Monday, December 27, 2010

nugget #16

This is the rest of the story that Running Times left out of my article published in their November, 2003 issue, plus some other information that was not in my story, but could have been.  It also gives a link to the article if you are interested in seeing it and the pictures that accompanied the article.


And Now, the Rest of the Story
By Bill Donnelly

                                    Some of you may know that besides having my meandering written essays regularly appear in the Checkers Chatter, I actually had an article featured in the November 2003 issue of Running Times.  Entitled “The Ignorance of a Long Distance Runner”, it was about, believe it or not, the mistakes I make one Autumn Back in the Day.  To make a long story short, it was: boy runs marathon, passes out, runs another two weeks later, then another two weeks later, ends up in ambulance.  Fascinating stuff, eh. 
                                    Of course there is much more to it, but you have to read the article to find out what.  Thing is, when I wrote the story, I did leave out a few interesting and somewhat humorous facts in the interest of brevity.  Also, the editor of said magazine had to cut just a couple of paragraphs to make the article fit the space allotted for it.  Not much, but anyone who has written knows the pain of seeing your baby, your sweat and blood, your very life, butchered for the sake of saving some space so some maker of dribble kabibbles can advertise his trivial wares in said space.  But I get away from myself.
                                    I thought I would set the record straight and now tell you The Rest Of The Story!  Of course, if you haven’t read the original, this will just be a bunch of gibberish to you, and yes, I know that’s what you may already think of most of my writings.  I read the Checkers Forum, I know all about the practice some of you have of lining the kitty-litter box with my articles.  Just remember, I know who you are, and I have the power OF THE PEN!!!  But I get away from myself again.
                                    Anyway, if you want to read the article first, but did not save all of your past issues of Running Times, you can find it on the internet.  Just log on to runningtimes.com, on the left click on articles, scroll way down to the section called Reflections, and as the articles are alphabetized, you will find my article under I for Ignorance (somehow fits).  Now, click on that and there you have it.  Now I know you all want to do the right thing, so while you read the article, I’m going to go out and shovel the snow.  See you later.
                                    I’m back, man that was a lot of snow. What!  Not done yet!  OK, I’ll go make that turkey dinner I’ve been meaning to make since Thanksgiving.  Hurry up now, finish it so we can get on with this. 
                        There you go, finally done.  I know, there were not a lot of pictures but a lot of words, but cripes, four hours to read a three page article.  Anyway, now we can get on with it, The Rest Of The Story! 
                                    The first thing left out was near the beginning when I talked of how poor most of us runners were.  What I wrote was: Most of the runners I knew were very competitive, while at the same time, we were not very well off financially. In 1974, Dr. George Sheehan of Runner’s World was addressing a convention of podiatrists in Buffalo. My running friends and I snuck in to hear what the great Doctor had to say.  He was trying to convince the podiatrists to jump on the bandwagon, for he predicted that the running boom was here to stay, and there would be careers to be made by taking care of running injuries, but more importantly, preventing running injuries.  Dr. Sheehan of course was right, but the one point he made that stayed with me was the warning to his audience that runners overall were a poor lot. “Most do not have a pot to piss in” were his exact words. 
                                    I’m guessing the editor left all this out because of Dr. Sheehan’s work with Runner’s World, THE competitor.  Or perhaps it was the “pot to piss in” remark.  Who knows?  Also, in the next line, I said I ran in $17 Tiger Bostons (now Asics), but they left out the part about Tiger now being Asics.  Non-paid advertising I guess. 
                                    A big part of the story that I left out involved the trip itself to New York, and those I traveled with.  Any of you who have been faithful readers of my stories of Back in The Day, yes, all three of you, know of Eleanor, my significant-other at the time who was famous for receiving the first ever Belle Watling Beaver Pin.  Well, just before I ran the 1974 NYC Marathon, we had first met, went to Art Park once on a test date (her words) and she agreed to accept a ride from me to New York City so she could visit her best friend, Debby Harry or a name something like that.
                                    Now she KNEW I didn’t have the proverbial pot to piss in, so we grabbed a ride with my folks, who always jumped at the chance to visit NYC, where my older sister Maureen lived.  Also along for the ride was my 15 year old brother Jimmy, who was as charming as a fifteen year old brother can be, if you know what I mean, but the trip down went without a hitch, we dropped Eleanor off at her friend’s place in the Village, and proceeded to my sisters up on 181st and Fort Washington.  Eleanor and I would not see each other until we would meet at the West Side YMCA, located at
63rd St.
and Central Park West, race headquarters then, after the race Sunday.  Or that was the plan!  Oh yes, also meeting us in NYC was my sister Elizabeth and her two year old son Earendil (a name of Hobbit fame), who were in from Canada, and would be riding with us back to Buffalo.  More on that later.
                                    Well, as you know by now, if you really did finish my article like you were told to do, I ran the marathon, and thanks to many extenuating circumstances, the last thing I remember before finishing was turning out of Central park towards the finish at
Columbus Circle
.  Next thing I knew, and I only remember being in a thick, painful fog when consciousness returned to me, was waking up in the emergency room of Roosevelt Hospital, with a team of doctors and nurses trying to jab me with what appeared to be very sharp, long instruments of torture.  I later realized they were just trying to take a blood sample and put an IV needle into my arm. 
                        Be that as it may, I truly believed at the time that I was dying.  You see, on the Thursday before the race, several of us Delaware park runners had finished a run and gone over to the Schuper House on
