Growing up with The Falmouth Road Race

Meeting with Amby Burfoot in 2000.

I grew up in the small Cape Cod town of Falmouth. Falmouth is a town whose population more than triples in size during the summer season due to its lovely beaches and seaside lifestyle. Falmouth is also know for its annual road race and it was in Falmouth that I first loved running and racing as I literally  grew up running right along with the Falmouth Road Race. This post is a sort of part 2 to my previous post on Cameron Stracher's new book: Kings of the Road: How Frank Shorter, Bill Rodgers, and Alberto Salazar made Running go Boom. His book traces the history of running during the running boom years of 1972-1982 and highlights the Falmouth Road. Having started running a month after the first Falmouth Road Race in 1973 and being one of the 800 runners that ran the 1975 race with Frank Shorter and Bill Rodgers, I consider myself fortunate to be an ordinary runner during those extraordinary days and to witness and partake in the running boom years. These are just some personal reflections of growing up during those times as well as added reflections on the decline of running post 1982.

As a kid, I was not fast, as I don't think I was granted many fast-twitch muscle fibers. I was born with a lot of endurance, however, and I was told I would be a good distance runner some day when I didn't really know what that meant. I had some books on running and famous Olympic runners when I was in elementary school and decided that I wanted to run the Boston Marathon when I was in third grade. No one would take me to the race, so Amby Burfoot won instead! I guess I was a bit ahead of the curve, as I acknowledged the Boston Marathon, even as a kid. Running in the 1960s was not on many people's radar or even lists of things to do (unless you were a kid).

I recall being in 7th or 8th grade and the gym teacher had all the boys run a mile at Gov. Fuller Field. I was in the lead until about 3/4 of the way when stomach cramps hit me, but I was still the third runner to finish and I felt some accomplishment in beating all the guys in my grade who were considered the athletes at the time. Around the same time, I realized that one of my female classmates was very special, Johanna Foreman made the Faces in Crowd section of Sports Illustrated for her running prowess and the entire school had an assembly in her honor. At a time when girls where starting to pursue equality in sports, John Carroll began coaching girls alongside the boys and the girls were gaining National prominence for the Falmouth Track Club. Without knowing it, Falmouth was becoming known for its runners. Johanna went on to be a top American middle distance runner when she was in high school along with two other girls mentioned in Stracher's book: Tammy Hennemuth and Nancy Robinson (and there were plenty of other fast female runners). While I liked the idea of running and had even cut a few articles I had found of people who had actually run across the United States as some sort of inspiration for a later date, I was just a normal kid having fun doing all the sports of the neighborhood: street hockey and street football games, pickup baseball games at Worcester Court or at the ball field in Falmouth Heights right across from the beach, or just riding our bikes all over town.

Then I met my first runner. Well, I knew who he was already, but my family would marvel as we watched a high school friend and runner constantly running by our house and all over town through the summer seasons. Tommy Johnston lived a couple miles away and we kept seeing him zipping around and I think I recall that he was usually doing 8 mile runs. All that I can say is that I was very impressed and wanted to do likewise some day! In those days it was extremely rare to see anyone running on the roads at all!

Tommy Johnson running in the 1976 Falmouth Road Race.

I remember that during the summer of 1973, I kept hearing of a "marathon" that was going to be held in Falmouth. I had watched the great runners for years in track meets that were televised so readily in the 1960s and 1970s. I remember watching Jim Ryun at the 1968 summer Olympics in Mexico City and had watched everything that I could of the 1972 Munich Olympics including Frank Shorter's victory in the the marathon. Now a year later, a road race of 7 miles was going to be held from Woods Hole to that Falmouth Heights ball field just a short distance from my house. I recall thinking that it would be fun to run the race and that I might be good at it, but didn't really know what to do about it so nothing happened. I was happy that I didn't run when I saw how wet and rainy the race was in the newspaper articles afterwards. Tommy Johnston finished 9th in that inaugural Falmouth Road Race less than a month before he headed off to Wheaton College, where he continued to run cross-country.

