nugget # 5

I missed last weeks posting because I was on vacation.  Here's a good nugget that has to do with my brother Tom, a very good runner who is now president of Checkers AC.

Oh Brother, Why Art Thou

By Bill Donnelly

            It seems that so many times after a story of mine appears in the newsletter, I get call after call after call on my telephone chastising me for picking on my slow brother, Tom.  All I hear is that I’m mean spirited towards him, and that he really is quite a great guy.  Well, I decided it was time to write a piece in praise of my brother’s running ability, specifically, I will tell about the time he won quite a large race back in The Day.  Maybe that will get Tom to stop making call after call after call on my telephone chastising me for, well, you get the picture.

Let me start by giving you a bit of background about Tom so you can better understand how running was quite a positive change in Tom’s life.  You see, when the young lad was growing up is St. Cloud, Minnesota, he was quite the bundle of energy.  In fact, he was the first child the term ADHD was ever used for, only the letters originally stood for “Another Donnelly Hosting Demons”, and the child care experts in Minnesota actually invented Ritalin for Tom, but by the time they perfected it, he was too old for it to work. 

For those who would like to know more of the details of Tom’s troubled youth, there was an excellent book written about him simply called “Trouble for Tommy”, and it does go into detail, with photos, of Tom’s legendary exploits as a youth.  Unfortunately, the book is out of print, but I do have copies I can lend to those who are interested.  I’m not kidding.

Anyway, one of the problems Tommy suffered from was the inability to stick to any project or activity for any length of time.  Few people know this, but when Tom was very young, my folks thought learning a musical instrument might soothe the savage beast that was my brother.  He was about seven, and take it from me, hearing a young kid trying to learn the violin is an excruciating experience.  To this day, whenever I hear a Siamese cat that’s in heat and being tortured at the same time, I think back to my brother’s violin career.

Fortunately, Tom stuck to the violin for all of about one week.  Yet for some reason, he kept carrying the violin in its case to school for the next year.  This, of course, would attract the bullies, and many the day I would see Tom running full tilt with a band of toughs in close pursuit, the violin case swinging back and forth in Tom’s hand.  This was his first running experience, and years later, once he took up road racing, you knew Tom was serious about a race if he was carrying his violin case with him during the event.

In 1964 we moved from St. Cloud to Buffalo, and no, it’s not true we were kicked out because of Tom.  It is strange that Minnesota has border check points ever since 1964.  Anyway, we lived in North Buffalo, and we were in the Riverside High School district, so that is where my brother Mike and I went.  Tom, on the other hand, decided to follow our sister Liz, once they were of high school age, to Bennett High School.  It was cooler then.

In order to go to a different high school out of your area, it had to offer a subject that you desperately needed in your life, and which was not offered at the designated high school you were supposed to attend.  The only thing Bennett offered was Russian.  Tom decided he needed to learn to speak Russian.

How’d that go you ask?  Next time you see Tom, ask him to say something is Russian to you.  But he did enjoy taking First Year Russian all four years he was at Bennett.  In that way it was different, for he did stick to it.  He just didn’t stick to the studying.   He did become close to his Russian  teacher, and he still sends a Christmas card to her at the sanitarium she’s at each year.

So when Tom took up running about three years after I did, everyone was thrilled, yet no one thought he would stick with it too long.  He started in 1976, and he is still going strong, so that shows you what we knew.  And looking at Tom now, you would never guess that he weighed-in at somewhere under 435 pounds.  I guess the ten years he was a freshman at Buffalo State might have been the first indication that he could stick with something, unfortunately all the beer-blasts and freshmen mixers put on the pounds.

Well, Tom really got into the running, and it wasn’t long before he was running quite well.  He ran his first marathon at Skylon in 1977, and by breaking three hours, he qualified for Boston, which he did as a Belle Watling in 1978.  By 1979, he felt ready for bigger and better things, and I remember he was aiming for the Run for your Life 20K, to be held on September 9, 1979. 

I was teaching in a small town outside of Kent, Ohio, at the time, but I made it back to Buffalo whenever I could to run with my friends.  It just so happened that I was back in town that very weekend, but I had no plans of running that race.  In fact, the day before the race, Saturday, I ran 20 miles at Delaware Park with plenty of company, and it was my 91^st day in a row of running.  We used to do crazy things like that back in The Day.  I know the details of this because I recently found my running journal from then.  I’m so glad I kept a journal.

The evening before the race, Eleanor (of the Belle Watling Beaver Pin Award fame) and I met my friends and Checkers’ members Jim and Sharon Caher at Gables, one of the first bars with an outside café.  It was a beautiful night, and we settled in for a night of relaxing and drinking outside.  A few friends stopped by and raised a glass or two with us.  About nine o’clock Tom stopped by, since we hadn’t seen each other yet.

Well, Tom had big plans for the next day’s race, so he had to be in bed early.  He had a big glass of lemonade, and was on his way by 9:30.  He was dedicated and ready.  We stayed on and closed the place at 3 in the morning.  Turns out my brother Mike, another running Donnelly who ran a 2:40 marathon in his day, was also in town and running the race the next day.  He didn’t show up at the bar, but he did not take the race quite as seriously as Tom.