Niagara St.
for our Thursday beer run.  It must have been part of my carbo-loading for the up coming marathon, but we partook of many barley-malt beverages and talked of past running incidents.  This particular evening, Belle Watling Joe Haroney told us of his experience of passing out right before the finish line of the 1973 Boston Marathon.  After being helped across the finish line (and thus disqualified) he was taken to the medical tent where he lay quite a while.  When he finally had some whits about him, he asked a doctor if his heart was about to give out.  The doc laughed and told him his heart was the only thing he had going for him.
                                    So there I was, a mere three days later, looking up at the ceiling of the emergency room.  As my memories of what Joe had said had started out foggy, thanks to all the barley-malt beverages I had consumed during my evening of carbo-loading, that story of his disintegrated into a exaggerated short tale whose only part I could remember was “Doc, is it my heart?!!”  My mind wasn’t working at all, thanks to being in shock from heat prostration and dehydration.  I literally thought for what seemed like a very long time that I was dying because my heart was now a bum-ticker. 
                                    A couple hours passed during which my mind refused to work, and therefore, refused to budge off this thought.  A very scary experience, but perhaps good because my mind could not focus on what my body was up to.  You see, it was very angry with me for putting it through such a horrendous experience, and my body was trying to pay me back.  I was extremely thirsty, yet I couldn’t even keep down the ice-chips they would try to give me.  And I had absolutely no control of my other bodily functions, if you know what I mean.  Let me just tell you this, lying on a bedpan for hours on end can be a very painful experience, unless your mind keeps insisting you are about to die of an exploding right ventricle.
                        Finally my mind started working, and somewhere away off in the misty midst of my mind, a name called to me.  It was many, many minutes before I heard it clearly.  ELEANOR, YOU FOOL!  Oh gosh, I was supposed to be meeting her at this very time, and I had to let someone know to get her.  I got the nurses attention, and tried to tell her my plight.  Tried is the word.  My body was still mad at me and not letting me form my thoughts into communicable words of any sort.  I literally tried to simply tell her I needed to get Eleanor, but all the nurse heard was “Isst frossem belosadasht Embrionbicil franbom cobquesting …….”, and on and on for five minutes at least.  The nurse finally gave up and as she could tell I was desperate to communicate my message to someone, she said she would get my mother, even though family and friends were absolutely not allowed into the emergency room.  Apparently, she figured I was speaking some unfamiliar language only my mother could understand, and wouldn’t you know it, she was right.
                                    By the third try, my mother realized what I was trying to say, and said she would take care of things.  She sent my dad and brother Mike over to the Y where they found a very worried Eleanor, and they happened to be there as Fred Labow announced my name as having come in 29th place, so they also picked up my medal.  Meanwhile, my mom had gotten her foot into the door of the emergency room, and she was not leaving till she knew I was alright. 
                                    Well, unfortunately for Eleanor, I was not ready to leave the hospital until late that evening, plus the doctor insisted I come back the next Wednesday for a follow up.  Unfortunately for Eleanor, because my dad was a Journalism Professor at Buffalo State, and he had to get back to Buffalo for the next morning’s class.  That meant leaving long before I was even out of the hospital.  That meant driving all the way back to Buffalo with my folks, whom she had just met on the trip down, and my fifteen year old brother Jimmy, who was a fifteen year old brother, and my sister Elizabeth and her two year old, Earendil, whom Eleanor met in the waiting room of the hospital.
                                    What a trip that must have been for Eleanor.  I guess I had it pretty easy compared to her.  And yet she would keep going out with me and stick with me in the next several years to come.  All I know is I was never ever to mention that trip back to Buffalo never ever at all and forever.  What a trip that must have been for Eleanor.  Maybe I’ll ask my family what went on, and that will be another article.
                                    Anyway, I did live to run the Kitchener, Ontario Marathon two weeks later, and two weeks after that, I ran the first Skylon Marathon, which was basically the same course as the Casino Niagara Marathon.  In the Running Times article, it says that a reporter on the national news said of the finish, I looked like I was finishing my second marathon of the day.  This had been greatly shortened, and I was most unhappy with it because it left out two important names, and one was my good friend. 
                                    What I wrote was: “Now it so happens that Haywood Hale Broun Jr., the sports editor for CBS Nightly News, was covering this marathon, and when it aired nationally two Saturdays later, I would get my 1.5 seconds of fame.  The race director was my friend Jesse Kregal, who was also timpanist for the Buffalo Philharmonic, a major orchestra.  Broun covered the race from the angle of this guy who runs to the beat of his own drum organizing an international marathon. Haywood Broun’s father was one of the finest sports writers of the first part of the century, and his son had the gift of words too.  He could make anything sound like poetry, and that included the marathon.
                                    In his report, he showed much of the race.  Towards the end, the report showed some good runners finishing and looking fresh, while Broun was saying that some runners looked as if they were just finishing a light jog in the park. He then said that others looked like they were finishing their second marathon of the day. Guess whose finish the report showed for those words. Little did Broun know that I was finishing my third marathon in four weeks.”
                                    So now you know The Rest Of The Story!  But just remember, there still might be more.  I think I’ll start doing my research tomorrow for my future piece entitled “What a Long Strange Trip it Was; Eh Eleanor?”        
                         
