Always a runner…

The t-shirt had a simple design. In the middle was a vibrant, ripe orange. Above it was the word Florida. That’s it. I wore this shirt until it had holes the size of the orange itself. It got pretty ratty, but I continued to wear it. It was the logo of the Florida Track Club. No, I wasn’t a member. For those unaware, the Florida Track Club in the early 70’s consisted of Jeff Galloway, Frank Shorter, Jack Bacheler, Barry Brown, Bryon Dyce, John Parker…and the list went on. They were like the Super Bowl champs of the running world.

Guess it was kind of like someone wearing a 49er jersey. Do they play for the team? No, but I’m sure they are fans who feel good just wearing the jersey. In the Florida shirt, I felt faster. Feeling faster, I probably was. I’m sure the thousands of miles I put in wearing the shirt helped a bit.

A few years ago, I looked up the FTC online. They had shirts for sale so I put my order in. When the shirt arrived, I was disappointed. It was a very nice shirt; high quality material, very classy, but not what I was expecting. The orange was still there. Florida is above, but now in a bright blue, with the words Track Club under the orange. The shirt identifies its members well, where the old shirt could have been some t-shirt your aunt picked up on a vacation to Florida. That was the appeal for me. It was subtle. Those in the know knew the significance. The shirts may be been commonplace around the southeastern US, but in the fields around Davis, or in the hills of Antioch, California, mine was the only one around.

The actor playing Frank Shorter in the movie Without Limits, or was it Prefontaine, wore the new shirt: the one with Track Club under the orange. Just that little slip lost a lot of the authenticity of the movie for me.

I’m sure we all have had our favorite running t-shirts, but because of wear or a little outgrowing on our part, they are no longer wearable. Guess we’ll just have to keep running and sooner or later, we’ll have a new favorite shirt that we’ll sooner or later wear out or outgrow.

In trying to learn everything I could about running, I subscribed to every running magazine published in the 1970’s. I didn’t throw any away; at least not until the end of the 80’s. The garage was getting pretty cluttered. The magazines had to go. I made copies of interesting articles, and I did keep about 10 oldies. These days, I read them and toss them. Occasionally, I will copy a good article, but after 30+ years of running, there is only so many ways you can reword, or recycle concepts and training tips. Tips on training to run a five hour marathon don’t interest me.

So it was great fun the other day when I was rummaging through the garage and found my small stack of 70’s and 80’s running mags. I picked up the top one and started reading page after page. I probably sat there for an hour, amidst the tools, Christmas decoration boxes, and storage bins. The articles brought back memories of a different time. Boy, have times changed…and then again, they haven’t that much. There are days when I’m out running, that it feels as good as it ever did. Sure, we’re a bit slower, but the afterglow is still the same.

The first magazine I poured through was the March 1971 edition of Runner’s World. Jack Bacheler and Frank Shorter were on the cover. The black and white magazine sold for 75 cents. Where were the models on the cover? No guys flaunting their six pack abs. No women in some fake running pose. Just two guys, covered in mud, duking it out on a cross country course. Both were wearing their Florida Track Club singlets.

The lead article was an interview of Frank and Jack. They talked about their training, the possibilities of making the 72 Olympics, and training to be the best they could be. This was especially interesting as I had just met Frank Shorter about a week before. He came to speak at my workplace, and talked a bit about his history, and about his current work with the US Anti-Doping Agency.

The writers read like a runner’s Hall of Fame. There were articles by Percy Cerutty, Ted Corbitt, Fred Grace, Hal Higdon, George Sheehan, Joe Henderson and Skip Stolley. An interesting note is that Hal Higdon is still listed as a Contributing Editor of Runner’s World today.

There were only a handful of ads, unlike today’s with ads on just about every other page. Most were ads for either running shoes, or running stores. There were ads for Blue Ribbon Sports selling Tiger shoes, The Running Shop in Larkspur selling Reebok, Specialty Sports in Houston, Road King shoes, and Lydiard Road Racer shoes.

An article titled Cross Country’s varied elite listed interesting profiles on Steve Prefontaine, Donal Walsh, and Don Kardong.

A race announcement caught my attention. It was for the Salt City Marathon in Syracuse, NY. What caught my eye was a line that read: Everyone Welcome (including WOMEN). I forgot how much the 70’s were still in the dark ages.

There were no hints on how to get faster and stronger with less work. The gist of the stories was that you needed to run more to get better; simple as that. George Sheehan threw in medical advice mixed with good old common sense.

Hal Higdon wrote about turning 40 and his thoughts on Master’s running. Like all of us, it’s nice to know Hal still is, and will be, always a runner.