Marathon Man Read online

  The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you for your personal use only. You may not make this e-book publicly available in any way. Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy.

  BILL RODGERS:

  To Karen, you have a Heart of Gold

  MATTHEW SHEPATIN:

  To Merel and Chris, the proprietors of the Monaco “Writers’ Retreat”

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  PROLOGUE

  •

  Relax, Mr. President

  ONE

  •

  The Teachings of Amby Burfoot

  TWO

  •

  The Full Twenty Miles

  THREE

  •

  Blown Off Course

  FOUR

  •

  Racing to the Morgue

  FIVE

  •

  Washed Out on Westland Ave.

  SIX

  •

  The Writing on the Hospital Wall

  SEVEN

  •

  Power of the Emerald Necklace

  EIGHT

  •

  Battle at Silver Lake

  NINE

  •

  Nothing but Heartbreak

  TEN

  •

  Boston, You’re My Home

  ELEVEN

  •

  San Blas

  TWELVE

  •

  Racing for Blenders

  THIRTEEN

  •

  Will-Ha

  FOURTEEN

  •

  Duel in Morocco

  FIFTEEN

  •

  I Can’t Run That Fast

  SIXTEEN

  •

  Lunch Break Runs

  SEVENTEEN

  •

  The Trials

  EIGHTEEN

  •

  Feet, Don’t Fail Me Now

  NINETEEN

  •

  Showdown in New York

  TWENTY

  •

  More Than a Shoe Store

  TWENTY-ONE

  •

  The Forty-Foot Wave

  EPILOGUE

  •

  Still Chasing Butterflies

  Further Reading

  Acknowledgments

  About the Authors

  Copyright

  To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.

  —STEVE PREFONTAINE

  The long run is what puts the tiger in the cat.

  —BILL SQUIRES, MY COACH

  PROLOGUE

  Relax, Mr. President

  I’m lucky to have a big brother like Charlie, for many reasons, including this one: For thirty-five years, he managed the Bill Rodgers Running Center—our shoe and apparel store in Faneuil Hall, Boston. Charlie took over the responsibility of running the store so I’d be free to put in the long miles each day that serious marathon training demands. (In my prime, I was churning out up to 170 miles a week.) Over four decades, the store organically evolved into an informal museum, cluttered with memorabilia covering my running career: old newspaper clippings, framed pictures, bib numbers, racing shoes, gloves, and jerseys. The store also displayed a treasure trove of photos and artifacts celebrating the achievements of past running greats who inspired Charlie and me since we were kids. The walls were additionally plastered with items paying tribute to the 116-year history of the Boston Marathon, which, for my brother and me, has always been more than a famous road race that takes place on the third Monday of every April. It’s been a big part of our life, of who we are, and of who we’ve become.

  As Charlie’s beard gradually turned white and grew down to his belly button, he became the keeper of this little temple to runners past and present. My brother, who has given thousands upon thousands of personal tours, was always happy to show off our framed Sports Illustrated cover of American running legend Steve Prefontaine. He was happy to divulge how we got our hands on a signed racing glove from immortal Czech distance runner Emil Zátopek. He was happy to tell you the tale behind a newspaper clipping of the infamous $10,000 Marathon Derby of 1908, when the “marathon craze” swept cities from London to New York. He’s happy to do all of this because, just like me, he loves running.

  Hanging among these prized mementos could be found a T-shirt with my most famous quote written on it: The marathon will humble you. But the truth is, sometimes it will do more than humble you. Sometimes it will break your heart.

  It was the 1936 Boston Marathon. Ellison “Tarzan” Brown, a brash young Narragansett Indian from Rhode Island, ran at a record pace through the first seventeen miles. Despite trailing Brown by three minutes, defending champion John “the Elder” Kelley remained ice cool. He knew the impulsive rascal would pay for his fast start now that he’d hit the series of Newton Hills—or what my coach, Bill Squires, called the Killer Chain. Sure enough, Brown started to tire through the treacherous hills. Kelley smelled blood. He blasted away over a three-mile stretch, erasing Brown’s entire half-mile lead. He pulled even with the fading leader. As Kelley passed him, he reached out and gave Brown a friendly pat on the shoulder, as if to say, Good try, kid. But you’re out of your league. I’ll take it from here. Brown was awoken by the gesture. He stormed back up to Kelley on the last and most daunting of the Newton Hills. As Brown surged past him on the steep climb, Kelley could only look on with helpless horror. Brown cruised to the finish line and was crowned Boston Marathon champion, while Kelley faded back to finish fifth. The late Boston Globe sports editor Jerry Nason, who witnessed the incident on the final hill from the press vehicle, described it as “breaking Kelley’s heart.” The spot has been known as Heartbreak Hill ever since.

  Here I was, forty-three Patriots’ Days later, trying to avoid my own heartbreak at the very same spot along the 26.2-mile course to Boston, only in my case, I was going head-to-head with Japan’s twenty-two-year-old phenom, Toshihiko Seko.

