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That Mature Runner: World Records Belong To The Amputees Too!

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By David Summerfield

And I thought I’d finished getting caught up with all the broken World Records out there! Ha!! A new one just happened, and it happened as I write this article – so, many of you probably know all about it! One remarkable Jacky Hunt-Broersma decided to see how many marathon-distance runs she could pull-off on consecutive days. The recognized record was 100 in a row, and as she was finishing her 82nd, along came Kate Jayden, a British lady who did 101. So, Jacky’s quest had to go at least to 102. The Boston Marathon (April 17th) was her 92nd in a row, and finished in 5:05:13 (it was a windy, rainy day). That’s just under a 11:30 mile pace…about her average on her daily marathons. That’s quite a feat, but more so since she was running on one good leg – the other was a stump taped to a carbon-fiber running “Blade”. As it turned out, after she finished #102, she thought “why not do 2 more, so I can finish up April with a marathon?” Here she is on #104:

(Jacky on her 104th marathon from gndiario.com, and #102nd from mybestruns.com)

In April 2020, she took on the challenge of running 100 miles on her treadmill, at home – this was when all races had been canceled due to the pandemic. She took part in the The Aravaipa

Strong virtual race (100 mile division). The races featured over 2,000 runners worldwide from 29 different countries. Ten percent of the proceeds from the race were donated to the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund. She finished in 23:38:44…. a world record for amputees! (Just so you know, that averaged a 15 minute mile, including potty breaks, and getting off to eat meals.)

(Just finishing the 100 miler from blocorrendo.it)

“‘I did it!! 100 miles in 23hr 38 on a treadmill,’ she wrote in the caption. Still, don’t let the pic fool you. ‘This is by far the hardest thing I have ever done,’ she continued. ‘I look a little tired in this photo . Everything hurts, my stump is bruised and full of blisters and I will be doing a shuffle for a while, hahaha but it was so worth it.’”
– Korin Miller, April 27, 2020, Women’s Health magazine

It was interesting reading all the articles about her. She grew up in South Africa, and moved to the US, living in North Carolina while going through the tough readjustment to losing a leg (in 2001). It took her 15 years to decide to try running – admitting she always hated to run, but figured it was worth the challenge. She entered a 5k, and finished, and somehow, that’s what lit the flame that completely transformed her life….from being an amputee – to being an exceptional runner who happened to have an artificial leg. Notice the difference in these 2 pictures:

(What 4 years can do! From pinterest.com)

I love her story. It reminds me of Kraig Kempt who finished the 2018 BRR in around 10 hours. He had no blade, only his left hiking boot somehow attached to the prosthetic. And it seems Kraig and Jacky had very similar motivations. Based on what Kraig told me, and what I read about Jacky – they both had a tough adjustment after their legs were amputated. Kraig’s was due to a fall he sustained off a cliff up in Bridger Bowl, while he was filming some of his athletes working out with the Alpine BSF team. He was a strong athlete himself, but NO runner! Losing his leg was akin to losing his life. A therapist suggested he find an impossible challenge to take his mind off his loss…and thus he entered the BRR. He was not a runner by any stretch – and had to learn to run – with only one working leg. And he succeeded.

(Kraig at the finish line – Photo by David Summerfield, Aug 2018)

In speaking with Kraig after his remarkable BRR, I found out he threw his whole life into remaking his self-image (those are my words!). He was determined to do this – obviously an impossibility by all standards. He said he climbed up to the top of Baldy so many times – learning how to negotiate all those tricky spots….I remember asking him specifically about the spot where you get out on a big boulder with a tree growing next to it, and you have to hoist yourself down to the ground below, using the tree. He knew the place well, and had figured it out. When the snow cleared, he practiced climbing up Sacajawea over and over.

This is how he figured out how to deal with the rubbing of the prosthetic on his stump – the blistering, not to mention the pain. And Jacky had to go through the exact same things. I didn’t know the “Blade” costs over $10,000, and isn’t covered by insurance. But it opened up her whole world. Since this marathon-a-day venture, I’ve found out the “rules” are not very clear about how to verify you’ve done it. So, it really enters that gray zone like the popular FKT runners are doing all over the place (Fastest Known Time). You keep your own time, there’s no camera on you all the time, no helicopters hovering, no press – just you and the obviously best route you can figure out. Jacky ran loops in her neighborhood (her family now lives in Gilbert, Arizona), loops around her daughters school (while waiting for school to let out), and the treadmill. One day, “day care” fell through, and she had to run the 1st 1⁄2 marathon in the morning, and the other 1⁄2 that afternoon. So, of course she’s wondering if that will make people frown! But the impact is all that really counts. I saw somewhere she has over 42,000 followers on Instagram, and receives so many posts thanking her for her example – that she has inspired them to go way beyond what they think they are capable of. That’s all that really matters. I’ll close by a great picture of Jacky running side-by-side with her daughter:

