Running Scared

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RUNNING SCARED

There's only one thing more powerful than the desire to win the Boston Marathon: The fear of losing it.

By Amby Burfoot

PUBLISHED 03/24/2008

Eighteen miles into the 1968Boston Marathon, I looked up and didn't see another runner on the road ahead. Not one. I had dreamed every night for years about winning Boston. And now I was almost there. I had just turned the corner at the Newton fire station and begun the run eastward on hilly, serpentine Commonwealth Avenue. Ahead, thick crowds edged onto the road--grandparents and their children and their children's children--shading their eyes and peering at the colorful stream of runners, all 890 of us. Three motorcycle policemen led the moving spectacle, and a photo truck, and a yellow school bus containing the Boston press.
For five years, I had set myself the singular goal of winning Boston. I ran up to 175 miles a week, entered every road race I could find, broke down on occasion, as all runners do, but then resurrected myself andtrainedeven harder. Always with Boston as the focal point. If I could hold on, my name would go into the record book with the likes of Clarence DeMar, Les Pawson, Tarzan Brown, Gerard Cote, "Old John" A. Kelley, and my coach-mentor, "Young John" J. Kelley, the 1957 winner.
Only one thing stood between me and a Boston victory--the shadowy specter that was stalking me. I couldn't hear him, only my own desperate breathing. Couldn't see him, for he was a stride back. But when I glanced down at my feet, I saw two dark shapes--my own, tall and angular. And my pursuer's--shorter, more compact, with arms that pumped more vigorously than mine.
I had come so far. I was so close. I had given so much. I was a 21-year-old senior at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, who in four years of college had set new records for dullness. Hit a Saturday night keg party? No way. I detested beer and, more importantly, had to rouse myself at 6:30 for the ritual Sunday morning 20-miler. A weekend skiing trip? Not a chance. Skiers twisted their knees and broke their ankles and risked countless other injuries. Go on a simple dinner or movie date? Not those either. I had no time for flirtations or anything that might muck up mymarathon ambitions.
As we reached the first of the three hills on Commonwealth, I drove myself harder. Sweat flew from my forehead. My throat was dry and scratchy, the sun having targeted us from the start, producing a perilous dehydration. Like other marathons in those days, Boston offered no water stops. I reached the top in a near swoon, but the extra shadow was still there. Moments later we started up the second hill, and I dug deeper, gritting my teeth with each stride. Nothing changed. The haunt stuck with me--silent, apparently effortless, mocking my furious exertions.
That left only the third and last hill--the storied Heartbreak Hill. It was longer, steeper, and deadlier than the others, peaking at the 21-mile mark--beyondThe Wall, beyond the marathoner's last reserves, deep in the zone of zombie running.
In my youthful racing career, I had already lost scores of races at the end, out kicked by others with superior speed. Every time I ran the mile, I led for three laps, then the field sprinted around me. Same thing in the two-mile, only it was worse because I would lead for seven laps before the floodgates opened. I found some solace in road racing with its longer distances--10 miles, 20-K, and beyond. But I lost even those races when another runner tailed me to the final yards before blowing past. This Boston Marathon was feeling far too familiar.
Worse still, I knew my shadowy rival's name, Bill Clark, and he knew mine, and we both knew he would beat me. Clark, 24, was one of those distance runners I envied for their speed. He could run a 4:06 mile--much faster than my best--and had marathon endurance as well. I was in deep trouble.
My day hadn't begun well either. After passing the "physical exam" in the Hopkinton High School gym and picking up my race number (17), I headed for the locker room patrolled by de facto race director Jock Semple. I had changed there the year before, thanks to my friendship with John J. Kelley, Semple's protégé. The year before was when Semple gained worldwide infamy for attempting to bulldozeKathrine Switzeroff the course.
That was the very same Semple I encountered as I swung open the locker-room door. With head down, he charged me: "Oh, fer Chrissakes, will you git the hell outta my locker rhume." At the last second, he looked up. "Oh, Ammmby, Ammmby. It's okay, Ammmby. C'mon in."