                       








 

Monday, December 20, 2010

nugget #15

The following is the first article I had published, which was in the November, 2003 issue of Running Times.  There were a few things left out of my original story, which will be pointed out in a future blog.  I hope you enjoy "The Ignorance of a Long Distance Runner".  Oh yeah, the article mentions that when I finished the Skylon Marathon, "Little did Broun know I was finishing my third marathon in four weeks."  The editors eventually left out Broun's name, but it was Haywood Hale Broun, who was covering the Skylon for CBS Satureday Nightly News.  It all gets explained later, hopefully next week. 


The Ignorance of a Long Distance Runner
A Tale of Woe and Wonder from Running?s Age of Innocence

By Bill Donnelly

I ran my first road race in 1973, which was when the running boom was really
starting to take off. My first race was the ?73 New York City Marathon,
which was run completely in Central Park, (one two mile loop followed by
four six mile loops), and in fact, only 400 runners ran the race. I
qualified for Boston with a 3:01 time, and when I ran Boston the next April,
I was joined by a record crowd of 1,700 runners for the event.
Most of the runners I knew were very competitive, while at the same time, we
were not very well off financially. We ran in $17 Tiger Boston shoes and
wore cheap running gear. In the winter we wore long johns and cotton sweats.
We trained in our own ways, and hopefully, learned from our mistakes. My
training consistently was 16 miles per day with a long run on Sunday (20 to
23 miles). My racing style was to line up in front, go out like a bat out of
hell, and hang on as best I could. There was no speed work except for races.

My Tale of Woe Begins
As I said, hopefully we learned from our mistakes, and my mistakes started
in the fall of 1974. My tale of woe begins on September 29th in the city of
New York, where I decided to take on the Marathon once again. There were 500
runners this time, but the weather was extremely hot, and the humidity was
listed as 93%. I was young and invincible, and since I had never before run
a hot weather marathon, the conditions did not concern me. Mistake number
one.
As I once again took a starting position in the very front of the pack for
the 11:00 a.m. start, a beautiful woman in a short tennis dress lined up
next to me. She was none other than Kathy Switzer, who had gained fame in
1967 for being the first woman to run in the Boston Marathon with an
official number, even though women were prohibited from the race. People
Magazine had a reporter and photographer in New York capturing her every
move for a feature article they were doing on her.
I was set to go, and I had the nylon laces of my Tiger Bostons tied in a
double knot as I always did to prevent them from coming untied. And then the
beautiful Kathy spoke to me. She told me my shoes were untied, which was not
true, they just looked untied. Being the shy young man that I was, and with
very little practice in conversing with attractive women, my mind turned to
mush. I thanked her and knelt down to pretend to tie my shoes. DUH!
I never saw the issue of People with the article on Kathy. If one of you
should ever find that particular issue, and should it have a picture of the
very start of the race, I would be the one kneeling next to Kathy, seemingly
tying my shoe as everyone else takes off.

Mistakes and Misery
I quickly recovered and was able to take off in my usual style of going out
too fast. Now, Fred Lebow had always tried to put on a mistake free race
that was runner friendly, but in ?74 his workers made a crucial mistake.
There were only a couple of water stops in those days, one on each side of
the park, and on that hot, humid day, they did not get the water stops set
up in time, and there was no water for us until the eight mile mark. By that
time it was too late.
As I was running along with no idea of what would transpire, Bill Rodgers
led the pack for the first 20 miles. This was six months before he would win
his first marathon ever in Boston, but in New York in ?74 he became
dehydrated and faded to finish fifth in 2:35:59. Dr. Norb Sander went on to
win in 2:26:30, and the lovely, but dangerous, (to me) Kathy Switzer was the
first woman in 3:07:29.
Meanwhile, the adverse conditions were starting to do me in, and as I
approached the 20 mile mark at the Tavern on the Green where the race
started, I saw my sister Maureen, who lives in New York. I stopped and told
her and her husband that I was whipped and would quit despite being only six
miles from finishing. They urged me on, saying I was in 23rd place, and my
competitive spirit took over. On I went. Mistake number two!
For two miles I felt pretty good and was glad that I went on. The next two
miles reminded me of why I wanted to quit, and everything seemed to be going
in slow motion. With two miles to go, someone above took pity on me and the
skies opened up. I mean, it started to pour down rain, lightning and
thunder, and it would continue until I finished. That could have saved my
life, for I was in very bad shape, and remember little of those miles other
than the light poles moving towards me ever so slowly.
At the Tavern on the Green my brother Mike joined me to run me in, and at
that time, I hated him, for I so wanted to quit, but he would not let me. My
last memory is turning out of the park to head to Columbus Circle and the
finish. There was a bright flash of light and a loud crack of thunder almost
immediately, and a couple of onlookers ran across the road when they saw me
turn. My last thought was that they were race officials, and that they were
stopping the race because of the storm. All that happened for the next hour
or more is totally gone from my memory, for I was running through habit, and
I was out on my feet.
My folks were there, and when my mom saw me meandering from side to side and
puddle to puddle, she thought I was just kidding around. When she saw two
runners pass me by and I did not react, she knew I was not playing. Being
one of nine children in our Irish Catholic family, my mom knew how
competitive I was, and she became worried.
I finally made it to the finish line, but before crossing it, I started to
walk towards some grass to sit down. Mind you, I remember none of this, but
am only repeating what my family has told me happened. My brother-in-law,
now wearing a yellow rain slicker, ran at me waving his arms like a giant
yellow bat and screaming at me, which turned out to be sufficient enough to
startle me to dash across the finish line, where upon I crumbled to the
ground.