(Jacky and daughter from trailandkale.com)

I can’t resist a little postscript: after finishing her treadmill 100-miler, she stopped her watch, with the belt still running, so she just kept on running for a while. Her husband asked her if she wanted to get off….?? This was caught on video. She replied… “Yea, I’m pretty tired”. Many of us know the Tom Hanks movie Forrest Gump pretty well, and remember him running down those endless roads near Canyonlands, Utah – with the throng of followers behind him…with him not saying a word. At one point he just stopped, looked around, and in a very slow drawl muttered “I’m pretty tired. I think I’ll go home now.” (after 3 years of running…)

(Forrest Gump out in Monument Valley from pinterest.com)

Eliud Kipchoge Was Made A Hero, and Brigid Koskei Was Not

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The Mature Runner

By David Summerfield

Here I am still getting caught up with the breaking of world records. That’s what I get for not running competitively anymore – so, I lost track of the marathon explosions that happened recently. The more I looked into it, the weirder things became. I think this article might disturb some of you, and I apologize in advance. I got sucked into the heroic feats of the Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge … world record after world record. Interviews put him in the same sentence as Roger Bannister, Neil Armstrong and stopped short of comparing him with Albert Einstein. My curiosity led me all over the internet. (I have no ill-will towards such this extraordinary runner by the way, only envy!) But the corporate world has gotten a firm grip on our shared everyday experiences such as “going out for a run.” In an article a few months ago I got a little cheeky about Nike sinking millions of dollars into the “Breaking2” project. Hired (and paid mercenaries?) rabbits were given orders to run in a pyramidal phalanx (oops, sorry, that’s from Ancient Greece) uh, formation ahead of the three superstars to reduce wind. They had a perfectly flat paved racetrack – a Formula One racetrack in Monzo, Italy, measured at 1.5 miles (thus 17+ laps).

And Kipchoge emerged as the only one of the elite three to keep the pace and finished in 2:00:25. So, Nike still got to sell millions of $$ of their newly developed “VaporFly Elite” after the race was done (and of course all those runners were wearing the “barrier-busting” shoes). Since it was billed as a “private race” with rotating groups of three rabbits every few miles, this effort could not be counted as a World Record. To make the story even better, Nike “teamed” up with National Geographic, which recorded the whole battle …er race, and got it up on YouTube. When I wrote this part a few months ago, I felt something was fishy. Besides going to such extremes, it seemed a bit inhuman, or plainly not human. The time and effort and money could have been spent on building a running robot that would not have any human-like tendencies/foibles and could guarantee it would cross the finish line in exactly 1:59:59. And then, changing the dial on some of the diodes and transistors, they could program a 1:49:59 “effort” the following year. But surely humanity is not ready for such a blatant usurping of a hugely popular activity called running.

And now on to Oct. 12, 2019 and the INOES 159 Challenge. Again, I’m not really wanting to discredit anyone here, but a little research keeps coming up with amazing things!! First off, INOES is the fourth-largest chemical company in the world. What? And sponsoring an athletic event? Hmmm. I don’t think they need the money, and they don’t have running shoes to sell. They have a $61 billion/year revenue and employ 26,000. Well, Nike employs 75,000 and its yearly revenue is $37 billion. At least it’s clear both companies are putting on these events out of the goodness of their hearts and are not trying to get rich quick.

Back to the name INOES, which combines Latin for a new beginning, and Eos, the Greek goddess of the dawn, and Neos, Greek for something new and innovative. INOES states its name represents the “dawn of something new and innovative.” Okay, okay. So two years after Nike’s commercial venture into staging an event to display their prowess in running shoes, along comes a global chemical company. (I would have enjoyed listening in on their board meetings back then “Hey guys, let’s put on a splashy running event which has nothing to do with petrochemicals, you know, to relate to the average bloke).

