Marathon Man Read Online Free Page A

could count on Prefontaine to run from the front, to push the pace, and to give it everything he had from start to finish. The whole country loved Prefontaine for the same reason I did—he left it all out there every time he raced, heart and soul. As he once said, “Somebody may beat me, but they are going to have to bleed to do it.”
    I admired that Prefontaine brought the same gutsy determination to his battles off the track that he did on them. He took on the overbearing rule enforcers of our sport at a time when few dared to do so. He knew it was wrong that the AAU dictated where and when U.S. athletes could compete. He was sick of these corrupt old men who maintained the belief that no matter how much time and passion a runner devoted to his sport, he should be barred from making a decent wage doing what he loved. According to them an American runner should make his own way, perhaps as a part-time bartender, like Prefontaine, but still compete against the best athletes from other nations like the Soviet Union and Finland who were fully funded, could train year-round, and, in some cases, were doped up on steroids. It bothered him that he had to turn down a $200,000 pro contract in 1975, then the largest ever offered to a runner, to maintain his amateur status for the 1976 Olympic Games. Instead, the world famous athlete was forced to live in a trailer with his dog, Lobo, and survive on food stamps while maintaining his tireless training program, which included grueling runs alone in the winter in Eugene, Oregon.
    While Prefontaine was busy racking up records and winning titles at the University of Oregon, his legendary track coach Bill Bowerman created a shoe for his star runner by pressing lightweight foam rubber into his wife’s waffle iron. The result was the first modern athletic shoe sole. In 1972, Bowerman added a “swoosh” logo to his sneakers, modeled after the wings of the Greek goddess Nike, and the rest is history. Meanwhile, Prefontaine became the face of Nike, as well as American distance running.
    I had never before owned a pair of shoes that felt this light. They weighed zilch. Maybe five ounces. The waffle soles also provided better traction. They were made for running fast on the road. I loved them. The only problem: When I put the shoes on, they were slightly too big.
    â€œWell, they’re better than anything else you’ve got,” Charlie said.
    He was right, of course. I was a poor grad student. My running life offered no financial opportunities, and even if it did, I’d have to forgo them in order to maintain my amateur status, just like Prefontaine had. I didn’t have money for state-of-the-art racing shoes. If Prefontaine hadn’t sent me those Boston ’73s a week before the marathon, I’m not sure what I would have done. After all, I wasn’t likely to find a pair of brand-new, light-as-air, waffle-soled running flats, not even if I searched every Dumpster from Jamaica Plain to Dorchester.
    Charlie walked with me to the starting line. The scene bordered on total chaos. There were no race officials, no volunteers to help corral the eager spectators. No ropes to hold anybody back. Just a feisty, bald, seventy-one-year-old barking out orders in a thick Scottish accent. This was Jock Semple. Longtime unofficial caretaker of the Boston Marathon. He alone arranged all two thousand racers, like some crazed conductor.
    Jock spotted me and wildly signaled for me to come over. A serious long-distance runner himself in the 1930s, he was a tough, irascible Scot who saw it as his personal mission in life to preserve the tradition of the Boston Marathon. Jock had the final say on all matters pertaining to the event. He had no patience for anybody who didn’t have the utmost respect for the race and its runners. To Semple, the Boston Marathon was a serious athletic contest for noble and daring men—and men only—willing to sacrifice body and soul