Dick Beardsley

The Michiana Runners Association was lucky to have Dick Beardsley at this year's Sunburst Marathon.  No matter what you admire him for (the record breaking 1982 Boston Marathon, recovery from years of addiction to prescription pain medication, or the founding of his own nonprofit organization), Dick remains an inspiration for anyone looking to take control of his or her life.  We asked Dick some questions about his running career and his ideas on the sport as a therapeutic addiction of its own.

How did your running career begin?

I got started running back in my Junior year of high school.  I thought if I earned a varsity jacket, I could get a date with a girl.  First I went out for football.  That didn’t last an hour, and I thought “Man, there’s not a girl alive worth doing this for!”  Then I went out for Cross Country, and the first day we did the “Around the Block” run.  Turns out that “around the block” meant a three mile run, and I had to walk the last mile.  By the time I got back to the high school my coach and teammates had all went home, but I had already fallen in love with the sport.

I ran my first marathon in 1977 up in Wisconsin.  I didn’t know how to train for one, but I just ran it and finished.  Two years later I was back home milking cows, and then one day before I went out to do my milking, I was flipping through a running magazine and saw an article about what it took to qualify for the 1980 Olympic trials.  I was about 13 minutes short of that so I figured I’d give it a shot.  I had always wondered how good of a runner I could become.

 I moved to the twin cities and started training.  I didn’t have a dime in my pocket, and ran in running shoes held together with duck tape.  Long story short, a few weeks later I heard about a big sporting convention coming to Minneapolis, and figured I’d go to see if I could get a shoe sponsorship.  I walked out of there that day with a free pair of New Balance 620’s.  About ten days later, I got a big box of New Balance shoes, clothing, and everything.  I started crying immediately.  I was so happy that, for once, someone besides me believed in what I was trying to do.  I’m still with them today, more so with promotions and speaking, but they’ve been wonderful to me, and it’s just been a thrill.

You’re most famous with the 1982 “Duel in the Sun” against Alberto Salazar.  Can you tell us the story in your own words?

That day it’s still so vivid in my mind.  It was a real warm day, and I remember standing at that starting line, looking at the runners around me.  I see Alberto Salazar, who was the world record holder at the time, and Bill Rodgers, who had won Boston four times.  When the gun went off, Salazar and I went through the first mile in four minutes thirty seconds.  For the first 3 miles, I felt so bad I nearly dropped out.  Around 5-6 miles I started feeling better, and by 17 miles it was down to Alberto and me.  My coach told me, if you’re in that lead path when you hit the hills, run as fast as you can up the hills, and even faster down the hills.  He thought it was going to be Salazar, which it was , so I did everything I could for those 4 miles trying to shake him, but I couldn’t get him off.  When I got to the bottom of the hill, he was still on my shoulder.  At that point I couldn’t even feel my legs, and the thought of running 5 more miles at that pace was too much.  Finally with about 900 meters to go, I had the biggest lead I had.  It was maybe 6-7 yards on him, and I thought “Dick, you’ve got to throw in a hard surge now and break open the gap even more”.  But as I got about 2 strides in with that surge, I got the biggest charlie horse in my right hamstring, and I literally couldn’t run.  I remember jumping up in the air, grabbing my hamstring and Alberto went flying by me.  He got close to a hundred meter lead on me.  The crowds that day were just massive and there was no crowd control, so as they moved by to let me through, my right leg came down into this big pothole, and I almost fell down.  As I fell it jerked my right leg from the pothole, and it actually popped the knot out of my hamstring.  I got my stride back, but then we were down to about 60 meters to go.  I started pumping my arms and lifting my legs.  When I see the video, I’m coming out of the corner flying, and I’m 5 meters behind him at that point.  I ended up getting outkicked at the end.

We were both fortunate that day to break the American record and the Boston course record, but he beat me by about 2 seconds.  I didn’t win it, but it was one of those races that, even though I didn’t win it and I was disappointed right away, at the end of the day I’ve never been more pleased with an outcome.  It would’ve been to just give up the lead and let Alberto win, but I didn’t do that.  I learned a lot about myself on that day that enabled me to get through a lot more difficult times in my life after that.

Alberto and I were just back to Boston for the 30^th anniversary.  You can’t talk about Alberto in that race without talking about me in that race, and vice versa.  After that, Alberto and I have been sort of glued at the hip.  The best part of that race is that Alberto and I have become really close friends.

How did your life change after the 82 Boston race?

