I used to watch Marty Liquori battle Jim Beaty in the mile race on tv and then go outside and run. In high school I was living on 450 acres of farmland and woods at a seminary, and like Forrest Gump would go for a run and have a group running behind me. When I was first married, I would run in my neighborhood, a rough area, and one night when I got home from a run in the dark, a big guy pulled up in his car and accused me of breaking into his house! I convinced him I was running for my health.
July of 1979, my good friend Greg Kolly convinced me to train and run the Det. Free Press 10k, the day before the marathon. We started training July 4 and raced in October. We ran in basketball shoes because there were no running shoes at the time and our knees were sore before the race. We drove to Windsor, Canada with our families and lined up in the back. Prior to this 3 miles was the furthest we had run but we got up to 6 miles in training. After the gun went off we ran behind a woman race walker and Greg motioned me to look at her. She wore a clear rainsuit and to my amazement, nothing on the bottom. Her tight little buns were moving furiously in front of us! I wanted to pick it up so I passed her, but I didn't look back to see the front. One of my few regrets in life! I finished in 1 hour at age 31 and have run faster at a much older age.