Marathon Man (6 page)

“That's a good idea,” I said.

I meant it, too. It was a good idea. To my way of thinking: You do cross-country in the fall, then indoor track in the winter, and outdoor track in the spring. The summer was for goofing off with your friends. It was for relaxing, and going to the beach, to the movies, and to dances. If I was feeling particularly motivated, I might run five miles every third or fourth day. Amby subscribed to a slightly different philosophy. He'd be living and breathing running that summer.

As we ran shoulder to shoulder down the road, we could see the dorms in the distance on Foss Hill.

“I heard the girls there are having a mixer up there tonight,” I said, sarcasm dripping.

“Should we go up there now and make dates?” said Amby. “I'm sure there's a couple of beautiful brunettes waiting for us.”

“I think I see them right now. They're waving at us from the quad.”

This was a common joke between us—the total absence of females at our all-male school. In fact, we spent many hours on the road discussing the opposite sex. What else is there really to talk about? Unfortunately, we had a lot more experience talking about girls than actually dating them. I remember having a crush on a gal in middle school. I think she knew I had a crush on her, too. I wanted to ask her out, but never followed through. Honestly, I was a terrible social misfit. I would go to a dance and sit in the stands and watch the more aggressive jocks talk to the girls. I remember wearing a clip-on tie to my first dance and one of my pals came over, yanked it off, and threw it away.

Between Charlie and me, he had far more success with girls in high school. Charlie was into cars, which was a cool teenage activity. (I was into collecting butterflies and running—not cool at all.) He was more outgoing. He was handsome and the girls liked him. In high school, he had a girlfriend. As for me, I was trying to meet somebody but without too much success—my silly glasses and scrawny build notwithstanding. No, I wouldn't be called a hunk by anybody's description. I was definitely a bit of a nerd in high school and during that era, it was not good to be a nerd, in any way, shape, or form. Running retarded me even more socially. Charlie and the rest of the cross-country team used to go to his girlfriend's to hang out when they were supposed to be out on workouts. They would do this right under Coach O'Rourke's nose. While they were drinking soda pop and making out in closets, I was out doing the entire workout by myself. I just enjoyed the sensation that running outdoors gave me.

Here, running alongside Amby through the trails and streams beyond campus, I was once again granted that same soaring rush of freedom. The part about those runs that Amby remembers most is how differently I ran along the road than he. Amby ran with this narrow focus, like some automaton, looking straight down the road. He ran inside of himself. He focused hard on his running effort and didn't see things in the environment around him. I was able to run with a more relaxed stride—“flowing” is the word Amby always thought of when he watched me run. I gazed all around me as I ran, whether it was at clouds drifting in the sky or birds nestling in the trees. I was always finding stuff that Amby never noticed: money on the road and things like that. I'd stop to pick up items on the side of the road, which I think drove Amby crazy. Running never felt like a chore to me; it was the opposite. Pure fun. I would run along the country road, singing the words of my favorite song to myself. “Here comes the sun, here comes the sun, and I say, it's all right.”

Amby studied me closely, like I was some rare species of bird. For all his dedication and hard work, he was cursed to never know what it felt like to run effortlessly. He had to maintain his concentration as he ran and focus hard on every step he took. As he moved alongside me, he wondered, how was it that I could float along the road the way I did? I had no idea. I was just doing what I'd always done. I didn't know any other way to be. Ever since I was a kid, running felt as natural to me as breathing.

When we were boys, my brother, Charlie, and I would spend entire days running wild, or as wild as possible in our quiet, leafy suburban town of Newington, Connecticut. Our best friend, Jason Kehoe, who lived down the block from us on Thornton Drive, and who we'd known since we were two years old, always joined us on our boundless adventures. We were the three amigos, the Three Musketeers, inseparable.