After that race, I just had turned 26, and I’d been running a lot of marathons, 3-4 a year, under 2:12 range.  I remember a few older runners warned me that I should be careful, that marathons have a way of catching up with you after a while.  But when you’re a young runner like that you think you can run through a brick wall.  I wasn’t taking enough rest time after all of these marathons.  After Boston I had committed to the Grandma marathon up in Minnesota, but after that I didn’t take a good enough recovery, and my left Achilles had some pain.  I thought I could run through it.  A year and a half later I ended up having to have reconstruction surgery on it.  The doctor told me, “Dick, you can’t think about running for 6 months”, but the Olympic trials were coming up, so I started to train again.  Back then I just put that pain the back of my head, and trained hard again.  My Achilles finally snapped, which kept me off the Olympic team in '84.  I was out of running for 2 years.  They had to completely rebuild the whole Achilles.  I finally got back to where I could run again, but I just never could get back to that level again. 

After that I retired from competitive running, so I moved back to the Minnesota dairy farm, and a few months after that I made an almost fatal mistake.  I wasn’t careful around some moving machinery and got caught in some farm equipment.  They thought they would have to amputate my left leg, but luckily they were able to save it.  Eventually I got back to running and milking cows.  A couple of years later, a lady ran a stop sign and ran into my car, which put me right back in the hospital.  After that I was running up in North Dakota and got hit by a truck out on a run one day.  I was put on heavy painkillers for each of these hospitalizations and surgeries, and that’s when things changed.  I never drank, I never smoked, I never did any drugs, but I got addicted to these pain killers.  For a while there my whole world revolved around two things: taking the drugs, and making sure I didn’t get caught.

I had never been in any trouble in my life, and now here I was forging prescriptions, a felony and I could’ve gone to prison for.  It got to the point in August 96, when I was taking a cocktail of Valium, Percocet and Demerol, all very highly addictive drugs.  I was taking upwards of 80 pills a day.  I was probably a few days within going to sleep and never waking up.

Thankfully, I eventually got caught forging a prescription.  I knew I was in a lot of trouble but I was so blessed and thankful that there was a chance to get better.  I was giving 5 years of probation and I got into a treatment program, and I thank the Lord I’ve had 15 plus years of sobriety now.  That was a part of my life that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.

How did your addiction change your life at the time?

 In that mixed up foggy world, I thought everything was fine.  I wasn’t really running much because of my back surgery, but I thought my family life was fine when in reality it was anything but.  I don’t use this as an excuse, but my Dad was dying of Cancer, and financially things weren’t going well.  I didn’t need them for the pain in my back anymore, but I started taking them for all this other stuff. 

The thing is, when you get to that point, you can justify every pill you take.  I justified each pill because of my back surgery, or because my Dad was dying of cancer.  Those pills will make me feel better.  You justify every single minute of your day.  But really you are just multiplying everything.  It’s a vicious, vicious cycle.

It still haunts me today to think about what I put my family through.  When I got caught, it made national news because of the runner I once was, and was front page news in the little town I’m from.   My son, being in grade school, had to deal with other kids calling his dad a “drug dealer”.  When I look back on that, what I put my family through was unforgivable.

I share that experience at treatment centers and schools.  I tell everyone, “If it can happen to me, it can happen to anybody”.

How does your personal experience translate  to the goals of the Dick Beardsley Foundation?

Prescription abuse is the fastest form of drug abuse out there today.  Again, you get in a car accident of surgery, most people, no big deal, they get off of it.  But if they aren’t disposed of properly, next thing you know kids are stealing the drugs out of their parent’s medicine cabinets. We try to raise awareness about this and other kinds of addictions.

In my 15 years out of sobriety, people look at alcoholics or people addicted to drugs in a whole different light.  For heart disease of cancer, people will jump over a bridge.  But when you tell people about addictions, they look at you like you’re a lowlife.  Somebody with an addiction, you can’t see that like you can see a sick person.  Part of the whole thing is just trying to educate people.  When they learn about it, they can kind of come to accept it and then finally do something about it.

Did you ever have any role models when you were going though your addiction?

Through my addiction, my biggest role model, who unfortunately passed away from Lou Gehrig’s disease, was my drug counselor.  She was an alcoholic and a drug addict.  She saved my life. She knew when to give me a kick in the pants and when to give me a hug.  The first weeks of treatment, your mind is going every which way.  Part of you doesn’t think you need to be there.  She was so valuable for me to be able to talk to.  She was definitely a person who, even though she’s been gone now for a couple of years, I still admire.

How does running tie into this idea of recovery?

To be a runner takes a huge commitment, and a lot of dedication.  It’s the same with getting over an addiction.  I was in a 12 step program.  One of the things that they suggest early on is to do some sort of an activity to get a natural form of endorphins.  I’ve always loved to run, but when I go for my runs, 99 percent of time I go by myself.  I love that hour because it gives me a chance to talk to God, talk to myself.  In over 30 years, I’ve never gotten bored with the sport.  I’ve never run with music, never have and never will.  I love hearing the sounds of nature, seeing the sun come up, seeing the world come alive in the morning.  My running today is very therapeutic for me, both physically and mentally.  I’m 56 years old now and I still love to compete even though I’m WAY slower than I was years ago, but I hope to keep running.  If I live to be 100 I still hope I’m running at that age.

