A Journey To Running's Mecca

Hayward Field at twilight during the 2008 Olympic Track & Field Trials. Photo Copyright Blake Timm.

My profession has provided me the blessing to be part of some of the biggest sporting events in the world.

In my 15 years as the sports information director at Pacific University, I have had the chance to work on the media staff at events like the 2002 FIFA Women’s World Cup, the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship and numerous professional sporting events in Portland.

Occasionally, it happens that my job allows me a front seat in some of my sport’s biggest events.  I worked at the 2008 U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials and the 2010 NCAA Division I Track and Field Championships, both great experiences at one of track and field’s most hallowed halls.

And it is happening again.  Beginning tomorrow, I head back down to Eugene, Ore., to work on the media support staff at the IAAF World Junior Track and Field Championships.  I will spend four days around some of the best young athletes in the world and the media that cover them.

The meet takes place at the University of Oregon’s Hayward Field. For those not familiar with the sport or the venue, Hayward Field is to track and field what The Palestra is to college basketball or what Yankee Stadium is to baseball.  It is a place where magic happens.

For the running world, Eugene and Hayward Field is the sport’s Mesopotamia. It was Oregon track coach Bill Bowerman who started the first running boom in the United States thanks to his book Jogging, which was based on what he learned about Arthur Lydiard’s movement to make New Zealand fitter country.  It is where Nike got its start and where one of the sports most iconic figures, Steve Prefontaine, lived and died.

Any trip to Hayward is special, but to have a chance to be part of this particular event is very special.  This is only the second time the IAAF has held a world championship on American soil (the last was the World Cross Country Championships in Boston in 1992).  And it is no secret that the meet is partly set to help Eugene make a bid for the 2019 IAAF World Championships.

There are some who think that Eugene doesn’t have what it takes to host the World Championships and even challenge the city moniker as Track Town USA.  I hope they prove them wrong, and I feel proud to play a small part.

There is one more part of this trip that will make it special.  I finish the trip off by running the Eugene Half Marathon on Sunday.  This will be my first long race since my injury earlier this year and I am looking forward to get back to competition and see where my fitness level is at.

The race ends on the Hayward Field finish line.  As a high school student, I missed the chance to run the state championship meet on this track twice.  Each time, I placed third at the district meet.  The top two advanced to state.

I will finally get the chance to cross that finish line.

Beginnings

Running and finishing the 1985 Capitol Classic 5K in Boise, Idaho.

The movement on social media known as "Throwback Thursday" (or #tbt in the hashtag and texting vernacular) has given our generation a new way to learn more than we ever wanted to know about our personal histories.

Through the world of Facebook and Twitter, we are treated to long lost photos of college parties (some of which should be forgotten permanently), bad elementary school portraits and even glimpses of Olympian Kara Goucher in her youth, complete with curly hair and large 80s style glasses.

Throwback Thursdays give us pause to think about the past, relieve the memories and reflect on where we have been, perhaps on where we are going.  As I have continued to pursue this lifelong passion, I have strolled back into the recesses of my memory, remembering how I started as a runner and how it has been engrained in my being most of my life.

My life as a runner began nearly 30 years ago as a fourth grader at Valley View Elementary in Boise, Idaho.  Little did I know that my early introduction would lead to a lifelong passion.

In 1985 in the Boise School District, it was up to classroom teachers to teach their own physical education classes (an unfortunate foreshadowing of years to come in the teaching profession).  My teacher, Virginia Thompson, was a product of the first running boom and likely the first person I knew who was a regular runner. So that spring, Mrs. Thompson introduced us to running as fitness as opposed to something we did at recess, moving from one part of the playground to the other.

(It is worth noting that Mrs. Thompson was quite the renaissance woman. In addition to being a master teacher, she was a proud mother and the author of a number of Christian self-help books.  In many ways an incredible human being.)

I had previous introductions to running before Boise.  While living in Medford, Oregon, I was entranced by the annual Pear Blossom Run, whose out-and-back course went right by school (by the end of high school, I would compete in the 10-mile Pear four times).  The year before, I was hooked on watching the Olympic Games on television, and most notably by the track and field events.

But it was Mrs. Thompson that introduced me (and other students) to running as sport, pleasure and fun.  Our running lessons would take us on laps around the school field, building up slowly.  The eventual goal was run continuously for 30 minutes, which resulted in the first award I ever received in my running career: A handwritten certificate celebrating the achievement.

That introduction led its way to my first races.  The Boise area took the lead in providing running opportunities for kids.  The Capitol Classic provided a one-mile course through the heart of Boise's downtown, from the train depot up above downtown, down Capitol Blvd., to the steps of the state capitol.  Every child received a shirt and a finisher's medal.  I still have both.