We hiked trails, fished ponds, and played out our childhood fantasies in the thick woods behind our house. These woods were made for pint-size cowboys, junior pirates, and intrepid explorers. I'd bound over logs, rocks, and bushes. Sometimes we'd run around with bows and arrows, hunting for turtles, frogs, and snakes. We were like the tribe of rag-taggle Lost Boys in
Peter Pan
. God knows how many miles we covered! I've heard that Kenyan children are very active. It's normal for them to run to and from school and the market. No one walks, everyone runs. That's the way we were. We were always moving.

I think I enjoyed running even more than my brother and the other neighborhood kids. It suited my personality. I had all this energy and wasn't so good at directing it. I was always bouncing off the walls and hanging from the rafters. I found it difficult to sit in a classroom for eight hours each day. I preferred to be outdoors where I could burn off energy. I definitely had some form of ADHD. Today, I would have been given Ritalin. But back then, I was just a kid who couldn't sit still. My family and friends would just sigh and say with a little grin, That's Bill for ya. Always getting into something.

Charlie was the oldest among us, and the leader of our group. He was often cautioning Jason and me not to carry through with whatever dubious, high-flying action we were about to undertake. He might, for example, say to us, “Well, the farmer is rapidly approaching us on his tractor and he doesn't look too happy about you eating his corn, and maybe you shouldn't be taunting him as he bears down on us.” Charlie would sprint away while Jason and I would continue to make faces at the farmer for another thirty seconds, before getting away by the skin of our teeth.

I was a notorious teaser, Tom Sawyer style. Sometimes I pushed too far, like the time I stood on my front lawn, taunting our neighbor Gerald with goofy faces. He stood glowering back at me across the street on his lawn. At once, Gerald marched over. There was a look of murder in his eyes. He clearly intended to punch me in the face. Gerald sprang on top of me, sending us rolling on the ground. Out of nowhere, Charlie rushed over and said, “You gotta get off, man! You're not gonna be hitting my brother!” But Gerald paid no heed, and was acting fairly crazed, so Charlie let him have it in the side of the head. Gerald got up and staggered away. That was the end of it. Although I had probably asked to be punched, it meant a lot that Charlie had come to my defense. I knew I could always count on him to make sure that no harm came to me, and it made us closer than any two brothers could be.

It seemed like I was always running afoul of some authority figure in our town. One time, the cops drove me up to my house after busting me for setting off fireworks. Another time, store detectives chased me out of a Sears Roebuck. Charlie, Jason, me, and Gerald used to sneak into a private pond to fish and someone would always end up chasing us away. We'd also go hunting with our BB guns in Stanley Park in nearby New Britain. Obviously, we weren't supposed to be doing that.

One time, we were having a grand time chasing after squirrels and ducks in Stanley Park. All of a sudden, we heard sirens. A police car pulled up. The four of us instantly bolted in different directions. So much for inseparable. I had a good hormonal system for moving when I needed to, and this definitely qualified. I must have set a personal record for running through whippy brush and prickers. They weren't going to catch me. I dove into a nearby pond and hid waist-deep in the safety of the thick reeds. Poor Gerald wasn't so lucky. He got nabbed.

As a boy, my favorite activity was chasing butterflies in the huge field near our house. It was here, dashing through the tall grass, wielding the homemade net I'd made with a pillowcase and broomstick, that I discovered my love for running. I'd spot a butterfly to add to my prized collection—perhaps a giant swallowtail or a red admiral or a luna moth—and chase after it like a bird of prey. Charlie and the other kids watched in awe at the speed with which I ran down the elusive, winged creatures. They couldn't fathom how, long after they had collapsed in a sweaty heap, I could still be charging back and forth through the field, armed with a butterfly net, a happy grin across my face. For some reason, I alone had been given the gift of being able to chase the fluttering butterflies for hours straight without tiring. I didn't understand it, and neither did my parents, Charlie, or anybody else close to me, but running outdoors for miles and miles felt like the most natural thing in the world to me.

I remember running through the field one day with my friends, the warm summer sun baking our scrawny limbs as sweat poured off us in sheets. I caught sight of Charlie zeroing in on a beautiful tiger swallowtail. I was about eighty yards away and broke into a tremendous sprint. At the last second, I swooped in with my net and snatched the fluttering creature just under Charlie's nose. For the first time in my life, I felt that fiery, competitive spirit overwhelm me. I knew then that nothing could ever match the thrill of running as fast and as far as my feet could take me.