I’m probably addicted to running.  Virtually nothing stops me from a run.  There are many times I’ll have a 5 o clock 6 flight in the morning, but I’ll get up at 3 or 4 in the morning to get my run in because I LOVE the way it makes me feel.  I like what it does for me.  It’s my time.  I love people, and I’m around a lot of people all the time, but I also love the time that I have by myself.  It lets my mind filter things. 

What is the greatest lesson you've learned from your experience?

Making mistakes aren’t so bad if you learn from them.  If you learn from a mistake and make sure it doesn’t happen again, and then pass on your wisdom from mistakes, then in the end it’s not so bad that it happened.

I never hide the fact about my addiction.  People can ask me anything about it and I will answer them honestly.  It’s part of who I am and part of who I will be.  Why try to hide it is what I can share will keep somebody else from going down that path.  It would be selfish of me not to share it.

I thank God every single day that I get out there and run.  Sometimes I feel sorry for people that don’t run.  I get so much enjoyment from it, that I can’t even begin to tell you.

Laura Carlson

Laura Carlson is a Professor of Psychology and Associate Dean for Professional Development at Notre Dame.  In addition to her research on spatial language and spatial cognition, Laura is an active member of the MRA.  She gave us some insight on the importance of running groups, cross training, and finding your way around. 

When did you get started running?

I ran cross country in high school and a few road races in college, and then on and off for the next twenty years, and then seriously started running again in 2010 with the goal of training to run Boston. 

What draws you to running?

Every other sport I’ve done has not really been suited for me.  I played basketball all throughout high school, competed in the high jump where I jumped my height, rowed crew at Dartmouth, and used to play wallyball (volleyball played on a racquetball court).  But running was the only sport that’s really ever suited my body type since I’m pretty short.  

Have you kept running up until now?

I took off running for about twenty years, when I was going for my graduate and professional degrees.   I had sort of stopped in order to prioritize my family time and career, but now that they are a bit older I have a lot more time.  So about two years ago, I finally bought myself a treadmill, which let me run in the winter here.  The funny thing about that is right after I bought the treadmill, I hooked up with a running group, so now I always run outside in the winter.  

How has the MRA helped get you back into running?

MRA is responsible for me hooking up with a running group which has made all the difference in the world to my training.  We get up early in the morning, in the dark, and run together.

That’s what I think is so important about the MRA.  Before I was a member, I had no idea how to hook up with a running group.  Runners are typically friendly but it’s still kind of hard to get into a group.  So from 1994 until 2010 I sort of ran on my own, but now I’ve been training with a group and that has made it all the more fun.

What is your research on?

My research is on spatial cognition, which basically refers to how you represent the objects and places in the world around you.  One example is looking at how people give directions from one place to another.  If someone comes up to you and says “tell me how to get to the bookstore”, I am interested in figuring out how they decided which landmarks or spatial terms to use.   There are a lot of assumptions that get made about the person’s familiarity with the environment, and those will change what you say.  

For example, if I ask my Mom to give me directions, she’ll say “well, you go to the intersection, and then there’s the floral shop where your sister got her wedding bouquet…”, but if I asked my Dad he’d say “go to this street, turn west, drive two miles…”.  So I am interested in why people have these different preferences.  It could be cultural. 

 I grew up in Boston, and there we used left and right a lot in terms of helping navigate, because the streets aren’t laid out very grid like.  But when I came to the Midwest, I found that people much prefer the north, south, east, west directions.  When I called for pizza in grad school, people would say, “well are you north or south of this road?” and I often had to use a compass rose to help me figure out the answer!

The funniest story I have about this is from my son, who is raised here.  One early morning we were coming off of an exit on the highway, and the directions said we had to go to the east, and I had no idea whether we had to go left or right.  And as we were stopped, he says “Mom, just look at the sun, the sun rises in the east”.  It was natural for him to think about directions in cardinal direction terms, where for me, I still need to calculate it. 

My other research examines how people navigate in buildings, particularly if they are unfamiliar.  Think about when you go to a doctor’s office that you’ve never been to.  You get in the front door and look at the directory, and somehow how you get to the office by looking at the room numbers or following directions.  But after your appointment, how do you find your way back?  It is unlikely that you were learning the route explicitly as a sequence of turns on the way there, but somehow you’re able to find your way back.  What you may do is look for something familiar to help you find your way back.  But it’s not clear what landmarks you will remember.  Some objects or features of the environment are being encoded on your way but not all, and we ask the question of WHAT things are getting in, and how do you use them when you are headed back after the appointment.

How do you study this at Notre Dame?

We have a lab with a virtually reality program that allow us to create buildings that people can virtually navigate.  We can build paths and move walls and staircases and put in or take out landmarks. We then have people navigate through the building and then test their memory of that route.   Women stereotypically tend to like landmarks more than men do, so we can look to see if that holds up in a population of college students.  

