The other day I received a message from a friend who was preparing to run a 10K(6 miles) and she wanted some advise about training for such a race.  I had been a runner for 40 years until a knee problem turned me into a walking golfer and I also had been a cross country coach for 13 years.  So I guess she thought I should have some knowledge about  training distance runners.

That request got me thinking about the very beginning of my running career.   First of all when my career first started I had no idea that it was going to become a career.  I was in the tenth grade and the Clinton Rockets had a coach who wanted to start a track program.  So that first year he started small.  He handpicked four boys to run a mile relay for the school.

Now of course he never asked my advice.  If he would have I would have told him I was the guy he needed, all 5’6″ and 135 pounds of me!  Instead he asked another sophomore, Steve, who was 6’2″ with a stride twice the length of mine.  That made no difference to me because I knew I was faster then Steve even with my midget steps.

So Steve and three upper classmen began practicing after school preparing for their mile relay race.  I was still feeling insulted that Coach Jerdee hadn’t recognized my amazing running ability 🙂  when an opportunity to demonstrate my real skills dropped into my lap.  Track practice had just been completed and our biology class was going on an after school field trip to a native prairie/lake shore habitat.  So we were waiting next to the track for the rest of my class to show up, load the bus and head out for the field trip.

Now this was not a normal quarter mile track with a cinder surface.  Instead it was a half mile dirt track in front of the county fair ground’s grandstand.  It was normally used for car racing.  Steve, another friend Sam and myself were standing together and I suggested we do a lap on the old, dirt track while we awaited the arrival of the rest of the class.  We were in our street clothes and dress shoes.  Nike running shoes had not yet been invented.

Coach Jerdee was putting away track equipment at the time and was able to see our half mile run.  We ran side by side visiting for awhile.  About half way around we began to gasp and wheeze as the distance began to take its toll.  But I was determined that Steve the ‘striding gazelle’ was not going to beat me even though I knew he had been training and I had not.

So when we hit the final straight away I kicked her down and sprinted to the finish line with both Steve and Sam fading rapidly.

That next spring Coach Jerdee made the call for anyone who wanted to participate in track to meet in the high school gym.  We were going to have a full fledged track team.  I think Coach Jerdee remembered my half mile, dirt track race from the previous spring because he said, “Mike you will be our mile runner.”  I became the school’s official distance runner as the mile was the longest race in 1961.  My distance running career had started.

We had a total of three meets that spring.  The first meet was in Browns Valley and guess what kind of track they had?  You guessed it, a half mile, dirt track in front of a grandstand.  Ev Sykora from Browns Valley and I battled it out during my first official mile race. ( We became classmates and friends two years later at UMM.)

When the starting gun sounded Ev took a huge lead.  As we started on the second and last lap I noticed his arms were dropping.  He was getting tired.  I was exhausted too but viewing his drooping arms gave me a shot of adrenaline.  Slowly I crept up on him and the lead began to dwindle.  Distance running is very painful both physically and mentally and I was finding that out for the first time.

As we approached the finish line we were running side by side.  Then I started to see flashes of light as I was running out of oxygen and preparing to pass out.  I gave one final lunge and crossed the finish line a millisecond ahead of Ev and then proceeded to fall flat on my face.  Thank goodness the track was loose dirt and not cinders or I may have been in need of a face transplant.

The boo-boo at this years Oscars when LaLa Land was announced the winner first as the best picture and then suddenly had that retracted and it was announced that Moonlight was actually the real winner reminded me of a similar happening in my early distance running years.

After my initial win at Browns Valley we were at practice and Coach Jerdee said he wanted me to run a timed mile.  Since we had no track in Clinton he told me to run on a road leading to our local cemetery and turn at a specific steel pole and run back to the school to complete the mile.  So I took off with the stop watch running.  I remember thinking as I started to feel like I was going to die at least I’d be close to the cemetery for an easy burial.  Remember I said earlier distance running is a painful activity?

As I was approaching the finish line my brother had come out to cheer me on and all the other track members were cheering wildly too.  That seemed unusual for them to be so excited as I finished the race until the coach came up to me as I lay on the road gasping for air and said, “Your just ran a 4 minute and 45 second mile which breaks the District 21 record by over 20 seconds!”

I was a distance running stud and never realized it until then.   Stop watches don’t lie do they?

Being the spring of the year our mixed choir was preparing for the spring music contest and were scheduled to rehearse after track practice.  After I showered and showed up at practice the record breaking news had spread like wild fire.  I was a hero at the choir practice!.   I received many “congratulations”, hand shakes but unfortunately not one girl hugged me! 🙁  Also since “high fives” had not come into vogue they were also absent from the celebration.

Arriving at home that night I shared my record breaking run with my family and then proceeded to be on cloud nine for the rest of the evening.  Cloud nine disappeared the next morning, however, when I arrived at school.  Remember my two friends Steve and Sam?  They wanted to double check my hero status so they took Sam’s car and drove the course and checked the distance on the odometer.  It turned out Coach Jerdee had overestimated the mileage and I had actually only run 3/4’s of a mile.  I know how the cast members of the movie LaLa Land felt 56 years early!  My fame faded very quickly.

Several days later we went to the Morris High School and participated in the Pheasant Conference track meet.  That track was a quarter mile track with cinders…..we had arrived!  No more half mile dirt tracks in front of grandstands!   I still felt the sting of falling from  my heroic distance running status so I was determined to redeem myself with a decent performance in the mile run.

I took the lead when the starting gun sounded and led the race for 3 1/2 laps.  A Graceville Shamrock runner (yes, a school with a plant for a mascot!) passed me briefly but I regained the lead on the final straight away and became the Pheasant Conference mile champion.  And what was the time you ask?  It was not a record for the District at 5 minutes, 16.7 seconds but it turned out to become a record anyway.

The next year Clinton dropped track so no one has ever run the mile that fast again so guess who holds the Clinton Rocket mile record?  Yep, it was and still is me!  There is no bronze statue of me on the school lawn in Clinton.  Not even my name and time hanging on the gym wall.  The only evidence is in my memory and maybe in an old, yellowed copy of the local paper, The Clinton Advocate.

That experience hooked me on running even through all the physical and mental pain and running became a part of my life for 40 years.  I even had an exciting short lived college running career which I will share next time.

Until then.  🙂