I got up about 8 the next morning, after less than five hours to sleep it off.  I was still fuzzy as I headed out the door to run at Delaware Park.  I got to the top of the hill by the statue of the hippy and his dog, and people were just lining up for the 9:30 start of the race, with a good 2000 participants.  I remember being in back to watch the start and talking to Fred Gordon, who also was not going to run.  He had a bit of an Afro that wilted and lay down in corn-rows when I breathed on him.  I was feeling the after effects of too much partying.

When the gun went off, Fred decided to run along behind the crowd for his workout, so I decided to do the same.  What follows is exactly what I wrote in my journal.  Nothing has been altered or changed to protect the innocent.

I ran the 20K (accurate course) race Run for Your Life, unofficially.  Drank with El & the Cahers till 3AM, so when I got up for the 9:30 race, I was beat.  I ran to the park and started in the very back of 2000.  Slow start (6:40 mile) but it was a good course, and a cool day.  I ran easy & felt good the whole way.  Considering everything (20 miles yesterday) I did well, beat Tom & finished with Mike in about 25^th place with a 74:59.  Not bad, I was pleased.  It was my 92^nd day in a row.  I feel encouraged about Skylon.

Poor Tom.  He had to rethink his whole strategy of training and preparing for races.  I suppose I could have rubbed it in over the past 25 years, but any of you who know me would understand that I could never do such a thing.  Tease my slow little brother about such a thing.  Why I never! 

I only mention this little episode in trying to explain Tom’s character for this article.  I wanted you to understand something of his background so you could appreciate how far his running has taken him, and how he has used it to change his life. 

I only bring up this story of the Run for Your Life Race to help lead up to the whole point of this article.  Now what was the point of this article?  Hmmm, I forget.  Excuse me while I scroll up to the top page to see what my purpose was in writing this piece.  Oh yeah, the time he won quite a large race back in The Day.

You see, by 1981, I decided to give up running (which I did for nearly 20 years) so that Tom would be able to come out from under my shadow.  I was worried that he would get discouraged and give up on yet another activity.  My plan worked to perfection.  Tom blossomed as a runner, he could relax, and take some pointers from me as far as pre-race training methods.

Over the next seven or so years, Tom ran quite well, and won many races.  He could run a 15:30 5K and a 32:30 10K.  His biggest win, however, was the 1981 Run for Your Life 20K race, which he won with a personal best sub-70 minute run, beating over 2000 runners.  I like to think he was inspired by the humiliation I caused him by spanking him so badly two years before in the same race.  I understand that the night before the 1981 race, he was at Gables till quite late, and that wasn’t straight lemonade he was drinking.

I must mention that we have the finish of the 1981 race on home movies, which have been switched over to VHS.  It does send tingles down my spine, watching Tom crossing the finish line, raising his arms in the air, and waving the violin case high and proud.  Unfortunately, the case’s clasp broke and the violin shattered on Tom’s head.  We have the video to prove it.

So maybe now Tom will stop calling me to complain of the shabby treatment he feels I treat him with in some of my articles.  After this is printed in the newsletter, I expect to hear the phone ringing off the hook, and Tom will be at the other end thanking me profusely for my kind portrayal of his glory days.  Oh yeah, get to me if you want to read “Trouble for Tommy”.  It’s a great read.     

 

nugget #4

That Kenyan Dog

By Bill Donnelly

            Now, before you get bent out of shape thinking this is going to be a story about a Kenyan runner that I will be referring to as a dog, don’t worry.  This is an article about a dog that happens to have been Kenyan.  Well, it’s not 100% certain that this particular dog had Kenyan blood in her, but listen to my story, and you be the judge.

This dog belonged to my sister Margaret.  She got it from my sister Elizabeth, who was living in Nova Scotia, Canada at the time, and when Margaret traveled by train in the summer of 1972 to visit Liz, Liz’s dog had puppies.  Margaret of course fell in love with one of the mangy beasts, and had to bring it back to Buffalo with her.

When I say mangy beast, I’m being literal, for the puppy had mange, and old softy Margaret rode the whole way back with the mangy beast in the baggage compartment so said beast wouldn’t be alone.  Needless to say, by the time they arrived in Buffalo, Margaret was a mangy beast too.  I’m not making this up, folks, Margaret got the mange.  I forget what vet we took my sister to in order to get her a cure, but I vaguely remember we got a two for one deal, and the mange disappeared.

Unfortunately, the puppy didn’t disappear.  Now my sister needed a good name for the mutt, and boy did she come up with one.  She named it Something.  That dog was Something all right.  Nothing but a nervous, skinny, brown bundle of whimpering face-licking fuzz. 

Margaret was attending college and living with my folks in North Buffalo.  Whenever my sister would leave for school, she would have to make sure all the windows were closed or Something would jump through the screen of said open window and follow her.  With several kids also living at home, someone almost always left a window open somewhere, and Something would be sure to find it, and Riiipppp, there goes the dog.  I think Margaret almost flunked out that first semester; she was late for class so often, thanks to Something.  As I recall, my folks replaced 28 window-screens in one summer (this being the number my dad swears by) before my mom finally bought a huge roll of screen material, and learned to make new screens using the old frames. 

