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| Woody Harrell |
I was amazed. I was fascinated! I was inspired! So much so that I put on my tennis shoes (literally my tennis shoes; who had a pair of running shoes back in 1964?), and headed out the door to run five miles for the first time. In fact, to run further than 100 yards for the first time ever…
When I made the half way turn around at the extreme edge of my hometown, both the excitement and the adrenalin were already long gone; and by the time I got back home, I was dehydrated, physically spent, and had two feet that looked like raw meat, with blisters on top of blisters. I collapsed into bed and didn’t try to crawl out again until it was time to go back to school on Monday. But in spite of the experience, the running bug had bitten…
Act II: the North Carolina Track Club. In 1970, I was fortunate to fall in with an informal group of recent college distance runners hoping a support club would help them extend their racing careers. It came about this way: At the time, I was doing a lot of running on the beach at Nags Head, North Carolina. Somehow I heard about a late summer 10-mile beach run held on the Bogue Banks at Atlantic Beach, NC. The race course was billed as "downhill," beginning at two feet elevation and going down to sea level. What’s not to love about that! In addition, there was the opportunity afterwards to chow down at the Sanitary Fish Market, a quintessential seafood restaurant in nearby Morehead City.
A small but extremely fast field of less than 30 runners assembled at the finish line on the day of the race, to be transported ten miles down the beach by volunteers, so the race could be run point-to-point with the prevailing wind. Local runner Don Jayroe served as race director that year, and afterwards was criticized for making two major mistakes: First, Donnie had not properly consulted the local tide charts, and the race start time coincided with the incoming tide, so that Atlantic Beach’s famed hard packed sand quickly disappeared, as runners were pushed further and further into the soft sand of the upper beach, making every step a Herculean effort. Secondly, Donnie was accused of measuring the course with an elastic string. In any case, the actual distance that day turned out to be 11 miles! And although it was out of Donnie’s control, runners actually faced a strong head wind the entire race. For someone who had barely trained to go ten miles, this combination of factors led to a very long afternoon. I thought I was in the race that would never end… However, at the end of the day, I discovered Donnie had done a great job of rounding up donations from local merchants as prizes, and when they got down to my 18th place, I was able to score a nice nylon windbreaker, certainly a first for me in the awards department!
More importantly, I found this bunch of ex-collegians who dominated the race to be a very welcoming group, with several of them having as a realistic goal getting an invite to the upcoming U.S. Olympic marathon trial. When asked, I quickly joined their North Carolina Track Club, making a newsletter and all kinds of training advice available to me. Being on the edge of this circle of elite runners certainly expanded what seemed possible as goals, even for an obvious non-athlete like me.
Qualifying: My first trip to Boston began somewhere between a lark and a whim. My NCTC buddies kept encouraging me to up my training to try a marathon, and even in the pre-running boom days of the early 1970s, Boston had a definite appeal. A few years before, Boston had initiated a qualifying time, and for 1973, it was still set at 3:30 (that was the time for everyone, with no further breakdown by age groups). Anyway, around January 1st, I decided I was going to Boston. I was in the army at the time, serving in an oxymoron unit in Maryland (i.e., "military intelligence"), so I had a little free time to train. When the Tidewater Striders announced they would sponsor a new marathon in Virginia Beach, the Rotary Shamrock Marathon on St. Patrick’s Day, I had a flat course close to home to run my first 26.2 mile race.
Common knowledge at the time said for the two months leading up to a race, your monthly training mileage had to average at least ten times your race distance. If you wanted to race 26.2 miles, then you needed to run a total of 524 miles in the preceding 60 days. I had barely half that amount under my belt when I joined 58 other hardy souls (57 men and one 60-something year old grandmother) at the Virginia Beach starting line on March 17th. We ran two loops, one north and one south, before finishing back at the start on the beach boardwalk. My goal was to run conservatively, and make sure I could finish. By the time we headed into the last five miles, the small field was very spread out, with everyone feeling the brunt of the northeast wind off the ocean. I was gaining on ninth place but still seven seconds behind when I crossed the finish line in 3:08:03. On Monday morning, I sent in my registration along with my two dollar entry fee ("in cash, non-refundable" said the instructions), and just like that I was on my way to "Beantown."
So, less than one month after my first marathon, I found myself among the milling throng in Hopkinton, anxious to begin a run towards Boston. I’m not sure exactly how we got there, but I do remember sharing a crowded motel room in Framingham with a bunch of equally poor runners the night before, and being way too wound up to get any sleep. I seem to remember something about everybody having to undergo a doctor’s exam at the high school gym, unless you had submitted a medical certificate from your own doctor. In four weeks, I had mostly recovered from my Virginia Beach race, but in no way had I been able to improve my training enough to expect a better result.