I was still rattled when the race began at noon. But once in motion, I calmed down, happy that we had finally begun the journey to Boston. I drifted into the front pack, the miles passing quickly, almost silkily, that's how smooth I felt. Near the 10-mile mark in Natick, I decided to make a full race assessment. I edged to the side of the road and turned for a wide-angle scan of our lead pack. It included a Finn, three Mexicans, and a half dozen Americans. Bill Clark lolled a few yards back. I audited myself most closely of all. Breathing? Blisters? Leg pains? Overheating? The answers came back one by one and led to a rare conclusion: Nothing hurt. Everything felt great. I was having a dream day--one in a million.
At 14 miles, I mounted a little surge--the most middling of accelerations--to stretch my legs and gauge how the others would react. I shortened my stride, veered from the group, and broke into a quicker, more flowing rhythm. There was more air around me now, and it felt invigorating. When I slowed again after about 200 yards, I expected the whole gang to circle around me.
Instead, there was only Clark. I looked back in disbelief. In shock. The others had drifted 20 yards behind. They were struggling. Just two of us remained. This was terrible, the last thing I wanted. No more comforting cocoon. Now it was a race. Man against man. A winner, a loser. With 12 daunting miles to go.
What to do? It was too soon to begin a charge for the finish, yet I didn't dare slow and let the others regain contact. For certain, I needed a plan that would save me from getting outkicked again. An insistent voice in my head said: Maintain for now. Wait for thehills, wait for the hills, wait for the hills. Then run your guts out. At the bottom of Heartbreak, Clark's shadow still taunted me. With every stride, my chances of winning grew slimmer.
In my 10th grade biology class I was enjoying a peaceful postlunch nap when the public address box startled me awake. "Harrumphhhh"--the despised sound of our principal clearing his throat. "We've just received the first radio update from the Boston Marathon, and our ownMr. Kelleyis running with the leaders after six miles." A sports report sure beat another lesson on cell division. And I had actually seen this Kelley in the high school hallways. He was the short one with the suit jackets that dwarfed his thin torso.
The principal returned with several more updates in the next 90 minutes. Kelley fell back, but he still finished fourth that year, 1962. Five months later, I joined the cross-country team he coached at Robert E. Fitch High School, high atop Fort Hill in Groton, Connecticut, and competed in my first distance races.
I had been a baseball fanatic, but running gave broader compass to my obsessive personality. I had a stern, Germanic mother, and from her I learned self-discipline. It required no particular effort to run 35 miles a week during my senior year at Fitch or to double that to 70 my first year at Wesleyan. I believed that whereas success in other sports depended on raw physicality--your height in basketball or your weight and strength in football--distance running rewarded those who trained the hardest.
On our Sunday morning runs, Kelley filled me with alluring tales of Boston's improbable history. The pull was irresistible. One April morning in 1965, my father drove me to Hopkinton to run the marathon for the first time. A light dusting of snow covered the colonial rooftops and a few hardy forsythia blossoms. On the town green, five Japanese runners warmed up in spotless white sweats. I also caught a glimpse of "Old John" Kelley in a crimson Harvard sweatshirt. I had never seen so many runners in one place--358 that year--and I couldn't wait to join them.
I remember passing through Framingham at six miles and spotting the first of the Boston Athletic Association'sbright orange checkpoint signs in the road. It said: "B.A.A. Marathon: 19 3/8 miles to go." How puzzling, I thought, and then: Too bad I've never run that far in my life. This frightened me enough that I kept a conservative pace, and with every passing mile caught one or two struggling runners. At the crest of a modest slope near Boston College, I yelled out to the crowd, "How much farther to Heartbreak Hill?"
The response came quickly: "You just reached the top."
In the last five miles, I passed clumps of spent runners and continued running strongly to my 25th-place finish in 2:34:09. Two days later, I had to run the mile and two-mile in a track meet against Brown. I was outkicked in both races.
Every year after that, I tried to train longer and faster. One crisp October day in 1966, my cross-country teammate Jeff Galloway, a precocious young marathoner, proposed a stunning workout: 40 x 440 yards in 75 seconds with a 110 jog. We ran barefoot on the grassy field surrounding Wesleyan's cinder track and adjacent football field--Jeff with his muscular chest and shoulders and his light forefoot prance, me tall and skinny with my shuffling heel-strike. When we finally finished the 40th 440, the sun had set behind the hulking Wesleyan Library, my feet were freezing, and we still needed to jog a two-mile cool down to complete the nearly 17-mile workout. Of course, I had already run seven miles that morning. And would again the next morning.
The winter of my senior year, I ran a series of uninspired indoor track races, except for a two-mile in 8:45 that far outstripped my wildest expectations. In mid-March my Wesleyan track team took a spring training trip to Quantico, Virginia. With Boston just a month away, I wanted to pile on the miles. The first morning, I was up early for a 17-miler. That afternoon I talked my teammateBill Rodgers(yes, that Bill Rodgers) into joining me for what I promised to be a relaxed 12-mile run. And it was, until we got totally lost in the twisting trails of Prince William Forest Park. After two hours in low-80s heat, we walked a couple of times, then started up again, and eventually emerged to some roads. The run took three hours. I wrote it down in my log as 22 miles. That gave me 39 for the day, a good beginning.