Anyway, on to that Kenyan dog.  According to Liz, the dog was half wolf.  You gotta understand that Liz was a definite child of the sixties, and dogs that were half wolf was all the rage.  Now the Kenyan part.  Margaret and Liz say the other half was African or Rhodesian ridgeback.  Close enough to Kenya for me.  More on why Kenyan in a bit.  But wouldn’t you think, half wolf-half Rhodesian ridgeback would make for an awesomely fearsome, huge, bloodcurdling creature that could eat a mailman in one bite?  No, what we had was a slobbering, nervous-nelly of a dog that was only known to destroy window-screens.

But could that dog run, and I mean fast and far.  It was the first ultra-marathoner I ever knew.  And that’s why I believe that dog had Kenyan blood in her.  Maybe not much, but enough to be able to run an ultra in some of the hottest weather ever seen in Buffalo.

How Something got started running is also the story of how my brother, Tom Donnelly, got started running.  You see, late in 1976, Tom, having just finished his fifth year of being a freshman at Buffalo State, decided it was time to shed some of the excess weight he was carrying.  I gave him an old pair of my running shoes, and wouldn’t you know it, he got really into it.  He kept building up his endurance while at the same time losing weight.  It is a fact that he was even one of the very few nuts that went out into the Blizzard of 77 at its worst and tried running.  When they dug him out three days later, he still had on my old running shoes.  Was I ever glad to get those back!

Now those of you who know my brother know what a shy and quiet guy he is.  During much of this time I was living in Kent, Ohio, so I wasn’t around to introduce him to my running friends, and he was just too gosh darned shy to introduce himself.  To my friends, he was Bill Donnelly’s slow little brother, and they could see he didn’t run very fast either.  Years later when he became quite an accomplished runner, he was and still is known as Bill Donnelly’s slow little brother.

Well, Shy Tom needed somebody to run with, someone who would accept him for who he was, someone full of nervous energy, someone who liked to lick his face (he did not know Julie yet), and that someone was Something.  And did Something take to running.  If Tom ever left to run without the dog, Riiipppp! 

Tom got to where he was running lap after lap of Delaware Park, and Something would be running at least three times as far as Tom.  There was no leash-law back then, and the park was mostly full of other runners, golfers, and squirrels, so Something was all over the place.  She must have covered more of the park over the years of running with Tom than the grass did.

That dog never got into trouble, she just kept going from one thing to another.  One wonders what could have been going through the little mind of Something as she dashed about.  Well, it just so happens that I can tell you, thanks to my baby brother, Jimmy.  You see, he is the only Donnelly boy who never ran, for he was to busy inventing things.  He was quite creative you see, and for awhile he was interested in what an animal might be thinking. 

Jimmy actually came up with a device, and I’m hardly making any of this up, that when put around an animals neck would record what it was thinking.  Of course he experimented on Something, and the device worked for about one-half lap of the park before the battery ran out.  Jimmy too went from one thing to another, and he threw the device in a box and went on to his next project, which was trying to invent a better guillotine.  I recently found the tape Jimmy made and the following is what I transcribed.  Something’s thoughts are in italics, and my own infrequent explanations of things in parentheses.

Duke, Duke, Duke, Duke of Earl Duke, Duke, Duke of…cripes, is it ever a good day to be running with Jumbo Bwana.  (Jumbo Bwana was Something’s name for Tom – Jumbo because when the dog first knew Tom he weighed somewhere less than 375 pounds, and Bwana, which I have discovered is the Swahili word for “horses patoot”, much as Native Americans conveyed the same meaning by calling someone Kimosabi.)  Cripes, there goes a squirrel over by that tree, if I can just sneak up on him- ooohh, why do I always bark?  Cripes, there goes one of those hard white bird eggs flying out of the sky, I’ll just scoop it up and bring it to Jumbo Bwana, slobber, slobber – cripes, why are those guys with the funny spears chasing me, I’ll run faster if I drop the egg.  Ooohh, another dog, and a big guy too – Hey RinTinTin, wanna smell my butt – I’m part Wolf you know – Hey, come back here!  Cripes, there are some other runners going right by Jumbo Bwana - I’ll follow them and see what they have to say – The one they call the Founder is at least noticing Jumbo Bwana, saying there goes Bill Donnelly’s slow little brother, too bad he runs slow too – Ooohh, there’s those great big squirrels with the horns and big humps, I’ll go scare them, cripes, they are so big you would think they wouldn’t have to hide behind that big fence – well I better check in with Jumbo Bwana to make sure he’s ok – Duke, Duke, Duke, Duke of Earl Duke…(And this is where the recording ends.  It’s understandable why Jimmy moved on to other things).

Finally, on to the ultra-marathon that poor Kenyan dog ran.  It happened in the summer of 1978.  Tom informed many of us on Thursday that he would be going away for the weekend, and if anyone had a chance, he would appreciate it if one of us would take Something with them when they went for a run on Saturday.  Several of us were running at the time, including my brother Mike, and my sister Janet.

Well, let me tell you, that Saturday dawned mighty hot and humid.  One of those hot Buffalo summer days when you can hardly breathe, and you break into a sweat just waking up.  Later in the day I was supposed to meet my friend Norm Schwendler of Belle Watling fame over at the park and try to get sixteen miles in.  I stopped at my folk’s house and got Something, but she wasn’t as energetic as usual.  Still, she followed me to the Park, and Norm and I proceeded to peel away the laps.  After a few laps, we noticed Something hadn’t been back to check up on us for awhile, but we didn’t think much of it.  Going by the ball diamonds we spotted her, lying in the shade panting.  As much as we tried coaxing her, she would not budge.  We finished our run, and only when she saw we were heading home did Something get up and follow me to the house.