Vienna, Austria was chosen as the venue – they boast a wide avenue in a park-like setting – it runs about 6.5 miles in a straight line, and only has to be run four times. This time Kipchoge is asked (paid?) to be the only runner (what? Talk about a private race), but there’s a phalanx of 41 world class runners to do the pacing. They also had an electric vehicle (no fumes) driving exactly at the 4:34.8 mile pace. In fact (this made me gasp) the pace vehicle blazed onto the pavement behind it a laser rectangle grid so the rabbits had to just run to keep up with the moving laser beam. This means there was no guesswork, and each posted kilometer time was within 3 seconds of each other.

So, Kipchoge ran a completely steady pace, with no variations, no hills, and the date/time (Oct 12) was 48 degrees, with slight rain at the start at 8:15 a.m. …that’s Austrian precision! Everything was calibrated to allow NO flaws. And Kipchoge had trained well and stuck to the script perfectly. With 1⁄2 mile to go he broke free from the rabbits and almost coasted across the finish line. The INOES company obviously had a much better PR manager than Nike – there were thousands of spectators along the course, urging Kipchoge on. Again, this was no private race, it was a spectacle devoted to one Eliud Kipchoge.

What amazed me was the Guinness Book of Records did recognize this as a world record, though the relevant sports federation did not. Oh well. And one last thing, an interview mentioned that the bicycle always by Kipchoge’s side, the one who handed over his drinking bottle (I wonder what was in it…) would quickly send the bottle back to be examined by the handlers where they determined if he was getting too much or too little fluids down his throat so they could tell him to drink more or less the next time. In my book, this is NOT an unassisted race. Yes, Mike Wolfe had friends at each Aid Station on the Bridger Ridge Run to hand him bottles of whatever he was drinking that day. So, he really could just run the darn thing without having to stop. My gosh, I wouldn’t want that! At each Aid Station I counted on the many minutes spent sitting down in the shade of a tree and casually drinking/eating to my heart’s content. Oh, I wasn’t going for any record, that’s right 🙂

In wrapping up this exposé (I mean article) I discovered that the Women’s Marathon World Record was set the very next day (after Kipchoge’s) in Chicago. No hype. No conspicuous sponsorship from big international corporations, no splashy anything. There she was, Brigid Kosgei, also a Kenyan. Oh my gosh. She took a minute off Paula Radcliff’s record from 2003 that had stood for 16 years. So let’s find out about Brigid.

Granted, she wasn’t trying to do anything but run her best. There was no fanfare about breaking a mystical barrier of time. Well, Paula Radcliff’s WR of 2:15:25 had been that impossible barrier to break – for over 16 years. Maybe I’m so amazed and upset that there weren’t thousands of fans urging her on like Eliud had just the day before. But then if I had been following her career, maybe I would have been one of those thousands to cheer her on!

In contrast to Kipchoge, Kosgei is a rather quiet person, keeping her personal life to herself. I did find one interview where she was asked about having children while training to be a world-class runner. She was very frank, and in so many words said it’s just a natural thing, and her advantage was being able to raise two wonderful children. It seemed so obvious she didn’t have a “handler” at her side during the interview and having this other person do the talking. Nothing was rehearsed. Looking over all the statistics, it’s interesting that both Eliud and Brigid won the 2019 London Marathon as well as the Tokyo Marathon. And, like Eliud, Brigid has a long string of winning the world’s most prestigious marathons.

As an aside, I have to comment on the official name of the two marathons where world records were set: the Virgin Money London Marathon, and the Bank of America Chicago Marathon…get my drift? $$$$$). The last similarity I could find: they both were wearing Nike’s infamous Vaporfly shoes.

You just can’t get away from it. I better stop here before the blood pressure goes up any higher 🙂

Hmmm, does this article assuage my not running anymore?

The Mature Runner

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He Won the Ridge Run…and Then Everything Else!

By David Summerfield

In the search for something interesting to write about for this newsletter, I chanced upon the official list of running world record holders for every distance and age category imaginable. I had fun learning about (again) Derek Turnbull and his running exploits, which are worth noting again. He is a New Zealander, lived to be 80, and started running when he was 40. In a 3-month span in 1992 (65-69 age category), he set six World Records, ending with the London Marathon in 2:41:57! I remember finding out about that some 20 years ago, and instantly realized I would never set a world record in the marathon. Sigh. (His other records include a 4:56 mile, a 16:38 5k, and a 34:42 10k). Here he is setting one of those records!

