Asian Work-ation

(To mark twin 50^th anniversaries in 2017, as a fulltime running journalist and as a marathoner, I am posting a piece for each of those years. This one comes from 1997.)

BUSINESS TRIPS don’t have to be all business. They can be working vacations, with emphasis on that second word, though I was slow to learn this.

As a runner and later a speaker I traveled to perform, not to party. I arrived just in time for the performance, left right afterward.

I took the stage only briefly, but the worry about it, preparation for it and recovery from it dominated the whole trip. I saw little more than the airport, a hotel room and an arena.

Old ways die hard, even when no longer needed. The paragraph above still pretty much defined my travel style in the late 1990s. It couldn’t have been much different than my wife Barbara’s.

Barb has traveled to dozens of countries, on most of the continents, since her first big trip, to India during college. After graduation she traveled through Europe and into the Middle East, often as a hitchhiker.

She hasn’t slowed much since then. Her thinking is that a U.S. trip that doesn’t last at least a week, or internationally a month or more, is hardly worth taking. I get antsy for home and office if I’m away more than three days.

When offered the chance to visit Japan in 1997 (this a first Asian trip for me), we compromised. We would fly over together, then I would stay (gasp!) a full week. She would linger in Japan for another week, then move on to round out her month abroad by visiting her son Chris in China.

Our Japanese hosts asked little from me and gave much. I’d do no speaking here, only some consulting at Mizuno headquarters for one day, and with Runners magazine on another, plus a ceremonial appearance at a marathon.

Otherwise we would be tourists, on a paid work-ation for which Mizuno and Runners spared no expense. All travel (first-class), all hotels (luxurious), all meals (amazing) were covered. A translator was always available.

The night we landed in Osaka, Satoshi Takai from the magazine guided us to our hotel. At the front desk he asked me, “Can we have a short meeting after you take your luggage to the room?”

Barbara fell into bed, while I returned downstairs. The host then led me to a meeting room where a dozen men in identical dark suits greeted us.

Bowing while extending a sheet of paper in both hands, one man handed me the week’s business and social agenda. I was to learn that the two are inseparable here, where business is conducted sociably and social events are business-like.

Another man handed me a fat envelope and instructed, “Count, please.” Inside was a shockingly large number of new U.S. bills with Ben Franklin’s face on them.

We hadn’t discussed any consulting fee, and I expected nothing more than the expenses for the two of us. I asked myself: What can I do to earn this?

The answer was the same then that it would be afterward: Not enough. This week in Japan would be too little work and too much vacation.

OLYMPIC TRACKS are the shrines of our sport. Unfortunately we must leave the U.S. to visit any of them. The sad fact is that all three tracks used for the Olympics -- St. Louis, Los Angeles and Atlanta -- weren’t considered important enough to preserve.

To see an Olympic track in near the end of the 20^th century, I had to travel to Tokyo. This wasn't the reason for visiting Japan but was to be the highlight of that trip.

1964 was the high point for my track-watching fanaticism (also my best year of track racing). The Olympics came to Tokyo that year, to what the Japanese now call "National Stadium."

That October I stayed up much of the night to catch as many events as possible on television. But the best one slipped past me.

My dad woke me with the stunning news of Billy Mills, who went in as third-fastest on the three-member U.S. team, winning the 10,000. Americans Bob Schul and Bill Dellinger later went 1-3 in the 5000.

Peter Snell won his second Olympic 800, plus the 1500. Abebe Bikila won his second marathon.

I later got to know Mills. I've corresponded with Schul and heard him speak, and I live in the same town as Dellinger.

I've met Snell since he became a U.S. resident Ph.D. in exercise physiology. I saw Bikila in a wheelchair at the Munich Games shortly before he died.

But until this fall I'd never visited the place where they ran at their best. And I almost missed the chance.

Tokyo's traffic spooked the small-town boy in me. But my Los Angeles-born wife Barbara insisted that we go to the stadium by taxi. "You may never get this chance again," she said.

Once there we found it seemingly locked tightly. "Let's just walk around the outside to get a feel of the place," I said.

Barbara then spied a tiny doorway and went over to peek inside. I held back.

"We can sneak in here," she shouted. I swallowed my fears of a trespassing arrest and followed her inside.

Here I walked a lap. The stadium appeared empty except for the two of us.

But in this shrine I could sense the ghosts of Mills and Schul and Dellinger, Snell and Bikila when they were young, these seats were filled, and this air was supercharged with sound and emotion. My Japanese trip peaked in the 10 minutes here, when memories from long ago and far away came together briefly with here and now.

Photo: The 1964 Tokyo Olympics peaked for Americans with one of the biggest surprises in track history, Billy Mills victory in the 10,000.

[Many books of mine, old and recent, are now available in two different formats: in print and as ebooks from Amazon.com. The titles: Going Far, Home Runs, Joe’s Team, Learning to Walk, Long Run Solution, Long Slow Distance, Miles to Go, 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.]