It was several days later I found out Something’s problem.  During a Sunday family dinner, talk turned to Tom’s weekend trip.  Turns out he didn’t go, so that hot Saturday morning he came over and got the poor dog and took her for a twenty mile run.  For Something, she probably ran sixty miles.  Later, before I showed up, brother Mike came over and took the dog for a ten mile run (in doggy miles that would be thirty miles).  Then I showed up and the poor hound could only make half my workout.  The poor thing still must have gone 100 miles that day, thus my contention that Something had Kenyan blood in her.

After these revelations came out, sister Janet said that explained a lot.  Seems she came over later on that fateful Saturday to run the dog, and when Something saw her in her running clothes, the mutt headed for the basement and refused to budge.  Tom also realized now why that night the poor dog just lay in front of him, breathing ever so heavily, with tongue hanging out.

Alas, poor Something has gone on to Doggie Heaven, where she can run forever, and catch all the squirrels she wants, even the big horned humpty-backed ones.  And as she looks down on Delaware park and sees Tom running laps still, she probably thinks: There goes Jumbo Bwana, better known as Bill Donnelly’s slow little brother.  At least he can run fast now!

           

Nugget #3

Here's a little piece I wrote about running in the second Boilermaker held in Utica, NY in 1979.  Those were the days.


Before Ruiz, There was Bieksza


By Bill Donnelly



In 1980, Jacqueline Gareau of Montreal was the first woman finisher in the Boston Marathon with a time of 2:34:28, which was the fastest winning time in Boston for woman up to that point. Very few people remember her name though, for another woman captured the headlines at the time, and most of us runners from those days easily remember her name, which is unfortunate. I am talking of course of Rosie Ruiz, who stole Gareau’s thunder that fateful third Monday in April of 1980 by cheating and finishing ahead of the French-Canadian woman.

A brief recap for those who have not heard the sad tale. Ruiz had qualified for Boston in the New York City Marathon by taking the subway and jumping in at the finish, just breaking three hours. Her friends didn’t believe her (how perceptive of them) and so she would really show them in Boston. I believe she took a cab in Boston, but anyway, she waited about a mile from the finish for the right opportunity to jump into the race. Rosie wasn’t out to win; she just wanted to show her friends up.

She apparently got way too nervous and in her state of excitement she jumped into the race too soon. Imagine her surprise when she crossed the finish line as the winner. Yow! What to do now? Simple, act like you won and stagger to the podium. Men’s winner Bill Rodgers knew immediately something was wrong, and so did everyone else, but the race committee gave Ruiz first, and it was not till a week later that they corrected their mistake, brought Gareau to Boston and gave her first place.

Too late! No one would notice nor remember Gareau, but Rosie Ruiz would be a name burned into the memory of runners everywhere. Most runners found it just too unbelievable that someone would cheat in a race. After all, we are mainly competing against ourselves, trying to out-do past performances, and maybe winning a medal here or there. You would be fooling nobody that mattered, since you are the only one who does matter when it comes down to it. Are you going to sit in your den and look at trophies you did not earn and feel proud of yourself? I think not.

I believe Rosie Ruiz changed her last name to O’Donnell and disappeared into talk-show host oblivion or something, but many of us runners in Western New York knew she was not the first to cheat in a major race. We had run into our own “Rosie” less than a year before, and of course, I am about to tell you the whole sad tale.

In July of 1979 I ran my first Utica Boilermaker 15K race, which then was the second running of the race. I had heard about it from my friend and Checkers runner, Jim Caher, the Deputy Corporation Council for the City of Buffalo. We went down to Utica together, but neither one of us remembers where we stayed the night before. All I know is that we found a place to party, and party we did, thus, we do not remember where we stayed.

As most of you know, the Boilermaker is a huge race now, but even in 1979 it was large, drawing over 1200 starters. One reason for the large turnout in 1979 was that it was the National AAU 15K Master and Junior Championship, so there were runners from all across the country. The Junior age groups were 13 and under, 14 to 16, and 17 to 19. This is all important later, as you may be tested.

The race started at the Utica Radiator Corp., where they actually made boilers, and finished at the Utica Club Brewery. You remember Utica Club Beer, that fine swill that was advertised on TV with those lovable talking beer steins named Schulz and Col. Klink or something like that. Advertising heads must have rolled later when the owners of Utica Club realized that in order to sell beer, you must show girls in bikinis playing in the snow, or on beaches, or mud wrestling. Talking beer steins? Cripes! Now, of course, Utica Club has become Saranac, and instead of those bikini clad girls, they use the concept of good taste to sell their product. They never learn!

Anyway, on that July 15 Sunday so long ago (That’s why I don’t remember where we stayed) Jim and I lined up for the 10:30 start, and the temperature was at 87 with humidity that was “almost visible.” (The Utica Daily Press, July 16, 1979, page 9) My main memory is that I had a terrific hangover, one of the worst ever. In those days I could usually sweat out a hangover after a mile of running, on this day I was so rough it took four miles. That takes us to the top of the huge hill on the course, and I do remember up till that point I was not enjoying the race or the weather. Something clicked at mile four, I suddenly felt great, and I flew down the hill and finished strong for a PR of 53:25, which was good enough for second in my age and 42 overall.

