Looking Back on Six Decades of My Involvement in Running

Today on my 70th birthday I think back on many things, not the least of which has been my involvement in running. I've been fortunate enough to have been a coach, writer, and most importantly, a runner for a very long time. I know I have touched on what follows a bit in the past so forgive me if I am being repetitive.

As you age, there is a tendency to look back on the "good old days".

In my case, I occasionally think back to the 50's, and particularly for me, the 60's, when Track and Field was given the same amount of media coverage as baseball, football and basketball. For you younger athletes this may seem hard to believe but it is true. I am sure thousands of kids were inspired and motivated to take up running because of what they saw on a regular basis on television and read in the newspapers and magazines. Profiles I read in Sports Illustrated about Herb Elliott, Jim Ryun, Tom O'Hara, Jim Grelle, Jim Beatty, Ron Clarke and many more got me incredibly inspired and psyched. But, those days are long gone and they aren't coming back. Fortunately, the Blog--once upon a time in the vest (vest not west) is a huge resource on the Golden Age of running.

Then there is coaching. I started what I will call formal coaching in  '86. I coached high school T&F as well as X-Country athletes. What I soon found out was that most of my peers in coaching really didn't know what they were doing. I won't go into detail but most had an over emphasis on speed/anaerobic training. They had the faulty "ya gotta run fast to be fast" mindset. A schedule of progressive, ever more stressful workouts ala Lydiard was foreign to them. Training for distance running is not a complicated thing despite what many people trying to sell something "new under the sun" may tell you. A lot of it is just common sense.

Last but not least, is my involvement in running and racing. Something I've been doing since age 8 when my father entered me in a 50 yard dash (yes, that's 50 yards) at a local AAU developmental meet. From there I went on to H.S. track and cross-country to all kinds of road races. THEN, in '86, a close friend, Greg Walters, gave me a single mimeographed sheet with a picture of Percy Cerutty and a two paragraph description of his philosophy. I was immediately hooked on what he taught and I totally changed the way I trained and looked at life. The fact that I changed where I trained, from concrete to trails, parks and dirt, is why I am still running today while 90% of the people my age I ran with have been forced to quit.Racing means nothing to me these days. 

I am very thankful to still be able to get out there.

And, more than that, very thankful to be alive!