How Runners Communicate (through the years)

When I started running in the 1970s everything I knew about running came from my coaches and teammates, books on running, televised track meets, and Runner's World magazine. I was fortunate to grow up in Falmouth on Cape Cod, the home of the Falmouth Road Race and I started running for the Falmouth High School Cross Country team just a couple of weeks after the first Falmouth Road Race. I also learned a lot about the athletes and the sport from participating in the Falmouth Road Race and seeing and reading about all the stars of the sport in the local papers. Being in close proximity to the best in the sport probably helped instill a passion in me for the sport of running.

 High School Communication:

Falmouth High School 1973-1974

 There was no internet. Runners did not even have timers on their watches to accurately record training times.  Results were either written down or mimeographed and distributed later. Results from my first year of running cross-country. I was no running star! The only race that is missing is the final race, a handicap race for the Falmouth XC team. I was one of the first starters, based on my slow best time, and held on for the win in 19:53.

I think this is the first time I was mentioned in the newspaper. It was just for being on the track  team. I was pretty slow.

The Stony Brook School 1974-977

Mimeographed sheets again. Communication with Coach Goldberg in the summer was by mail or phone. The only way I could get to the top of the list was if the top guys did not run, but it was fun to get there.

 Results always seemed to be in purple. These are from the New York State Suffolk County Cross-Country Championships in 1976. We had an outstanding team, and finished third in our NY State division race. I wonder how many race results are lost to history, except for those saved by racers stored  in boxes in garages and attics.







 

 Our outstanding coach, Marvin W. Goldberg, would post workouts everyday on a bulletin board in the gym and send postcards and notes throughout the summer. After a season, he would meet with his athletes individually and go over goals. I think I am the only high school runner, despite loads of effort, who could never break 5 minutes in the mile (all slow twitch fibers and a funky hip and stride).








Wheaton College 1977-1981

In college we had this postcard-newsletter system to keep up with our teammates throughout the summer. How else would you know that a teammate just won an NCAA title or that another teammate spent his summer elongating the necks of Coca-Cola bottles for carnivals (in another newsletter). There was a lot of ribbing and strange humor in these newsletters (maybe the Coke bottle puller was just someone pulling our legs-I still don't know). It was a fun way to keep in contact and stay motivated through a long summer.

Through college and after, if I wanted to stay in-touch with the running world, I had to read magazines and books, run and talk with running friends, go to races, and watch the occasional event of television. It  might take weeks or months to view the results in running magazines of races from around the world and in the US, unless they were printed in a newspaper like the Boston Globe. The computer changed all that.

In the 1990s the Gate City Striders had a computer bulletin board in addition to a mailed out newsletter. You would phone in using your modem (I think one person at a time could gain access) and you could read and send messages to teammates and read messages on a newsgroup called rec.running to hear what people around the world were writing about running. The message board was a lot of fun and a place of inspiration: just when you thought you were training well, you could read the messages of your teammates and find out that they were running farther and more often. It was motivating hearing about their training runs and races, as well as being able to plan workouts and long runs.

As the internet exploded and more people became computer savvy, the bulletin board was eventually laid to rest. The Gate City Striders, like other running clubs, migrated their presence to a web page. Runners could now communicate easier and messages and results flowed more freely and with greater speed. Running forums like Runners World and Letsrun allowed even greater communication and then results started showing up online with sites like Coolrunning. Now, you didn't have to copy results from a printout after a race to keep track of your times and placing, but you could go online and see what your friend's times were in races you didn't attend soon after they were completed. Now you can even see a record of your online results at Athlinks.

Technology soon expanded more, so that you could listen to races online. I recall getting up early one Sunday morning to hear the BBC broadcast of the 2002 London Marathon where Khalid Khannouchi defeated Paul Tergat and Haile Gebrselassie in a world record time before getting in the car to go run the Fred's Marathon. Pretty soon races from around the world could be viewed online, many live. Sometimes you had to pay and sometime they are free for the watching. I have a few VHS tapes sitting around from before that time marathons like London and Chicago, where I had to buy a tape of the race on eBay to see the full action in a race.

Communication is pretty instant with runners and races nowadays. Runners on Letsrun often get a bit angry if results are not posted within minutes of a race's completion. Another type of communication also followed for some runners. I started this blog a few years ago to write about my experiences with running, racing, health, and injuries. I have made many friends in the running community from places all over the world through this blog or reading websites and blogs that other runners, coaches, and therapists provide. I have been able to read and talk with others about common injuries and share my own struggles in hopes that others can find some helpful nuggets of information or provide from their own experiences and knowledge to help me. I also like reading my teammates and friends blogs to be inspired by their races and workouts and encourage each other to become better runners.

