Like most foolish acts, it seems like a good idea at the time.
Imagine if you will, two reasonably young, reasonably fit, apparently rational men. One,
Jody Reese - a newspaper reporter, looks like a runner. He is tall, lanky and frankly... well,
goofy-looking. When he runs, his form is good, he lifts his feet well and his face takes on
a look of distracted determination common to serious runners. His running partner, John
Fladd - a freelance writer, on the other hand, does emphatically NOT look like a runner. If
Reese is built like a greyhound, Fladd's build is more along the lines of a woodchuck,
blocky and solid. He shambles, rather than glides through his runs, and the expression on
his face at the time hints that he might be in the throes of Coronary Thrombosis.
Fortunately, he has the benefit of striking good looks and a devastating intellect.
It starts naturally enough. One evening during an average 5-mile run, they accidentally
turn right when they should turn left and end up adding an extra couple of miles onto their
loop. They are surprised at how good they feel after running the extra miles, so they tack
on an additional mile or so. Their conversation starts taking a self-congratulatory tone:
"Hey, we're looking pretty good!"
Random gasps from Fladd that could be taken as agreement.
"You know what? We should enter a race."
Fladd pants out his doubts - after all, road races aren't for people who can run; they are for
people who can run fast.
"I'm not saying that we could beat the Kenyans or anything, I'm just saying that 95% of the
guys that run those races are just slobs like us."
Another grunt of assent.
At that point, three events happen in quick succession that seal Reese and Fladd's fate. (Or
perhaps their doom.)
1) Reese makes a particularly foolish statement, to whit, "I'll bet we could do the Boston
Marathon!"
2) Both runners are simultaneously stricken by the condition known as "Runner's High".
This is a condition where the brain is suddenly flooded with morphine-like chemicals called
endorphins, a merciful reflex that Evolution has provided so that wounded animals don't
realize how badly they are hurt. Mice in traps and long-distance runners are particularly
susceptible to it. One of its side effects is the suppression of higher brain functions.
3) They pass a roller-blader.
Early on in the run, they have been passed several times by kids wearing in-line skates.
Now, as they head into the home stretch, they lengthen their stride. Up ahead, they see
another roller-blader. With teeth gritted and eyes popping out, they give chase. Slowly,
step by step, meter by meter, they gain ground. Finally, with a determined burst of energy,
they catch up and then pass the skater. Elated, they sprint the last block or so to home. In
retrospect, it has to be admitted that this is not the achievement it seems at the time - the
skater is a young girl and they have overtaken her on a steep up-hill grade - but it is enough
to "prove" what they want to believe. They are Serious Runners.
There is a school of thought that says that if one is trying to accomplish something
monumental, one should announce it to the world. The theory is, that by telling everybody
one knows, "I'm never smoking again", or "I'm going to lose 15 pounds by next month",
the threat of social humiliation will act as an incentive. One can only hope that it is this
theory, and not glaring stupidity that leads John Fladd and Jody Reese to announce to the
newsroom of the Keene Sentinel the next morning that they are going to run in next
spring's Boston Marathon.
[It must be said at this point, that nobody can be as cruelly cynical as a roomful of
reporters. The lack of faith shown by their colleagues would dishearten athletes of lesser
determination, but Reese and Fladd press on.]
With the Boston Marathon formally stated as their goal, training starts in earnest. Both
runners agree that to actually give up smoking, drinking or fatty foods would be premature.
They do agree however, to feel guilty about engaging in such activity. They also start to
run more. Their weekly totals creep up from 15 to 20 miles, then inch up to 25 and
eventually, astoundingly, reach 38 miles per week. They start keeping track of their
running times, giving up their former method of time keeping ("Um...we left at Five-ish
(?)and got back when it was getting dark") for something a little more precise.
Information starts trickling in. Conversations with tired, eaten-up looking people who
claim to have actually run the Boston Marathon center around mysterious phrases like
"Heartbreak Hill" ("Wasn't that an Elvis tune?"), "The Wall" ("Hey Jody, did you know the
Marathon route goes past Fenway?") and "Vaseline" ("??"). They always end with the
same cryptic question - "Where are you going to qualify?". Going on the assumption that
qualifying involves filling out the official paperwork, our runners generally reply, "Uh...Not
sure...My living room?" and receive bemused and slightly panicked looks in response.
Eventually, they take it on themselves to look up the official Marathon rules. Consulting
the official Boston Marathon web page, they discover several things, not one of which is
comforting:
1) It is only a few months away - April 19, 1999. The proper time to have started training
for next spring's marathon was sometime in the late '80's.
2) The idyllic image our runners had - the one of two lone runners testing themselves
against an empty and uncaring road, is, shall we say, highly romantic. In point of fact,
there will be 12,000 registered runners in the race, pushing and elbowing and gasping up
the available oxygen.
3) Worst of all, in order to qualify for the privilege of running in the Boston Marathon, a
runner must run in one of several other officially recognized marathon. Not only that, but
he or she must finish in an absurdly short amount of time. Fladd and Reese are appalled to
find that at their current pace, they could qualify - if they were between 65 and 70 years
old. The qualifying time for their particular age group is a stomach-churning 3 hours, 10
minutes. Perhaps most cruelly, Fladd misses eligibility for the next oldest age group - and a
perhaps vital 5 additional minutes - by 3 days.
Hope begins to flag.
Then they start to hear rumors - dark, cryptic rumors that "there are ways of qualifying,
and ways of qualifying".