  I first noticed Seko shadowing me as I charged into the hills near the sixteen-mile mark, but, in fact, he had been on my heels the whole time. He was employing the same clever tactics he had used four months earlier at the prestigious Fukuoka Marathon in Japan, the unofficial world championship for marathoners: stay tucked in safely behind me. Wait … wait … wait … Attack on the home stretch. Blow me away with his strong finishing kick. This is how he beat me on his home turf, handing me my one marathon loss in 1978, after I’d netted victories at Boston and New York.

  I glanced back at the silent runner hovering just off my shoulder, like a predator patiently stalking his prey. As we ran a foot apart in the pouring rain, we looked radically different in appearance: I wore big white gardening gloves and a thick light-blue wooly cap, complete with a Snoopy patch. Seko was a sleek stealthlike figure with a neat crew cut and all-white uniform. (Author Robert Johnson once wrote, “If Bill Rodgers was the marathon’s Peter Pan, forever young and enthusiastic, Toshihiko Seko was Boston’s Mr. Spock—focused, businesslike, and humorless.”) Seko’s face was hard to read, but his steady, relaxed breathing, compact arm swing, and fluid strides told me he felt strong. My right arm swung wildly across my body, my stomach hurt, and I had to pee. Up the hills I began to waver. Seko passed me. I tucked in behind him and watched his form. I adopted his stride—a much shorter, quicker stride. I suddenly felt more at ease. I flashed back to Fukuoka. I couldn’t let him outkick me again in the end. I had to get rid of Seko now. I saw Coach Squires in the crowd and gave him a wink. It was the time to make
my move.

  Through the twisting stretch of hills, where so many runners have hit the wall and so many dreams have been trampled, I poured it on. But I wasn’t only trying to burn out Seko, I was trying to catch the leader, Garry Bjorklund. That made me run harder and faster. I didn’t feel fatigue when I was in pursuit of another runner. I didn’t think about Seko breathing down my neck as long as I had Bjorklund to chase down. I charged forward, all my focus on the one man in front of me.

  I finally caught Bjorklund at the base of the second Newton hill. As I overtook him, he glanced over to me and said, “Go for two-oh-eight.” But I was concerned with the win, not the world record. I glanced behind me. Seko was still there, still dogging me every step of the way. I had to shake him off. Up the hills I pushed, even harder now. But Seko wouldn’t go away.

  We reached Heartbreak Hill—the single most significant hill in all of road racing. I knew this would be my last chance to drop my rival. I thought back to the story of 1936—would this be where I’d have my heart broken? Would I watch victory slip through my fingers like John “the Elder” Kelley or soar ahead to victory like Tarzan Brown?

  I summoned my strength and roared up the hill. As I crested the top of the mighty hill, I looked over my shoulder. For the first time, Seko had dropped back a few yards. I couldn’t believe it. He was fading. That last climb had done him in. This was his first Boston Marathon. He didn’t know these hills, but I did. I trained on them sometimes twice a day. I knew why Coach Squires called this stretch the Killer Chain. Not because of their severity, but because of where they began—at mile 16, when legs start tightening and spirits begin to break—and how they culminated. On Heartbreak Hill. Welcome to my home turf.

  Up until that point, I had been running scared. But now, I had a little lead on Seko and a straight shot downhill all the way to the finish line. I felt gung-ho. Maybe I can win this thing, I thought to myself. I exploded down the hill, flanked by hordes of wild, screaming fans, the corridor between them barely wide enough for me to pass through. Ahead of me, an escort of three police motorcycles fought to keep the surging crowd back. In the madness, a policeman’s horse reared up, taking out one of my motorcycle escorts. I kept running, light as a breeze. I didn’t look back.

  An ear-splitting roar went up as I passed a huge party of friends and family, gathered outside the running store I had opened with my brother, Charlie, and wife, Ellen, two years earlier. In that moment, I tried to fathom how our little basement store had become the epicenter of the late-1970s Boston running boom, and how a skinny, wide-eyed misfit like me had become a big part of the sport’s explosion in popularity across the country.

  As I soared past the Eliot Lounge, where for years I’d shared many a good time with my runner pals, I caught a glimpse of Seko. He was about two hundred yards behind. I could taste victory. All along the course the multitudes chanted my name, “Go, Billy, Go!” I lifted my soaked wool Snoopy cap from my flowing blond hair and waved it to the cheering fans. It lifted me up to know this was my city, my streets, my people. They were on my side. The wave of my cap was my way of saying “thank you.”

  Over the last thirty yards, I sprinted with all my effort, my arms pumping, legs churning, sweat flying off me. The announcer shouted over the PA system: “Ladies and gentlemen, the greatest runner in Massachusetts, the greatest runner in the United States, the greatest runner in the world and the history of the world!” But all I could hear was the roar of the crowd.