Eventually I broke down and got a Facebook account (how else do you communicate with you kids when he is in college). This has provided a new set of friends in the running community. I have met some fellow runners in the oddest circumstances through Facebook. One runner found himself in the background of a photo of my  finish in the 1976 Falmouth Road Race. I have connected again with former teammates from high school and college (every result and article above has one or more of my Facebook refound friends listed) and I made new friends who share their love of running and racing (some are runners I knew about and others are runners I have still to meet). It is always fun to read other runner's  accounts of races and training (as well as the bragging and dissing that goes on). I think that if I was left alone in a bubble, I would probably just give up on the running thing, but I am always inspired by the success and wisdom of others as they relate their own experiences. Who would want to stop running? The running community is full of so many fun and positive people. Technology and computers has certainly changed the world of running and we are all better for it.If you are a runner and like to communicate on Facebook, you can find me here.

Another aspect for having this blog is to practice my writing skills due to the fact that I am a teacher. I try some of the things I have my students do with their writing. So that leaves me with a new avenue, I am tentatively going to try on "Recover Your Stride". I would like to write about other runners and discover their successes and secrets, as well as their history with running. I don't know how it will go, but I would hope to find some willing subjects that might be more interesting to write about them myself, as I am not really that interesting as a runner, I am just persistent runner who loves the sport, I already have my first subject, someone who loves running as much as I do, someone who loves the Falmouth Road Race as much as I do, and someone who has an incredible string of Falmouth runs- even more races than I have done. I have seen him and his brother at plenty of Falmouths in recent years, but have never really met him except online due to this blog, so it will be fun to find out his history and how he has stayed so successful.

2010 Hollis Applefest half-marathon

Congratulations to all finishers (results)of the very hot Hollis Applefest half-marathon. Here are some videos of the brutal day.



Mile 1.2 race winner Pat Moutlon in lead with 3re place finisher Andy McCarron in tow



2nd group at mile 1.2



6th place at mile 1.2



The next group of runners. I am talking to Kevin MacIntyre, Tyler Brannen, and Mike Wright.


Just about everyone else at 1.2 miles.



2nd and 3rd place at about 1/2 way into the half!

4th place



55 year old Dave Parsel in 5th place and the 6-8 places. I found Ron Kita biking out on the course and we were comparing running injuries!



9-11th place. Kevin MacIntrye



First woman and eventual winner Eileen Combs.



The next group of runners. Ron got hit by a car a few years ago at Applefest and still won his age group!



the next runner



Way to go Tyler Brannen!



Eventual 2nd place finisher Bonnie Ritchotte and the only person I could find smiling in the heat!



Go Mike Ward! Eventual winner of my age group 50-54.



Ray Brown 2nd in my age group-you get a Mile High Apple Pie!



Pat Moulton closing in on the finish and a repeat win.

I would much rather have run the race and been in the hunt for another Mile High Apple Pie, but I am going in for an MRI on my hip on Monday. At least I can bike with my hip, so I took out my old 1984 Centurion Cinelli Bike (took me through a few Ironman distance triathlon in the 1980's) and my old Nashua Velo Club shirt from the early 1990's and rode just like in the old days. It was brutal conditions out there today, so if I was going to miss a year this was a good one to miss.

Steve Wolfe has photos of the race here. When I saw him at the 12 mile mark I came over to visit and he caught me in my old cycling gear crossing the road in back of Ken Goodwin, 2nd place in the 55-59 age group, and a guy I ran with all summer at the Lowell Good Times series.

A few photos I took on the course

Tyler Brannen

Mike Ward and Brendan Loehr

Ray Brown and Benjamin Quick

Kevin MacIntyre and Eileen Combs

2nd place finisher Matthew Terrasi

 3rd place finisher Andy McCarron

5th place finisher 55 year old Dave Parsel

Frank Row relay 

 7th place overall Joe Mulligan leading 6th place overall Mark Odell

 7th place Joe Mulligan

9th place Adam Evans

 10th place Kevin McIntyre and 11th place-first female Eileen Combs

2nd female Bonnie Ritchotte

3rd female  Ann MacDonald  

Tyler Brannen

Mike Ward

Running and Racing: A Musical Review

The Start PhotoRun.com

Everyone has to do Falmouth at least once. If you haven't run this classic race yet and you live in New England you should give it a try. Many years ago, Runner's World Magazine did an article on the Falmouth Road Race and they refererred to the "Winding roads that seem to beckon" from an old Patti Page song called "Old Cape Cod". Falmouth is a magical race. I love the history of the race, as well as it being the race that follows the roads of the town where I grew up. I have great memories on these winding roads! Unfortunately, many competitive runners now pass it by. But really, it should be on your list of must do races.



