I Ran a Marathon ( sort of )

It did take me two days, however! I ran 15 miles on Saturday and 12 more on Sunday. That is what warmer temperatures and wearing shorts can do for you! The 15 miler felt fantastic. My hips were aligned quite nicely and can I say that it felt that my legs were floating underneath my hips as they just glided along with no tension or imbalances. Believe me, it has been many years since I felt that loose and balanced so it is still a strange feeling for me: one that I have forgotten and never thought I could get back! I was not tired afterwards and had no residual effects. I didn't need to stretch, hit a foam roller, or try anything else afterwards. I should have done my hip work however. I went out for a run the following day and while I felt good and did more than I planned, I had a tightness in my hip. I ran the workout but it bothered me some. Still, being able to bump up the mileage without the side-effects leaves me feeling very positive about the work I can start to do.

Speaking of marathons! Here is one I did 25 years ago last month. It was my slowest marathon I had ever run at the time. I finished in 3:39:52 which was more than 50 minutes slower than my best time. However it was snowing during the last portion of the race. I was not in shape. I was doing it to get ready for Boston, but being that I was in my first year of teaching, I had not been doing much training at all. The story was not how slow I ran, or the weather. But the story was "Who won the Race?" or at least that was the question for all the Boston TV stations and newspapers.

The Silver Lake Dodge Marathon on February 20th, 1983 was the last of 17 annual marathons run in Wellesley, Ma. I did not realize how notoriously bad the organization of the race was when I entered. It was organized by a car dealership and the basement of the dealership was race day headquarters. What happened in this race? It seems race leader, Craig Fram (yes that Craig Fram-who is still extremely fast!) was passed by another runner in the last quarter mile. Bob Clifford, a sub 2:20 marathoner ended up winning by 15 seconds.

It seems race officials did not see Bob Clifford on the course, even though Boston Marathon race historian, Tom Derderian ran 23 miles of it with him and New England Runner magazine snapped a picture of Bob Clifford at the 10 mile mark for their coming inaugural issue.

Race organizers declared the two runners co-winners. Later. Clifford correctly realized this was not right and had to get a lawyer to get the race organizers to declare him the rightful winner. I remember the news reports going back and forth over the decisions of the race organizers (remember Rose Ruiz was still fresh on the minds of race organizers and Boston citizens).

With enough egg on their face as well as the word that this was just a poorly organized marathon, the future of this marathon was set. I believe it was the last of the Silver Lake Dodge Marathons. That means I ate one of the last bowls of soup given out( that was all you got for finishing the race!). You can read the article from Boston Running News here.



If you have children you may enjoy reading Carol Goodrow's "The Treasure of Health and Happiness." Carol is the person behind Kidsrunning.com (an offshoot of Runner' World). I review the book on my teacher's blog here.