Jim Caher ran well enough that day, despite feeling less than perfect at the beginning of the race. Now, we all have that someone we race against, always trying to beat them in every race, and if we do it and get a PR, we are feeling so great. For Peggy Towers, it’s Diane Sardes; for Tom Donnelly, it’s Bill Donnelly; for Joann O’Loughlin, it’s Kieran O’Loughlin; for Maureen “Madonna” LaChiusa, it’s Diane “Britney” McGuire; for Julie Doell, it’s Heather Patterson; for Bill Rodgers, it’s Bill Donnelly (I did beat him at Utica – well, sort of, my time in 1979 was better by a minute than his time in 2001, the next time I ran the Boilermaker). And for Jim Caher back in the seventies, it was Jack Meegan Jim always wanted to beat, the same guy kicking butt today, the same one who wasn’t able to run Boston a couple years ago because of a minor injury, thus breaking a string of 23 Bostons in a row. Seems he fell out of a tree while hunting, and according to legend, he broke some ribs, cleaned up his camp site, and drove back to town and parked himself in front of the TV with a couple beers to ease the pain. When he realized he could open the bottles of beer using the two ribs that were sticking out of his chest, he decided it was time to go to the doctor.

On this hot July day, Caher was just trying to survive when he got to the top of the big hill and saw Meegan in very bad shape, suffering from heat stroke. He was passed out, and EMT”S had his shoes off and were icing him down. Jim went on feeling much better, knowing that he was finally going to beat Jack. Even though Jack was down and on ice, Jim considered it a legitimate win. Meanwhile, back on top of the hill, Meegan was coming to, literally yelled “Cripes! Give me my shoes!” He put them on, and on he went. Caher was close to finishing in a very respectable 63:34 and 22 in our age group. Imagine his surprise when with a quarter mile to go, Jack Meegan pats him on the fanny as he goes by and says “Great race Jim.” From then on, Jim knew to never count his chickens till he finishes the race.

When we finished the race we were handed a souvenir beer glass with a handle, and the finish chute emptied out into the parking lot of Utica Club, where they had row after row of beer trucks serving up their fine brew. In those days, the beer never stopped flowing, and even Utica Club fresh from kegs tasted pretty good on this hot day. The heat was blamed for the death of one runner, a William Marceau, who collapsed 30 yards from the finish. The race committee started the race at 10:30 to try to accommodate out of town runners, but Marceau’s death made them decide to start earlier after 1979.

What does this have to do with Rosie Ruiz and cheating you ask? Bet you thought I would never get to that (or at least you hoped so). In 1979, before computer chips, Utica experimented with not using numbers. Instead they had us wear wrist bands, much like you get when you go into the hospital, and inside was a slip of paper with your number and vital statistics. They simply pulled out the slip in the finish chute, and had your results. Who needs computers? Thus, you did not have to wear a number, which would cause problems when they wanted to check the video cameras they had set up along the route.

As we were enjoying the re-hydrating process with many fellow runners from Buffalo, we were joined by Joe Jordan, founder of Checkers AC, who had come down with some Checkers’ runners. He and a couple people had positioned themselves at a couple places along the route and at the finish in order to cheer on their friends. The awards had started, with the youngest runners first, as usual, and there was some rumblings going on about doubts concerning the winner of the 14 to 16 year old boys, a lad by the name of John Bieksza of Utica who won his age group with a time of 50:20, which was also good for seventh overall. I didn’t think much of it, but Joe Jordan was being adamant that they had never seen the lad go by any of the spots Jordan was at until the finish, when the boy came through without so much as a sweat worked up. Remember, this was a National Championship.

And then I saw Bieksza, enjoying his trophy with his father and brother. To say the kid did not look at all fit would be an understatement. He was a bowling ball with arms and legs, and his running shoes were the K-Mart brand. Nothing wrong with K-Mart, but no self-respecting runner would ever run in them (other than Tom Donnelly). Well, now my blood was boiling, and along with the help of the Utica Club brand of lubricant I had imbibed, I went into action

Bieksza and family did not know what hit them. With Jordan and about seven other runners backing me up, I was in the lads face, challenging his running ability. His brother’s answer to my doubts about John’s running talents was that he (the brother) had won the division the year before. This coming from Bowling-Ball-With-Legs-the-Elder only made me realize our sport was being cheapened by a whole family of cheats. I got louder and more obnoxious in my berating of the whole conspiracy, and now the father, He-From-Whose-Loins-comes-Bowling-Balls-With-Legs throws in his two cents, which is, and I’m not making this up: “Well, gosh, he did train for three weeks for the race!”

By now the crowd following me is getting bigger, tripling in size, and it includes such fine runners as Ralph Zimmerman (a 2:17 marathoner) and Don Howieson (one of Canada’s best, also a 2:17 marathoner) and everyone is egging me on. The clincher came when the real winner of the age group, Dennis O’Rourke (52:37), comes to me in tears, asking me to please get him the trophy Bieksza stole from him. By now the family O’Bowlingballs is asking police officers and race officials for protection from me and the crowd (now half the finishers of the race), but no help is offered.