Medical Measures and Moaning
I had finished in 29th place with a time of 2:56:32, but at that moment I
was in lala land with no idea of what was happening around me. I had gone
into shock from dehydration and heat prostration. Now the adventure really
began.
Another thing Fred Lebow apparently goofed on was not having medical
assistance at the end of the race. An official used the sound system to ask
if there was a doctor in the area, and the only one to respond was the
winner of the race, Dr. Norb Sander. As he approached, my worried mother
asked him if I would be okay. He inquired as to my training, and when my mom
told him that I ran 100 plus miles a week, Dr. Norb said I would be okay. He
then proceeded to scoop up puddle water with his drinking cup and pour it
over my head and down the back of my neck. Knowing I would be okay, my mom
started to take pictures of my lying there. What would we do without our
mothers?
Dr. Norb continued to watch over me until an ambulance arrived, which took
45 minutes. I figure I may be the only finisher of the New York City
Marathon who received medical assistance from the winner of that race. When
the ambulance got there, an attendant asked if I wanted ice chips. My
response was that I was not married. Huh? Now mind you, I remember nothing
of this, and 28 years later, I still have not figured out what connection I
was making. But my family swears that is what I said.
My first memory of my ordeal was waking up in the Emergency Room of the
Roosevelt Hospital. I was surrounded by a team of doctors and nurses. They
were taking blood samples from one arm and inserting an IV needle in the
other. My reaction and this I remember clearly, was to scream: ?NO NEEDLES,
NO NEEDLES, I CAN?T STAND PAIN!? This of course brought immediate silence
and puzzled looks, followed by laughter, and to my dismay, the continued
insertion of those dreaded needles into my arms.
I could only think, but not very clearly, and I had a great deal of
difficulty trying to express my thoughts in the spoken language. I had no
control of any bodily functions, and could not take any liquids orally. Mere
ice chips put in my mouth would make me throw up. Of course, I was terribly
thirsty after the race, and that was the worst part of what I was going
through. It would be hours before the thirst went away thanks to the IV.
I was in the Emergency Room for over eight hours. During that time the nurse
in charge would bring around groups of doctors and nurses and gather them
around my bed. With a smile she would say: ?Go ahead, tell these folks what
you did to yourself to get here.? When I did tell them my tale, they would
leave shaking their heads. Not many people knew about the craziness of long
distance running yet.
A few hours into my adventure, when I was starting to get my wits about me,
I heard a soft moaning coming from the fellow in the bed next to me. I
inquired of him what was wrong, and his tale of woe put mine to shame. Seems
he arrived via the marathon also. It was his first one, but he passed out
several feet before the finish. That was bad enough, but his wife had not
wanted him to ever run a marathon for fear that he might end up in a
hospital. You see where this is going! He told her in the morning he had to
go to Jersey to run several errands. Now he was in the hospital, and the
doctors had called his wife to come and get him. He went back to moaning,
more from fear than pain, and I might have moaned a bit just in sympathy
with him.

More Marathons, More Mistakes
I got out of the hospital near midnight, had another checkup that Tuesday,
and headed back to Buffalo to train for my next marathon, which was two
weeks after New York. That?s right; I was running the Kitchener, Ontario
Marathon with some of my buddies on October 12th. Mistake number three. It
was the Canadian National Championships, and we were doing it mainly as a
training run. We all finished together in 3:06:26. Not a good idea so soon
after my experience just tow weeks prior.
A training run for what you might ask. Why, for the first Buffalo to Niagara
Skylon International Marathon to be held two weeks later on October 26th. I
had been on the committee that helped put this race together, so I was
looking forward to running it no matter what. Mistake numbers four and five
and many more. By now my body was protesting a bit, and I was training
despite a sore groin. By the time of the marathon, I was running with a
noticeable limp.
Well of course I had to line up for the race in the front row, and when the
gun went off, there went the old bat out of hell. I felt my groin snap in
the first couple of steps, but that didn?t stop me from running in second
place for the first third of a mile. The groin did not bother me as all
during the race, but what I was putting my body through would catch up to
me. In all of the marathons I have run, I felt I have never hit the wall.
That is, all but the first Skylon. In that race I hit the wall hard and I
hit it at 13 miles into the race. The last 13 miles were the toughest miles
I have ever run, but I was too proud and stupid to quit.
It turns out that when the marathon aired nationally two Saturdays later, I
would get my 1.5 seconds of fame. Towards the end of the report, they showed
some good runners finishing and looking fresh, while the announcer was
saying that some runners looked as if they were just finishing a light jog
in the park. He then said that others looked like they were finishing their
second marathon of the day. Guess whose finish the report showed for those
words. Little did Broun know that I was finishing my third marathon in four
weeks.
I somehow managed to finish with my best time to this point, 2:46:34, but I
also soon ended up back in an ambulance. The Skylon had sense enough to have
an ambulance at the finish, and I staggered to it. They gave me liquids,
told me I was in a mild state of shock, and sent me on my way because they
needed the room for others. I was helped to the hotel room where club
members were celebrating, and for the entire evening, I lay on a bed under
many blankets, shivering uncontrollably. I should have been in a hospital.

