May - June 2005 Event Calendar - Michigan Runner

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No Guarantees By Dave Foley At some point in your life, someone — usually a parent or a social studies teacher — will tell you anyone can grow up to be U.S. President, and for a moment you consider whether you want the job. Then you dismiss the idea. However, a few years later, your gym teacher or coach challenges your class or team by saying if you want it badly enough, you can be an Olympic champion or pro athlete. Many of us take the bait. Soon after comes the reality check. Seems the teacher or coach forgot to tell you about heredity — that in addition to hard work, you need a little luck in the gene pool to elevate your eye-hand coordination, sprint speed, vertical jump and agility beyond that of your competitors. After a zillion hours of driveway basketball shots, catching baseballs caroming off garage doors, and dribbling soccer balls around the yard, those of us who still find ourselves sitting on the bench start looking for something that will reward us for our hard work. Casting about among high-school sports options, it becomes obvious distance running requires the least amount of classical athletic prowess. If you have a physique slighter than a Clydesdale and are willing to run the miles, you stand a good chance of becoming a decent runner. In the beginning, improvement comes quickly. Soon you can leave most traditional athletes gasping for breath as you race ahead of them in gym-class runs or track practices. Finally, the skinny kid triumphs over the muscle-massed jocks. If you want it badly enough, it seems you can be state champ. So you dedicate yourself to running, noting with delight that your times keep dropping and finishes improving. Buoyed by success, you eat right, get enough sleep and follow your coach’s plan to the letter. Then, after that first year of serious training, you realize some runners who don’t work as hard make faster progress. You ran in the off-season and they didn’t; you never miss practice, they do; heck, they may even smoke or drink. Yet for all their transgressions, they run faster. It seems unfair. You thought running was different than the other sports. No one told you some of a runner’s success is determined by fast- and slow-twitch fibers, anaerobic threshold and oxygen transport. Hard work will get you a long way, but to reach the top some genetic assistance is needed too. This realization causes more than a few folks to quit the sport. What you need is to reassess your running. To begin, it’s an individual sport. How others run should have no bearing on how you run or feel about running. You control your destiny. Through time trials and races, you constantly get feedback. You always know where you stand. Instead of worrying about factors you can’t control, such as teammates’ efforts and whatever genetic inadequacies you may have, your first priority should be you. Live and train to maximize your potential. Race your hardest and celebrate the results. If you’ve improved your time or felt you ran your best, that is reason to rejoice. Too often, a runner fails to appreciate his best races because he compares himself to others. Running and racing can be sources of joy and fulfillment throughout your life, if you remember that tons of desire and hard training miles are no guarantee you’ll win fame and fortune. A lifetime of running, however, virtually guarantees you good health and fitness that far surpasses that of most former high-school athletes, who find, as they near middle age, that their only involvement in football, basketball, soccer and baseball is as a spectator. Instead, if you strive to do your best and accept whatever that yields, you’ll be ru n n i n g long after your peers have turned in their jerseys. Dave Foley edited Michigan Runner for 14 years and continues trying to run his best. M R michiganrunner.tv - Upcoming Schedule Anatomy of a New Race-Heat the Streets & Walk for Warmth- Detroit Around the Bay 30K and 111 Years of History-Hamilton, Ontario Bill Rodgers-The Running Fit Interview-Traverse City Brian Diemer Amerikam 5K-Cutlerville Crim Festival of Races-Flint Detroit Free Press/Flagstar Bank Marathon-Detroit Doug Kurtis Marathon Training Series-Ann Arbor Eastern Michigan University's Womens' Track and Field-Ypsilanti Gary Morgan at Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa-Moshi, Tanzania Great Race XXV-Elkart, Indiana Great Wall of China Marathon-Beijing, China Harvest Stompede-Leelanau Peninsula Mackinaw Bridge Run-Labor Day 2005-The Upper & Lower Peninsulas Michigan's First Family of Runners-Lansing Park City Trail Marathon-Park City, Utah Red Simmons-A Great Michigan Coaching Legend-Ann Arbor Roseville Big Bird Run-Roseville Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon-Toronto, Ontario Steve's Run-The Original Road and Trails Rac-Dowagiac Toronto Marathon-Toronto, Ontario 24 M A Y / J U N E 2 0 0 5