Then my name is called, which surprises me, I did not think I placed, and I go up and get my second place award, a big silver bowl. I ask the Race Director what is he going to do about Bieksza, and he says that they know it’s a problem, but there is nothing they can do. I go back to the front of the pack and wave my bowl in their face, claiming that at least I EARNED THIS! They keep backing up, looking scared and looking for an exit. They finally duck into a building and elude us. I take my bowl and have it filled with Utica Club, and soon forget the episode.

Back in Buffalo, Joe Jordan spreads the tale of “Bill Donnelly, The Mighty Wind vs. Bowling Ball.” Most runners offer me congratulations, but soon we all forget about it, until the next Boston Marathon, when Rosie Ruiz grabs the headlines. We talk about it, and feel good when she is stripped of her title. At least we had put up the good fight.

We felt even better after the next Boilermaker. I wasn’t there, but friends who were came back and immediately told me that the Race Director had made a big deal about the cheating that went on in 1979, how they determined that Bieksza had not run the race, that they had given the title to the true winner, Dennis O’Rourke, and that they were making sure the cheating would not happen again. He made reference to the Rosie Ruiz incident, and perhaps that was what prompted them to change the results. Perhaps.

Nugget #2

The following is the article that was in the Sept/Oct issue of the Checker's newsletter.  It was my second article, and corrected a mistake or two I made in the first article about the earlier days of the Boston Marathon.  Also, I must have thought it was clever to have two titles for my article.


My (almost) First Boston Marathon


Or

Who Wouldn’t Choose His Senior Prom?

by Bill Donnelly



First things first. I have to admit I am a huge pack-rat, and I mean HUGE! (I got that HUGE idea from the side of a NFTA bus). If you look up “pack-rat” in the dictionary, it says “see Bill Donnelly on page 395”. If you look up “Bill Donnelly” it says see “HUGE”, and if you look up HUGE”, it says see the side of an NFTA bus.

Anyway, I have been collecting valuable artifacts since I was but a wee bit of a boy. I have some strange things, such as several 1964 pocket schedules for the Minnesota Twins (you never know when you might go back in time and want to catch a game), ticket stubs to every high school play I’ve been to (who could forget Riverside’s 1965 production of “The Ten Commandments), and all my report cards going back to Nursery School (“Billy has a problem staying still during nap time”). Hey, we pack rats save these things just in case we become President some day, and they need to fill up the Bill Donnelly Presidential Library. Believe me; they will need a big library for my stuff.

So this brings me to the point of my tale. I owe an apology for a mistake I made in my last story to the newsletter entitled “Rip Van Winkle does Boston”. In it I mention that the entry fee of the 1974 Boston Marathon was $3. I was wrong. In going through one of many boxes of my running memorabilia, I found the instruction sheet from Will Cloney for my first Boston, and the entry fee is $2 (NON-REFUNDABLE). The bus to Hopkinton was $1, but by the next year (That’s right, I saved the 1975 instruction sheet also) the entry fee was up to $3, and the bus ride was now $2. Such inflation!

Well, besides that mistake, I also found my copy of the official entry blank for the 70th running of the Boston Marathon, which was run in 1966. Then it was called the American Marathon Run, and it was held on Tuesday, April 19. Up through 1968, the race was held on Patriots Day, April 19, unless that day fell on a Sunday. If that happened, it would be run the following Monday. In 1969, they made Patriots day a Monday holiday, to be run on the third Monday of April. Anyway, how I came into possession of said entry blank, which implies that I was thinking of running said marathon, is a story in itself, the story of my introduction to the crazy idea of running 26+ miles, and the story of the first person I knew to actually run the race.

Let’s go back in time to the fall of 1965, my senior year at Riverside High School in Buffalo. I was co-captain of the cross country team (along with Les Takacs, who won the 1965 Turkey Day Race), a team that went on to the mediocre heights of placing sixth in the all-high meet out of twelve teams. Ed Hoffman of Grover Cleveland won individual honors, running the 2.7 mile course around Delaware Lake in 14:14, but Fred Gordon led the unbelievably strong Bennett team to it’s fourth straight Columbia Cup Championship, with Fred taking second, and the other Bennett runners taking positions 3, 4, 14 and 16.

In the Buffalo Evening News article about the race (yes, I have all the clippings saved too), it is mentioned that Ed Hoffman’s long range goals include running the 1966 Boston Marathon before the up-coming track season. This was probably the first I ever heard of this marathon, and it didn’t really register at the time. In talking to Fred Gordon recently about Hoffman’s plans back then, he said he too had planned on running the marathon in 1966, but his coach, and Hoffman’s coach, had both wisely put the kibosh on such plans, and they were forbidden from doing it. Nothing like a marathon in April to ruin a young runners track season (Hoffman and Gordon went on to finish one-two respectively in the All-High Mile). However, unbeknownst to any of us, a team-mate of mine was making the same plans to run Boston in 1966.

My team-mate Bill Nordstom was a decent runner and very good friend of mine. He had come to Riverside from Park school a few years before, and he had a motor scooter he used to ride to school. His family lived in the Frank Lloyd Wright house over on Soldiers Pl. next to Bidwell Parkway, close to Delaware Park. Before every cross country meet, I would ride on the back of his scooter to his place, where we would change and head for the meets. Nothing like a Frank Lloyd Wright dressing facility to get you up for the run.