The Happy Ending
Needless to say, I did not run any more marathons that year. My groin was so
bad that I had to walk on crutches for three days. I was off running for six
weeks while I healed. Once I did heal, I of course had to start training for
the ?75 Boston Marathon. Since I had only four months to train, I took a
friend?s advice and joined him in some tough speed work on the track, twice
a week, for three months. It paid off.
I had my PR at that Boston. Other friends of mine from the New York Marathon
were there also. Bill Rodgers set a course record of 2:09:55, 26 minutes
faster that he had run New York six months before. Kathy Switzer finished
second among the women in 2:51:37, 16 minutes faster. I managed a 2:34:57
and finished 181st out of 2000 runners.
Oh yeah, another friend of mine from New York was there. As I entered the
finish chute, the runner in front of me was looking whipped. A young lad ran
up to him, placed a blanket around his shoulders, and said, ?Great race
Norb.? Now, I was feeling good and my mind was working well as there were no
beautiful Kathy Switzers around turning it into mush. I thought that there
could be very few men named Norb, and fewer still who ran marathons. I asked
him if he was Dr. Norb Sander, winner of the New York Marathon. He said yes,
so I told him who I was and what had happened to me at that marathon. I
wasn?t able to thank him personally back in New York for what he had done
for me, so I thanked him there and then. He looked at me with glazed eyes,
for he obviously had a tough race. He simply said: ?You just ran a great
race!?, and then he staggered away. I, on the other hand, floated through
the chute, feeling no pain, and truly enjoying the greatest runner?s high
ever.
Thus my tale of woe and mistakes ends on a happy note. I think I did learn
from all those mistakes, and now the future looks bright. Enough of that, I
must go and run 16 miles so I can be in shape for the Tow Path Marathon in
October. That reminds me, the Columbus Marathon is only two weeks after it,
followed closely by the New York City Marathon. I wonder if these old legs
still have it in them? Well, gottta run.



Monday, December 13, 2010

nugget #14

The following nugget appeared in the June, 2005 Checkers newsletter.  It's all about meter reading.