As Amby and I continued to move in perfect stride along the quiet country roads on the outskirts of campus, chatting about silly stuff like girls and music, I took in the beautiful colors of the New England foliage and smiled. I couldn't believe that training could be like this; that I could feel like I did as a kid chasing butterflies with Charlie and Jason. Happy. Free. Flowing. “Here comes the sun,” I sang to myself, soaring along the road. “Here comes the sun. And I say, it's all right.”

Little did I know of the storm clouds gathering in the distance.

 

TWO

The Full Twenty Miles

A
PRIL 21, 1975

A
SHLAND,
M
ASSACHUSETTS

The spectators erupted in wild cheers as the field of two thousand runners broke from the starting line. It was like we had been shot out of a cannon—like dynamite going off. Adrenaline propelled the swarm of runners around me thundering down the straight, narrow road. In the mayhem, there was pushing and shoving and grabbing of shirts.

I was in a full sprint now. It was like the entire race was only three hundred yards, which is insane because it's actually a bit farther than that. I knew from my first two times here that I needed to reach the tight corner ahead of the swift-footed pack if I was to negotiate the steep turn down the hill. At the same time I was making a beeline for the corner, the crowds, with no rope to hold them back, pressed forward into the road. I weaved my way through the gauntlet of fire and managed to scramble up to the front of the ragged stampede.

The main thing now was to keep my wits as I fended off the horde of hell-bent runners nipping at my heels. To panic would have meant certain disaster. All of a sudden, the road in front of me took a sharp ninety-degree turn. The savage yells of the spectators were still ringing in my ears as I navigated the blind turn and started down the steep hill.

As I made my way through the crowded traffic, I watched some guy with absolutely no chance of winning go flying down the hill ahead of us. This happens at every marathon. He was somebody who wanted to be in the limelight—who wanted to be on TV. Or he was somebody who was just totally incapable of pacing himself. Every race I've ever run, there's been that guy.

I had learned from my past two experiences in the Boston Marathon to stay under control. Be the captain of my own ship. Let adrenaline and nerves take over and I'd be road kill before I reached mile one. That goes for all top runners. And there will be no use in bellyaching later to Jock Semple that the other runners nearly trampled you to death. Boston is Boston and you have to be able to handle what it throws at you.

At that moment, this meant fighting my way through a frantic barrage of flying elbows amid the noise of pounding footsteps. Yet my mind remained calm in order to clearly see what was going on around me; that way I could avoid danger in a split second. Nimbly sidestep a competitor about to step on my foot; duck out of the way of another guy about to trip and crash into my rib cage. Run calm, stay focused, and breathe, Bill. It's the only way to survive.

I emerged from the dicey start, alive and kicking. Only twenty-six miles to go!

Pace-setter Bernie Allen took the lead early in the race. I ran close behind with Tom Fleming and the other race favorites. We had shot down that first hill at a pretty high speed. This wasn't a day for hanging back and conserving too much energy, not with an overcast sky and a cool tailwind. For a New Englander like me, hot weather meant bad news, but on a perfect day like this I knew I could push it.

I was breezing through these early miles. I was feeling my way through the race. This is what the top marathon runners do. They are careful with it. I finally got this. It took getting beat up my first two times at Boston, and getting wrecked in the New York City Marathon the previous fall. But as I ran here through the first miles, I didn't try to go beyond myself. I was pushing it, but at the same time I was watching it, making sure to run with the competition. I was actually staying behind the other top runners.

I spotted Tom Fleming wailing down the road. No surprise there. Everybody knew Tom was a front runner. He liked to be out ahead, pushing the pace, challenging anyone to duke it out with him, mentally as well as physically. As I said, Tom trained hard. Now he was going to find out just how hard the rest of us had trained. He was betting it hadn't been as hard as he.