Over the next two weeks, I averaged 25 miles a day, hitting 350 miles for the 14 days. After a few days ofrecovery, I noticed that I was running fresher than ever. Even when jogging, I skimmed along at six minutes per mile. This had never happened before. It has never happened since. But in April 1968, I was in the "flow," to use a term psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi wouldn't coin until 1990. I was totally focused on the upcoming Boston Marathon and totally energized by the process.
In the late '60s, we knew nothing about visualization or positive self-talk. No one talked himself up; that would be presumptuous bragging. I did tell my brother Gary and one trusted training partner that I thought I could win. Then I swore them to secrecy.
When Clark and I reached Heartbreak Hill, I closed my eyes, groaned loudly, and ran for my life. This was it--now-or-never time. If I didn't drop him here, he would outsprint me later. But I was a good hill climber. I had won many races on hilly courses, my low shuffle chopping the hills down to size. I still had a chance.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a young boy, perhaps 7 or 8, rushing my way with a slice of orange. I wanted it badly--any liquid, any calories, any citrus jolt. But I couldn't spare the effort to reach out for it. I had only one mission: to run to the edge. I saw the child turn away, chagrined, and retreat to his parents. I felt guilty for rebuffing him.
I was pumping, pumping, pumping to drop the shadow. Halfway up Heartbreak, no luck. I had nothing left to give. Zilch. My breathing rose to a wail. I remembered what my former coach Kelley once told me about Roger Bannister's 1954 breakthrough in the mile. Kelley believed that Bannister and others of his era were impeded by a primal fear. Many prominent doctors and academics argued that four minutes was an actual physical barrier. The human body wasn't designed to run that fast, they contended, and the man who dared a sub-four would risk death. The heart might explode, the lungs burst, or the arteries rupture.
Bannister proved the naysayers wrong, but now I wondered if it was the brevity of the mile that saved him. The marathon--that surely wasn't a distance intended for human recreation. I didn't imagine that I might die, but I figured that my body might simply stop functioning at any moment. I was imploring it to go faster. What if it had other plans?
One hundred yards to the top of Heartbreak Hill, and my vision closed to a narrow slit. There were no more sidewalks, lawns, trees, or houses. No more cheering spectators. No more blue sky overhead. No sound, no colors. Just driving arms, leaden legs, stinging salt, a thin patch of asphalt dead ahead. And two shadows. I gave a final big heave.
It didn't work. I hit the top of Heartbreak, and my tormentor was still there. I almost stopped on the spot. What was the point? I felt my body sag, deflated and depressed. I stumbled briefly, but caught myself and staggered on. We were heading downhill now, beyond the Boston College spires and toward Evergreen Cemetery on our right. I knew it was only a matter of time before Clark stormed past.
And then the shadow was gone. I blinked a couple of times and rubbed my eyes. This made no sense. I was a lousy downhill runner, Clark a fast finisher. Where was he? In 1968, I didn't know this stretch of the course was named "Cemetery Mile" because it had buried the hopes of many Boston runners. Here the stiff downhill slope forces the quadriceps muscles to contract eccentrically, opposite to the concentric work demanded by Heartbreak Hill. The abrupt change often induces musclecramping, and that's exactly what happened to Clark. His spirit, heart, and lungs were willing--perhaps more willing than mine--but his legs were not.
Suddenly the press bus zoomed past with Jock Semple hanging from the front door. "Give it hell on the downhills, Ammmby," he bellowed at me. "Give it hell on the downhills." In the big rear window, I saw "Old John" Kelley brandishing his fists for me. Kelley had recently had hernia surgery; this was one of the few Bostons he didn't run, among his 58 finishes.
I would have loved to seize the moment and press my advantage, but I had nothing. I had completely spent myself on the hills. Even as my small lead grew inch by inch, I knew my pace was slowing. The race had become a survival of the least defeated. Crossing the trolley tracks at the bottom of Cleveland Circle near 23 miles, where the course joins Beacon Street, I felt a stabbing pain in my left side.
Ahead, a throng of spectators gathered in the street, literally filling it. The downtown crowds were immense and police control almost nonexistent on this warm Friday afternoon in April. As I approached, the spectators would move aside at the last moment and then close behind me. Yes, I felt a little like Moses parting the Red Sea. But I was also filled with torturous doubts about the army of marathoners behind me. What if Clark regained his rhythm? What if someone had paced the race better than I had and was now gaining fast? I was fading, no doubt about it.