(Photo from mastersathletics.net)

So then I went down the list of various distances, and my eyes popped out when I saw Jim Walmsley as having the fastest ever (in history) 50 mile run last year. Somehow I consider Jim a “local” hero, even though he didn’t set the BRR record. As I remember he was having foot problems from a previous run and was trying out Hokas to ease the pain (he needed more padding). He signed up just like everyone else and made it through the lottery somehow. I remember his essay included the fact that he could run well and was likely to be a potential winner. Here’s what the official BRR plaque says, 3:14:03! But he won, even though the year before Minde Erickson ran a 4:13:37!

All I could remember of Jim was his outlandish Rim-to-Rim that same year. So, I was propelled down memory lane once again…In 2015 Stacy and I did the Rim-to-Rim (south to north) of the Grand Canyon in a mere … 13 hours. Here we are arriving at the North Rim Trailhead, which would be Jim Walmsley’s start and finish just two months after his BRR in Bozeman (how egotistical to put us in any kind of league with the world record holder, but it’s sorta fun:-)

After we met Greg Young, Terry Leist, and Carrie Krause at the North Rim we all feasted the night away, and sent them off to do the North-South route the next morning…in a mere 7 hours. Here are the 5 of us the next afternoon as the trio arrived at the South Rim Trailhead:

That seemed SO fast to Stacy and I – almost twice as fast 🙂 Then along came that Walmsley fellow who had the audacity to do the R2R2R in a FKT of 5:55. Sheeesh. That was no “mere” time! He had moved to Flagstaff, AZ, so was a short drive away from the South Rim. He did “repeats” down into the Canyon and back, honing his skills and comfort level (even if agonizing pain is the price of getting comfortable tearing down the path and back up). For those of you who haven’t done this yet (and really, you should) there are 1000’s of steps created in the paths with logs or rocks as steps and those steps (to cut down on erosion) are between 6” and 12” high. And the steps are anywhere from 2 to 6 feet apart, so the body is constantly landing hard at irregular intervals. And going up, there’s the constant need to hoist yourself up ever changing heights. Stacy and I got worn down, and on the way out to the North Rim we pulled out the hiking poles so we could more easily push our way up each step. Jim, on the other hand (and there is NO comparison of course) developed his strength over time, and also knew every bend in the trail so well. He developed a “battle plan” over several years, especially using conversations with Rob Krar (the record holder before him in 6:21:47). It is really worth the read (irunfar.com/jim-Walmsleys-grand-canyon-r2r2r) for those interested, especially if you intend to even do the “simple” crossing (Rim-to-Rim). Here is Jim finishing the first half of his trip, arriving at the same kiosk as us the year before – actually, his time for the South-to-North was a FKT as well. 2:46:08 … hmmm, that means he was 5.3 times faster than our trip. Okay, he’s fast!

(Photo from Runningmagazine.ca)

In his account, he had an encounter with a mountain lion down near the Colorado River, and his watch recorded 2 consecutive 5-minute miles as he “ran for his life”. It was still dark, and all he saw by headlamp was the glowing pair of eyes, and the long tail disappearing up a nearby rise as he went by. He figured that must have changed his game plan, and as he neared the North Rim, he figured he should just stop, knowing he had already gotten a “fastest known time”. But there was a crowd there, and everyone was expecting him to continue going for it. I like the look in his eyes… “Darn it all, I’ve just had the run of my life, and you guys want more….can I really pull this off?”

While getting all this information, I finally found out another reason he’s so famous. Back in 2016 he had gotten to mile 93 in the Western States 100-miler, and was way ahead of everyone else. Then he made a wrong turn, and lost enough time to only come in 20th. His last 3 miles took him an hour – he was broken! That set him up for a major depression, and the Jim Walmsley we saw at the starting line of the BRR was a much chastened and recovered ultrarunner. The 2016 Western States was run on June 25th, just 6 weeks before the BRR that he won. Seems like he was maturing the champion he was to become. By 2018, he entered the Western States again, and broke the course record, and broke that record again in 2019 (14:09:28) and won again in 2021 (14:45:56). Somehow with all these records flying around, he is staying healthy and if you go to the Wikipedia thing, they list all his 1st place finishes. It’s a long list.

