This was 1980 if you can believe that time goes back that far. No email. Manhattan was the center of the world, and this temperate zone still had an annual event called winter. The gusts that came off the Hudson were so nasty that you could buy a coat called the Riverside Drive.
I had just spent a heavenly night not sleeping in bed with the woman who – against terrible odds – would become the love of my life. Snow was whipping outside her casement window. I woke first and by the time she had reached consciousness, I was tying my New Balance shoes.
Propped prettily against the headboard she was holding a quilt across her front in that endearing way some women will do, even though you’ve touched what’s commonly concealed.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” she asked. “Was it okay? Didn’t you like what we did? Come back to bed.”
“I liked it very much,” I said. “Much much better than okay. But here’s the deal; I loved what we did.”
“But I can always run.”
The marriage lasted 40 years. We have two splendid sons older now than I was on that morning. All our parents died. I gave the eulogy for her beloved father.
Strides (Rodale 2007) was my last book. I rewrote the ending so that a history of running was also a love letter.
I guess she had as much trouble remembering 1980 as you do, because we are now divorced.
I may be taller at 76 than I was at 32, although it could just be the Hokas, which are the equivalent of two-inch heels.
I go out with the Rivertown Runners. A Todd Ruppel brainchild, we start at 8 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday from the parking lot at the Sleepy Hollow High School. I once wrote an article about that parking lot for Runner’s World. Maybe I’m having a good day, or maybe my younger companions are slowing up so we can talk, but often one of them will complain about a colleague who refuses to retire. “Even though she’s seventy.”
“Seventy-six,” is what I say. “Seventy-six and passing on the right.”
Running, we all know, is good for mood. It’s good for the heart and for the brain. But yes, I’ve gotten slower. I was delighted to win my age category in this Halloween’s Sleepy Hollow 10k running 9.16-minute miles. But then I’m the same guy who ran 7:10’s in Iraq and came in first over fifty.
I came in 47th out of 760.
It’s crucial here to make one point: Unlike our beloved nation, running is a meritocracy. What you want – what you need – is to leave it all on the road. The word “personal” is more important than the word “best.” If you’re eighty or you ate too much and you run 15-minute miles, then 15-minute miles are still your Personal Best.
Because he was gorgeous and because he died young, the Oregon’s Steve Prefontaine is the Christ figure of American running. Prefontaine said that he wasn’t a fast runner, but a man who could tolerate more pain on the track than any other man alive.
You may not be built for speed, but all of us are built for pain. The trick is in knowing that Pain is a message sent out long in advance. You run through pain. Be careful. Stretch and take that week off. Do remember that your body is a liar.
I don’t want to live forever. Amby Burfoot who won the Boston Marathon in 1968 is still running. If Prefontaine was Christ, then Amby Burfoot is our slender Buddha. He coined a phrase that bitten runners oft repeat. “I don’t run to add years to my life. I run to add life to my years.”
Time to mention running’s ugly sister. Cross training can be fun, but often cross training is running’s ugly sister.
Swimming laps is great for my running. Swimming laps is hell for me.
I gasp and splash. I fight the water until what seems like an hour has passed. Hanging on the edge of the pool I look at my Garmin. Time spent swimming: Three minutes and 16 seconds.
The Elliptical, the ski and rowing machines are easier to take.
Bicycling is another way to cross train. Bicycling doesn’t just seem deadly, though. Bicycling is deadly.
I’ve swum (ugh). I’ve ridden a bicycle (Eek!). I’ve struggled with machines. My friend John Nonna (also 76) has a similar basement. On weekends we go out together for a run.
A dozen doctors told me not to run. I have been diagnosed with a bad back and – much more frightening – a bad heart.
But still I run.
My son, John, and Jen, his precious wife, ran the Pocantico half marathon with me last (this) year.
Forty-five years later and reeling from a broken heart there’s just one truth of which I’m certain. I was right back then. I was right to go out running before climbing back into that lovely bed.