What makes this research fun for me is that I’m not very good spatially.  The joke in psychology is that you study what you’re not good at.  I’m the last person you’d want to follow out of a burning building.  

Has your own research helped you in your own direction skills?

I’ve learned one strategy from going to so many conferences in different cities.  I’ve discovered that if I get to an intersection where I’m going to turn, I turn around and look at what it would look like at the vantage point from where I’m coming out.  If I have the wrong perspective of the building, I’ll never get back.

Have you adapted your research to your running?

I would love to try to study the two together, because then you could try to link them.  Some sports are good for this.  I play golf too, and that is a great spatial cognition task, because if you hit your ball into the woods, you have to find a good landmark that tells you where it went in. But your vantage point from the tee box and from in front of the woods is so different.  So being able to locate that ball and figure out the right clues here to help you locate it over there can be a challenge.

In terms of running, you have to ask these same kinds of questions to keep from getting lost.  I’m one of those people who ends up doing the same route over and over again, because then I don’t have to worry about getting lost and can just focus on the workout. We’ve been running in Knollwood a lot in the early mornings when it is dark, so it is hard to learn the different paths. I definitely rely on my running buddies to plot our routes. And it is funny how the same route seems so different when you run it in daylight. 

Have you been training?

Ryan Fenstermaker coaches me, and he pushes me which is exactly what I want.  My goal is to go sub 3:30.  I felt like at Chicago I hit a plateau, so this next goal is ambitious but doable.  The other thing I’ve been doing is working with Angie at Triumph Fitness, 2 or 3 times a week doing core and ab work.  That’s made a huge difference.  I feel like I’m a much stronger runner from this combination.

Is anyone coming with you?

There’s a 5K right before that my husband will be running with me.   He has really embraced his role as spectator and always takes fabulous photos of the runners, the start and the crowds. He surprised me too, and has trained for the 5K which we will do together the day before, nice and easy.

The marathon is run on patriot’s day which is a holiday, so my parents, my sister and my niece and nephew will be out there too.

What advice do you have for any new runner?

Have fun.  If you want to compete, remember you are really just competing against yourself.  I’m very competitive, but very competitive against myself.  It doesn’t matter what anyone else around me is doing, I try to support their efforts and be critical of only my own performance. What’s most important is seeing that you are making the progress you want to make.  And sometimes just going for a nice run with friends is the best workout ever.

Also, you can get into running at anytime.  Right now running is a really important part of my life, but it was not for more twenty years.  It’s never too late to lace up the shoes and just go for a run. 

Although the Boston marathon was brutal this year, reaching temperatures in the 80s, Laura finished strong.  Here’s what she had to say about Monday’s race:

I am happy to say I survived the heat in Boston 2012! And I had such a wonderful time. I was on pace pretty much the first half but it was SO hot that I knew I couldn't sustain it. So, instead of getting really bummed out, I decided to turn off my watch and simply enjoy the rest of the run, high-fiving the crowd, smiling, and dumping cups of water on my head. I didn't even know my finishing time – I had to ask my husband for it from the text alerts. But it was hands-down the most fun I've had in a marathon.  BIG shout-out to all of people along the race course who provided all of the hoses, ice, sponges, popsicles and encouragement. It really felt like we were all in it together.  I'm already qualified for Boston for next year, and will definitely be going back - hopefully with cooler weather so I can really race it!

 

Homeward Bound

The Homeward Bound 5K Run and Walk raises awarness for the homeless members of our community. Since it began in 2003, Homeward Bound has raised more than $3 million for over 100 affordable housing and homeless service providers across the state, making it Indiana's largest grassroots fundraiser.  Benefiting agencies include the Center for Homeless, Hannah's House, Hope Ministries, Robinson Community Learning Center and the St. Joseph County Bridges Out of Poverty.

This year's top finisher was Justin Kowalski with a time of 17:23.

14-year old Paul Ferguson was the RCLC winner, with an official 25:32 time.

For many of the kids from Robsinson, Homeward Bound was their first 5K.  MRA member Bruce Wilson stayed back to help steer the tail runners back on track and help them through the finish line.

MRA member, Kris Arizmendi also volunteered her efforts coordinating the race, and specifically running the chip timer with her husband.  Kris is the volunteer coordinator of the after school Tutoring Program at RCLC, so her efforts were focused on preparation of the race as well as training for a half marathon in early May.  We can't wait to cheer her on then, and thank her for all her time and commitment volunteering for this event.

A total of 42 runners registered for the 5K Run—including the youngest competitor, 8-year old Lydia Zeller, but dozens more participated in the 5K walk/run.  The South Bend Silverhawks even lead the dynamic warm ups and stretches, giving the youth and young at heart a great start to the morning.