A few weeks after that first Falmouth Road Race, I was a 9th grader at at the brand new Falmouth High School. I had intended to go out for the soccer team, but had been on vacation with my family during the preseason camp and sign up. A few weeks into the school year, Tommy's brother Stewart and I decided to join the cross-country team. It was an early release day, so there was plenty of time for running that day. I think the date was September 19, 1973 and if so, that is the date I became a runner. We ran the entire 2.9 mile cross-country course as a preview plus warmups and strides around the track as it was also a race day, we ran down the road to cheer on the varsity runners before our race. Stu and I ran together near the back of the pack when our race went off and about a mile into the woods, we went left where we should have gone right. We got lost and two girls from the opposing team followed right along. There was a lot of walking and a lot of time before we made it out of the woods and onto Gifford Street far past Brick Kiln Road where we were supposed to be . By the time we made it back to the school an hour or so later, everyone was worried about the two missing girls. No one even cared that Stu and I had been lost! I didn't run again until the next Monday (another race). All that I remember was that I could barely walk for days, let alone think about running. My legs were impossibly sore (at the time I think we calculated that we had done 8 miles of running and walking that afternoon).

Stu and I did not distinguish ourselves as runners and we usually finished last on our team of some very good runners. The only highlight would be the end of season team race which was a handicap race on our home course. I improved my best time on the course by 37 seconds and was the first to finish in an unremarkable time of 19:53 but I ended up "winning" the race: well, at least being the first finisher as I had improved the most and the starting times were based on your best time. I may not have been good, but I was hooked on running.

Unfortunately, with a new school came some really weird scheduling ideas and and an "out-there" school philosophy. Of course, this was the year when streaking became a fad and so there was a lot of overall weirdness going on. Classes were often only 20 minutes long (called mods) and there was tons of free time to study or seek out help from teachers. Right! Basically, I would spend hours in the gym each day playing basketball or would just hang out in the library with a large group of friends. By Spring, I would ride my bike to school, so I could leave school early and ride to a friend's house. We would stop along the way, if it was warm, and swim in the pond at Goodwill Park and then take his two person kayak out from Salt Pond, go under Surf Drive through the metal "tubes" underneath the road, and swim and play along the ocean off Surf Drive (around mile 4 of the Falmouth Road Race). I got a lot of biking and swimming in those days, which would serve me well in a few years.

With the school system in disarray, I along with 3 other Falmouth boys headed off to the Stony Brook School on Long Island. I knew the 2nd edition of the Falmouth Road Race was going to be happening that August and even though I was now a runner, I did not train or enter the race that year with all the planning I needed to move away from home.

I did go out for the cross-country team at Stony Brook where I found a great running coach in Marvin W. Goldberg and where I also found a running program steeped in tradition and success. Of course, I still was not fast, but I continued to love to train and to race. I also had a coach that would send me postcards in the summer months and mention that road race in my hometown and even the exploits about Johanna Foreman. The summer of 1975 was the first year I ran the Falmouth Road Race and it was my first ever road race. I was also incredulous at the thought that the two biggest names in the running world: Frank Shorter and Bill Rodgers were going to dual it out on the streets of my hometown. What a sport! I could run a race alongside the current Olympic marathon champion and the current Boston Marathon champion (and American record holder). By golly, I wasn't going to miss that race. Mr. Goldberg eventually made it out to Falmouth to watch the road race a few times as well and also to convince Bill Rodgers to be a speaker my school and at the New York State Cross-Country meet in 1977 (the year after I graduated).

After finishing the 1975 Falmouth Road Race.