And the last thing I really wanted to write about was his actual World Record 50-miler. It happened May 4th, 2019 in Folsom, CA, and he ran the “Hoka” event on a USATF-certified course that includes an 18.8-mile point-to-point stretch from Folsom to Sacramento on the American River Parkway followed by nine consecutive loops around a 4.7-mile circuit in Sacramento. The more I read, the more nauseous I felt! This was a publicity stunt! Everyone (12 hand-picked elite HOKA runners) ran in a “top secret” shoe called the “Carbon-X”, but that name was a secret until May 4th. Of course, the shoes were available in stores on May 15th – be the 1st on your block to own a pair….. And this next piece is taken from an article written by Adam Ruggiero at “GearJunkie”: “The 36-year-old 50-mile record fell to Jim Walmsley running in a pair of HOKA ONE ONE’s Project Carbon X, a shoe release focused on breaking road running records.

A dozen HOKA athletes, all striding in the same pair of shoes, pounded the pavement Saturday in Folsom, Calif., each of them focused on setting records. Dubbed Project Carbon X, the event was part athletic endeavor — the 100km course received USA Track and Field (USATF) approval and was eligible for IAAF world record status — and part publicity stunt for HOKA’s upcoming racing shoe, the Carbon X.

“And while the coveted 100km record eluded the HOKA fleet, 29-year-old American Jim Walmsley managed to take down the 50-mile record set by Bruce Fordyce in 1983. Walmsley eked past Fordyce’s 4-hour, 50-minute, 21-second mark with a new record time of 4 hours, 50 minutes, 7 seconds.”

There. For those of you who follow the current ultrarunning world, this is old news. But for the rest of us, I’ve brought you up-to-date a bit. Who among us has been the 1st to buy a pair of Carbon-X’s? Do any of us really wear 8.5 ounce shoes? I need gobs of cushioning. Well, Kyle Klickir probably has a pair – right Kyle? Anyway, happy melting of the snow and ice, and hello to the mud and receding snowfields!!

The Mature Runner: The Silva

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The Silva – Laroupe Duo Set A High Standard!

By David Summerfield

A headline today really caught my attention: the name Germán Silva brought back so many memories that had fired my imagination 28 years ago. He won both the 1994 and 1995 New York Marathons (2:11:21 and 2:11:00) as an unknown Mexican in the running world. He even took a wrong turn with 0.7 of a mile to go, corrected his mistake (and his last mile was a 5:11) … and won a few steps ahead of his countryman and training partner, Benjamin Paredes.

(Photo from sports.vice.com)

He epitomized the unpretentious, humble, quiet runner who just knew how to run fast and long. I had completely forgotten about him until I learned he’s been running the entire length of Mexico for the past three months, averaging over 30 miles a day … even though he retired from professional running almost 20 years ago. I remember he took his New York Marathon winnings and helped bring electricity to his hometown.

But this current run of his … he’s supposed to finish on Feb. 20 at Tulum, in the Yucatan, overlooking the Caribbean Sea. Of course, he is being tracked by all the high-tech instruments cataloging every step of the trek, and he has covered 3,134 miles. On the map, you see him starting in Tijuana, on the Pacific, and he made sure he visited all the important aspects of Mexico, going through 17 states – this is a trek to publicize the real Mexico … as he put it, he ran the full length of the “veins” of Mexico. He didn’t skirt around the drug cartels – he went right through the heart of the cartels, being filmed the whole way by his support crew (his wife, kids and physiotherapist). He wanted to show the normal world of the cartels where people don’t get killed – being stopped by armed gunmen though, explaining what he was doing – seeing their faces light up who then called ahead to the next checkpoint where he was greeted with open arms. He climbed to the summit of Mexico’s highest peak (a winter ascent!) – Pico de Orizaba (or Citlaltepeti), at 18,491 feet. It straddles the states of Veracruz and Puebla, and is the 3rd highest peak in North America behind only Denali (Alaska) and Logan (Canada). It is really worth looking into the reporting of Kevin Seiff of the Washington Post.

(The route up Pico de Orizaba. Photo from exploringtherockies.com)

(The summit of Pico de Orizaba. Photo from summitpost.com)

He was followed by his own film crew who took great pictures and he relates his conversations with Silva. Kevin had just run a 2:48 marathon before meeting with Silva, and tried to run with him on a “typical” 30-mile day. Just as I would have, Kevin thought he surely could keep up with a 54-year old who’d been running for over 1500 miles, and had been having some physical problems. Little did he know that toward the end of that day, they had to climb (jog) over a mountain on a rocky trail (the support vehicles had to take a different route). He realized he’d blown it, said good-bye, and quickly retreated to find the support crew going down the rocky road. I love Kevin’s reporting as they first met to run together: “His toenails were falling off. His left calf hurt. And his right hamstring. And basically everything else. He was 1,574 miles into the journey, deep in the mountains of central Mexico. Silva guessed we’d run 32 miles or so, but he wasn’t sure. ‘I’m not feeling great. You’ll have to be patient with me,’ he said so tenderly that I believed him.” As Kevin wrote in his article: “The run he says, is meant as a pivot away from the country’s narcos-tequila-and-beaches caricature; a nod toward something less Hollywood, less Instagrammed.”

