympics.

That evening, I attended a party back at the hotel. There, I met with politicians, Princess Nichitibi, reporters, and all the athletes and coaches from around the world. We were served a lavish buffet. I remember meeting the Soviet runner Leonid Moseyev, a staunch Communist. He was one of the best in the world. In 1980, he finished fourth in the marathon at the boycotted Olympics in Moscow. I started talking with him about Russian literature and American life. Leonid wanted American jeans, so I gave him a pair and he gave me a bottle of vodka.

Leonid and I were representing our countries; we were acutely aware of that during the cold war. But we respected each other; we respected the effort the other runner put forth on behalf of his country and himself. He's not my enemy, I thought to myself. Maybe he's somebody else's enemy, but that's for them to resolve.

In the early 1990s, I went with a group of around fifteen American runners to the first Moscow Marathon. I ran into Moseyev there, totally by chance, out of fifteen thousand runners. He was there with his son and his wife. Again, I felt like, This guy's real. He's just another person with a family. Later, we brought him to the Boston Marathon, he stayed with my brother, Charlie, and ran for our store. Kind of wild.

That was another part of being a marathoner: I saw how the sport could break down national barriers. I've always said I think we should get all the world leaders together to go out on a run together. I know it's a Pollyanna vision. But I don't think it's totally Pollyanna. On the road, people get real. They get to know one another. All the barriers fall.

 

SEVENTEEN

The Trials

In the fall of 1976, I began my new job teaching emotionally disturbed children at the Edward Everett Hale School. Dealing with the pressures of a full-time job while at the same time getting ready for the Olympic trials proved tricky from the start. Nowadays many people wake up early to get in a run before work. You can do that—but can you make the U.S. Olympic team doing that? Meanwhile, some of my competitors, namely Frank Shorter, were training full-time. Frank was a lawyer, but not actually practicing law. He was in Colorado, training at a five thousand-foot altitude. He was preparing for the marathon under perfect conditions. My situation was less ideal.

At first, I would wake up at six in the morning and go running in the freezing cold of winter. It was a nightmare. The snow had accumulated on the sidewalks, forcing me to run in the road with the cars. Since it was still dark out, drivers often had trouble spotting me as I ran alone down the street. The roads were narrowed by the snow drifts, piled so high it was difficult for vehicles or runners see around corners or maneuver out of the way. I think I lost a year of my life every time I went for a morning run—it was that dangerous and stressful.

I can recall one day going out for a run, getting a few blocks in the near darkness, and freaking out. I rushed back home and started to jog in place in the living room. I felt every bit of positive feeling draining from my body and mind. I pictured Frank Shorter running mile after mile in the high-altitude splendor of Colorado while here I was, preparing for the Olympic marathon trials by jogging in place in my tiny apartment in the city.

I decided that I was going to ask the school committee for permission to run during my lunch break and if they turned down my request, I would quit. I would feel bad about giving up a job that I liked, but I was driven to strive for the next level, to go forward, to achieve the very best in me as a runner, no matter the personal cost or private sacrifices along the way.

Thankfully, there was a new superintendent at our school, Frederick Foresteire, who's now the superintendent of all the schools in Everett. He gave me the chance. He said, “Yeah, you can go out on your lunch hour, just be back here at a certain time.” So as soon as the lunch bell rang, I would fly downstairs to a small room in the basement, change into my running gear, wave to the kids, vanish out the door, and start cranking five-minute miles on the road. On most days, I'd run between six to seven miles, but if I was lucky I might get in as many as nine. I'd then slip back inside, jump into the shower in the basement, wash in record time, and rush upstairs to teach the next period.

Once I got home from school, I changed back into my running gear and went on a ten- to twelve-mile run. By the time my day was done I was wiped out. At the same time, I never lacked the motivation to wake up and start anew. I believed in what I was aiming for and did what I did—teaching, running—not out of an obligation to others, but because of a passion from within.

All the kids would be scampering down the stairs and grabbing their lunch and milk, and here comes Mr. Rodgers, exhausted and sweating from his run. I don't know what they thought of my whole Superman in a telephone booth routine. While the female teachers were friendly to me, I doubt any of them were runners. These were the days when there were only thirty thousand runners in the country. Now there's over half a million. So they probably didn't understand the marathon or the goal I was trying to fulfill. They probably thought of the marathon in the usual mythological terms, not worth taking seriously.

It was probably hard for the teachers to relate to me. Most of them couldn't appreciate the fact that I was trying to push myself to reach levels in the sport that were previously thought unattainable. In those days, the concept of training to be a marathon runner was not understood. I would come back from running eight miles at a five-minute-mile pace during my lunch break and a handful of female teachers would be standing around the entrance, smoking cigarettes in their buttoned-up blouses and drab skirts. They probably thought I was crazy. Now, you see people across the country incorporating physical activity into their schedule like biking to work, or hitting the gym at lunch, or taking breaks for a walk. You see this everywhere. But in 1975, the idea of daily fitness bordered on the ludicrous.