I don't remember too much of the actual race. I recall heading down the wooden bridge to the Woods Hole shoreline in the first mile and running on the grass on the left side of the road when I could. I recall people shouting out and then seeing a guy in a wheelchair, Bobby Hall, go speeding by. I remember finishing and how very tired I was at the end and for the rest of the day, but I was hooked on the Falmouth Road Race and the running boom, now in its infancy was about to experience explosive growth, according to Cameron Stracher in his new book Kings of the Road: How Frank Shorter, Bill Rodgers, and Alberto Salazar made Running Go Boom. Many key components that fashioned the emerging growth of running as a sport happened at the Falmouth Road Race between the years of 1972 and 1982 with that 1975 race being a pivotal race. Road running was entering its heyday and Falmouth was the spot where the best runners in the country came to race and party. Every year each new edition of the race was like Christmas to this runner. All of the champions and up and comers that I had been reading about in running magazines would show up in my seaside community and duke it out on the roads I knew so well. Not only that, but I could join them, further back in the pack, and prove myself through my own running exploits. I was becoming known as a "runner" and even though my family never once saw me race a cross-country or track race, I would get their attention each year at Falmouth.

Classic Runner's World cover
of the 1978 Falmouth Road Race.

For 40 years, my dad was the pastor of the Falmouth Baptist Church on Central Park Avenue right down the road from the finish line at Heights Field. The runners would run by the back side of the church on Falmouth Heights Road right between services each race. I would always have a large cheering section there before hitting the 6 mile mark of the race and my parents would always be there cheering and snapping a few photos of the top runners from the cheap cameras I had at the time. Still to this day as I run Falmouth, I always look around hoping to see a few friends from long ago in the crowd at that point in the race and stop at the church to meet the few people I still know there as I walk back from the finishing line

After graduating from the Stony Brook School, I enrolled at Wheaton College in Illinois and ran cross-country there too! Yes, that is the same school that Tommy Johnston ran at and I chased his best times until the final cross-country race of my senior year where I finally beat his college best time. Even though Tommy was the first real runner I knew, I don't ever recall running one step with him despite both of us running for Falmouth High School and Wheaton College.

Heading for the finish in 1980.

In college, I still wasn't fast enough and with a teammate who could probably be rated the greatest division 3 distance runner of all time on my team. I knew that I would never approach being fast enough, because I truly saw what fast really looked like. I had the marathon bug. I had really wanted to run the first 5 borough New York City Marathon in 1976 when in my last year of high school. I could have just hopped on train the from Stony Brook to get to New York City, but wonder of all wonders, I was finally good enough to be on the varsity cross-country squad.I still regret  not running that race. However, after my first college cross-country season, I went down to Dallas to run in the 1977 Dallas White Rock Marathon. I was a full and willing participant in the running boom and completed 8 marathons while in college.

Eventual winner Alberto Salazar with Mike McLeod at the
1981 Falmouth Road Race.

The Falmouth Road Race continued to be a highlight of every year. I couldn't wait to see Bill Rodgers finally defeat Frank Shorter and then new champions emerge like Craig Virgin, foreigners like Rod Dixon, and finally a young upstart named Alberto Salazar. I loved the race so much, I even cut short a summer traveling around Europe with some friends so that I could be home in time to run in the 1979 version of the race.

1979 Falmouth winner Ellison Goodall

I was also watching the women's side of running as a sport make an emergence. That 1968 Boston Marathon that I wanted to run as a kid, was a year after Jock Semple had tried to pull the bib number off of runner #261 K. (Katherine) Switzer. The Falmouth Road Race also welcomed the world's best women runners and I got to see Greta, Joan, Gayle Barron, Kim Merritt and other top female athletes of the time. Sometimes, I even got to run with them. I remember running down Nobska Hill with Joan Benoit in the race one year and staying with her until we went under the bridge and she took off. One year, I finished alongside women's running pioneer Nina Kuscick. It may have been 1977. I am missing from the results, but I see her listed in different places as finishing in 9th place in 43:05 or 43:45 and that sounds about right where I would have been.




