Lynn Jennings

(This piece is for my book titled Pacesetters: Runners Who Informed Me Best and Inspired Me Most. I am posting an excerpt here each week, this one from December 1991.)

LYNN’S WINS. Lynn Jennings makes my short list of most-admired athletes. She’s a runner for all seasons: world champion in cross-country, Olympian in outdoor track, American record-holder indoors, and owner of world and U.S. road marks.

Jennings’ versatility and year-round consistency is unmatched. But a runner needs more than talent to become a favorite. Lynn has more.

She gives you a firm handshake, looks you in the eyes, calls you by name and says what she thinks. She also takes commitments seriously.

Jennings committed herself last year to run the National Women’s 8K Championship in Alhambra, California, but couldn’t go because of an ankle sprain. She promised then to be there in 1991, and was.

Before racing, she gave a clinic for the area’s high school runners. She admitted her early failures: running herself into knee surgery in high school and retiring three times while still young.

In her mid-20s Jennings decided, “I was born to be a runner. When I told that to my parents, they supported my decision but weren’t thrilled. I could see Dad thinking he had just spent $40,000 on my Princeton education so I could run around in sneakers the rest of my life.”

Lynn also wasn’t shy about telling her strengths. “I’m one of the wiser runners out there on the circuit,” she said. “I never ignore what my body tells me, and I never get overuse injuries.”

Yet she confessed to pushing nearer the edge this year than ever before. The Alhambra 8K would be her third road race in less than three weeks, a far busier schedule than Jennings prefers.

But she made no excuses about feeling tired or this being her down-season. She wasn’t coy about her intentions.

Lynn said, “I want to break 25:02. That’s the existing world record. I’ve been thinking about that for a couple of months.

“I’m not thinking I might be able to do it. I’m thinking I will do it.”

Alhambra’s $100,000 incentive to break the record was more than a publicity gimmick. Races often get ink and airplay with such bonus offers while taking little risk of paying off.

Not Alhambra. Organizers there had to buy an insurance policy costing about one-fifth that amount. And Jennings stood a good chance of earning the bonus because she already held the 8K mark.

But records can’t be scheduled, even by the most determined runners and generous sponsors. They can’t order perfect conditions.

The weather this last Saturday in October turned un-Californian. After five years of drought, heavy rains suddenly blew through Alhambra.

The rain could have improved Jennings’ chances if it had simply cooled the temperature and cleared out the smog. But the storm also brought wind, a headwind for the hard part of the out-and-back course.

Lynn might have given up her record attempt before it started. Instead, she raced to the halfway mark 19 seconds faster than record pace before turning into the wind.

It slowed her to 25:23. Not a record but an admirable try.

UPDATE. Lynn Jennings did her finest running after this story appeared. In 1992 she her third World Cross-Country title in as many years, then claimed a bronze medal in the Barcelona Olympic 10,000. She competed in her third Olympics in 1996, won her last U.S. title in 1998 and ran her fastest marathon, 2:38 at Boston, the following year.

Lynn now lives in Portland, Oregon. In early 1994 she nearly died there after suffering pulmonary embolisms while on a run. These blood clots shut down her right lung and compromised the left.

She wrote in a blog post, “I was told in no uncertain terms that the size, strength and power of my lungs and heart are what saved me since my heart was under severe strain and pressure. A less able heart would have led to a different outcome.”

“Being a runner saved my life. The redundancy in my left lung, my strong and powerful heart, and my honed tenacity and iron will are what got me home that morning.”

[Many books of mine, old and recent, are now available in two different formats: in print and as ebooks from Amazon.com. Latest released was Miles to Go. Other titles: Going Far, Home Runs, Joe’s Journal, Joe’s Team, Learning to Walk, Long Run Solution, Long Slow Distance, Pacesetters, Run Right Now, Run Right Now Training Log, See How We Run, and Starting Lines, plus Rich Englehart’s book about me, Slow Joe.]