The Meaning of Fries
By Bill Donnelly

            Throughout the many years I was just a lowly Special Education teacher, I found very few people, friends or strangers, ever came to me looking for answers to Life’s greatest questions.  All that has changed in the past couple of years.  Ever since I became a reader of gas meters for the company that shall remain nameless, but whose name rhymes with “Irrational Fool”. 
For you see, a meter reader does more than just punch out numbers into a hand-held computer.  No, a meter reader travels the width and breadth of Western New York going into everyone’s basements.  I think it was Confucius who said: “Man who goes into neighbors basement peers into neighbor’s very soul!”  It was either Confucius or Sponge Bob Square Pants, it doesn’t matter. 
What matters is that many people believe that having “peered” into so many neighbors’ souls, I have become quite wise in what makes people tick.  Actually, I have just seen a lot of really messy basements (you wouldn’t believe how many people just throw their dirty clothes down the basement stairs – or do you do that?) and really strange collections (beer can collections lead the list, but they are often in disarray, having been knocked over by errant dirty clothes jettisoned down the basement stairs).
Noticing that people were asking me more and more questions, I started keeping a list of all questions asked me over the past year.  Leading the list is: “Do you want fries with those burgers?”  That one is easy, and I simply reply: “Why of course, and you can super-size me while you’re at it.”  This exchange is not what this article is about, I just want you to realize I did keep careful tabs on all questions asked, and this one led the way with 297 incidents recorded.
Not far behind, a less important question, since it does not deal with food, was: “Oh all-knowing meter reader, what is the meaning of Life?”  Come to think of it, the answer could be all about food, for example, see number one most asked question of me above.  But I feel that is not what these people want to hear, so I get an all-knowing look on my face (Diane says it’s the same look I get when I have really bad gas) and I tell them the following story about the Cole’s race Back in the Day.  The following is the way I usually give my answer.
 Listen Grasshopper, the Cole’s race was one of the early races started by the owner of Cole’s, Dave Schatzel.  Cole’s is the very fine eating and drinking establishment located on
Elmwood Ave.
just south of Forest, not far from Buff State.  The race was held in late summer, and was about 2.8 miles.  We lined up at City Hall and ran straight down Elmwood to finish in front of Cole’s.  People have asked why we didn’t just make it a 5K, but we didn’t think much in terms of kilometers, it was simply the distance from City Hall to Cole’s.  I believe it was run from the early 1970s until the mid to late 80s. If you go to Cole’s to this day, you can see all the individual winners listed on the wall near the back.
Like many of the races Back in the Day, Cole’s also had a team competition.  I believe this competition led to the formation of many of the running clubs we see in Buffalo today, and Cole’s was the cornerstone of team competition.  This was because of the Cole’s team trophy, which would be retired by the first team to win it three years in a row.  You wouldn’t think that would be so hard to do, would you?  The fight to win that trophy drove clubs desperate to win it, led to clubs being created, and saw runners being lured from one club to another, all for the glory of winning the Cole’s team trophy. 
Along with the question as to which came first, the chicken or the egg, we in the Buffalo running community wonder which came first, the Belle Watlings or the Buffalo Philharmonic A.C.  I know the Belle Watlings started calling themselves that name in 1969, and the BPAC came along shortly thereafter, but which registered their name with the AAU first is a burning question that may never be answered, simply because no one cares.  Anyway, the Philharmonic jumped into the Cole’s team competition in a big way right off the bat, and after two straight wins in the early years, the trophy looked to be theirs.
Dick “The Founder” Sullivan of Belle Watling fame saw things differently.  He put together a crack team of “old fellows”, with a youngster or two, and won the next year, denying the BPAC their glory.  The Watlings won again the next year, and were ready to retire the prize when something unexpected happened.  Checkers A.C. was born.
As I mentioned in a previous article about Joe Jordan and his bar on Hertel the club was named for, he got the idea to start a running club after his running buddy Matty Hellerer won the Cole’s race in 1974.  Checkers of course came along just in time to keep the Belle Watlings from winning the third time, but after Checkers won twice, they had a split in their own club.  Checkers’ member Randy Halm and others wanted a Buffalo club that would represent the city in out of town races, and he took the top Checkers’ runners and other area runners and created the Greater Buffalo A.C.  They wore all black outfits, and were known to others outside the club as the Darth Vader club. 
Of course, they won the Cole’s race the next two years, but before you knew it, Checkers put back together a crack team, and finally won the race three years in a row to retire the trophy.  That was in about 1983, and I would guess you could still see it at Checkers.  I know Joe Jordan has a picture of the celebration he’ll show you if you want to see it.
So much for running clubs in Buffalo, what about the meaning of Life, eh Grasshopper?  Back to the Cole’s race of 1974.  The race was in the morning, and off we went.  I had a particularly good race that day, coming in third place behind Matty Hellerer and Fred Gordon.  On the way into the bar to get our stuff, I heard Dave Schatzel tell Hellerer and Gordon that he was arbitrarily making them Expert Class, so that made me the winner of the open division.  Matty still got his name on the wall as winner, but I would get a nice big trophy.
Now, one reason Cole’s was such a popular race was that Dave threw quite a party the night of the race.  We all came back, and the upstairs was open to the runners for some really great food and all the beer you could drink.  This was the forerunner of how most races are done in Buffalo now, but you didn’t find this kind of treatment anywhere else after a race in 1974.  We got our awards, and mine was a big silver bowl donated by the No-Name Bar, a fine establishment right down the street.  The bowl was probably aluminum, but it was engraved with the No-Name name on it, it was the nicest trophy I had won, and I was happy as a clam.
We ate and drank and partied for hours, and I was hanging with the Belle Watlings, whose motto was “race hard, party hard!”  Then Mike Miesczak entered the picture.  Mike was an excellent runner Back in the Day.  He was best at short distances, but he did quite well in the marathon.  I remember him doing a in Boston, and once he put it all together in Skylon, and ran a .  As my brother Tom says of runners Back in the Day, and he ran a (with a lot of change on an easy course) we always considered ourselves middle of the pack runners with those times.  Of course, with my time being  way better than Tom’s, well, I just grin and shake my head yes, “we”  were middle of the pack runners compared to Zimmerman, Gordon, Hellerer, and others (ME). 
Yes, Mike was a good runner, but his claim to fame was he somehow convinced Nancy Dragoo to marry him.  Nancy was the top area female in middle and long distance.  She too ran a marathon in (for the sake of continued married bliss, I will not say whose time was faster – also, I don’t know).  Nancy still holds records in races across the state, but she and Mike do not compete anymore.  They are retired Buffalo school teachers (they would not know the answer to the question concerning the meaning of life!), but you may see Nancy running her three miles a day near her home on Grand Island, or playing golf.  Mike too enjoys playing golf, or skeet shooting at the gun club up there.  By the way, skeet is the term Grand Islanders use in referring to the mosquitoes that inhabit the swampland that is Grand Island, and those skeets are big enough to shoot.
Anyway, back to Cole’s, and how Mike plays into it.  He was a regular at the No-Name Bar, and he ran representing them.  He was under the impression that the No-Name Bowl was to go to the best runner from that Bar, which was Mike.  I guess somehow I convinced him that in no way was I letting that fine trophy leave my person, he accepted that, and left.  We continued to party, and soon Sully said it was tradition for the winner of the No-Name Bowl to take said bowl to said bar and have said bartender fill it with said beer.  Have I said enough?  I thought this an excellent idea, and proceeded to the No-Name, with the Belle Watlings promising to follow. 
At the bar I found Mike nursing a beer by himself.  I told the bartender of the tradition of him filling my trophy.  He said, Yeah, right!  Seems he had run the race the year before, so he knew better, but since it was such an inventive story, he filled up the bowl.  That’s a lot of beer, so to mend fences, I asked Mike to partake with me.  We got it halfway down, and still no Watlings.  Realizing they were not coming, I decided to head back to Cole’s, half filled bowl under my arm. 
No-no said No-Name bartender, there is an open container law here.  The Irish in me wouldn’t let me waste good beer, so I chugged it.  Then I realized it was time to meander home.  I lived close and walked home, though I don’t remember getting there (ah, the folly of youth).  I just know I woke up quite hung-over, and worse of all, there was a big dent in the side of my bowl.
A few years later when I was recovering from an injury, and Tom was coming into his own, he beat me in Skylon.  He knew he would, had taken my No-Name Bowl, had printed on it “The Donnelly Cup”, and brought it to Checkers for the post-race celebration.  I went along with it, but he had to have the bowl filled with beer and drink it all to keep it.  Couldn’t do it, but sometime during that night, he managed to lose my prized No-Name Bowl. 
What, you say, has this got to do with the meaning of life?  Every time I tell this story to a young Grasshopper, He forgets what he asked me in the first place, and he hops away.  Perhaps still thinking me an all-knowing meter reader.  Well, I’m going to keep reading meters until I finally get into the basement of a certain skeet shooter on Grand Island. He was there that night at Checkers.  I suspect if I look under the dirty clothes on top of his collection of beer cans and running trophies, I just might find a certain No-Name Bowl.  And that’s what life is all about.