Cameron Strachers's book Kings of the Road: How Frank Shorter, Bill Rodgers, and Alberto Salazar Made Running Go Boom covers the glory years of American distance running during the running boom and the Falmouth Road Race plays an important part in the story. He says that the running boom ended with the 1982 version of the Falmouth Road Race. Not only did Alberto Salazar start to struggle being on top of the world after that race, but the dominance of American men in the running scene started to decline as well. In fact, since 1982 only one American male runner has won the Falmouth Road Race. It is erroneously reported in the book that Bruce Bickford won in Falmouth in 1985, but the only American male champion since Salazar was Mark Curp in 1988 (Bickford was ranked number one in the world for 10,000 meters in 1985). The 1983 race was won by a Kenyan, Joseph Nzau.

There are a few reasons for the decline of American male distance running after 1982 and Stracher covers those reasons in his book. I would also like to add one more reason to his list and it also has its Falmouth ties.

In February 1982, at a little known event held in Hawaii that catered to a small group of fitness fanatics, a young lady crawled to the finish line. Sports Illustrated had done an article on the Hawaii Ironman Triathlon a few years earlier and ABC had televised the race for a few years. I remember watching it in college and not having an understanding of the biking and swimming legs at all, but being enthralled with what type of athlete would prove most dominant. Julie Moss was less than one mile from winning the female race when her body gave out and television cameras caught the gut wrenching display of Julie making it to the finish line any way she could and ultimately being passed by Kathleen McCarthy for the win just before stretching her hand across the finish line. When the race was televised on Wide World of Sports  thousands of people watched and decided that they just had to do that race (including me). The television broadcast was such a hit and created such a stir that it was shown again the next week.



I think that event had as much of an impact on the way American's viewed endurance sports as Frank Shorter's triumph in the Olympic marathon. People took notice!  Just as I was on the running boom  and marathon bandwagon, I was soon to be on the triathlon bandwagon. The next year at the 1983 Boston Marathon, it was announced that Dave McGillivray was going to put on an Ironman distance race on Cape Cod that September. Dave was a big running figure already in New England as he had run across the country for the Jimmy Fund in 1978 and received a lot of publicity for his efforts. He had also participated in the Hawaii Ironman. As soon as I heard about the race, I was in, despite not having any swimming or biking background. I went out and bought a $300 bike and started training. I had no coaching and did not know any person who had even completed a triathlon, let alone any swimmers or cylcists. I swam that summer off (appropriately) Racing Beach in Falmouth trying to learn how to do the freestyle stroke and keep my head in the water. I biked out to the Cape Cod Canal and back and I ran. One note: Dave McGillivray became the race director of the Falmouth Road Race in 2012.

The Falmouth Track Club had been putting on a members only triathlon for a couple of years and that summer in 1983 that race became my first triathlon. I finished fourth overall, but the newspaper reports had the organizers already complaining about the size of the event and the non track club members in the race. Then, big time triathloning hit Falmouth. The nationwide Bud Light Triathlon Series showed up in Falmouth and about 900 triathletes came to race at Old Silver Beach. It was credited with being the largest open water swim on the east coast at the time and the race organizers were also credited with creating hills on the swim. It was stormy and the storm and angry waters were not just in the salt water. Falmouth officials did not want the swim to go off on time and instead wanted the organizers to wait for the waves to die down. The race organizers did not listen and the race started on time, but they were not invited back to Falmouth again. I got the feeling that the town was not really appreciating the attention the race got when they already had a road race that needed attention. Triathlons did not happen for many years after that in Falmouth.

One other side note about the USTS race. The day before the race at the prerace show, the featured guest was a young lady whose finish had brought the nationwide spotlight onto triathlons. Julie Moss was in town to be the master of ceremonies at this Falmouth event. While triathlons being hosted in Falmouth were stalled after that race, the attention given to triathlons and multi-sport races was on the upswing. And yes, that September I did complete my third triathlon at the Cape Cod Endurance Triathlon (a full distance Ironman event). The race passed through many Cape Cod towns, from Sandwich to Provincetown, but the one town it did not get near to was Falmouth.

Scott Tinley (here in 1985) and Scott Molina would both later win
the Cape Cod Endurance Triathlon.