 

Run, Panther, Run

Saturday’s Run, Panther, Run brought out young athletes, veteran runners, and everything in between. 
The event not only hosted a few sub-20 minute top finishers, but also a heated one mile fun run for kids.  Proceeds from the race benefited St. Anthony’s scholarship fund to provide tuition assistance for needy children.  Children from St. Anthony’s school raced and cheered on their fellow students and teachers in the race.

The top male finisher was Ryan Gruetman.  After biking three miles to the race in the , he finished in a time of 16:49.  Actually his slowest time in the four years he’s raced Run Panther, Ryan is now looking to build up his endurance for Sunburst in June.  He’ll be the top contender to beat at next year’s Run Panther when he’s hoping to break 16:30.

Michele Taylor was the leading female with a time of 20:08.  Her third year racing Run Panther, Michele took back her first place spot from two years ago.  She trains year long, and looks forward to racing competitively for the rest of the year.  

Another notable runner was Colton Shail, a 12 year old hockey player who finished the 3.1 miles with a time of 19:12, his fastest 5K yet.  

Mother and daughters Robin, Jean, and Rachel train and run as a family all year round.  The matching shirts started a few years ago at Sunburst, when they each finished with different times, and needed a way to find each other.  This years shirt phrase: "If you can read this, you’re not running fast enough!"

 Check out some more pictures from the 5K and Fun Run below:

 

Jackie Bauters

Jackie Bauters is a veteran and coach of the Saint Mary's Cross Country team.  A seven time marathoner, Jackie is training to break 3'10 at this April's Boston Marathon.  She acts as the coordinator for the Sole Mates charity leg of the Girls on the Run foundation and reaches out to supporters, friends, and family in her inspirational blog: "The Road to Boston".

How did you get started running?

I actually was just asking my parents about this the other day.  My Dad said, “You know Jackie, you were always running.  You’d run all the time and play relay games even when you were tiny”. 

He was a runner in college, and both my older brothers both ran.

I ran track all the way through grade school and high school, then started cross country in seventh grade.  I went to Miami of Ohio my freshman year of college and it was the first year I wasn’t on a running team, which was pretty hard.  So I joined a running group but it wasn’t the same.  I missed the competitive aspect, so for that and a whole lot of other reasons I transferred to Saint Mary’s and was able to join the cross country program here.  

What led you to coaching?

I went to Ithaca College for my masters in sports psychology and started a graduate assistant program to help out the track coaches.  I went with the team to nationals and had some really cool trips.  It was a phenomenal year at Ithaca, I loved working with the team and it was great for me academically.  That winter, I started exploring the opportunity to come back to Saint Mary’s.  

I figured that I could bring a lot to the program as an alumnus.  The first two years, I worked with my old coach, and then took over the program after that.  

As a relatively new cross country program, how did you develop the team into a more competitive one?

The process of making it a more competitive program was challenging.  The cross country team only got started in the 90s, so when I was here it was more recreational.   In the 7 years that I’ve been here we’ve taking it from a running group mentality to a more competitive atmosphere.  In doing that it’s kind of whittled down the numbers, which it should be.

How do you adopt your prior experience as a runner to coaching at Saint Mary’s?

I think the biggest thing is to know that you don’t know it all.  You always have to continually learn.  I read a lot of research articles on running, training tips, workouts.  Some of it is trial by error.  What I was doing in year one is very different than what I am doing today.  There is no one recipe for success.  If there were, everyone would be doing the same thing.

Right now, minimal shoes in training is a big issue for runners in general, which brings in a whole new element of training.  There’s always going to be hot new issues, so it’s important to keep up on them.

What is the Sole Mates program?

Well I got involved with Girls on the Run last spring in its first year here in the area.  Soul Mates is just the charity leg of Girls on the Run.  As the coordinator of the program, I try to get people involved in it, but I’m also a participant in the program myself.  You register as a Sole Mate and pledge to raise funds for the organization as you train.  I solicit donations from friends, family and coworkers. 

So where does the Blog come in?

The Girls on the Run charity is new to this area, and a lot of people have never heard of it before, unless they lived in a major city that had it.  I figured that if I was going to ask people to give money, they’ll want to know what it’s going towards.  I wanted to kind of give a reason for why they would want to donate.  

The blog has really helped me to share what I’m doing in preparation for this.  It’s a way for me to tell people all of the reasons I believe in this cause, and allow them to realize all of the hard work that goes into training for a marathon.  

I know that some people don’t even read the blog and are still willing to donate, but for some other people it helps them feel more passionate and connected to the organization and carry it forward a little more.  

Does the blog help you in training?

It definitely motivates me to run.  On one hand I’ve put myself out there and I don’t want to let people down.  On the other hand, I don’t want to let myself down and if I have a hard day, writing it down lets me face it.  

A friend emailed me on an early post and said “I really appreciate that you write about the ups and downs because it makes it a little more real”.  I’d be lying if I said that everything that I did was easy and that it’s happy every day.  I have really crappy days sometimes and I try to put a filter on how happy or upset I get about the blog.  I feel like it’s important that it’s there.  If the whole thing is that it’s great every day then it’s not real. It’s important for me because it lets me channel if I’m angry or frustrated.  