  As I broke through the finish line tape, I gritted my teeth in a triumphant snarl, still holding my Snoopy cap tightly in my hand. Newspapers were snapping my photo. People were chanting my name. I had captured my third laurel wreath at Boston, broken the course record, and, after four years and many hard races run, set a new personal best time in the marathon—2:09:28.

  Moments later, I was packing up my clothes in the chilly, dank confines of the Sheraton Hotel garage. I grabbed a traditional bowl of beef stew, all the while signing autographs for as many people as I could. After a while, Ellen tried to tell everybody that I had to go home, warm up, and rest. “That’s okay,” I told her. “I can sign a few more.”

  The rain continued to pelt the streets as Ellen and I slowly made our way up Chestnut Hill Avenue toward my store. Despite the steady hum of raindrops falling on our heads, I didn’t exactly feel like sprinting. We reached Cleveland Circle, and walked unnoticed through the meandering crowd. But, all of a sudden, a few people spotted me. More and more heads began to turn. All at once, people started shouting out, “Way to go, Boston Billy!” By now, even runners were pausing in the middle of the course to applaud me on my journey home. Embarrassed by the attention, I hurried to the entrance of the basement store. Up above in a balcony, a bunch of young revelers with beer bottles hand saluted me with cheers of “Boston Billy.” I quickly ducked inside and locked the door behind us. Standing there with Ellen, soaking wet and exhausted, I could still hear the people chanting for me outside. I thought to myself, How in the world did I end up here? But what happened next would really blow my mind.

  It was the next morning. April 17, 1979. I listened to the rain patter outside the store while I drew a warm bath, where I’d soak my sore muscles. I was already half naked when I heard the phone ring. Ellen picked it up. Ellen always answered the phone. She was my gatekeeper, standing between me and the constant stream of requests from race directors wanting me to come to their races, people asking me to speak at their event, reporters and television producers seeking interviews. I heard her voice rising in annoyance, “Who’s calling? The president? The president of what?”

  There was a long silence. Then, Ellen called out to me, “Bill, you need to come out here.”

  I threw on a robe and came out of the bathroom. “It’s the president,” Ellen said in a shell-shocked kind of daze. “Of the United States.”

  When I picked up the phone, a presidential aide was on the other end. He asked me my name, and if I was somewhere I could talk. I replied “yes.” The phone suddenly went silent. I turned to Ellen, eyes wide, mouth agape.

  A minute or two later, a voice came on the phone. It was President Carter. He congratulated me on my third victory at Boston, and then we started chatting about the marathon. He told me he read lots of running magazines.

  “I grind out five miles a day,” President Carter said to me. “So I really admire what you marathoners do.”

  I told him to keep it up. He was doing a good job. As a runner. And a president.

  He ended the conversation by asking me if I was doing anything May second.

  Ellen rushed over and flipped open my appointment book. She gave me the thumbs-up.

  “Looks good,” I said.

  “Great. We’re having a state dinner for Japanese Prime Minister Masayoshi Ohira and I’d love for you to come.”

  “The woman who won the race. Joan Benoit. She’s a senior at Bowdoin College in Maine. She set the American record.”

  “Yes, yes. I’ll make sure she also receives an invite.”

  “Thank you, Mr. President.”

  The next day, we received the engraved invitation in the mail. It was black tie. I only owned one suit. Most of the time I wore race giveaway T-shirts and sweatpants. I would have to go and rent a tux.

  Future presidential candidate Paul Tsongas, then a Massachusetts senator, invited Joan Benoit Samuelson and me down for a luncheon the day before our dinner at the White House. At lunch, we put on a “running clinic” for the large group of senators that were there, including Senator Strom Thurmond, who was then in his seventies. He boasted that he had recently run six miles, and then asked me if I ate the white or yellow part of eggs. After lunch, the press corps took pictures of us shaking hands with the senators. They also snapped photographs of Joanie and me pretending we were jogging on the Capitol steps with Senator Tsongas.

  When venerable House Speaker Tip O’Neill, from my home state, heard we planned to take a cab to the White House, he gave us use of his
chauffeur and limousine. On the ride over to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, I sat in the back of the limo next to Ellen, fidgeting in my tuxedo. I was looking out the window when I saw a big sign that read FIREWORKS. I told the chauffeur to pull over. Moments later, I came out of the store in my tux, carrying a giant box of fireworks. I gave Ellen a big smile. She sighed and quietly shook her head. I knew how excited my dad would be when I showed him the bounty. He was a bit of a fireworks fanatic. So was I. In retrospect, bringing a stockpile of highly explosive fireworks to the White House might not have been the brightest idea.

  We were greeted at the entrance by a team of aides in military dress uniforms. They ushered us into a reception room. One of the aides briefed me on the strict protocols. He then told me a story about how he was strolling up to the White House one day when he spotted all these men leaping into bushes and ducking behind trees. He had no clue what was happening. In an instant, he caught sight of President Carter running by on his daily run. The Secret Service agents were leaping from tree to tree and bush to bush on the White House lawn, secretly keeping an eye on Carter while he was running.