On Saturday, December 13th, four of my CSU teammates plundered the prize table at the “Assault on Mt. Hood” cross country race, held annually at the Mt. Hood Golf Course in Melrose. It has become a tradition for members of the club to run the race, and, as Kevin says, the major attraction is the prizes — festive nutcrackers in funny costumes, eminently suitable for display, no matter how much you dislike the Christmas holiday. Continue reading
These days, as those of us in the Northern hemisphere are slouching toward the winter solstice, I find myself spending a lot of time brooding on small details in the celestial calendar. For example, today, December 12th, is one of the days that stands out in my mind because in Boston it’s the day when the sun sets a minute LATER than it has for the past few days. Specifically, it will drop below the horizon at 4:12 rather than 4:11 as it has been doing. I grasp at this straw and tell myself that things are looking up. From now until June we can look forward to ever more light at the end of the day. Continue reading
The Beer Mile World Championships have come and gone, and the republic still stands — albeit a little unsteadily, and badly in need of a designated driver to get home safely.
The competition at the BMWCs was fierce and, as expected, the elite runners were no match for the more skilled drinkers. Two-time Olympian and World Silver Medalist Nick Symmonds was the last finisher in the men’s race, and Katie Mackey, the speediest runner in the women’s race, spent so much time drinking her beers that she would have needed a sub-four minute mile to challenge for the win. If there’s anything to be learned from all this, and I doubt that there is, it might be that the people who invented running/drinking events did so because they wanted a way to beat the elite runners at SOMEthing. Continue reading
It takes a long time and a lot of miles to be in the best shape of your life, but it only takes a moment for all of that work to be put in jeopardy. Continue reading
[Hard to believe it’s been five years since the day Larry Olsen headed out for a run from his house in Millis and never made it home. He was 63 and still full of competitive spirit and a love for the sport of running, a love he passed to high school kids as cross-country coach at Hopedale.Even now, it makes me shake my head to think about Larry’s accomplishments: he won countless races and set numerous U.S. age-group records, including running 53:40 for 10 miles at age 50, 43:30 for 12K at age 60, and winning his age group in New England Championship races an astonishing 62 times. But it wasn’t just that he won races and set records, it was how he did it, with a determination and fearlessness that inspired all of us to be a little tougher, work a little harder, and aim a little higher. It was a coincidence that at the time he died, Runner’s World was just going to press with a feature on Larry (http://www.runnersworld.com/elite-runners/memory-larry-olsens-lifetime-love). I read it again this morning, along with the tribute that was printed in his local paper (http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/sports/local_sports/x29009379/Hopedale-cross-country-coach-Larry-Olsen-dies) . The following essay was first published December 16, 2009]
The night was one of the darkest of the year, and I was grateful that Terry was driving, especially on these back roads. If I had been alone, I doubt I would have remembered all the turns as we headed down back roads South out of Needham through Dover, Medfield, Walpole, and Norfolk, finally arriving in Wrentham and at the funeral home where friends and family were saying good-bye to Larry Olsen.
Larry was out on a run a week ago Sunday when he suffered a fatal heart attack. News of his death was hard to accept, not only because it represented a huge loss to his friends, family, but because many of us secretly thought of Larry as invincible, as someone who would resist the ravages of age better than any of us, and still be winning races and setting records while we watched him from our rockers. Larry was a very good runner when he was young, but his focus and consistency over the decades transformed him into a great runner as he aged.
But if he had been a great runner only, he wouldn’t have been so revered, and perhaps there wouldn’t have been such a long line of people stretching out of the funeral home and onto to the sidewalk for his wake, waiting for hours in the cold to pay their respects and exchange stories about the runner, the coach, the man. Larry Olsen’s legacy is that he somehow managed to give his greatness back to all of us, those of us who chased him in races, followed him as their coach, or were lucky enough to have him as a friend. Larry had the generosity and grace to compete with modesty, to give every race his best effort, and to lose with dignity. As Terry said, Larry was one of the few people whose conversation after a race was always welcome and complimentary. If you beat him, he would talk about how well you had run without ever making an excuse for his own performance; if he beat you, he would encourage you, making you feel you could do better. His post-race talk was always about the race and how it went, never about superfluous things.
His close friend and Tri-Valley teammate Robert Chasen told us last night that the first time he beat Larry in a race was one of the most memorable accomplishments of his life, more memorable than the time he beat the future Olympian Nourredine Morceli. I’m sure many other runners feel the same way. Larry gave us that gift. Instead of retiring early when he started slowing down, or becoming the kind of runner who lives on past glories while talking incessantly about his present infirmities, he continued competing into his 60’s without apology or excuse, giving younger runners like myself a chance to take his measure — sometimes. If I wasn’t at my best, he would still beat me, and no victory over Larry Olsen was ever achieved without great effort.
I was not a close friend of Larry’s, so it must be for others to recount stories of his personal generosity and his work as a coach, but as a fellow runner, I was the recipient of his larger generosity to the sport. On the rare times it happened, beating Larry Olsen in a race was a great feeling, and he gave that to us by making sure it was never easy. He made me and countless other runners better and left us a legacy that continues to inspire us to live up to his example.
“I hope you enjoy my pain.” – James Nielsen, Beer Mile world record holder
Today, December 3rd 2014 in Austin, Texas, the first-ever Beer Mile World Championships will take place on the track at Yellow Jacket stadium. The event is being sponsored by Flotrack (http://www.flotrack.org/beermileworlds/), and if you happen to subscribe to their Pro service, you can watch the races live, beginning at 6:00 p.m. local time (7:00 p.m. EST). Continue reading
There seems to be only one photograph of Alan Turing running. In it he appears to be finishing an event — perhaps his club’s 3-mile championship — passing the finish post in first, but his form looks terrible. His arms are held high and awkwardly, and his right leg seems to whip out to one side. Indeed, an article in the British magazine TrackStats commented that Turing’s running action was “apparently very strained and cumbersome…” Continue reading
[November 27th marked the seventh anniversary of the passing of physician, professor, researcher, and inventor Robert Cade, who led the research team that first formulated a fluid and electrolyte replacement drink that would come to be known as Gatorade, named for the mascot of the University of Florida football team. What ever you think of the use and overuse of sports drinks now, at the time, the invention of Gatorade changed the way the world thought about fluid replacement. This appreciation was originally published December 2nd, 2007, shortly after Cade’s death.] Continue reading
When the weather turns cold and the days grow short and the sun struggles to rise in the sky over Boston (if it bothers to appear at all), I feel a strange urge to run in the early mornings.
I don’t know where this urge comes from or why it strikes at this time of year. I guess I’m a morning person the rest of the year, too, but that doesn’t translate into a year-round habit of rolling out of bed before the first light, pulling on a few layers, and clomping out the front door. In summer, when it would actually make sense to run early, I snooze happily through the pre-dawn hours, letting the bright sun wake me like any normal person. In the Spring and the Fall, I’m too distracted in the mornings to run, too focused on getting to work early so I can coach in the afternoons. Whatever the reasons, as we bear down on the winter solstice, I find myself drawn to the dark, furtive hours and the solitude of being up WAY too early. Continue reading
In the midst of a busy Saturday, I was lucky and grateful to find an hour in the middle of the day to watch the live stream of the NCAA Div I Cross Country Championships, held at the Lavern Gibson Cross country course in Terre Haute, Indiana. Continue reading
the runner eclectic 