May - June 2005 Event Calendar - Michigan Runner

Running with Tom Henderson
By Tom Henderson
Paul McMullen is back. Whether as a
world-class runner remains to be seen,
but back in a big way in the running
community.
Writing about McMullen’s comebacks
has become something of a cottage industry
for me. I wrote my first article — a big feature
back when the Detroit News still ran big
features — in fall 1997, just after he had
resumed his comeback after cutting off his
big toe and parts of two other toes in a lawnmower
accident just before the national
championships,
where he had been
aiming to win his
third-straight outdoor-mile
title.
He was serving
as a volunteer coach
for Bob Parks at his
alma mater, Eastern
Michigan, and
drove with me to a
nearby county park
for a team workout.
Paul was going to
join them, but never
did. He was having
a down day and
decided to sit on a
picnic table with me
and talk.
He was down
because of the pain
he was suffering. He
was down because
the prosthetic he’d
ordered was useless.
He was down
because his balance
was off without a
big toe to push off.
He was down
because his times
weren’t coming
down. He was
down because there
seemed a real
chance that the
injury would defeat
him.
The next time I
wrote about Paul
was for the
February-March
issue of Michigan
Runner. By then the
pain and doubts
were gone. Fast
times had replaced
bad times.
48 M A Y / J U N E 2 0 0 5
I was pitching a profile of Paul to
Runner’s World magazine, but editor Amby
Burfoot was reluctant. He didn’t just want a
rehash of “runner loses toes.” Finally I convinced
him there was a good story here.
McMullen was coming back hard and RW
should tell the world. I convinced Amby so
well he told me he was assigning a staff
writer to the story; it was too good for a
free-lancer.
I blew a gasket. Amby — one of the
nicest guys in publishing or running — apologized
and gave the story back to me. It ran
in the March issue, which hit the newsstands
Paul McMullen (Coast Guard singlet) leads his heat in the 1500 meter race
at the USAT&F Olympic Team Trials, Sacramento, 2004.
just days before McMullen shocked observers
by winning the U.S. indoor title.
McMullen’s career never really progressed
from there. It didn’t match
the promise it showed in that magical
summer of 1995, when he burst on the
scene, or in 1996, when he made the
Olympics. In 1995, he finished second in the
NCAA mile to the University of Michigan’s
Kevin Sullivan, then PR’ed at 1,500 meters at
a meet in Norway to nail a qualifying time
for the world championships in Goteberg,
Sweden, where he shocked everyone but himself
by making it
to the finals.
McMullen ran
poorly at the
2000 U.S.
Olympic 1,500
Trials and
retired. He
turned into a
self-proclaimed
couch potato and
put on 40
pounds, paving
the way for me
to write about
yet another
comeback, when
he began training
with Ron
Warhurst at U-M
during the fall of
2001, during
Alan Webb’s only
year at the
school.
That spring I
hung around
Ann Arbor a few
days to profile
Warhurst and his
runners for MR.
To my surprise,
McMullen wasn’t
there. He’d
tweaked something
or other
and was taking
time off. Soon,
word came that
McMullen had
retired, again.
That he had
enlisted in the
Coast Guard,
sold his gorgeous
Victorian house
in Ypsilanti and
moved to Grand
Haven.