Old Olympic Dreams Never Die–They Just Go Slower
Ah yes, the ol’ missing first paragraph is back:
My Olympic dream died sometime around 1978. The reality was that I could barely crack the top 10 of an average high school cross country race, so there was little hope of me ever mounting the winner’s platform and hearing “The Star-Spangled Banner” in my lifetime.
And here’s the rest.
BONUS:
Here’s some footage of me running the last lap in that charity fundraiser at Harding University in 1983.
And here I am today with my Sunday morning running buddies, “Team Wannabe” (that’s actual speed, not slow-mo).
Old Olympic dreams never die–they just go slower.
5 Comments
Comments are closed.
Mike the Eyeguy
The link to my column will eventually break, so here it is in its entirety:
From 1978: My Olympic Dream Dead? Not So Fast!
My Olympic dream died sometime around 1978. The reality was that I could barely crack the top 10 of an average high school cross country race, so there was little hope of me ever mounting the winner’s platform and hearing “The Star-Spangled Banner” in my lifetime.
But I kept on running anyway. Just like Forrest Gump, I didn’t have sense enough to know when to stop.
During the 1972 Munich Games, American runners like Jim Ryun, Steve Prefontaine, Dave Wottle and Frank Shorter captured my elementary schoolboy imagination and launched my own much less stellar running career.
Ryun, the world record-holder in the mile, was my hero. He’d finished second in the 1,500 meter run to Kenya’s Kip Keino in the thin, rare air of Mexico City four years before and was a favorite in Munich. But someone tripped him during a qualifying heat, ending his gold medal dreams forever.
Harsh reality
To my young mind, it was an early tutorial in cold, harsh reality, a warning that nice guys can finish last no matter how fast they are. I knew what I had to do to right that great wrong: I set my sights on 1984 and started training right then and there.
I fashioned a makeshift running singlet by cutting off the sleeves of a white T-shirt and stenciling a crude “U.S.A.” across the front in red and blue magic marker. Soon I was racing an imaginary Kip Keino around my house, and I eventually wore a bare path in my father’s lawn, not as sacred and pristine as the track at the University of Oregon’s legendary Hayward Field, but just as oval.
The farmers driving by in their pickup trucks laden with bales of hay looked on in bemusement, gave me the Southwest Virginia salute – chin lift, one finger raised off the steering wheel – and probably thought, Lawdy mercy, what’s that Brown boy up to now?
My father never complained but simply smiled and asked, “How many laps did you run today?” Dad never came to any of my cross country meets. He was a postal worker, and neither rain nor snow nor sleet nor your child’s extracurricular activities could stop the U.S. mail back then.
But on the mornings after meets, he’d always check the sports section of The Roanoke Times to see where I’d finished. He’d tell me how proud he was to see my name in the paper like that, right there beside the NFL scores and college football rankings.
The Perfect Run didn’t come until I was in college, though. In March 1983, I ran in a charity fundraiser on the Harding University track. I wasn’t intending to run that hard, but when I saw the lovely ladies of Sigma Phi Mu gathered in the stands to cheer us on, I knew this was as close as I would ever get to Olympic glory.
I dialed in a sub-six minute per mile pace and aimed to hold it for as far as my legs would carry me. They carried me 10 miles in just under an hour that night.
Lingering effects
You’ve heard of the “runner’s high?” It’s been 25 years since I ran that far, that fast but I still get stoned just thinking about it.
A few years ago, I finally got a chance to meet my boyhood hero when he spoke at Harding. By then, he was U.S. Rep. Jim Ryun, R-Kan., and I told him how he’d inspired me to start running, and that I still didn’t have sense enough to know when to stop.
I also mentioned my duels with the invisible Kip Keino on the dusty oval that I blazed on my father’s lawn, and he asked me who won.
“I did,” I replied.
“Good for you,” he laughed.
Then he held my gaze just a little bit longer, and I saw in his eyes a wistful mix of pain and pride and knew in an instant what he was thinking: If we’d run that race at sea level back in ’68, I would have won, too.
mmlace
Wonderful column as always, Dr. Eyeguy! I actually read it when you posted it last week. Just forgot to stop by here and tell ya that it was good!
Not that you need to hear that from me. But for what it’s worth, I always enjoy reading your writing!
Mike the Eyeguy
Well, honestly, I do need to hear it now and then. Thanks.
Brady
Great job on the article. The link is still on.
I had my first run in over a month after a really nasty sprain. Still swollen. But the 50 minute jog was wonderful. I can’t wait to break, finally, the six minute mile.
Mike the Eyeguy
Glad you enjoyed it. Sorry to hear about the strain, but nice to hear that you’ve rejoined the human race.
My toe and sciatica are finally feeling better and I’ve resumed my 20-25 miles per week schedule–it feels good. It has taken most of the summer to get back up to that, though.
It’s amazing how long it takes to recover from an injury now. It didn’t used to be like that. Go figure.
I now have a 6 mpm mind trapped in a 9 mpm body, but there was a day. Oh yes, there was a day!