This year I went down Friday night and picked up my race number at Falmouth High School. I was there when autographs were about to start, so I got in the short line because I wanted to meet Meb Keflezighi. Meb decided not to run Falmouth the day before, but as soon as I finished he was the first one shaking hands of us runners after we crossed the finish line.

He was there with his Olympic marathon silver medal and the New York City Marathon gold medal. What was neat was that he let me and others hold the medals. The Olympic medal in particular is getting worn out! I really appreciate that Meb "shares" these medals rather than lock them away for safe-keeping.

 I also got to say hello to Catherine Ndereba. Frank Shorter, Bill Rodgers, Joan Benoit-Samuelson, and wheelchair competitor Craig Blanchette. Frank and Bill were there regular friendly selves and we talked a bit about running Famouth back in the 1970's. I asked Joan when she would run her next marathon. She said Chicago this year. I asked her about running sub 3 and making it into the sub 3 hour marathon in five decades club. She remarked about it a bit, then her whole demeaner changed, she said what she really wanted was to be in the sub 2:50 marathons in 5 decades club. There was a huge competitive fire and drive in how she said this. I would put my money on her easily going sub 2:50 in Chicago.

I went back to the high school to watch the Falmouth Miles. This year they had high school miles for the first time. Unfortunately only two women were in the elite mile, but it was still a good race. The men's race had Olympic 1500 meters silver medalist Nick Willis making a comeback from injury race. He was outsprinted at the finish line as the first two runners broke a 4 minute mile. When you go to Falmouth, you have to watch the miles, they are a lot of fun.It is also run on the track where I started my cross-country  running career back in 1973.  Here is the video I took of Russell Brown outsprinting Nick Willis in the mile.

I guess the best word to describe the  Falmouth Road Race is "efficient". From the buses taking you to the start to all parts of the race, it seems the race organizers have it down to an efficient process. This is good as the race works year after year. It also means it lacks a litte pizzazz as you get used to things always being the same. The t-shirts always have the same design, you get a coffee cup at number pick-up, and everything seems the same. Interchange a few Kenyan (and now Ethiopian) runners with a few top-Americans and the race always seems to turn out in a similar fashion. I would love to see more of the very top American runners show up for the race. I would love to see a little less effeciancy and a more go-for broke effort to bring back the competitiveness of the 70's and 80's back into the race. It would be great to get the top New England runners back to Falmouth. As I line up at the start there are the top runners and a bunch of familiar faces of people I see back at Falmouth every year. I don't see the local road racing crowd. What goes on behind the elite corral, where I am situated is unclear to me. I know there are some runners looking to do well, but there are mostly running tourists. Runners who do Falmouth and it might be there only race of the year and quite possibly there longest run of the year. This is great, but in the end, I just wish more of the "running club" runners would get a taste of Falmouth.

This year's race saw me feeling pretty good at the start. I was able to do strides and a warm up without feeling so stiff like I have been recently and it was an incredibly gorgeous and cool summer day for the race. When the gun went off it was a bit crowded until the first corner and then I started getting more room. I hit the mile at Nobska Lighthouse slower than I wanted, but from then on I think I pretty much kept the same pace throughout the race, which meant I was slowly passing runners the whole race, and was rarely passed at all. I never really sightsee as I run Falmouth, but I got that sense of blue ocean over to my right side as well as that salty air smell and I felt right at home. I ran at a good pace and effort, but didn't really push things.

Here is a video someone posted (there is not much online that I can find) of the lead runners running up Shore Road (right in front of a house one of my good friends used to live in). It is about 4 3/4 miles into the race.



At the 6 mile point, I noticed an old friend named Stewart Johnston at the side of the road and called out to him. His brother was the 8th place finisher at the first Falmouth Road Race. We both went out for cross-country together in 9th grade two weeks after that race and traded last place finishes at races throughout that season. Stu never ran again after that year. I haven't stopped.

I finished the race this year in 301st place in 47:12. Pretty much where I finished in 2009. The Wall Street Journal had an article after the race by Cameron Stracher called Slow and Steady Loses the Race. I don't think it is entirely accurate. He states that, "the increasing popularity of running coincides with the decreasing competitiveness of the U.S. runner." I actually started Falmouth this year standing next to the aurthor. In the article he mentions the Falmouth Road Race, "At the seven-mile Falmouth Road Race, in 1979, a finishing time of 36 minutes was good enough only for 84th place. But in 2009, the same time would have earned 34th place." I don't know how everyone else is doing, but I ran the 1979 Falmouth Road Race in 46:10 and this year I ran 47:12. It looks like I only lost a minute in 31 years, which is part of what is wrong with the article because it is hard to compare years. I did only run 38 miles in July and August 1979 before running Falmouth as I was traveling overseas.

