The running kind

My first memory of any marathon comes from the 1972 Munich Olympics, watching Frank Shorter — the first and only American to win Gold.

Fast forward a few years. My close grade school friend, Bobby, whose father had been a cross-country runner, was dialed into distance running and track. The timing couldn’t have been better.

In 1977-78, Jim Fixx’s “The Complete Book of Running” became a bestseller, and with Nike and Onitsuka Tiger shoes hitting the market, America’s running craze exploded.

That summer, between 8th and 9th grade, Bob was running all the time in preparation for trying out for cross country at his high school. I tagged along. After joining him for a couple of runs, I thought, “Why not try out at my school?” I made the varsity — ironically, when all I’d wanted was to get in shape for basketball. I earned my letter a year later.

No matter, I had caught the running bug and it stayed with me. Through the remainder of high school and college and early into the Chicago working career time frames, I ran. If I really drill down on the reasons I enjoyed the solitude, the self-pace, and the ability to maybe take a problem along and solve it during the run.

The runner’s high, the fatigue, the fitness, and the social aspects all became part of my life.

After four years of running along Chicago’s Lincoln Park and lakefront, I decided to train for the 1990 Chicago Marathon. Up until then my training and longest competitive runs had been geared toward the 10K distance (think I’d completed four). I joined a Chicago Area Runners Association group that followed Hal Higdon’s beginner marathon plan: start with a four-mile base and add two miles to a Sunday long run each week until you reached 20.

The training paid off. On October 28, 1990, I crossed the finish line. Though not fast, I finished—something rare enough in those days that our office general manager sent out a company-wide memo celebrating my achievement.

Four years later, after my father died of pancreatic cancer in August 1994, I made a last-minute decision to run Chicago again. Despite minimal preparation—my longest training run was only 16 miles—I was determined to finish. I trained with my colleague Marla, who was preparing for her first marathon. Around mile 16 in Chinatown, feeling the effects of my poor preparation, I told her to run on without me.

Near Comiskey Park, something inexplicable fueled me. Call it emotion, or a higher power, I put all my doubt and discomfort in a box and shut that fucker. I covered the final 10K on sheer fortitude, releasing eleven months of pent-up grief and energy. It was simultaneously my best and my worst day running.

I continued running after moving south in 1995, joining Run-Tex groups, hitting Town Lake trails hard and then there was the long street grid involving up and back on Shoal Creek. I ran distance until about 2012. Then two changes – I bought a road bike and began focusing on HIIT-style workouts as my left knee started protesting longer mileage.

In all those years two runs stand out. In Evansville, Greg and I recreated our favorite college seven-miler on a muggy July afternoon. A sudden storm caught us mid-run, dropping the temperature 20 degrees in an instant. We waited it out under an overhang at Dexter my old elementary school.

The other unforgettable run happened in Chicago around Thanksgiving 1989 with my sister-in-law, Lisa Clark—a stud athlete and fearless runner. On an already blustery battleship gray day we headed out for a four-miler along North Avenue bridge and beach. Cutting winds off Lake Michigan made it feel like 20 degrees. With no cover and zero sun, we gutted it out. We still talk about it as possibly the coldest either of us has ever been.

Looking back on my running years I’m glad about every outing, every step I took. Though I’ve switched to resistance and spin, I miss those glorious Chicago summer late late afternoons along the lakefront, from North Avenue to Oak Street Beach, Navy Pier, and beyond. The images are vivid to this day of those marathon training runs along Lake Shore Drive, the concrete beaches and Promontory Point.