How has the rest of the feedback been?

The feedback has been really touching.  A lot of friends have been really appreciative of it.  Some have even learned a lot about themselves through reading it.  I think I wrote to one of them, “I would’ve written this a long time ago if it was going to have such profound effect on people”.

Sometimes I’m sitting there writing, thinking that no one’s going to care about this, but I write it anyway.  But all of a sudden I strike a chord with someone and make their day.  That feels great.

How many marathons have you run?

This will be number 8.  Cleveland was my first marathon, and then I ran Boston, Chicago, Bay Shore, Sunburst, Bay Shore again, and San Francisco.

My favorite was San Francisco.  I had never been to San Francisco before, so it was a running tour of the city.  I ran it with my husband for our honeymoon, and we started and finished together.  It was low stress, there wasn’t really an expectation to do well.  It was really enjoyable.

How are you training for Boston?

I actually purchased a training plan.  You can get customized training plans from coaches, who put together all of your training, based on your goal, ability to train, strengths and weaknesses.  Hopefully it’s been getting on track with what I want to do.  That was going to be one of my blog entries actually, coaches can be coached.  

How do you feel about the 3:10 pace goal for Boston based on that plan?

Boston’s a difficult course.  The whole first mile or so is downhill, and then it gets very flat, and then 16 you start going up and down and up, and then you go up heartbreak.  What’s awful about it is where it’s located in the race.  Because you’ve been going downhill so much you’ve been working different muscles, so your quads are really tired and sore.

I’m nervous about Boston because it’s like a game, you have to not overwork in the first half or else you will really work on heartbreak and suck it up in the last five miles which you really don’t want.  You’ve got to really find your groove.  Just because you’re going downhill doesn’t mean you should be flying.  It’s just a course that you have to kind of temper yourself with.  

This week my long run is 18-20 miles.  I ran up and down Angela for hills yesterday.  I looked like a crazy person.

What is the picture on the front of your blog?

My fifteen minutes of fame.  My girlfriend and I ran Boston together a couple of years ago, and it was horrible.  The nor’easter can through the night before, and the weather was awful.  We were standing out in the rain two hours before the race even started.

So when we finally finished, we were really ready to be done.  We held our hands through the line together, and someone snapped a picture of us.  Several months later someone asked if they could use our picture as promo for the Boston outdoor campaign for 2008.

My friend and I went back to Boston for the Olympic trials that year.  In addition to seeing Dina win the trials, we got to see thousands of tiny Jackie and Kelly’s plastered all over Boston.

What was the inspiration for the post “30 Things I’ve Learned in 30 Years”?

It was kind of funny, because I needed some catch for turning thirty.  I’m not really into birthdays, but I didn’t fear thirty.  I wanted to be thirty like four years ago.  I thought, “maybe people will start taking me a little more seriously and not treating me like a college student”.  I feel like a lot of people are negative about getting older, but I feel like I’ve learned a lot in 30 years.

My girlfriend wrote me after and told me how much she loved that post.  She said “I laughed, I cried, and I said ‘yep, that’s exactly how I feel’”.  It’s very validating when you hear that kind of stuff.  

You wrote a few things about Girls on the Run in that post.  What have you learned from that?

I just love sports.  I know that Girls on the Run is not a “running” program but it obviously taps into athleticism.  When I look back to my upbringing, I didn’t get caught up in a lot of the girl drama because I was in sports.  I played with boys instead and didn’t want to worry about which ones liked me. 

You can still be girly though.  I mean, I’m married, I wore the white dress! I wear running skirts, I do girly things too.

But I hope I have kids who are into sports, I don’t know what I’d do otherwise…

But really, I think it’s important to not squelch whatever your kids want to do.  I had a girlfriend who was the same way, and turned out her daughter loved pink and dressing up as Disney princesses! I think it’s important to not squelch that, just like I wouldn’t have wanted my parents to squelch me playing sports.

It’s like what we preach at Girls on the Run, don’t fall into a pigeonhole.  

What advice would you give to any new runner?

Don’t give up.  It sounds so cliché, but I think back to when I started running distance, and I remember one run I went on with my Dad.  It was so hard, so painful, I couldn’t do it.  And you’d never think that talking to me today. Everybody starts somewhere.

It’s like the girls we coach at Girls on the Run, you don’t know what you can do until you let your mind go there.  I can do five miles if I want to, but I have to WANT to.  

Make it what you want it to be.  The nice thing about running is that there is a lot of camaraderie, it can be very team, group oriented, but at the end of the day it’s just you doing the work.  So you know, do it for you, don’t compete with other people.  If running 4 miles at 12 minute pace is what makes you happy, do it.  If running a 3’10 marathon makes you happy, do it.

