Marathon Man (28 page)

We'd occasionally see Tommy working out on the BC track. He'd enthusiastically invite us to come by the Eliot after our workouts, where he always had a pitcher of beer at the ready for us. Tommy decorated the Eliot as a shrine to runners, with photos of marathon greats mounted around the bar. Each Boston Marathon, he hung foreign flags to represent the nations that had sent a runner to race. The Eliot soon became our unofficial clubhouse. Tommy became an unofficial member of our track club. More than that, he became our guiding spirit. I called him the Guru. What can I say? Some gurus enjoy Guinness more than others.

Tommy's first attempt at putting on a world-class road race in Falmouth in 1973 was by no means a disaster—he managed to get 125 runners to show up and race in the rain, and threw a wild postrace party that saw Johnny Kelley doing the jitterbug with his wife. But Tommy knew to really get the event off the ground he had to persuade me and the other GBTC runners—Randy Thomas, Bobby Hodge, Vin Fleming—to run in it. The promise of a big party whetted our appetites, but to close the deal, Tommy pulled out one of his classic marketing ploys: He told us that there'd be girls in bikinis along the route handing out Gatorade. I fell for that one.

Tommy also told us that Marty Liquori, the best miler in America at that time, was going to be competing, only this time he wasn't fibbing. Tommy had convinced Liquori's brother Steve, a Boston College student and regular at the Eliot, to recruit Marty, who was up at a camp in Poughkeepsie, New York.

On that humid August weekend, our small running tribe descended on this sleepy village to race 7.1 miles, or more accurately, from one pub down the road to another pub. Around noon, I joined the other 445 racers at the start area—outside one of Tommy's favorite bars, the Captain Kidd at Woods Hole.

The gun sounded. Marty and I set the pace. A few GBTC runners tried to give chase but we broke away. It quickly turned into a two-man race. We matched each other stride for stride past spectacular views of the ocean and long stretches of pristine beaches. The breathtaking beauty of the seven-mile route along Surf Drive continued as Liquori and I came around Nobska Point Lighthouse, overlooking Vineyard Sound. I'm not even sure Tommy Leonard realized that he had set up a course that was as close to nirvana as you could get for a road runner. Then again, maybe he did.

As we headed into two miles of gentle hills through the woods, I glided smoothly at a five-minute-per-mile pace. Liquori realized he was in for the fight of his life. I poured on the speed over the next three miles. Finally, Marty couldn't take any more. He dropped back. By the time I cruised along the sand-swept road into Falmouth Harbor, I had a huge lead over the rest of the field. As I churned down the home stretch to the Brothers Four, people on the media truck, expecting to see Liquori in the front, yelled out, “Who are you?”

I yelled back, “Bill Rodgers.”

Of course, it came out as “Will Rodgers.”

“Like the American humorist?” the reporters asked Tommy Leonard at the raucous party that followed. “Yep. One and the same,” he said, dancing by them with a full beer.

The next day in the
Boston Globe,
the headline read: “Will Rodgers Beats Marty Liquori.”

Marty thought he would show up and whip everybody's pants, but I had been doing all this mileage and there was no way I was going to let a miler, even a great miler like Liquori, beat me over seven miles. He had the speed, but I had the strength. In the end, I was right. I had taken down a running superstar by almost a minute and a half. I wrote in my training log that night, “Zapped M. Liquori! O What Glory!” What's more, I won a blender to go along with the other kitchen equipment I had picked up through my previous road race conquest.

After the race, I learned the cops had towed my little Volkswagen Beetle. Nice, right? It gives you an idea of how popular we were with the local residents. It was going to cost me twenty dollars to retrieve my car—a substantial amount for a guy living on Oreos and cold pizza. An irate Tommy wouldn't stand for this; he sent George Robbat, the owner of the Brothers Four, to the local police station to pay the fine for me.

In Tommy's mind, the champion of his great road race deserved to be treated like a prince. In fact, he felt that's how all runners should be treated. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case in Falmouth or anywhere else for that matter in 1974; we were just a big nuisance. The good news was that publicity from my victory over Liquori—Olympic-level runner gets beaten by unknown local—kick-started the Falmouth Road Race. It kept cranking up from there until eventually it became one of the biggest road races in America.