This storied runner obviously still had his mojo going quite well!! I found out that Silva started coaching kids in his hometown, and over the years it became his profession– coaching people of all ages. He was a national hero after all. And then he started organizing races, formed his own company, and still leads a very active life, supporting runners all over Mexico.

(The route going over the “veins” of the country. Photo from cronica.com.mx)

In trying to find out if he made it to Tulum, I went through the Internet asking, “Did German Silva make it to Tulum today?” I was saddened to see that the vast majority of articles that day wrote about all the killings going on in Cancun, Tulum, and other popular Mexican resorts. Silva obviously has a huge role to play – or rather a very long path up a very steep slope to change what’s going on in Mexico!!

I was also happy to see his work promoting a good, healthy running community which earned him many accolades – the Abebe Bililla Award for promoting running in the Mexican community; and through the NY Road Runners, the King Felipe of Spain “Prince of Asturias Award” was given to Silva and Tegla Laroupe! Oh, my gosh – Tegla Laroupe! I’d forgotten about her too! So, of course I had to look her up! I’d forgotten she won the NYC Marathon the same years as Silva, and for a while she held the world record of 2:20:43. And she established the Tegla Loroupe Peace Foundation “Peace Through Sports”. And her story has to be told now.

(Tegla and German, happy winners in New York City. Photo from wsj.com)

She was one of 24 siblings, her father having 4 wives – part of a tribe of northern Ethiopia. Her father told her she was useless and would end up just babysitting the rest of her life. Well, school was 10km away, which she ran to and from every day. She realized she was faster than others, and tried to get help from a national sports federation, but was deemed too small and skinny. HA! She went on to win all the most prestigious marathons in the world many times over! And her dedication to promoting world peace through sports caused Kofi Annan (Secretary General of the United Nations) to name her the United Nations Ambassador of Sport.

(Photo from Pinterest)

So, what do we learn about all these extraordinary runners who came from incredibly humble backgrounds? They both excelled beyond their wildest dreams, and with their winnings, they gave back to the world in wonderful ways. I can’t help but ask, dear reader … you probably haven’t come from such humble beginnings, but how are you (we, me) giving back to the world that has nurtured you? Yes, you’re working to provide a comfortable living for yourself and your family, and once that’s taken care of….what else can you give? I think this running community of ours (BSWD) is a great place to start, as most of you already know firsthand!! And I congratulate all of you who are giving so much to this great running club of ours. The Secretary General of the United Nations probably won’t be giving you an ambassadorship anytime soon … but heck, then you’d have to start a global running organization, and your life wouldn’t be yours anymore. So I DO admire Germán’s and Tegla’s ability to give their whole lives to helping others. Their example is a great shot-in-the-arm to do our part as avenues open up! Happy March, and happy melting of the snow and ice 🙂

-David

Running For More Than Records

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The Mature Runner

By David Summerfield

I haven’t been involved or even interested in the elite USA running scene for a long time now. This does give me some guilt. Writing articles for a running club should deal with current running events, and so here’s my foray into what’s going on in the American running scene today.

I scoured all the various publications that I haven’t paid any attention to for so many years. Yes, I’m a “has-been” runner, but I can still get totally inspired by a good story! I was so happy to discover the Ryan and Sara Hall story. I do remember the emergence of Ryan Hall in the early 2000’s. Ryan and Sara were running at Stanford, got married in 2005, and these intervening 17 years is a story of incredible steadfastness, determination and one-point focus. For those who don’t know them, their story unfolds as follows.

I’ll start with their athletic achievements, but frankly, those are the least of what they’ve done. The more I look into what they’ve accomplished, the more unreal it seems. Athletic prowess, yes, but behind it all are two lives who are really committed to helping humanity in every way possible. So, here’s what many of you probably already know (I had forgotten). Ryan trained hard, often too hard, and kept getting injured. He did end up running the fastest American marathon (coming in 4th in the Boston Marathon) in 2:04:58, and then the American Record in the 1⁄2 marathon in 59:43. Of note is that Sara established the women’s American Record in the 1⁄2 marathon herself in 1:07:15, just a few days ago (Jan. 16, 2022). Those two records were 15 years apart. But, the story has just started. Both Ryan and Sara are obviously devoted Christians, and I took this off their internet site.