Just know that it takes a little bit of time for it to feel good, and then once it feels good you’ll never want to stop. 

David Lewin

David Lewin, the owner of South Bend’s Metro Run and Walk, is an active member and sponsor of the Michiana Runners Association.  Beginning his running career at 34 years old, Dave has seen many changes in the running world.  Read on for some insight into the business of running and his resume of 30 + marathons.

 How did you get started running?

I actually didn’t start running until I was about 34.  A lot of people in my family ran, and my doctor said I better start taking care of myself, so running seemed like a great way to cure my health problems.  That was during the first “running boom”, and things were a lot different.  Back then there were more 5 and 10 mile races, not as many 5Ks.  I think it all started to change with the Olympics and marathons.  People started to run more competitively. 

The first running boom refers to Bill Rodgers in the 1970s which ran all the way into the 80s.  There was a guy named Jim Fixx who had written some books and was very well known.  He was probably in his late 40s, early 50s.  Back then a lot more people smoked, and there were a lot of people who smoked and ran.  One day, Jim Fix, who had written all of these books about running, died from smoking problems and everybody realized that wasn’t how you were supposed to do it.

And it just kind of waned there in the mid nineties.  Fewer and fewer people were running.  After the 90s it started to pick back up again.   And I think that one of the drivers now that wasn’t there back then is that a lot of people are health conscious now: people your age, people my age.  And it’s easy.  Walking and running is the least expensive form of exercise there is.

How were the races different back then?

I could remember when there was no nutrition technology at all.  Just flat coke, oranges and bananas, that’s all they would have in races. That and water stops.  No Gatorade.

The shoes today are much better.  Back then everybody had a cyst on the front of their foot.  You had to tie them so tight.  And today there are perfect fits for everybody.

So what was after that first marathon?

Well the first marathon was three years after I started running.  Then after that I kept racing, probably three a year, 10Ks all the time, a few half marathons.  

What were the best and worst marathons you’ve ever run?

Best marathon? Probably the Dallas White Rock Marathon or the Marine Corps Marathon. In Dallas, the weather is always perfect and it’s such a pretty course.  It's is a great city and the race goes through different neighborhoods.  It’s not so big like Chicago, which is shoulder to shoulder sometimes.  

The Marine Corps is cool because of where it is.  It starts out in Arlington at the Iwo Jima monument, then crosses the Potomac, runs through Georgetown and through downtown DC.  It’s a beautiful course.

The worst? Probably New York.  It’s so crowded, and such a logistical nightmare.  There are no hotels close to the start, you’ve got to take a bus or a taxi.  It’s in November, cold, you’re out there 3 or 4 hours before it even starts.  It’s so crowded, and there are so many places where the road is 6 lanes wide, 2 lanes wide. 

It’s amazing to think that the city can just shut down like that, but the sheer mass of it makes it really difficult to maneuver.  Once you finish in Central Park you’ve got to walk a mile right back there, and then you’ve got to get a cab all the way back.  Probably the least enjoyable one.

I did the Disney marathon too.  Half marathon on Saturday and the full marathon on Sunday.  That one was tiring.  

When did you start Metro Run and Walk?

I’ve had this store for ten years.  One of my sisters had three stores like this in Northern Virginia and Maryland so I opened one up here.  

How is the business?

It’s very seasonal.  March, April, and May are the busiest, winter and middle of the summer are the most difficult.

Although this winter hasn’t been so bad because it’s been so nice out. People are running outside, which is unusual.  That always helps.  They are outside running 5 miles instead of 3 miles on the treadmill.  But when we have a fall like we did last year, going along having a nice transition, all of a sudden it goes below freezing before October, people don’t buy clothes, anything, just go right indoors.

If we have a nice gentle transition into winter like this year, people stay outdoors longer.  When that happens, I should just sell gloves and hats and forget about the rest!  Everybody loses their gloves.

What about competition with some of the bigger sports stores out there?

Well, there’s always competition with places like Dicks and New Balance.  Dicks is a little bit of competition because they are always cutting prices, but we set ourselves apart from them by providing service and personalization.  Those bigger stores are a certain type of competition, but on the other hand they're not.  We send people up there, and they send people down here.

What about the clothing side of the business?

Clothing is more of a headache, you’ll never know what people will like, what colors they’ll want.  It used to be that these kinds of stores were the only ones who made microfiber clothes.  There wasn’t any Under Amour. Now everyone's making it.  You go up to the bigger department stores, and they’ve all got their own brand of microfiber.  But if you go feel that microfiber, then go feel the stuff from Brooks and Mizuno, you'll see that the running brands are much nicer.

Back when I started running, clothing had just started coming out made of polyester and polypropylene.  And if you were running a marathon, you’d end up getting bloodied from the abrasion.  So it kept you cooler than a cotton shirt but the fibers were still large. Now the fibers are very small and feel quite smooth. 

