The Return

(When Runner’s World cut me loose as a columnist in 2004, I wasn’t ready to stop magazine work. This year I post the continuing columns from Marathon & Beyond. Much of that material now appears in the book Miles to Go.)

2006. Once upon a time I ran marathons regularly, twice most years, sometimes more often. Then suddenly I stopped trying them at all.

While I never used the R-word (retired), this looked more likely with each passing year. Those had stretched to nearly six when 2006 began.

It’s no coincidence that I found other roles to fill a void left by not going this distance myself. In those marathon-less years I did more talking to, coaching of and writing for marathoners than ever before.

I attended Jeff Galloway’s and Dick Beardsley’s camps with marathoners, formed a marathon team to train runners and signed on as a columnist for Marathon & Beyond. The less distance I ran, the more support I was free to give.

Yet I never stopped wanting be an active marathoner at least one more time. I didn’t want my latest marathon, at Napa Valley 2000 where little went as it could and should have, to remain forever my last. I needed to run at least one more, no matter how long it took me to get to it and through it.

My next starting line was a long time coming, six years. And finishing it took almost the longest time to date.

APRIL FOOL’S DAY. We runners think in numbers, talk in numbers, define ourselves and each other by numbers. The numbers I put up at the Yakima River Canyon Marathon weren’t notable, yet they didn’t go unnoticed.

There’s nowhere to hide as a marathoner anymore. You could look up my time, anyone’s time, on the web, so I’ll save you the trouble. It was 5:01 at Yakima, a minute shy of my slowest ever.

A friend asked at the finish line, “Does it embarrass you not to break five hours?” It wasn’t a harsh question. He knew I’d once run more than two hours faster, he knew that I’m a little more visible than most five-hour marathoners, and he was concerned about my feelings at that moment.

No, I told him, this time carries no shame. If slowing down bothered me, I would have stopped running marathons after the first few. Or I would have chosen one now where no one knew me, then run in disguise under an assumed name.

A time goal wasn’t what brought me to this marathon. The final time was the least of what I took away from it.

Running a race is not all about, or always about, a finish time. Other numbers meant far more to me at Yakima, and are why I chose this marathon on this date.

We runners like giving special meaning to otherwise random numbers. Three of mine marked times measured not in hours but in years.

The first of those, naturally, was six years since my last marathon, Napa Valley 2000. The other numbers were 48 and 62.

Forty-eight years had rushed past since my first race, on another April Fool’s Day in 1958. This was my first chance to celebrate the anniversary with a marathon.

It had to go better than that first race – of just one mile – when I’d started too fast and not finished. I didn’t view this anniversary as a bad omen, but instead took comfort from sticking around long enough to wear the race number that Yakima reserved for me: 48.

A final number carried meaning only to me: my 62 years of age. Compared to the 50 States marathoners staging their quarterly reunion at Yakima, plus the 100 Marathon Club members and Marathon Maniacs who ran here, my lifetime marathon count was puny. It averaged less than one per running year.

But I’d already run them in my 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s. I joked during a brief talk at the pasta dinner, “After doing this first one in my 60s, I can re-retire until age 70.”

MORNING AFTER. Checking into my Yakima hotel, I’d been handed an oversized greeting card. It read, “Since we can’t be here in body, we’re here in spirit.” It was signed by runners from my marathon team.

A column I’d posted on my website at a dark hour of marathon morning was addressed to coaches. It ended, “Teach by example. Ask your runners to do no training or racing that you wouldn’t do (and haven’t done, or are doing) yourself.”

I did that training and race, and now was back in Eugene, watching and handing drinks to and cheering for the latest team as it reached 15 miles in training. I now understood these runners – and all marathoners – a little better, and respected them even more.

After walking stiffly to their starting line, I told them, “I can teach you to walk this way the day after your marathon.”

Later. I didn’t wait until my 70^th birthday to try another marathon, but only two years after Yakima. At Napa Valley 2008, I celebrated my 50^th running anniversary with another finish. This marathon took even longer, at 5:11, than the one before.

I expected this PW to last only until my next marathon. That one turned out to be a long time coming, now into my 70s. And it would take longer than I’d ever before imagined it could.

(Photo: If a five-hour marathon at Yakima disappointed me, you couldn’t tell it from this photo at the finish.)

[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, Running With Class, Run Right Now, Run Right Now Training Log, See How We Run, Starting Lines, and This Runner’s World, plus Rich Englehart’s book about me, Slow Joe.]