a dream - Distance Running magazine

Opiniona dreamRunners may have their heads in a cloud, butthey always have their feet on the ground,argues Ray CharbonneauNykredit Copenhagen Marathon, 20 May 2012Picture by Marathon-Photos.comFantasy leagues for football, basketball,baseball and hockey are everywhere. Fans ofmajor TV sports have countless opportunitiesto sit and stare at their computer screens,obsessing over which play they should make.Runners have it better than that. They canhit the streets and participate in their sportwhile building their own personalcollection of statistics toobsess over between runs:it’s the best of bothworlds.All runners count things;how far they run leadson to endless otherdetails, ranging fromcourse, mood, heartrate, mileage per pairof shoes, foodconsumed, weather… Ifyou can name it, somerunner somewhere iscounting it.Competitive runners use suchinformation to help improveperformance. For elite runners shavingseconds off their time is a necessary obsession.Runners at all levels shoot for a sub-3 (or 4 or 5)hour marathon. Others strive to average 50 milesper week, or complete 100-mile races. Particulargoals can be made to fit every kind of kink in therunner’s mind.Every runner battles aging. Frank Georges is amember of my running club who has run at leastone 5K at 18:59 or better for nine years. He sayshis “main goal has shifted in the last few yearsfrom running as fast as I can to being healthy andwell for as long as I can.” Gary Allen, racedirector of the Mount Desert Island Marathonin Maine is one of the few people who’ve runsub-3 marathons in five different decades.“You want to see just how far [you can] gobefore the wheels fall off,” he says.Running a single marathon is challengeenough for many people, but some have runhundreds of them. Kevin Counihan startedrunning marathons ten years ago in spite oflosing half a foot in an accident when he wasyounger. He was ready to quit in 2005, butthen met Bill Rodgers. Rodgers’ 2528 Distance Running | 2012 Edition 3consecutive Boston and New York Marathonfinishes inspired Kevin to try to finish 500marathons before he turns 70 (in 2031). Hiscurrent total of 135 is the record for mobilityimpairedathletes.Texan Larry Macon and Californian Jim Simpsonare neck and neck to finish mostmarathons, both with over 800.Macon, 67, ran 113 marathonsin 2011. He is one of over4000 members ofMarathon Maniacs.Maniacs are ranked on ascale that starts withone star for runningtwo marathons within16 days and tops outat 10 stars: runningeither 52 marathons,30 marathons in 30states, or 20 marathonsin 20 countries within asingle year. 94 runnershave acquired 10 stars.Then there are theultrarunners: in 2010Monica Scholz broke her ownrecord by running 25 100-mile races inone year.Erin Lynch is starting tocollect races in countrieswhere people drive onthe left. Ken Skier says,“I’ve only counted thenumber of races I runbarefoot. In 2010 I ran20; in 2011, 21. Thisyear… you get the idea.”Many runners try to complete sets: over 2600runners belong to the 50 States Marathon Clubharbouring the goal of running a marathon in all50 US states. The 50 States and D.C. MarathonGroup is a typical case of runners’ one-upmanship,just like the Seven Continents Club and the SevenContinents Marathon Club who are in turn toppedby the Grand Slam Club (50 members) who’ve runmarathons on all seven continents and the NorthPole Marathon.Joshua Grzegorzewski aims to finish marathons atevery minute from 3:00 to 3:59, but the lure to rununder three hours will be hard to resist. “It will be atrue exercise in self-control to slow up and cross thefinish in just over three hours, but it will be on myown terms,” he says.It’s not always about racing. More than 230 peoplehave run across the US. Brian Stark is currentlybusy running across all 50 states, a task Paul Reesestarted in 1990 when he was 73 and finishedwhen he was 80 years old. SteveVaitones is closing in onhis goal of runningthrough all thecities and townsinMassachusetts.He was inspiredby 1993 WorldMountainChampionshipsilver medalist DaveDunham who is workingthrough a list of 56 differentUS mountain peaks. Davehas reached the highestsummit in 40 states but alsoaspires to track the highpoints in the 3143 countiesin the USA. So far he haschecked off 176 of them.Other quests are even more whimsical, like theABC of Running group who seek to completea run in a cities whose name starts with eachletter of the alphabet. China is a rich source ofX’s. The Running Alphabet group use theirGPS to trace routes to form letters. Their goalis a complete typeface, including upper- andlower-case letters, numbers, and even symbols.Continued on page 31

Opinion“All runners count things; how far they run leads on to endless other details,ranging from course, mood, heart rate, mileage per pair of shoes, food consumed, weather…If you can name it, some runner somewhere is counting it”Continued from page 28Maybe the most compulsive of collectors are thestreak runners, striving to run at least one mileevery day, regardless of weather, injuries, travel,race schedules, or any other conflicts. CalifornianMark Covert has run every day since 23 July 1968.His wife says the streak is “like a fifth child for us.”But he still lags Ron Hill, British winner of the1970 Boston Marathon, who has run every daysince December 1964. Hill ran after he broke hissternum in a car crash in 1993 and on a crutchafter bunion surgery, when he “ran” one mile in 27minutes.Julie Maxwell had the longest streak for a womangoing, over 33 years, until she broke her ankle lastDecember (while she wasn’t running). That stoppedit but she says “I assure you that when I heal, I willbegin another streak.”Robert Kraft has run every day since 1975,whenever possible at 5pm on the same 8 milestretch of beach in Florida. Kraft works as asongwriter, since a regular job would get in theway of his streak; he chooses not to travel so hecan hit the beach every day. He has otherhabits that indicate a compulsion, likecounting his steps as he leaves hisapartment for his daily run. Robert misseda day on the beach because he was inhospital for tests, but at 5pm he got outof bed and ran laps around the hospital.All these lists, quests, and streaks areunavoidably self-centered, although TomDeKornfeld enumerates the peoplewho’ve provided him with running tipsand inspiration over the years. “I lovethis list,” he says. “I think it is reallyimportant to be mindful of all thepeople who have helped you.”Even if all this checking off and chalking up iscompulsive it at least gets runners out of theirbasement and into the real world to sweat andstrain while they count. Only one person can win arace, but everybody who runs can be a winner –especially when they’re the one deciding how tokeep score.■ Ray Charbonneau lives in Massachusetts. Hisbooks include “Chasing the Runner’s High” and“R is for Running”. His articles on running haveappeared in the Boston Globe, Ultrarunning,Marathon & Beyond, Level Runner, Cool Runningand other publications. See: www.y42k.comThe opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not neccessarily represent the views of AIMS or IAAFDistance Running | 2012 Edition 3 31