I had short stints of lackluster training but it was consistent enough that by the end of October I was well over 2,000 miles on the year and ran a decent 17:21 5K despite suffering from nagging calf issues through much of the late summer. A ten mile run on in mid-November with former Kansas State distance runner Phil Byrne in Des Moines was my last run of the year. I didn't run again until March 1, 1993.
That period marked the end of any hope I had of ever being a reasonably decent runner. I look at the three and a half months of blank pages of my training log and know that my life a complete mess. Little did I know that a year late life would be a complete shit show, but I digress.
I went down a personal rabbit hole that I couldn't pull myself out of. I had been named acting general manager of the television station where I was working in Topeka, Kansas as news director. I was hoping that I would get the bump to GM. Looking back I wasn't ready.
When the owner made the new hire, a fine gentleman by the name of Gary Sotir, I just withdrew into myself. I can't say enough good things about Gary. It wasn't until I had left the station in August of 1994 that I realized what a great guy he was. Gary just wanted to get to know me and understand me and I think it only added to my personal confusion. I was too immature and too messed up to see that he had my best interests at heart.
1994 was marked by the great flood of the Missouri and Mississippi Valley. The Topeka area fell victim to the storms that ravaged the Midwest. I did some of my finest work as a journalist. But during it all I began planning my exit from KSNT and landed a job at WPSD as news director in Paducah, Kentucky.
The change of scenery didn't help. I hardly ran but I did bring a fresh injection of energy into a stale news operation that needed some leadership that had experience from outside the market. I ran my sole race of the year in October, a 10K, in a wheezy 44:07.
Sometime shortly after that race one of my best friends, Steve Riley, a legendary Masters runner in Kansas asked me to go to the 1994 Boston Marathon with him. I hadn't run anything longer than seven miles at that point and I didn't have a qualifier. Steve was persistent, bless him and he wouldn't take no for an answer.
I was 12 pounds heavier than my last marathon when I toed the line in St. Louis on a 13 degree day. It was brutally cold, but fortunately there was very little wind. My October 10K converted to a 3:22 marathon. I had to break 3:15 to qualify for Boston. Despite everything, I knew I could do it.
Steve promised to stay with me for the first half even though he was in shape to run under 2:50. Unbeknownst to me this was one of the hilliest courses in the United States. It was the course that was run at the 1904 Olympics. The first half went along easily enough as we passed the half in 1:33:50.
Steve took off because he wanted to break 3 hours (which he did) and I was on my own. I went through 15 miles in 6:42 and then a series of major hills began to take their told. I held on for dear life clicking off my last four miles at about 8:20 pace squeezing out a 3:13:33 and slipping under the BQ that I needed.
I drove back to Paducah self satisfied. The next morning I woke up sick as a dog. I walked into the newsroom looking like death, my sinuses completely plugged up. My boss sent me across the street to his doctor, who fortunately was a fellow runner. He had a good laugh and gave me a shot that blew out my sinuses. I went home and spent the rest of the day in bed and was back at work the following day.
My first Boston Marathon was seven weeks away.
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