Nopesport

We ran through blizzards, thunderstorms, freezing rain, covered
bridges, creeks, campgrounds, cemeteries, city parks, parking lots, a
nuclear power plant, county fairs, and, once, a church service. We
were chased by goats, geese, a crazed ground hog, guards (the
nuclear power plant), a motorcycle gang, an armed man in a pickup, a
sheriff's deputy, and dogs both fierce and friendly. We ran when two
feet of snow covered the roads and when the wind-chill was thirty
below. We ran when it was eighty degrees at seven in the morning.
We ran on streets, sidewalks, highways, cinder tracks, dirt roads, golf
courses, Lake Erie beaches, bike trails, across yards and along old
railroad beds. Seven days a week, twelve months a year, year after
year.

During the hot days of July and August, Ed ran without shirt or socks;
I always wore both. Norm ran with a screw in his ankle and joked that
it was coming loose. Ed was faster going downhill; I was better going
up. The three of us met at a race and became training partners,
competitors, best friends. We ran together on Saturday mornings,
usually a twenty-mile run along the shore of Lake Erie or a twenty-
two-mile route over hilly country roads near Ashtabula. We ran
thousands of miles and more than a dozen marathons together, but
most of the time we ran alone.

We gave directions to lost drivers, pushed cars out of snowbanks,
called the electric company about downed lines and the police about
drunks. We saved a burlap bag full of kittens about to be tossed off a
bridge, carried turtles from the middle of the road, returned lost
wallets, and were the first on the scene of a flipped pickup truck.

We ran the Boston Marathon before women were allowed to enter
and before the Kenyans won. We were runners before Frank Shorter
took the Olympic gold at Munich, before the running boom, nylon
shorts, sports drinks, Gortex suits, heart monitors, running watches,
and Nikes.