Tomorrow I run my 11th race and first 15k, the Stockadeathon. Today I cruised down to the pre-race expo at Proctors Theatre in Schenectady to meet a pair of marathon champs, Bill Rodgers and Amby Burfoot.
Bill won the Boston and New York City Marathons 4 times each in the late 1970s, and ran on the 1976 U.S. Olympic team. Here’s me with Bill and his 1996 Wheaties box:
Amby won the 1968 Boston Marathon. I just met him briefly, but he seemed like a cool guy:
Both Bill and Amby were really nice guys. I talked with Bill for quite a while, and he advised me to run as much as possible on dirt and grass to build strength in my ankles and feet. We talked about the strategy of drafting behind other runners to let them do the work before you make your move. He said that running races is like the icing on the cake of your training runs; I agreed. I bought his book, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Running, which he signed for me.
Maybe hanging out with these running greats will now give me some good mojo for tearin’ it up in the race tomorrow. Woohoo!
1 response so far ↓
1 pjt // Nov 9, 2008 at 5:30 pm
The advise on running on grass is sound advise. I did lots of training on the grass, feeling wise it’s especially good to run bare footed. Keep eating, drinking, running and posting.