 

Monday, December 6, 2010

nugget #13

In this story I have some fun comparing the runners from Back in the Day to runners now.  Of course, "now" means 2005 when this story first ran.


From Spanks to Global Warming
by Bill Donnelly

            Once in a while I have been accused of writing mostly about what running was like Back in the Day in a way to make it look like the runners back then were much better than the runners of today.  I assure you; such an idea never entered my head.  Of course, not much seems to enter my head anyway.
            I think this erroneous perception comes about because I have once in a great while pointed out how many runners during the 1970s were hitting times in the marathon that very few runners are hitting today, even though there are way more runners doing marathons today.  All I can say is tut, tut, please do not read too much into my ramblings.
            You see, I do realize that the big difference between the runners of the period known as “The Wonderful, Irrefutable Never-ending Domination Of Wondrous Distance Runners Ever Seen Simply Inspiring Near-impossible Goals” (or as those in the know call it, the WINDOW-DRESSING Period) of the 1970s, and the lowly, er, pretty good runners of today, is focus.  By that I simply mean that the runners back then were almost entirely focused on running marathons, and other races simply provided speed workouts and a good chance to party afterwards. 
            Everyone I knew who ran put in 80, 90 or 100 plus mile weeks regularly, and we did this year round with no cooling off periods.  The marathon was our goal, and Boston was the ultimate prize.  Since you had to run or better in the open category, and masters had to hit at least to qualify for Boston, we had to push ourselves. 
            Today’s runners do not look on the marathon as the ultimate goal.  Many will do it to prove to themselves they can, and some are truly bitten by the marathon bug (much like being bitten by a giant bedbug).  Still many runners have no desire to run the 26.2 mile event, and concentrate on shorter races, and there is no shame in that (Yeah, Right! – I didn’t just say that, did I?  I just gotta figure out how to erase when I put down thoughts that might seem insensitive to others.  White out doesn’t work, it just messes up my monitor.) 
            So anyway, I really shouldn’t compare the runners from Back in the Day to today’s runners by using results from marathons.  It would be much fairer to use shorter races, even though back then we didn’t have track practices to help us.  It just would be a more fair comparison.
            So I went looking for races that would give a good and totally unbiased comparison of both periods.  This proved difficult.  I can’t use 5Ks because we did not have them in the ‘70s.  What a silly distance anyway, you just start to get a running groove going and you’re in the finish chute.  The Turkey Trot doesn’t work, because that was a 5 mile race Back in the Day, and now it’s an 8K, not much difference, but some. 
            So that leaves me with the 10K race, a very popular race in the ‘70s, not so popular now but you can find them.  Since we just finished running the Depew-Lancaster Boys & Girls Club 10K on July 4th, I decided to use it for this piece of totally unbiased journalistic excellence in comparison writing.  It is a Buffalo News Runner of the Year race, so it does bring together the best the area has to offer today.  For the WINDOW-DRESSING Period road race I will use the Fredonia Farm Festival Koch’s Brewery 10K held in 1977.  I choose this particular race because I just so happen to have a copy of the results and newsletter sent with the results.  Cripes, I’m such a pack-rat.
            I participated in both races, so I can knowingly make totally fair comparisons of the two.  The Fredonia race was not a News Runner of the Year race, we didn’t have those back then, but since it was sponsored by the Koch’s Brewery, it was a popular race that drew large numbers of thirsty runners.   I know that the Lancaster race was hot and humid, with no shade for relief.  Fredonia was run in mid-August, and was always hot and humid. 
            Both courses are fairly flat.  Yes, I know Lancaster has those little hic-cups under the underpasses, but if you count those as hills, don’t run any races in Pittsburgh.  Both races were almost equally big in numbers, and even though women’s running was just getting going, there were 55 women finishers at Fredonia compared to 176 in this year’s Lancaster race.  So let the comparison begin, and I’m sure we will see that the runners of today are just as competitive as the runners from Back in the Day.
            First off, 532 runners finished the Fredonia race, compared to 578 in Lancaster.  So far, so good, pretty even.  The winner of the Fredonia 10K was Richard Saxton from Rochester, who ran it in 30:56, which was 36 seconds slower than Mark Finucane’s 30:12 the year before.  Not bad.  Matt Glynn won the Lancaster race in 32:38, just slower, but he wasn’t pushed hard as second place Mike Heitzenrater only ran a 33:50.  In fact, if Glynn had run that time in Fredonia, he would have come in, let’s see, oh, um, 19th place. 