Said Ryan, “God was telling me that He gave me a gift to run with the best guys in the world, but He gave me that gift so that I could help other people … I started seeing myself how God sees me, and that was a really, really powerful shift for me.”

And from Sara, here’s what came out in an interview, “Although she might not be outwardly vocal about her faith, she’s never been shy or felt the need to hide her convictions. ‘You have to have a sense about what you’re being called to do,’ Sara says. ‘I never really envisioned doing this career for more than a few years; it wasn’t necessarily my dream. I would have been fine stepping away from the track in 2009 when I was dealing with a lot of injuries. I attribute it to God speaking to me and letting me know that there was more ahead. I always sensed something in my training and in my racing that there was more ahead.’”

Ryan and Sara put all this into practice by adopting four sisters from Ethiopia (Hana, Mia, Jasmine and Lily) They had often traveled to Ethiopia to train, so … they did what was most important to them!

In doing more research, I found out that Ryan (after officially ending his professional running career) decided to join a hearty group of runners to do the 3rd Annual World Marathon Challenge, who ran seven marathons in seven days on seven continents. Now that sounds like an adventure! He averaged a 3:39 marathon. Not bad. But the best was he realized he could finally stop training so hard (and get healthy), and I really love what he came up with next: he started weightlifting, and ended up gaining weight (from 127 pounds – to 165 pounds). Now, that’s something that will nag me for a while!! I think I have a natural running weight too … but how “healthy” is that? If I’m no longer trying to win races, why not really get strong, and forget a faded ideal of the “perfect weight” … Oh no, me, a weightlifter? Maybe that’s the next best thing for now 🙂

Here are a few thoughts about their STEPS Foundation. Ryan and Sara have worked on behalf of millions of women and children living in extreme poverty in Ethiopia through their foundation, the development organization they established in 2009. “In a country of over 4 million orphans, Ethiopia is in great need of sustainable orphan care. One of our most recent grantees, Kingdom Vision International, needs your help in their work in orphan care and education of some of the poorest children. KVI has placed over 1000 orphaned children into loving homes and has been a forerunner in starting domestic foster care and adoption in Ethiopia (the first to place a child into foster care) and successfully deinsitutionalized six orphanages with all the kids being taken in domestically. Its founder continues to do weekly foster care trainings all over Ethiopia and is working on a program for respite care. These services are not funded by the government and depend on donors. KVI continues to house older kids in group homes and special needs children and other children who are unable to be adopted. Recently they became very close to being unable to pay rent for their children’s home because of the hold on international adoptions that provides funding to orphanages.” Here they are “at work” in Ethiopia! I hope this story of the Halls has shown what can happen with elite runners who realize there’s so much more than just running fast! Happy February!

The Mature Runner – Let’s Start 2022 With Some Fantastic Energy!

/in , , , /by

By David Summerfield

Let’s make this more than a “Happy New Year” – how about a year full of aliveness, inspiration, and “going after it” if you know what I mean. This month, Stacy and I watched all of Bill Moyers’ interviews with Joseph Campbell, which was made into a PBS series “The Power of Myth” (1988). I became incredibly energized by watching all the interviews. Campbell was the consummate multidisciplinary scholar ever. Born in 1904, he kept learning all he could in every discipline, traveling the world over, and looking 1st hand into all the various cultures he could find. And his thirst for knowledge was always guided by an innate intention to live fully and show others how to do the same. He taught for almost 40 years at Sarah Lawrence College, and his interviews (guided by Bill Moyers) were really just treatises on how to be totally alive.

(From “Billmoyers.com” – Moyers asking Campbell a question from The Power of Myth interviews)

The kicker for me happened when Moyers asked him what his “peak” experience in life had been. We’re talking about his most outlandish or “over-the-top” experience in his life. Looking thoughtful for a few seconds, the by now familiar grin spread over his face – it was as if he were telling us a secret. It was a month before he graduated from Columbia University. (Incidentally, May 17, 1925). He was entered in the 880 (or half-mile), in a dual meet with Brown University. You could see by the look in his eyes that he was actually reliving the run right there in front of the camera. It was the perfect experience. He knew he was going to win it, and everything leading up to the start had been perfect. He led all the way down the home stretch and ended up running the world’s fastest 880 that year. (for track fans, it was a 1:56) This was Campbell’s example of what it felt like to be really alive or to have a real “peak” experience.

