Brushes With Greatness (or How I Beat An Olympian)

A veritable Who's Who is Klamath Basin running was on the starting line of the 1994 Lake of the Woods Run.  Some of the notables (from left to right): David McHugh, Doug Madsen, Steve Chinn, Ric Timm, Ian Dobson, Blake Timm, Leonard Hill, Howie Broadmerkle and Marvin Dykstra.  Herald and News photo.

The Klamath Basin was a good place to grow up, especially if you were a distance runner.  Some super coaches in the cross country and track circles (Ken Coffman, Bob Freirich, Rick Morris, Larry Wagner to name a few), great events put on by the Linkville Lopers Running Club and some great distance running tradition (dating back to Henley High School's Ralph Hill, who won silver in the 5,000 meters in the 1932 Olympic Games).  The late 1990s produced another Basin Olympian who I share a connection with and is the subject of this piece that I wrote for the May/June 2014 edition of The Oregon Distance Runner (the publication of the Oregon Road Runners Club).

“Have I told you about the time I beat Ian Dobson?”

It’s the type of conversation starter that could make any runner’s head turn, especially when it comes out of the mouth of a 37-year-old whose best track days are far behind him.
But yes, it is true.  I am one of the few who can say that they have accomplished the feat outside of Hayward Field or any other world-class track venue.  And, no, I am not talking about a trivia contest. I am talking about on the roads.  Racing.

For those who don’t recognize the name, Ian Dobson was a 2008 Olympian for the United States.  Hailing from Klamath Falls (which has produced a few Olympic track standouts), Dobson was a state high school cross country champion, went on to run on scholarship for Stanford and then joined the elite of the elite when he finished third on the Hayward oval at the 2008 Olympic Trials in the 5,000 meters and competed in Beijing.

For many years, Ian could not shut me down.  We were both fixtures on the Klamath County road-racing scene, showing up at the same starting line ready to see who would pull ahead in a variety of distances.  The 5K?  My speed got him every time.  A 10K?  Not even close.  I regularly finished with the leaders, while Ian was somewhere back with the back.  In the top-third, mind you, but back in the pack.

There was a particular memory of the Lake of the Woods Run, when the newspaper had a starting line shot that seemed to include a virtual who’s who of southern Oregon running.  Leonard Hill, the road warrior who never seemed to age.  Marvin Dykstra, the high school distance standout who could still hammer on the roads.  Rick Morris, the 40-something volunteer cross country coach who could rattle off six-minute miles…and then dash behind a tree for a cigarette.

And you can’t mention the Lake of the Woods Run without race director Lee Juillerat, the local newspaper reporter and one of the Klamath Basin’s running gurus.  You always knew Lee as the man wearing race bib 337, worn upside down.  In today’s age of personalize bib numbers, he was a man ahead of his time.

(If you didn’t figure it out, 337 upside down is LEE.)

Of course, Ian and I were there as well, for a very good reason immortalized in this photo of the Klamath racing elite as the gun goes off for another 15-kilometer annual trot around this lake 4,500 feet up in the Cascades.

I don’t remember much about that race itself, other than it was warm for a late May morning and that I spent much of the race alone.  Marvin and Leonard were well ahead of me.  Ian?  Well, I didn’t see him until the end.  With his mother.  Well rested after finishing up his 5K.

Oh, I left that detail out.  We ran different distances that day.  But if you average out the mile times, I still had Mr. Olympian, fair and square.

Oh, there is one more thing.  Did I mention that Ian Dobson was 12 at the time?

So maybe that means that I can’t say that I beat an Olympian at his own game.  But it is fun to think back and know that, a number of times early in my running career, that I shared the road with a young kid who grew up to represent the United States on the world’s biggest athletic stage.

My memories of Ian are nothing but appreciation.  Even in those road races, it was easy to see the talent that Ian had and that he would likely join the long line of great athletes to come out of the Klamath Basin.  I’ve been told he looked up to me as I finished my high school career, but I am guessing that was only because I was 5-foot-7 and he was just entering junior high.

But I look up to him.  The sacrifices he made to become a state champion, the perseverence he had to battle through injury as both a college and professional runner, and the tenacity to stick with it and realize his Olympic dream are success stories to be remembered in those times that I struggle with my training.

In a strange twist of fate, many years later, Ian’s mother came to work at the same college I work for in the Portland area just before the 2008 Olympic Trials.  I enjoyed the chance to reconnect with Ian at the trials and celebrate his success on the track.

It brought many of those memories back of growing up as a runner, of road races in the Basin and the satisfaction that, indeed, I shared the road with an Olympian.

NOTE: ODR editor Kelly Barden convinced Ian Dobson to write a response piece to mine, detailing some of his running memories from the Klamath Basin.  You can read that in the May/June issue of The Oregon Distance Runner.