It turns out Bill had plans of running Boston, and his father even got him a membership in the Delaware Y so he could run indoors during the upcoming winter. In talking to Bill recently, he admitted he had no idea as to how to go about training for a marathon. He knew enough not to tell our coach, Jim Decker, so he went to his coach from Park school, Herb Mols, to vouch for him. Herb became a HUGE! Figure in local running and in the Niagara AAU, and together they fudged some numbers and told the Boston officials Bill was more than capable of running the marathon. Bill was in.

Bill’s longest training run was the seven miles our cross country team did in October of 1965, when we ran to the Grand Island Bridge and back. Fred Gordon was running seven miles in his sleep back then, but we thought we were amazing. During the winter Bill would go to the Y now and again to run on the indoor track. I believe the number of laps per mile is somewhere between 30 and 2178, and thus it is tough to get those long ones in. Bill admits his longest workouts were three miles. Look out Boston!

This is where I come in. I was a back-stroker on the high school swim team, and along about the beginning of March, when that season ended, Bill came to me and asked if I would like to join him in running the Boston Marathon. Seeing the very puzzled look on my face, he proceeded to explain what the marathon was all about, and not really comprehending what he was telling me, I agreed to do it. We went out and ran a couple miles in miserable weather, and he got me an entry blank for Boston, which would be placed among my papers waiting for my Presidential Library.

We ran another one or two times, and then I began figuring out my financial situation. Being from a family of nine kids, I knew I couldn’t ask my folks to pay for my stay in Boston. The entry form has no mention of any entry fee, but even I figured Boston might be a bit rich for a poor high school kid. Yeah, I had some money saved up from my part time job of baby-sitting, and it may have been enough. But it hit me, the Senior Prom was coming soon, and I even had a girl-friend who was counting on me paying for the event. How do I tell her we can’t go to the Prom because I want to run 26 miles in Boston? So I had to tell Bill he would have to do Boston without me, and that is just what he did.

The 1966 Boston was historical for a couple reasons, not the least of which was that I almost went. According to Bill, it was a hot and sunny day (he remembers getting sunburn), so the winning time of 2:17:11 was fair. The Kenyans of the day, the Japanese, took the first four places, led by Kenji Kimihara. More importantly, it was the first Boston in which a woman competed, though unofficially. The next year, Kathrine Switzer became the first woman to run Boston with a number, having entered as K. Switzer, but in 1966 Roberta Gibb ran as a bandit and finished in 3:21 and I believe she finished in 124th place. Bill didn’t know until the next day she had run.

So here is Bill Nordstom lining up in Hopkinton with just a few hundred other runners, not really knowing what he was in for. As he remembers it, he was running along well enough, at least through Wellesley. Why doesn’t that surprise me? Somewhere in the Newton Hills, his lack of putting in 67,831 laps a day at the Delaware Y caught up with him, and he began thinking of trying to call a cab for the ride back to Boston. He did not know about the bus that followed along picking up strays.

Somewhere before Heartbreak Hill, he had enough, went through an opening in the crowds, and found a party hosted by college kids. He was a celebrity there, was immediately handed a vodka gimlet, which he chugged, and then he had another. Hey, what did he know, and besides, they didn’t have Gatorade back then. He hung around for a half-hour, thinking of that cab and partying, er, fueling up on vodka gimlets. Believe it or not, he started feeling better (I might try this method next Boston), used their bathroom, and continued the race.

Bill finished his ordeal, and he guesses it took him about 5 hours and 15 minutes. A guy from the Boston Globe took his picture as he crossed the finish line, as they liked to show the last place finisher in the next day’s paper, but unfortunately for Bill, a couple guys behind him were bound and determined to take that honor.

Bill came back to school and didn’t talk much about his experience to me. In fact the only hint I had of what he did was the fact that he hobbled around on crutches for a while, and he got to use a special elevator pass in school for two weeks. Me, I took my date to the prom, and a couple days later we broke up (I’m not making this up!) It would be eight years before I would do my first Boston, and my only keepsake from the 1966 Boston is the entry blank, which patiently waits for a spot in the Bill Donnelly Presidential Library. Unfortunately, that Library is looking less and less likely, while my friend Bill Nordstrom has his memories of a Boston Marathon that he took on as a very young man, and conquered!

Humorous nuggets of Buffalo's original running boom

Having been a road runner since 1973, when my first road race was the New York City Marathon, I have been sharing by recollections of running Back in the Day with others through my writing.  My first piece was entittled "The Ignorance of a Long Distance Runner", which appeared in the November, 2003 issue of Running Times.  I had another article entittled "Straight Eye for the Running Guy" which was in the Jan/Feb issue of  Marathon & Beyond.  I have also written many articles for the newsletter of the local running club here in Buffalo, NY called Checkers AC.  After many articles, the powers that be at Checkers saw fit to censor some of my articles, in part or completely.  Therefore I look to the medium of this blog to get my articles out to the huge public that cries for my works (both of them) in a timely manner.

I plan on posting weekly blogs, somtimes putting out articles that have appeared in the various publications they have been in, usually with a brief explanation, or new articles I have written.  Today I will start with my first article that I wrote for the Checkers newsletter after they asked me for my recollections of running in my earliest Boston Marathon in 1974.  Not my best, but my first.  This appeared back in August of 2003, so some things about modern day Boston Marathons have changed, such as the cost of running it now.  Hope you enjoy, and we'll see you next week.

