JUL-A-13

MY RESPONSE TO A SERIES OF NEGATIVE COMMENTS ABOUT

FIRST-TIME-MARATHONERS CLUTTERING UP THE TRAILS,

INTERFERING WITH US “REAL RUNNERS” ELITES

July 10, 2001

From: Glenn Geelhoed

To: Internet:mcrun@mcrrc.org

Date: 7/10/01 6:11PM

Subject: And, on another, lighter, brighter note....

Fellow Runners All:

I have a couple of comments on The Joy of Running to encourage the First Timers, Old Timers and Half-Timers:

I have a positive perspective that may represent a team of me and a running partner which may explain why I have "toed the line" a bit earlier recently than the 8:00 AM weekend starts at Ken-Gar, beyond bananas, parking or competition for the limited trailspace for so many footfalls

Although I was not running Ken-Gar back in ought 55, I may be a latecomer but not a newcomer, either, having joined MCRRC when it was more than a notion, but a bunch of encouraging colleagues on the run. These friends had encouraged me from zero through 65 marathons (including quite a few Inaugurals, a bunch of Bostons and MCM's and every Continent) and 7 Ultras at a pace that picked up--and, dare I say it--may some day soon peak well beyond PR's and start moving down--but, I hope, not out.

My own epiphany came as I had been one of the earliest registrants for the new DC Marathon, which, like a similar Inaugural in Baltimore, has two of us running with a single number. After I had put in my demographic data, it gave me back a startling number--my age on race day--along with the unwelcome favor that I was about to receive a $5.00 discount as a senior citizen!

OK, so it isn't as though I am losing an elite status, since I have never planned on being a money runner, (not quite true, but the sign has been negative!) yet I have been encouraged by my forerunners in this process---Bill and Kay, Peter, Steve, Ray, Bill and a dozen others in the Club, who, like Johnny Kelly--may have won the Big One twice, but placed second 7 times cheering for the winners---and kept on doing it into his proudest moment, a 5:02 finish.

Now, as for my very positive running partner, he likes to finish early enough to be cheering on the start of many of the first-timers, and back-of-the-packers I may be joining in the not too distant future. (Not, I hope, before the next nine races booked now!) I can assure you he is one athlete who is a very encouraging influence on them and non-running spectators alike.

He would like me to pick him up very early on these mid-summer mornings pre-dawn for Long Runs--and not for the "Heat, Humidity or Humanity"--after all, it doesn't make too much difference how light it is at the time he is running, since he always brightens my run, with his contagious encouragement for runners of all abilities.

I am glad that he is not seeing some of the posted comments that might tend toward isolation or discouragement of those who may be trying harder than any one of us, who, for the moment, may be pushing the pace at a distance. It may yet be slower and/or shorter for each of us--at the start or the finish of this life-long running,-- but we are all in the Club on the run.

Cheers!

GWG

Return to July Index
Return to Journal Index