I focused my attention on the next marathon: the New York City. The stakes were high. The winner got a trip to Greece, to compete in the Athens Marathon over the original course, from Marathon to Athens. Tom Fleming had set the course record with a time of 2:21:54. I had just broken 2:20 at Boston and that was with stopping on Heartbreak Hill. I went in confident I could take first.

At the time, the New York City Marathon was a small race with only 527 entrants. The course didn't go through all five boroughs like it does today, but rather was confined to five loops around Central Park.

I remember it was a sweltering fall day. I tried to race away from the field and I did, opening up a three-minute gap through the first twenty miles. Then my old nemesis—the heat—struck me down. I started to develop severe hamstring cramps. I tried to get rid of them, rub them out, but it was no use. My body was too dehydrated. I pulled off to the side of the road.

I remember somebody came over to me and gave me water. He helped me to stretch my legs. I got back in the race, but by then I had way too much ground to make up. I jogged in and finished in fifth place in a time of 2:35:59, almost ten minutes behind winner Norb Sander. I believe the term is “getting your butt kicked.” It was a major step backward.

I knew I hadn't run a smart race. I'd gone out too aggressively in the hot weather. I hadn't drunk enough water early on. I'd deluded myself into thinking I had the stamina to charge ahead to the front and stay there over the long haul. Basically, I'd made all my usual errors.

After the race, I had cramps all over my body. I limped back to the VW Beetle with Ellen and slowly lowered myself into the passenger seat. As we drove back to Boston, all I could think about was quitting the marathon. I said to Ellen, “I'm not cut out to be a marathoner.” Maybe I should drop down to ten thousand meters, I thought to myself. Maybe that's all I could handle.

 

THIRTEEN

Will-Ha

A
PRIL 21, 1975

N
EWTON
H
ILLS,
M
ASSACHUSETTS

I felt if I could make it to the top of Heartbreak Hill, nothing could stop me after that. It didn't cross my mind that I might again be struck with a paralyzing hamstring cramp as I mounted the steep incline. As I continued my battle against gravity, I focused my thoughts instead on the press truck ahead of me: You don't think I can catch you? I can catch you.

My high school coach Frank O'Rourke had taught me to conserve my energy going up hills. Wait until I reached the top and then push it hard coming down the hill. The first time I ignored Coach O'Rourke was when he told me to cut my hair. This would be the second time.

I was so pumped up at that moment that I stepped up my pace, which caused the thick crowds that flanked my narrow path to cheer even louder. I kept thinking, If I gun it to the top of the hill, I have this race sewn up. I surged up Heartbreak Hill. Coming over the crest, I saw the Boston skyline, defined by the Prudential Building, looming in the horizon. I felt a tremendous high. I knew that going downhill, nobody could catch me.

I took the left turn that takes you down into Cleveland Circle. This is among the best places on the Boston Marathon course. The crowds are raucous and overflowing and filled with Boston College students who've been partying since the sun came up. More downhill! All that downhill was a gift—a gift I was going to use to cut loose and really devastate the competition.

I zipped past Cleveland Circle, never dreaming that I'd open a running center here two years later. I was a broke student on food stamps. The running boom hadn't hit yet. But as I tore through the roaring crowds, I could feel the thunder gathering; the running explosion was going to rock the city.

Past Cleveland Circle, I found myself facing another long downhill. This is another great part of the course where you can really move and pick up momentum. The crowds were thick and several people deep and there was just enough space for me to squeeze through. I was feeding off the fervor of the spectators, parting inches from my face. I sensed the finish line was not far away.

I was getting into the tough physical part of the marathon. You're hitting twenty-four miles, and the feeling that you normally have at this stage is, “Whew … this is a long event!” You may have been running on emotion in the earlier part of the race, but now suddenly this distance catches up to you. This is a terrible event, you think to yourself. How can I be this tired? On a hot and humid day, you sort of shrunk back at this point. But today the sweet, cool winds were on my side.