The New Marathoner: Friend or Foe? By Greg Janicki Idon’t know if you have heard, but running a marathon has become as easy as reading the Sunday funnies. Yep, everyone is doing it: your 65-year-old neighbor, the manager at the local video store, your kid’s third-grade teacher and maybe even your mom. I have just one thing to say about that. Thanks. Thanks, you average, never-runbefore-but-it-looks-pretty-easy, think-I’ll-tryit-because-P-Diddy-did-it runners. You’ve ruined it for the rest of us true marathoners. You’ve changed a once-hallowed endurance event from a stirring triumph over agony shared by a select group of overachievers (some would say manic overachievers) to a 26.2-mile tailgate party complete with maraca bands, celebrities and walkers. Yes, walkers. My goodness. Marathon training experts now recommend walking every so often during the race as the best way for first-time marathoners to complete a marathon. Walk? That’s not marathoning. That’s … that’s walking. But how can these new runners know anything about a marathon? After all, these are the same runners who, when first learning I ran a marathon, asked the question: “Really, how far was that marathon? My cousin just ran in a five-mile marathon last weekend.” These are the runners who have only one pair of running shoes. These are the runners who think “Boston” is just a city. Now, these same runners are lining up next to me at the starting line wearing cotton t-shirts with some sport-team logo. One quizzically eyes his racing chip; another pins it to her race number, which is on her back. These same runners will ask me about those small silver packets stuffed in my pocketed shorts, which they think are pretty cool. “Pockets on shorts?” they’ll ask. “Wow, what will they think of next?” I’ll tell them about GU and they’ll give me a “huh …?” and I’ll know their brain is spinning with questions. The same ones I had before my first marathon. I’ll smirk and tell them good luck. The next time I see these people will be mile 11 or maybe 19. I’ll pass them because they started too fast. I’ll see their faces and remember seeing them at the start. I’ll know this runner is a first-timer and that he or she never really knew what being a marathoner was about — until that moment. Then, knowing that yes, this runner is probably not going to make it, I’ll do what every veteran marathoner does: I’ll give them a boost; I’ll pat them on the shoulder; tell them to keep it up; tell them they look great; tell them they’re almost home. They won’t say anything, but they will have heard me. And maybe, just maybe, they’ll survive. After the finish, as I stagger around wrapped in a silver cape sipping Gatorade staring at the mass of shaking legs, exhausted stares and tearful smiles, I’ll realize that no matter how many I’ve run, or how much I’ve spent on shoes, a GPS watch and my cool pocket shorts, the race is still 26 miles, 385 yards — same for veterans and newcomers — and it doesn’t take a fool to understand that’s pretty darn far. So I’m stuck with these thousands of new runners, walkers, “wunners” … whatever you want to call them. I’m stuck; stuck with the 65-year-old neighbor who made it and the video-store manager who didn’t. And that’s when I’ll get it. I’m not stuck with them; we’re stuck together. I now understand, as do these new marathoners, that completing a marathon (running, walking, crawling or any combination) is not as easy as reading the Sunday funnies. But I don’t have to tell these new marathoners. They feel it now. And they will continue to feel it tomorrow morning, and the next morning and the next. But what I will tell them — these new friends — is congratulations, thanks (really, thanks) and welcome to the club. Greg can be reached by e-mail at run - run262@hotmail.com. MR Training for a marathon? Doug Kurtis Marathon Training Series m i c h i g a n ru n n e r. t v / 2 0 0 3 m a r at h o n M I C H I G A N R U N N E R 27
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Page 6 and 7: Publisher and Chief Executive Offic
Page 8 and 9: Holmes Runs: Tales of Two Peninsula
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Page 12: 10 M A Y / J U N E 2 0 0 5 “Pugna
Page 15 and 16: By Becca Putans Running Your Guts O
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Page 20 and 21: Hansons Running Shops Present Michi
Page 22 and 23: Spinning? Give it a Spin Although I
Page 24 and 25: Gary Morgan gets ready to start the
Page 28 and 29: By Ron Marinucci Running Clothes St
Page 30 and 31: Historic ‘Bay’ 30K Marks 111th
Page 32 and 33: St. Patrick’s Parade Corktown Rac
Page 34 and 35: Churchill’s 37th Annual Half Mara
Page 36 and 37: May - June 2005 Event Calendar May
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Page 44 and 45: July Friday, July 1 Hansons 3 Mile
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Page 48 and 49: Running with Tom Henderson By Tom H
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May - June 2005 Event Calendar - Michigan Runner

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