I think Julie Moss, Ironman races, and triathlons in general heralded a shift from running to an interest in other endurance sports. It was the new kid in town and those athletes who were getting tired of running, found some new ways to test out their bodies. I also think that triathlons started a shift in thinking away from an admiration of whippet thin runners to more muscular or well rounded athletic bodies. If Frank Shorter, Bill Rodgers, and Alberto Salazar were going to be replaced as icons of endurance sports, then Dave Scott, Mark Allen, Scott Tinley, and Scott Molina were more than happy to take up the mantle. People also started getting curious about this new idea called cross-training and soon Greg LeMond and his Tour de France victories started getting people interested in cycling. Fitness takes on many forms and activities these days. I am glad to see American distance running making a comeback on the international scene, however the average runner these days does not have the drive and enthusiasm for all out training and racing like what was going on during the running boom years. It is amazing to think that those early years of the Falmouth Road Race are now part of the running past and showcase the history of your sport. I am thrilled that it happened in my own back yard and that I got to be a participant an observer of those wonderful days.

Other Falmouth Road Race Posts

1975 Falmouth Road Race

1976 Falmouth Road Race

1977 Falmouth Road Race

1978 Falmouth Road Race

1980 Falmouth Road Race

2006 Falmouth Road Race

2008 Falmouth Road Race

2009 Falmouth Road Race

And here is the coolest part of Cameron Stracher's book. It is nice to see my past blog posts played a part in his research for the book.

Looking Forward

Here is one of those iconic pictures of the great Jim Ryun showing his head slightly askew, pumping arms, powerful stride, and eyes glued on the goal of reaching the finish line in first place. The picture is about Jim Ryun, and not many people may notice the "other guy". Well, I never did. However,  I was recently informed that the other guy is a runner named Glenn Ogden, whose name didn't ring any bells with me, even though I consider myself a student of the sport. I was surprised to find out that Glenn Ogden was a 1965 graduate of The Stony Brook School on Long Island, the same small college prep school that I attended. Here is the caption I found for the photo:

Glenn Ogden ’65 was one of the finest runners in school history.  After a Hall of Fame career for the Blue and White he attended the University of Missouri where he won 2 Conference Championships for the Tigers and set the 2 mile record with a time of 8:46.0.  In the above photo Ogden is running against one of the biggest names in the history of American sports: Jim Ryun.  In 1964 Ryun became the 1st high schooler to smash the 4 minute mile barrier by running a blazing 3:59.0 as a junior.  His litany of accomplishments include being a 3-time Olympian, setting the mile and 2 mile world records as a 19-year-old and being named Sports Illustrated’s “Sportsman of the Year.”

Stony Brook for many years had a strong and stellar tradition as a running powerhouse with many accomplished running "stars" and "no" I was not one of them (history here).  After a little searching I noticed that Glenn was ranked 9th in the USA at 5000 meters in 1966 (former Wheaton College teammate Dan Henderson was ranked 9th in 1984 and 8th in 1985). The all-time USA rankings in the men's 5000 meters can be found here. Another outstanding Stony Brook and national class runner Robin Lingle preceded Glenn at Missouri. Lingle would later coach at Missouri and then return to coach at Stony Brook. It was interesting to find out more about that old photo and discover the connections to my own running past!

As much as a runner looks forward to finishing a race, I am looking forward to Monday when I finally find out results of the MRI I had over a week ago. I hope the doctors can finally tell me what is wrong with my hip. I also hope to find out whether surgery will correct things (it better). I have my ideas about what they will find. I put my money on hearing the words "labral tear" and "hip impingement". I do hope they offer hope for me that I can be fixed. I have completely given up on even trying to run any more. It just doesn't work. I was so excited to finally get warm enough weather last week to go out biking. I took out my mountain bike and it felt good so I did about an hour, but that night the "nerve pain" came again all down my left side and stayed with me throughout the next day. I was hoping that at least I could bike, but I guess I can't even do that. It seems the only exercise I can do to work on my endurance is kettlebells. Yesterday, I set a new PR doing kettlebell swings. I did 1250 swings with my 50 pound kettlebell. It feels good to do these, but the only problem is I now get blisters on my hands instead of my feet.

