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110 degrees magazine - Index

110 degrees magazine - magazine - Index

34 www.110mag.com September/October 2008
I learned about mental preparation and
about getting in the zone. “Less is more,”
Hugo told me. And, “Motion is most efficient
when it is smooth.” And, “Use the
least amount of energy.” And also,
“Establish rhythm.”
After that first month I finally began
running but only for 20-30 yards at a time,
remembering to build up momentum and
then letting it carry me.
I would ask Hugo questions about running
up and down the bleachers like I had seen
other athletes in training do. “When can I do
that?” I asked. “When you find a race that
goes up and down bleachers,” Hugo said.
Then I asked him, “Why do we only run 100
meters? Why don’t we run around the track?”
“You are learning to run in a straight
line,” Hugo answered. “Why learn to run a
circle when you aren’t planning ever to do
so in a race?”
He had me run against two eighth grade
volunteer students whose help Patty had
enlisted. I beat those guys cold until Hugo
took them aside for 20 minutes and taught
them how to start. After that they usually
beat me.
In my first race, in Sacramento, I placed
second against those former college all-star
athletes. I did that with only six months of
training, and had never run more than 100
yards at a time. Bobby Thomas, who beat me,
had been an internationally ranked runner.
Following that first competition Hugo
and I would practice three days a week,
scheduling workouts between my chemo
and radiation treatments. I continued to
engage in regular competitions. Four years
later, June 5, 2004, when I was 69 years old,
I qualified for the national games by placing
second in the 100-, 200-, and 400-meter
races in Pasadena.
Smarty Jones, a racehorse who was
competing for a Triple Crown, took second
place that same day, which seemed to me to
have some kind of cosmic resonance.
Only four runners from California went to
the national competition, which was held in
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I had hurt my knee
stumbling over a soccer ball and didn’t do the
400 but placed 14th in the 100 and 16th in the
200 — this was against a field of 100 contestants
in each race.
Eight of us would compete at a time and I
would recognize the names of the guys I was
running against because many of them were
former champions. Five decades or so before