I was heading into mile 26, coming through Coolidge Corner on Beacon Street, flying along the downhills on cruise control. It was exhilarating to be in the lead this late into the Boston Marathon. But I wasn't thinking about winning, or imagining how it would feel to wear the laurel wreath crown upon my head. I was just flying down the street, the sound of the breeze whooshing past my ears. An invisible force had taken over. Who knew where this positive energy had come from. Who cared? I was going along for the ride.

I remember when Amby Burfoot ran down Beacon Street in the lead in 1968, he was basically in a state of panic. He feared he would be passed any second by a former marine named Bill Clark, who had been dogging him for twenty-one miles. If that wasn't enough, Amby also had to contend with a hot day and an inexcusable lack of water stations along the course. But my old roommate went there to win, not just for himself, but for his beloved mentor, Johnny Kelley. He held the dream of winning the Boston Marathon deep inside him, and used his will to overcome the fatigue of the body and to keep pushing. No matter what happens, you have to keep pushing.

Just like Amby, as I ran the last miles down Beacon Street, I started worrying about somebody coming up on me—in my case, Jerome Drayton. The scary thing was, the silent, methodical running machine with the dark sunglasses could be breathing down my neck and I'd have no idea because of the huge crowds converging into the street right behind me. The same thing happened to Amby in 1968. It's a helpless feeling, not knowing what's going on behind you, if your challenger is gaining on you, if he's a few feet behind you. The invisible force had abandoned me.

I couldn't shake the vision of Drayton sneaking up on me from the side. I was losing it. Just then, out of nowhere, I saw a figure pull up even with me. But it wasn't Drayton. It was my best friend, Jason Kehoe, riding up beside me on a bike. I hadn't seen him in ages. He was shouting “Go, Billy, Go!” I glanced over at him in shock. How did he get through the thousands of screaming fans? How did he get past the cops, the race officials, Jock Semple?!

Seeing my old friend lifted me up like you can't imagine. In that brief moment, I looked at him as if to say, “I'm going to do it, Jason,” to which he gave me a look that said, “Yeah, Billy. You are going to do this.”

My mind flashed back to high school, to when Jason and Charlie cheered me on from the sideline as I tried to win my two-mile races. I felt a wave of calm overtake my body. I was suddenly able to shut out the noise, the crowds, the doubts, the fears. I ran the rest of the race like I was on a training run with Amby through the wooded trails outside campus; I ran like I was chasing butterflies through the fields with Jason and Charlie.

Jason had appeared on his bike out of nowhere, and then he was gone in a poof. Of course, had I bothered to look behind me, I would have seen a couple of overzealous police officers running Jason off the road. He was probably still yelling “Go, Billy!” as they wrestled him to the ground.

O
NE
Y
EAR
E
ARLIER

B
OSTON,
M
ASSACHUSETTS

During one of our long training runs through Waltham, I told Sev about how I faltered at the New York City Marathon, and how I felt maybe I wasn't cut out for the grueling distance. He said he thought I would benefit from working with Coach Squires. “The guy is brilliant,” Sev told me as we coasted along the road, our elbows and footsteps just inches from each other. “I mean, he's kind of strange. We call him ‘Wack.' But I've seen what he can do. There isn't a guy that has trained under Squires that isn't worlds better now.”

Sev invited me to come down to the Greater Boston Track Club's next workout at Boston College. What did I have to lose? It might be fun.

I showed up at the track and Sev introduced me to Squires. Speaking like the crazy guy at the end of a seedy Irish bar in South Boston, he said to me: “You need my coaching and you need a group to teach you how to run, unless you want to go off with the gun and do your little bullshit thing that'll get you in the Boston Marathon fifth at best. You need to be with my group on Tuesdays, because that's a speed thing, and that's what you don't have, pal.”

From that day on, I was on the track twice a week with Squires. I wasn't the only distance runner to show up for Squires's workouts. There was Bobby Hodge, Randy Thomas, Vin Fleming, Dickie Mahoney. They were all local guys, running bums like me. They ran every day, no matter the weather or how they felt physically. Their running log was their bible, and once they committed themselves to logging a certain number of miles for the week, nothing was going to stand in their way. Mahoney was a mailman running 150 miles a week while delivering mail. That's the way it was. We did whatever it took.