I have had lots of conversations and  feedback online with other runners that have had labral tears and so much of what I have experienced matches up to their stories. The best description offered me explaining labral tears and their cause and damage comes from runner, cyclist, kickbiker-footbiker, and chiropractor Jamie Whitlock, (also runs the No Gears Needed blog). He wrote me this:

Labral tears would be a surgical fix. If that is the problem I would think that it was result of an imbalance. The muscles of the pelvis/hip, especially the psoas, are so prone to tightening, then you get a weakened Glute Medius, which is a stabilizer of the pelvis, and you are rocking side to side vs. gliding forward. This puts undo pressure on the hip joint itself, and shazaam internal destruction in or around the joint....All the muscles around that area, TFL, of course the ITB, G Med, Psoas, Piriformis all culprits!

That about sums up most of my trouble muscles and imbalance problems and tells about what I expect the MRI to show, "internal destruction in or around the joint."

To Live up to your Potential

"...to me the object is not to beat someone, but merely to live up to your potential. If you do, then you will end up winning a lot..."  Frank Shorter

After a training run with Frank Shorter at Brookdale Farm in Hollis.

Back in 1977, when I graduated from The Stony Brook School we could put a quote or two by our yearbook photo. I found a running quote that also was a life philosophy quote from Olympic 1972 gold and 1976 silver medalist in the marathon, Frank Shorter. I included this quote and I frequently recall it to help me pursue a proper "winning" attitude. I couldn't remember where it came from, until I recently found the original article again online in the May 24, 1976 Sports Illustrated article, "In the Long Run it's Shorter" by Frank Deford. This is a great article.

I also recently discovered that a classic running book from 1980 titled The Marathoners by Hal Hidgon has been released for the Kindle. I borrowed this book from a library many years ago, but it was nice to find the Kindle version for just $2.99 and it was worth a reread. It highlights the stories of Frank Shorter and his victory in the 1972 Olympic Marathon as well as Bill Rodgers and his 1975 victory in the Boston Marathon. These two runners and their standout feats lit the fires for the running boom in the 1970s. They are two champions of the sport.



Hal Higdon then tells about the women responsible for challenging the norms of the time concerning women running marathons. In particular he highlights Gayle Barron who won the 1978 Boston Marathon. She may not be as well know today, but she epitomized the female pioneer runners and marathoners of the 1970s who kept stepping forward to win races and bring down records.

Gayle Barron after the 1978 Falmouth Road Race

Talking with Gayle and getting her autograph after that race.

Gary Bjorklund was another great track and marathon runner from the 1970s; one who was eager to replace Rodgers and Shorter at the top of the running  pack.He is well known for making the Olympic Team in the 10000 meters in 1976 despite losing a track shoe in the race.

Gary Bjorlund and Bill Rodgers at the NYC Marathon.

Gary Bjorklund

If you want to learn some great  running history or be inspired again by the racing of these great runners, then I suggest you read this Kindle book.

On another note, of the numerous emails and notes of support I received back in 2000 during the hullabaloo when the Nashua School Superintendent would not let me take a personal day to run the Boston Marathon, I recall that one of the emails sent my way came from Hal Higdon himself!

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.

Vintage Running T-Shirts

I missed wearing a classic T-shirt last month at the Classic T-Shirt race in Lowell a few weeks back. Last week, my wife took a box out of the garage and said, "Let's throw away some shirts!" So I tossed a bunch of shirts from the 1990's that had been sitting there useless from the last time I had seen them (a few Mt. Washingtons, Pack Monadnocks, a 1996 Hawaian Ironman shirt (where did that come from?) and a bunch of others from various races, but I still hung on to a few shirts from the 1970's and 1980's (some have shrunk to ridiculous proportions) for future classic T-shirt nights. Then I saw a Vintage runnning t-shirt contest on Competitor.com and decided that I should enter a shirt.