My principal was not happy that the school committee agreed to let me run on my lunch break. She watched me like a hawk, trying to catch me coming in late from my run so she could convince the school committee to revoke my privilege. She would even direct kids—her own personal Stasi police agents—to wait by my classroom door to make sure I returned on time for my next class. As fast as I ran the Boston Marathon in 1975, it paled in comparison to the record speed in which I climbed the stairs from the basement, where I changed back into my work clothes after a run, to my classroom. There were many times when I made it back just under the wire.

I wanted to make the Olympic team more than anything in this world and so I was willing to put up with the harassment at work, but it didn't make it right. The truth was, many amateur U.S. athletes had to contend with uncooperative employers. Tom Fleming had to go up against his school committee in Bloomfield, New Jersey, who were unsympathetic to his need to prepare for the Olympic trials. He, too, kept trying to get up at five in the morning in the winter, when it was dark and slippery outside. He came in fifth at the trial and didn't make the team. He was an alternate. But he did great under those circumstances. Circumstances he should have never had to face as a serious contender to make the American squad.

While athletes from countries like Sweden and the USSR received tremendous support from their country, this wasn't the case for American amateurs. Simply put, you were on your own. When I traveled to a race to run for the United States, I had to pay my own way to get there. As a member of the United States team you were lucky if you received an American team uniform in which to compete for your country. If that sounds ridiculous, that's because it was.

I was so fearful of asking for time off work to race that I arrived late to the Olympic trials in Eugene, Oregon. I missed more than a few major races because I knew that my emotionally challenged kids would bring the substitute teacher to their knees. That happened a few times; I came back to discover some incident had occurred in the classroom. While the principal didn't need more justification for her persecution, I could see from the look on her face that she was pleased to present more evidence of why I should quit running to focus entirely on teaching. Believe me, if I was going to quit anything, it would be the job.

I remember the whole weekend was very intense, almost more intense than the Olympics itself. I came there as the American record holder, but I still didn't put myself in the same class as the man who I had watched become a legend in Munich four years earlier while sitting on a couch, broke and unemployed. As far as I was concerned, there was Frank Shorter and then there were the rest of us.

Once I arrived in Eugene, Oregon, late on Thursday, I had a hard time falling asleep and generally felt light-headed and queasy. At the time, I blamed it on jet lag from my long flight, but in hindsight I think it was nerves. I bought junk food from the vending machine and dumped the trans-fat bounty on my bed. After devouring all the snacks, I felt better.

An hour before the race start, I jogged the mile from the hotel to the starting line. Once I got there, I realized I was the only runner warming up without a racing number attached to his singlet. I immediately raced back to my hotel, searched for my bib amid the ruins of junk food, found it, clumsily affixed it to my shirt, dashed out of the hotel, and ran a mile back to the starting line. Thanks to my principal I was accustomed to nail-biting, high-pressure dashes to get to my destination on time. Of course, in this case it wasn't my next period I was trying to get to in time, but the start of the Olympic trials.

With no time to spare—and my heart pounding like a racehorse—I made it to the starting line. Before I could catch my breath, I was off.

At the eight-mile mark, Frank tried to run away with it like he did in the Olympics. A runner by the name of Barry Brown and I went with him. I was going along with Frank and Barry when I was suddenly hit with a painful side ache. This is like a nightmare, I said to myself. It's like a bad dream. Why is it happening to me?

I fell back a few strides behind Frank and Barry. I could feel my Olympic dreams slowly slipping away. But I knew that if I panicked then I would be sunk. I knew if I tried to stay up with them I would be ruined. I needed to run at my own pace and wait calmly for the pain to pass. And if it didn't? I guess that's the meaning of faith; doing what you know needs to be done and trusting it will work out in the end. I think earlier in my career I would have tried to stay up with Frank, I would have lost control of my emotions, I would have let my emotions control me. By not losing my head, I was able to save myself from a perilous situation. By doing less, not more, the issue was resolved, the trouble was overcome, the side ache passed.

I began to breathe and relax, more or less. I took a quick physical inventory. I was okay. As a matter of fact, I was better than okay. I felt amazing. Twelve miles into the race I picked up the pace. Confidence surged through me as I closed the gap on Frank and Barry. Running down the road with newfound resolve, I finally chased down the two leaders and, from there, matched them stride for stride. I felt so fearless that when Barry started to slip behind I considered for a moment saying to Frank, “Why don't we wait for him?”