We lived in Boise for only two years, but those years provided the foundation for a lifelong passion.  I ran in two Capitol Classics and the Harrison Classic (another one-mile kid's run in another part of town) and took part in my first 5k race as part of the annual Barber to Boise races.

Those races led to participation in elementary and junior high school track after moving to Klamath Falls, to high school and college cross country and track and to today.

All three events still exist.  The Capitol Classic and the Harrison Classic, through the sponsorship of Saint Alphonsus Medical Center and the Treasure Valley YMCA, respectively, continue to create new generations of runners in a setting where it is not about times, but the experience.  Barber to Boise endures as an annual staple of the Boise running schedule.

So to Mrs. Thompson, who took special care to work with a high-strung fourth grader in 1985 who had just escaped exile in Utah, you did many things to influence my life positively.  But the most important thing you may have done was instill in me a love for running.

Thank you.

The Journey Or The Destination?

On a recent trip to church family camp, I had a conversation about workouts and training with one of the camp staffers.

Like many camp staff, Zarin was in college and still has his whole life ahead of him.  He was one of those high energy types, leading the campfire with enthusiasm and manning the swimming hole like everyone's big brother.

It was one of those trips to the swimming hole that sparked our conversation.  Dressed in a sweatshirt and long sweatpants, Zarin certainly seemed overdressed for a 70 degree afternoon at creekside.  I recognized the high school on his sweatshirt and started a conversation about his athletic career.

After completing a set of one-footed core exercises, Zarin told me he was a high school wrestler. A lightweight, he competed at 119 pounds.  He wasn't shy of speaking of cutting 15 to 20 pounds to make weight and then proceeding to be voraciously hungry the rest of the weekend.

But that's not the point of this story.  Zarin continued his workout as he lifeguard at creekside: More core work, strengthening stretches for his back and upper arms, runs up and down the adjacent trail.

Before diving into the swimming hole, Zarin stripped off his sweatshirt and pants to reveal a plastic sweatsuit underneath, the type wrestlers wear sometimes to speed up perspiration and weight loss.  He hadn't sweated enough, he said.  The idea was to get as much weight off as fast as possible, to get the workout done as soon as possible.  The goal of his workout was the destination.

Maybe it is a result of my older age, but working out solely for the destination, a means to an end, seems to be missing the point.

Granted, every time I head out for a run there is an end goal in mind.  It may be a distance, a time to run, a pace to hit in intervals or a tempo run.  In a race, certainly the end goal is to run faster than I did at that distance the time before.

As I headed out on my run later that afternoon, I pondered that point.  As I did, I could not help but breathe in the scent of the pine trees around and feel the dust of the camp road.  Even along the shoulder of the highway, my eyes trained to the sides, admiring the old farmhouses, the sheep grazing in the pasture, the family enjoying an afternoon on the lawn or the creek ambling below the old bridge.

There is an end goal to my runs, but the workout is so much more.  It is about my surroundings.  It is about recognizing a greater awareness of the world around me.  It is about being in within my own thoughts and developing a greater understanding for my life.  It is as much about the journey as it is the destination.

That is why many of my workouts take place over the noon hour.  It is a logical break to the day.  After a full morning of work and mental aerobics, hitting the roads gives me time to think, the sort out the questions of the day, to ponder my problems or even just sweat the frustration out.  It is a journey to make myself better, both physically and mentally.  Sitting out a couple of months with injury earlier this year hammered home that need.

Maybe the idea of the workout as a journey is only something understood as one gets older.  I am sure that in my high school and college days the point of the workout was purely to get better, to get faster, to be ready for the race that awaited that Saturday.  To be at the top of my running game to help the team.

But even adults don't completely embrace the journey.  They run to be able to eat more, to look good, to impress their friends.  At my Weight Watchers meetings, exercise is often spoken of as a vehicle to pick up more points, either to hasten along the weight loss process or to allow someone to eat more within the plan.  It is a means to an end.  It is about the destination, not the journey.

Maybe the idea of exercise as a journey is hard to grasp by the weight lifters, Jazzercisers and water aerobics faithful.  Short bursts of intense work don't lend much time for one to think.  Perhaps it is best experienced by those who must cover the miles for their sport, the runners, the cyclists, the climbers.  Those of us for which the experience is not about the finish line, but the time it takes to get there.

I will continue to pursue my running goals with vigor, but I am in no rush to reach the finish line.  The journey, the experience of what those daily workouts bring me, is as valuable as making it to the next race.