Do you find that difficult?

It’s a little easier to define what people will want in a shoe. Whereas trying to say “Don’t you like this pink shirt?” is a little harder.

The other problem with winter clothing is that people say how much am I gonna do that? Here, once the weather gets bad, a lot of people go inside on the treadmill.  They don’t even bother going outside.  Except for this winter.

What about shoes?

It’s getting in the right kind and shape of shoe.  People really tend to prefer the type of cushioning system the company uses.  So when people say Asics works for me it’s like saying a Chevrolet works well.  All those companies, Asics, Brooks, Mizuno, Nike make these technical shoes, stability shoes, motion control shoes and these days they’re all making light weight shoes.  But it’s the shape of the shoe and the cushioning system that makes a difference in how the shoe works. 

You shouldn’t pick shoes by what your friends run in.  That’s not really the way to pick your shoes based on somebody’s recommendation.  They are so similar in so many ways but have so many different features. Some people like a more pillowy feel and some like more firm.  After they’ve been running they kind of develop a preference for it.  

Nobody's feet are the same.  You’re lucky if your two feet are the same, much less the same as somebody else’s!

How do you fit new customers with shoes?

We put them in a neutral shoe, a real soft and flexible shoe, and watch them run outside or on the treadmill.  We watch for their foot strike and how much flexibility they have in their ankles.  If they’re brand new, they should be doing a walk run, a program where they are walking five minutes, run for a minute, etc.  We make sure that they are comfortable walking and running in the shoe.  These days there are so many features in a shoe that I have plenty of shoes I like to run in but don’t like to walk in because of the way they hold your foot.  After that we look at their arches, the shape of their feet and see what shoes will fit their foot properly.  Look at them walk or run in the shoe and see how it helped them keep their stride.

The biggest problem in a new runner is shin splints of knee pain.  A lot of the time knee pain will subside, or you get used to it.  If it’s caused by not enough support, then a shoe can help that.  When you over pronate, your leg twists on hard surfaces.  We try to get them into the right kind of shoe that way, something with the right arch in it.

How do you keep up on the new trends?

Companies come around and have reps that show us catalogs about twice a year.  The Dicks buying is all done in Pittsburgh, whereas we buy them right here in store.

The companies usually have an idea of what will be the more popular colors.  This is a more conservative area of the country, especially for men, so you’ve kind of got to keep it toned down.  You just kind of learn what the colors are.  The colors are becoming brighter, a lot more different.  The other thing that’s been changing is that with a lot of the colors nowadays, you can’t tell the difference between men and women.  That benefits the companies in generating costs, but makes it a bit more difficult on us, because when I opened we’d never buy some of these colors.  Ten years ago there’s no way I would’ve bought a mens shoe in white and turquoise.

All the interest is in lightweight zero drop shoes where your heel is lower to the ground.  There are a lot of new companies getting into it.

How do you find mixing a business with pleasure?

That’s a little bit of a problem that a lot of people have who get into this kind of a business.  They get into trouble because they are mixing their pastime with business.  You have to keep the business side of it separate from your enjoyment.  I was always into marketing and sales, and that has helped quite a bit, but you’ve got to keep that separate.  A lot of people say, oh it’d be great to be you and go running all the time, but even at my age I’m working 70 hours a week.

What do you like most about running Metro?

It’s fun helping new runners who come in with problems, or when people come in and say “I heard this stuff, it’s called Glide…?” It’s kind of fun doing that.  Most of the people who come in here are customers who really want to be here, rather than working at a grocery store where it’s kind of a chore for the customers.

How did you get involved with Michiana Runners Association?

We’ve been the main sponsor ever since it started, four years ago.

For Sunburst, the first weekend in June that Friday, they have an expo in South Bend at the Football Hall of Fame.  We take all of our sales shoes and bits and pieces of this and that and sell them there.  People come from all over the country and say “oh they’ve got my shoe”! The one that was two generations back and we’ve got it.  We put a big tent up there and haul all of these boxes down there.

Once we had a woman who came to run the Sunburst marathon, whose daughter had left to go back to school the same morning she came here.  Her daughter had taken her mom’s shoes with her by accident, and the mom came in panicking about running the marathon in a different pair of shoes than the pair she’d been training in.  Luckily we had her shoe, so she came down to the store that day to buy a new pair.  I’m sure she had a few words with her daughter after that!

What advice would you give to any new runner?

Biggest thing is to not do too much too soon.  Sometimes new runners tend to go out and run with somebody who’s a lot more experienced.  You’ve got to increase slowly to refrain from injuries.  Especially when you’re over 30. 

I can remember this one 15K I ran where I lived called the Roseville Crooksville race.  It was the pottery capital there and they made all of this pottery stuff and dinner wear.  It was so HOT.  That was the first race besides a 5 mile race that I’d ever run.  And I was the first one in front of the last person.  I didn’t want to be the last person ever again.