Perhaps you know why I’m bringing Joseph Campbell into this newsletter. Here was a tweed-jacketed professor of advanced years, sharing his knowledge. But ask him what the most meaningful experience in his life was, he immediately came up with this simple ‘ole 880-yard run on a track, during a regular ‘ole “dual meet”. Most of you have participated in track meets. Do I dare ask if you have just one track run that was the peak experience of your life? I bet many of us do have that one moment, which left an indelible mark on our psyche. Wanting proof that this really happened, I bought a subscription to the New York Times and went to their archives, and with the date of May 17th, 1925 (Wikipedia), I found my proof. There it was, and here it is:

(from New York Times “timesmachine.nytimes.org” May 17th, 1925, page 119. I’m guessing Campbell is the 5th from the left, back row.)

Of course this has led me to ponder what can happen inside our heads while we run. (And, frankly, run for more than 880 yards. Okay, I’m talking about “distance” running….hours at a time. This is not to belittle those with fast-twitch muscles, who pack it all in, in just a few seconds. That kind of running is SO intense, I can’t imagine much “thinking” can happen as the yards flow by, it’s all just a matter of survival. But I do remember delivering what I’d call a ‘sprint’ at the end of a marathon – the final 100 yards…and I can’t imagine why I did that, other than trying to shave off a second or 2 in a 3-4 hour run. Surely I wasn’t trying to beat someone to the finish line at that point!) I digress again. With all that, now I have to include the fast-twitch runners along with the slow-twitch ones too, they are out there training almost as long as us LSD folks. Where am I going with this? Yes, Joseph Campbell comes into the picture again.

During the interviews, Campbell kept going back to the theme of “follow your bliss”. Running that race in 1925 was obviously still blissful to him over 60 years later. And that has everything to do with the act of being really alive….“People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.” So, I’m at least nudging you to go out there and “feel the rapture of being alive”. You’re out there running along for

hours of “alone time”, you can at least use the time to fabricate a way to really feel alive! Something tells me every being on this planet has a fire burning deep within…that’s waiting for its person to honor it by letting that fire burn bright and clear for all to see. And the “all” can just be the trees around you, or the rocks, the birds, the clouds – heck, even just the pavement!

First off, there’s no need to get on a world stage and pull off something remarkable (produce world records, etc.) You don’t have to be a Joseph Campbell. But you can be a____________(insert your name here). That’s a good place to start. So, I can be a David Summerfield, meaning – “Hey there David, what can you do or are doing to really ‘be’ David Summerfield?” Ask yourself that question. What do you love doing more than anything else? (And that can…should…change as you evolve.) And if you’re already doing “it”, then find a way to carry it to a new level. Oh, and this doesn’t have to be witnessed by anyone but you! My favorite “rapturous” activities are rarely done for others to even know about. That’s the fun part. It’s actually taken me years to realize everything I do is really just for me – I’ve come to actually need that influx of energy that comes from the “aliveness” activity. “Awhile” ago, I entered all sorts of running races, enjoying getting to the finish line as fast as possible, and I loved passing people towards the end – which always felt “rapturous”. Wait – what about those I passed on the way to the finish line? They must have felt a bit diminished, no? Absolutely. I did when I got passed at the end! Suddenly, the rapture was transformed into a “what an ego trip, David”. So now my rigorous outings are for me only. And I set my own standards to surpass or not, and the intense aliveness can come about fairly easily now.

So, no Earth-shattering feats, okay? But definitely shattering the blandness (repetitive tasks/chores/jobs done on a daily basis) of a life path that has perhaps become lacking in deep meaning. Of course Campbell dealt with that in his interviews: “If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it’s not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That’s why it’s your path.” Wait! What is he saying? Read that more carefully as I had to. Another way to put it is “every step you take is creating the path you’re on”. If you question the path you’re on….look no further than to observe the steps just taken. Do you like what you see? Is there anything there you’d like to tweak a bit – to make it more full of life…..or rapturous….blissful? I’m just saying, no matter what it is you do, do it with an aliveness that “knocks your socks off”. And keep trying the next day to do it again some other way. Why not have that rapturous feeling on a continual basis? Why not? Happy New Year with a continual experience of Rapture 🙂