If Falmouth is too busy for you, you can always run the same course at the Falmouth in the Fall road race.

Sunday I ran the Moose on the Loose 10 mile trail race back in Mines Falls inNashua. I finished in 8th place with a time of 1:07:59. My hips were not working in coordination so I had a hard time getting comfortable, which was too bad because I was feeling good energy-wise. Halfway through the race, I noticed two runners ahead of me who looked like they could be in my age division. I picked off one of them but the other guy had over a 30 second lead by the high school bridge (less than a mile before the last of four laps). I put my head down a bit more and started passing a few people then I noticed I was catching the guy in front of me. I caught him at the bridge and ended up winning my age division by 16 seconds. That means I was given an award for being the RRCA state champion in my age group (50+) which on the plaque is called the "Grandmaster" division. So I guess now I can become a rapper.

Monday night I showed up for the last of the Gate City Striders Mine Falls trail races. I didn't feel like racing so jogged it and finished in dead last place. OK it was  handicap race and only a couple of runners started behind me and they passed quickly so I basically ran by myself and did so at an enjoyable pace, and you know what? I had a fun time! I think it is called a "training run" and I have been doing so much racing lately that I haven't had many of those! I ran about 4 minutes slower than last week and finished 59 out of 59. Sometimes you just want to finish last.



I did win my age group in the 2nd half of the race series. I think I ran all of the races in both series except for one week in the first half. What a great series it is to run and much thanks to Mike Wade, the volunteers, and the Gate City Striders for putting on this fun series of low-key races. This is the water bottle you get for winning your age group.

photo Ted Tyler

Tuesday night I had another last race in a race series. This is the first year I have done the Good Times series of races down in Lowell. I had a good time with these too. I ran my course PR with a 19:13. That means I got three awards at the award ceremony. A mylie for setting a PR, a Golden Mylie for running all 8 races in the summer series, and a first place plaque for winning the 50-59 age group.

Not feeling old when you are having fun!

I recently completed 6 races in 9 days, which is a little bit unorthodox in training and racing circles, but I had fun. At the completion of the final 3 consecutive days of  racing, I did a track workout of 4 X 1 mile. I wasn't even sure what would happen at the start of the workout, but I kept feeling better as it progressed. Then I realized that this was just a bit more running  (0.3 miles) than a full marathon, so I decided to add up the times.

8/9 Mon 5k 20:08 "Mine Falls"
8/10Tues 5k 19:32 "Dynamic Duo" Lowell
8/12Thurs 5k 19:37 "Cigna-Elliot"
8/15 Sun 7 miles 47:12 "Falmouth Road Race"
8/16 Mon 5k 19:56 "Mine Falls"
8/17 Tues 5k 19:48 "Coaster Toss" Lowell
8/18 Wed Track 4X 1 mile Track 6:20/6:15/6:10/6:05

I did 26.5 miles of racing and track work over 10 days for a time of 2:51:07. I have run marathons faster than that (not recently, though). I guess I used to be able to do in one day, what now takes me 10 days to accomplish! That must be a true sign of the aging (and slowing down) process.

There was an interesting thread on Letsrun last week titled "Older runners: When did you start feeling old?" I didn't answer, but barring discussion of injuries and imbalances and their effect on performance, the last two years have been eye-opening. It is a lot harder to move like I expect to be able to move and I am not just referring to running. I do hope to start feeling younger again and am making progress, but it does take a lot of work.

The good news is that you can still have a great time running and racing, even if it never looks or sounds that way. This week's Tuesday night 5k race in Lowell was called the "Coaster Toss." Ted Tyler took a huge amount of pictures at the one mile point of the race. If you look, everyone is smiling and having a good time. Why? For the simple reason that everyone was carrying a coaster. At this point in the race you had to throw it into one of three buckets. If you got it in you would get a prize at the awards ceremony. Give a runner something different and fun to do and everyone has a good time. Maybe that is why it is called the "Good Times" series. I was holding mine in my left hand and went to toss it about 10 feet to the barrel. It went about 10 inches and crashed to the ground. I ended up laughing, just like everyone else who missed and a lot missed. Only 8 runners out of 261 were "athletic" enough to get the coaster in the barrel. And I guess that is why we are all runners!

Post throw- I think that is mine on the ground next to the path.

Trying not to get hit- well maybe mine is the one a little further along on the ground. Still, it was an embarrassing throw.

But, at least I got a chuckle out of it!

The end of the race and back to a runner's grimace. But really, racing is fun, even if it doesn't always show on our faces!