Rip Van Winkle Does Boston


By Bill Donnelly



When recently asked to start writing a column for the Checkers Chatter about what running was like back in the 1970s, I thought, what a great way to annoy all the young and old hot-shots who are kicking my butt now, but who were not running back then! Then I realized, why not be an equal opportunity annoyer, and bug everyone, so here goes.

I started running in April of 1973, and with the wisdom that comes with youth, I made my first road race the New York City Marathon in September of that year. DUH! I kept training and competing, aiming mostly at marathons, through the Seventies, and I ran my last marathon in Columbus, Ohio in 1981. I then took off running completely through the Eighties, and most of the Nineties. I only got back into competitive running in 2000, and in 2001 I ran my first Boston Marathon since 1979.

It was truly as if I had been asleep for twenty-two years, and woke up to find out how much running has changed. So now to annoy you with some observations as to how much running has changed, using the Boston Marathon as my case in point.

Starting with the obvious, they have certainly lengthened the Boston course, as now it takes me much longer to finish it. My guess is they have nearly doubled the distance, but officials I have written to deny this has been done. I smell a cover-up.

I ran my first Boston Marathon in 1974. The entry fee was only $3, compared to $75 now. Of course we would get no shirt or finishing medal (only the certificate), and you pretty much depended on the spectators for water and orange slices. There were no mile marks or timers either, but you know, for three bucks, you got to run Boston, and those certificates were plenty neat.

So there I was, early Monday morning, giving Jock Semple $1 (he personally collected the money) to ride the bus to Hopkinton, wearing my $17 Tiger Boston’s (now Asics), cotton shorts, and my new Buffalo Philharmonic nylon mesh singlet that could cut the nipples off a rhino, if said rhino was crazy enough to wear such a shirt while running a marathon.

I arrived at Hopkinton as one of 1,700 runners, and this period was being called the “Running Boom”, yet that number was one tenth of the 17,000 that ran with me in 2001. We were herded into a school where we had to pass a quick physical before we were handed our number. The young interns doing the exams actually refused to pass some 20 or 30 already qualified runners, said they had suspected heart murmurs. There was such an outcry over this that 1974 was the last year we had the physicals.

The school we were in provided the only bathrooms, and although small by today’s numbers, 1,700 was the biggest marathon at the time, and the few bathrooms in the school were not enough for all of us. Most of the runners headed into the nearby woods for relief. I noticed in 2001 that the woods near the school are very lush and green.

After killing time, and many trips to the woods, we headed towards the start. The shrubs and bushes of the local residents also became makeshift bathrooms, and in fact, some homeowners stood in their yards with hoses running, spraying any athlete daring to soil their yard. Who could blame them?

We lined up for the start with no computer chips on our shoes, and with only a dozen or so women in the field. Because of this, the nervous men who needed to line up early to get a good spot (no corrals or seeding of runners then) emptied their bladders right there on the road. It turned out to be a splashy start to the race despite the blue skies.

Back to the future. Now we runners are herded into the Athlete’s Village, a large grassy area surrounded by fences and more port-a-potties than I had ever seen. Probably enough to have satisfied the 500,000 concert goers at Woodstock, but just enough to handle the 17,000 nervous and anxious athletes gathered here. We start meandering the half mile or more to our different corrals. There are many more port-a-potties along the way, probably more than enough to handle the athletes had this been 1974. Unfortunately, this was 2001, and it was good to see at least one tradition from the old days still intact. Every shrub, bush, and parked car became a potential bathroom. This time, however, I saw no homeowners chasing away athletes with spewing hoses. Perhaps the residents of Hopkinton came to realize that their bushes were healthier and their grass greener, and all without the use of Miracle-Grow.

One thing that hasn’t changed in Boston are the crowds of people that cheer you on. Not many sports have literally over a million spectators cheering on the athletes during the competition. The crowd control is a bit better, as I do remember that in one of the Bostons I ran during the Seventies, we were running all the way up Heartbreak Hill in almost single file because those cheering us on had closed almost completely in on us. And then there is Wellesley, the private school for women (back then we said private girls school), whose inmates (back then we said babes) make so much noise (back then we said noise) you can hear them a half mile before you reach them. That hasn’t changed, and I still lose ten minutes each year taking up the offers of seniors with the signs that read “Kiss me, I’m a senior.”

In 1974, the first woman runner, Miki Gorman, passed me with a couple miles to go and finished in 2:47:11, which was just 41 seconds off the world record for women at the time. I think that record has improved since then. Oh yeah, I would say the most noticeable and best change in running since 1974 is the number of women (did I mention that back then we said girls or babes) who compete. During the Seventies, I knew only a handful of local women runners, while now the numbers of men and women competing are nearly equal.

We finished in front of the Prudential Center then, herded into a small finishing chute, where my finishing time of 2:48:57 was good enough for 302 place. It would not be until the next year that they would give the finishers those silver blankets they still give out, and in1974 they turned the race clock off at 3:30, which was the qualifying time one needed in 1974. That qualifying time started to change soon enough, and as we all know, it keeps right on changing, but at least now, they keep the clock going much longer.

And so the biggest difference between “The Good Old Days” (I said that just to annoy you) and now are the numbers of runners, both men and women. We thought we had a “Running Boom” going then, but it does not compare to what is going on now. We were fierce competitors back then though, and I have many more tales to tell in future newsletters. Just to annoy you.