The Day of the Race:
"AS FOR THE RACE, if your left leg takes you 13 miles and your right leg does the other 13, all you have to worry about is only 385 yards!"
-The last item on the BAA’s "This is the only instruction sheet you will receive"
Some vintage marathon humor - Q: How many starters will there be at this year’s Boston Marathon? A: One, the guy who fires the gun; the others are all just runners!
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| Just after noon, Monday, April 16, 1973: 1,398 runners gather on Hayden Rowe Street, Hopkinton, Massachusetts. If you can spot Y29 amongst that large crowd of folks, that would be me... |
I enjoy the early downhill nature of the course as I speed towards Ashland. I am baffled by the race check points, which come at funky distances: 6 ¾ miles, 10.5 miles, 13 ¾ miles, etc. They’re of absolutely no use to me, but are one of those features that make Boston Boston. [And four decades later, I have no recollection of passing Wellesley College. I must have been going very fast on this stretch of the course…]
A running buddy of mine named Jack Mahurin always hopes for a hot day at Boston. He reasons southern runners will be used to warm temperatures after their typical early spring training conditions, whereas all the local New England runners wouldn’t have been able to acclimatize to running in the heat. Before leaving home, Jack checks the warmer than average forecast for Greater Boston, and concludes "We’re going to Boston, and feast on some ‘Yankee stew’!" The strategy works pretty well for Jack today as he finishes in 12th place at 2:25:31. However, for me, as good as this idea sounds in theory, in practice, not some much. By the mid afternoon, the temperatures are climbing to the unseasonable 80’s and the heat is becoming intense, just as I reach the Newton hills.
At the start of Heartbreak Hill, I hear a race official with a bull horn announce Jon Anderson of Eugene, Oregon, has won the laurel wreath in a time of 2:16:03. I have mixed emotions at this news. First, elation that for only the third time since World War II, an American had won the race. But also depression, that although the race has been won, I still have six plus miles remaining…
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Jon Anderson takes the lead.
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Near the top of Heartbreak Hill, I am starting to cramp up myself, and am in terrible need of some water, as aid stations are not in plentiful supply at Boston ’73. Running through a boisterous crowd of Boston College students, I gratefully grab at a young spectator’s offered cup, only to discover it is not the hoped for water, but an empty ice cream cup, complete with a wooden spoon. Failing to see the humor in this joke, I quickly discard it, and use the anger of the moment to propel me over the crest of the hill.
Just after the crest of Heartbreak Hill, a view of the distant city comes into sight, and with it the famous large CITGO sign. In my gathering fog of fatigue, I can’t remember whether it’s one mile to go when you see the sign, or when you pass it. It’s soon evident it’s one mile when you pass it, and that point for me is still a long way away. I am very depressed…
And then I hear someone from the crowd call encouragement to me by name. Talk about a shot of adrenalin! But how can this be? The handful of people I know in Boston today are all in the race. And this total stranger has used my formal name "Haywood" and not my nickname "Woody," something only my mother would have done. Then it comes to me, that back in the old days, the Boston Globe listed the name and number of every marathon entrant in the previous day’s edition of the newspaper. This guy had seen my number, quickly scanned the paper for my name, and called it out to me as I passed. I got quite a lift from being picked out of the crowd. I keep pushing for the distant finish line.
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| Jacqueline Hansen on the way to taking the woman's title in 3:05:59 |
Finally I reach the much anticipated Citgo sign. Now it is the last mile. The traditional Patriots Day Red Sox baseball game must be over, as there are large numbers of folks mingling outside of Fenway Park (Tigers 9, Red Sox 7).
My finish is both a relief and a blur. My time is 3:09:28, with all that went wrong that day, is only 75 seconds slower than my Virginia Beach time a month before. I find that encouraging…
In those days there were no t-shirts or participation medals for finishers (medals go only to the top 15 places – and they are hardly bigger than a thumbnail). A few weeks later a certificate will arrive in the mail, but on the day of the race, the only prize for finishers is the traditional bowl of beef stew. I know it’s expected, I make an attempt, but about two spoonfuls are all I can choke down after my stomach’s long afternoon in the heat.
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| What a difference a day makes: the finish line 24 hours later |
It’s not until much later that I learn I have not only beaten "Love Story" author Erich Segal (who was toting a hefty portable microphone while he ran the race to record his live comments for a TV show), but also, in our first head to head match-up, I have beaten the later to be famous William Henry Rodgers himself! (in his first marathon ever, the future "Boston Billy" is a DNF, dropping out at 20 miles. "It was a torrid day," he later remarks…)
Still, heading home on Wednesday, I already am able to take satisfaction in having helped America to a 1st, 2nd, and 358th place showing in its oldest and most prestigious road race.
Woody Harrell
Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland
For more personal accounts of the 1973 Boston marathon, click here.
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