First off all my most memorable race t-shirts were made into a hanging quilt by my wife many years ago, so I can't enter those. It hangs in my basement behind my computer reminding me of the best of my competitions and that way no one has to see it but me.

Top to bottom left to right:
1980 Falmouth Road Race -my hometown and favorite race- also my first ever road race in 1975
New England Triathlon Series- Fairlee Vt. 1987 -I did all the New England Triathlon series races the first few years it was held. There was a race in every state. In 1987 my car died on the way home. One year one of the Triathlon magazines did a cover story on this race and the cover was a picture of the start. My wife and friends who came to cheer me on were seen in the photo. I was just one of the masses with an orange swim cap on. 
1976 New York State Section 11 Cross Country State Championships. I worked hard to make varisty my senior year at the Stony Brook School. We finished 3rd in the state in our division at the Bear Mountain race and I was the 4th guy in on our team. This is probably the shirt I am most proud of because you had to earn it and it wasn't easy for me.
Bud Light U.S. Triathlon Series Boston 1986. I qualified to compete at the National Championships to be held at Hilton Head at this race. Too bad no one told me until I got the results booklet (after the National Championships had already been held- no internt in those days!).
1985 Lakeville Triathlon. I won this thing and beat a couple of guys who were sponsored triathletes.
1980 Gil Dodds Marathon. Held for only one year at Wheaton College. I finished in 2:50:07 (7 seconds short of qualifying for Boston). This was the most comfortable shirt ever given at a race. It was a football style jersey.
1985 Bay State Triathlon  Used to love this race. One year I ran with Dave Scott for about 1/8 mile-he was lapping me however!
1981 Lake County Heart Fund Marathon 19th place 2:48:36 finally qualified for Boston.
86th Boston Marathon 1982 My first Boston and the most painful race I ever finished.
1986 Cape Cod Endurance Triathlon I did this race the first 5 years they had it (1983-1987) and absolutely loved it!
1985 New England Triathlon Series Sharon, Ma. I loved this race series. One year that I did this race a competitor drowned.
1985 Green Mountain Steel-Man Triathlon. was a 1/2 Ironman distance race in the mountains of Vermont. My bike computer showed that I hit a maximum speed of 62 mph going down the mountain roads (that will happen when you copy pictures you had seen of Tour de France riders and put your chest on the handlebar and nose down by the front wheel-butt in the air). I liked the cow shirt!

The quilt is also good for sticking pins onto and the dowels make a great place to throw those medals you get at various races.

So I had to decide what shirt to enter into the contest. I had some older shirts, but decided to enter the 1982 Gurnet Classic Beach Run shirt beacuse it was such a classic New England race. The race was held in Duxbury, Ma. between 1975 -1988 and went out and back on the beach. It wasn't a race I did anything special at in fact it was the first race I did after recovering from broken and cracked bones in my ankle and heel. I ran my first Boston Marathon in 1982 and severely dehydrated in the heat. Six days later I ran my fastest 5 miler 26:36 and the next week broke the bones sliding into a base during a softball game. How was I to know the base was a sack of sand? The Gurnet Classic Beach Run was a race that would see the greatest road runners in the world show up to run (most of them were from New England): Bill Rodgers, Alberto Salazar, Bobby Hodge and others. I believe Bob Hodge won the year that I ran it.

photo from 1975 race: Al Salazar, Mark Duggin, Vin Fleming, Bill Rodgers, Bob Hodge

Article on 1978 version of the race (photo above)

Another article and iterview with Bob Hodge.

So here is my shirt and the finisher card I got that said I finished in 74th place. I am going to send it to the contest. It says you can also vote on your favorite shirt, but I don't see how. There are only two shirts pictured on the site now. Once I get mine up, you can vote if you like, but even better, enter your own vintage t-shirt. The winner gets a pair of Saucony shoes, so the odds right now are pretty good. The contest ends of July 31 Go here.

Trying to sneak the Gurnet Classic Beach Run hat on
during a family picture.