The old guy(36 then), Ralph Zimmerman was fifth in Fredonia with a 31:32, followed closely by local greats Alex Trammell and Kim Wettlaufer, both with a 31:42.  As the newsletter said; “The top local finisher was FSUC (Fredonia State) half mile king, Bob Carroll, who was 21st in 32:42.”  It must be great to be king of something.  Bob told me he would not really hit his stride for the 10K distance for almost another ten years, when he would just miss breaking 30 minutes by a second a few times.  Bob didn’t run this year’s Lancaster race, but he did a 35:02 last year to come in fifth, which would have placed him, well, that would be 80th at the ’77 Fredonia race. 
Lets cut to the chase.  At this year’s 10K on July 4th, of the 578 runners, 28 broke 40 minutes.  Of the 532 Farm Festival runners, 244 broke that mark.  Yow!!!  Others who ran Fredonia that you might recognize include Fred Gordon, who ran it in 34:28 for 56th place (a slow day for Fred, who this year still did Lancaster despite a hip replacement – yes, he was dead last in 2:23:13, but he had to walk the whole thing, and that time is just two minutes faster than he would run the Boston Marathon in 1978.)  I had one of my slower 10Ks, finishing in 114th with a 36:13.   Belle Watling Founder Dick Sullivan (just 49 at that time) was 137th with a 36:47, and Runtime Services founder Don Mitchell ran a 37:14 to place 159th.  I could go on and on, but let’s get to the women, since women’s running has come so far.
The first woman in Lancaster was of course Allison Carr, who came in 20th with a 39:02, followed closely by Carolyn Nugent with a 39:58, and Elizabeth Schultz, who hit a 40:15.  Pretty darn good, eh.  Back in the caveman days of women running, the best the first woman could do was a, oh, wait, I forgot, this was the very first time a certain Nancy Dragoo (now Miesczak) showed up on the scene.  Straight off the boat from Malone, NY, she would take the running community by storm, and set all sorts of records.  At her first time running locally, she was able to win first woman with a 134th place time of 36:43, good enough for 11th place in this years Lancaster.
But Nancy was not typical, right?  The next woman was 18 year old Mary Seybold in 37:09, then Amy McDonald in 39:05, Beth Dwyer in 39:43, and rounding out the sub-40 minute women was Grand Island’s 13 year old Marjorie Bessel, in 39:50.  At the other end, the last three runners in Fredonia were woman, but the slowest time was 60:42.  Not counting Fred Gordon’s walk in the park, the slowest time in Lancaster was . 
Enough with the stats, lets get to reasons why my comparison of the two races, which I did with purely good intentions of proving that runners are just as good now as they were Back in  the Day, blew up in my face!  There are some theories that have been put forth to explain the differences in performance.  I will look at these with my scientic mind and show what bunk most of them are.
First, there is the “Oliver Stone Conspiracy Theory” (Ollie plans on making this into a 240 minute movie staring Richard Gere and Woody Harrelson) that involves a grassy knoll, landing men on the moon, and George W. Bush’s successful plan to make the Brits and Canadians more like us by secretly lengthening the Kilometer to exactly one mile.  He hates the metric system, seems he could never quite get with it in his college days.  Bunk!  If all it took was Dubya not quite getting with it in college, he would have done away with all Math, History and English courses in college.  College would be one big frat party with girls gone wild.  Hmmm, now that I think about it, maybe there is something to this theory. 
The next theory that deserves some thought is the “Supersize Me” Theory.  This one needs no explaination, and it certainly would explain why I have slowed down so much.  But then again, I have plenty of other excuses, such as age, asthma, and the mile long Kilometers.  So again Bunk!
Then there is the “Superstar-Great TV” Theory.  What with such exciting TV shows to watch, such as “Fear Factor”,  “The Real Gilligan’s Island”, and “The Simple Life”, who can tear themselves away from the TV in order to exercise.  Add to that such talented superstars such as Jessica Simpson, Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and William Hung to entertain us, it’s amazing anyone still runs.  Double Bunk!!  “Gilligan’s Island”, “The Brady Bunch”, “Lawrence Welk”,  “Tiny Tim”, and “Devo”.   Say no more!
Now for a touchy subject, and that would be the “Spanks” Theory.  Put simply, with so many women running now, and instead of wearing bulky cotton shorts or formless sweat pants, they are now wearing form-fitting tights, tennis dresses, and dare I say it, spanks.  It is said that now many of the top male runners are too distracted to put forth a tremendous effort (in running), or worse yet, they are purposely running behind the females in order to peruse the view.  Bunk! Bunk!! Bunk!!!  Who in their right mind would admit to such shameless sexism?  Then again, it is another excuse I could use.  
            One other theory we must look at, because all others are Bunk, take it from me.  This is the “Global Warming” Theory.  This one makes some sense, since, as I have often pointed out, winters were much colder Back in the Day, and that, combined with us doing weight-training with all the sweat soaked cotton we wore, could explain things being different.  And as hot as it has been this summer, it has been so hard to get out to train.  Maybe we have something here.  But wait, George Dubya has pretty much said that Global Warming is no threat and it does not exist, and if he says so, I say Bunk!!!! to that theory.  But wait again, what if it’s just that Dubya couldn’t quite get with the Theory of Global Warming when he was in college.  Hmmmm, maybe we do have something here.