EXCERPT FROM
26.2 Tales of Agony & Ecstasy: Mid-Life Marathoning
By Robert Yehling
A Word Journeys Electronic Publication
Release Date: April 2007
Getting Passed By Wonder Woman & A Banana
What does it say about the success of your race when Wonder Woman and a banana pass you? It’s something to be expected at a race like San Francisco’s Bay to Breakers, the 7-mile stampede of 65,000 runners, many of whom dress for the occasion in costumes of every variety — or simply their birthday suits.
But to get passed at the 24-mile mark of a marathon by a woman dressed like Wonder Woman? Or a man dressed in a doctor’s smock, wearing a stethoscope and listening to his own heartbeat?
Or, worse yet, a banana?
In a word, it’s humbling. I could say humiliating, but that’s a stretch, considering any one of hundreds of things could have ended the marathon run. Yet here I am, on Commonwealth Avenue in the Boston suburb of Brookline, making the slow, painful plod to the finish beneath the Prudential Tower.
Furthermore, Wonder Woman, the doctor and the banana might be the most eccentric of free spirits, but they’re also accomplished marathoners who qualified for this race, just like I did. They didn’t drop off the Rocky Horror Picture Show set, or pop off a subway like Rosie Ruiz. If you run a sub-3:30 marathon, you’re an athlete. They’re athletes. So there’s dignity to be salvaged despite the fact they passed me.
Passing … like everything else about me, I prefer to be the giver rather than the receiver. Once a race crosses the one-mile mark, I try not to be passed. That’s a sign that I started with the right crowd, I started slowly, and I’m properly pacing myself. I hated to be passed when I was winning cross-country and track races in high school, and I still hate it, three decades later. Never mind that those three ensuing decades, and the presence of countless thousands of younger, faster runners, assure me of three things come race day:
1.I’m not going to win the race, unless it’s a local masters competition.
2.I’m going to be passed, often—especially in the early miles.
3.I will kick myself when younger, less experienced runners take me down in the final 100 meters—until I remember that they’re younger, which, at this point, trumps experience.
I think my neurosis about being passed by bizarre characters originated in high school. In the mid-1970s, I was part of an exceptional long-distance running team at Carlsbad (CA) High School, to this day the second-best group of distance runners in the school’s 50-year history. Five of us stared at scholarship offers from major track and cross-country programs, like the University of Oregon and UCLA. All of us looked no further than the news for our heroes in this glory era of American distance running: Frank Shorter. Bill Rodgers. Dave Wottle. Tracy Smith, the 1968 Olympian with whom we ran a few times. And our role models from our own backyard, the two men who inspired us day in and day out, school mile record-holder Frank Candelario and our coach, Brad Roy. More on Frank later.
I was the top varsity two-miler and one of the top three or four milers. Key word: varsity. Our junior varsity team featured a sophomore, Joe Stimpson, who possessed the legs of Mercury and a completely dismissive attitude toward training. While the rest of us religiously followed our training schedules, Stimpson jumped in and jumped out. While we set our paces and ground every second off the clock that we could, Stimpson ran like he was cruising down Elm Avenue in a convertible. While we worked hard, oh so hard, to build our cardiovascular systems and increase our lung capacity,
Stimpson simply took a deep breath and didn’t breathe hard again. Had he been measured for VO2 capacity, I’m confident his levels would have approached Lance Armstrong’s peak Tour de France levels— in other words, superhuman.
Stimpson brought his most annoying game to races. Every Friday afternoon, from the moment the gun went off until the final 220 yards of a two-mile race, he talked to his opponents. That began with me. It continued with rival runners threatening to take him behind the bleachers and settle it in a hand-to-mouth way after he’d frustrated them. While I was striding and straining to hold pace to break 10 minutes, Stimpson talked about the weather, girls, parties taking place that night, fairy tales, the surf and other assorted mouthings. The dude could talk.
Unfortunately for me, he could also run. In the first race of the season, he and I ran together until the last 100 yards. Then he simply said, “Bob, gotta go now. See you at the line,” and off he sprinted.
So, I have the dubious distinction of winning the two-mile in my first-ever varsity track meet—normally quite an honor—but losing to the junior varsity runner.
Stimpson was promoted to varsity. My results in that junior year were predictable: If Stimpson focused on the 880 and the mile, I won the two-mile, eventually driving my time down to 9:54, of which I remain very, very proud. If Stimpson ran the two-mile, I finished second. Talk about hating to be passed!
However, I exacted my vengeance on one glorious January morning. The greatest race of my high school days took place at the 1976 San Dieguito Half-Marathon. On that day, the half became my favorite race. It still is my favorite race. I thrive on the combination of speed, strategy and endurance that the 13.1-mile run demands. I love turning to my heart and body at the 12-mile mark and asking a question: “What can you give me?” Then I see just how hard I can run that final mile. The half-marathon is a fantastic running race.
At San Dieguito, I started off with a 5:50 mile, and felt like I was gliding on air. I glided right up to a forbidding hill at the 10-mile mark, where I received my time split: 60 minutes, 14 seconds. Six-minute-mile pace. Wow! I’d never run below 63 before.
I considered slowing down a notch. As I trudged up the half-mile hill, though, I saw something that immediately shot adrenalin and inspiration into my tiring muscles: Joe Stimpson, walking. Bob, if you ever want to beat this guy…
I caught Joe at the crest of the hill. “Hey Bob, why don’t you walk with me a little bit?” he asked.
“No way. Feeling too good.”
“Well, I’m going to walk a little more, then catch you.”
Those words turned my legs into fast-moving pistons. I charged, running the final 5K in 17 minutes, a closing interval I would have considered impossible before the race. It would also bring me victory in the 45-49 age division of any regional 5K—if I could only run that fast today!
Stimpson never caught me. My finishing time of 1:17.18 put me 37th out of 900 runners.
That turned out to be an anomaly, as far as my capacity for beating Stimpson was concerned. I never defeated him again.
Here’s a story of how remarkable, clownish, and ultimately wasteful of his talent Joe Stimpson was. One Saturday afternoon, he and I attended a wedding reception for a mutual friend. A few hours later, we were to run in the Vista Relays, the most prestigious prep track invitational of the year in San Diego County. Despite my own propensity for teenage partying, I toed the line and kept my beverage consumption to water and juice. Stimpson got tanked. He showed up staggering, bleary-eyed and practically speaking in tongues, but once the gun went off for the open two-mile, he found equilibrium in his stride. He talked for a few laps, then grew unconventionally quiet and serious (maybe because he was nauseated) and ran 9:20—a time that 99.99% of all high school distance runners can never achieve. I’m not exaggerating: It was and still is a national-class time. Stimpson was that good. He possessed more raw talent than anyone I’d ever run with or against, and that included Frank Candelario (eventually a 4:04 miler at Arizona State) and Brad Roy (who ran 2:23 in the 1980 Boston Marathon). Even Brad thought that, if Joe applied himself, he could one day become an Olympian like one of his future charges, the great Alberto Salazar.
It never happened. Last I heard, Joe was vacillating between homelessness and friends’ homes. It’s a sad, sad ending to the tale of a phenomenally gifted runner.
From Joe, I learned a lesson: Beware of the runner dressed in costume, acting like a clown or running in a strange sideways tilt, like the goofy bald-headed guy with the gawky hunchbacked stride and goofy smile who shot me down in the final mile of the 2004 San Jose Half-Marathon, costing me a medal in my age division. And passing me. Beware of Wonder Woman and bananas.
