Among my all-time favorite events was the Cascade Run Off. Swank parties at the Pittock Mansion, Benji Durden slipping on volcanic ash, John Tesh almost decapitated by a low-hanging wire. My best race, I clocked a five-kilometer personal record en route downhill. Drafting off Miki Gorman. From June 1990.
There will always be something to strive for. My hope is for the heart to strive forever. – Joan Benoit
“There are clubs you can’t belong to, neighborhoods you can’t live in, schools you can’t get into. But, the roads are always open. Just do it.”
How many chances does the average duffer get to tee it up with Jack Nicklaus? Go to bat against Nolan Ryan’s fastball? Put up a jumper in Clyde The Glide’s face?
In a very real sense, just such an opportunity exists for Every runner at the Cascade Run Off. When the gun sounds on the east end of the Burnside Bridge, you are actually IN THE BIG GAME, competing alongside some of the world’s greatest athletes.
They never let you bump wheels with Mario Andretti at Portland International Raceway, did they? Of course not. But you could have raced against Olympic Gold Medalist Joan Benoit and world record holder Michael Musyoki. All you had to do was be one of the first seventy-five-hundred masochists with twelve dollars, glow-in-the-dark B.V.D.’s, and nothing better to do at nine a.m. on an overcast Sunday morning. Nothing better to do than to run fifteen kilometers (9.3 miles), much of which feels like scaling Mount Hood with your mother-in-law riding piggyback.
When I first started running, I was so embarrassed I’d walk when cars passed me. I’d pretend I was looking at the flowers!
The starting line reminded me of the half-yearly sale at Nordstrom’s. Packed tight. By the time the last runner crossed the starting line, he was already one minute and forty-five seconds behind the leader.
It was Dr. Paul Spangler, ninety-one years young. He’s in no big hurry. “Age shouldn’t keep you from doing what you want to do,” he says.
He’ll get no argument from me.
Priscilla Welch – no relation – offers much the same testimony.
She’s the lady from England who won the New York City Marathon at the age of forty-three (43).
She stars in her own Nike ad. “A few years ago, I would’ve had trouble walking up this hill. I was fat. I drank. I was out of shape…. Who says you can’t run away from your problems?”
Almost explains the Swoosh designs shaved clean on the sides of her head, like she was some inner city teen hoopster. Almost.
Benoit is my favorite runner. This woman is so tough, I imagine she could crack walnuts with her eyelids. She won the 1984 L.A. Olympic marathon – that’s over twenty-six miles, folks – just ten days after knee surgery.
Such a joy for life.
I remember some years ago when she got stuffed in a laundry cart, and we wheeled her squealing up and down the hallways of a big-city hotel.
She was famous in younger days for “the barracuda,” which meant simply biting someone on the butt, hanging onto their pants like a terrier puppy.
No one was safe.
Now, just five months after the birth of her second child, Joanie showed up in Portland, ready to compete against the most talented women’s field in the history of this storied contest. She averaged a 5:24 minute per mile pace to finish sixth.
That evening, with baby Anders finally sleeping in his stroller, Joan was drinking a Bridgeport ale and looking for someone to go running with her at seven-thirty the next morning. “No more than an hour, an hour and fifteen minutes.”
Love yourself, for who and what you are; protect your dream and develop your talent to the fullest extent.
This was the first year of the KIDS’ CASCADE, a non-competitive event for children, ages four – twelve. Each age group ran in separate heats around a securely fenced six-hundred meter loop on the dead sod of Waterfront Park. No entry fee and everyone got a free T-shirt.
Maybe a thousand kids showed up.
Great idea.
A herd of very little people, all wearing number 4, gave new meaning to the phrase “cute as a button” as they toddled their way around.
Midget racing.
“Sprint, Margie! Sprint!!,” one excited dad cheered, while his wife gave him a steely get-a-grip glare.
Of the first thirteen tykes across the finish line, eight were girls.
Wendy Russell’s mom became the first lost parent.
Five-year-old Lacey McGarry came all the way from Seattle for her first race. “The key, honey, is to start out slow,” advises her father, a veteran jogger known as “ol’ potato legs.”
The little girl nods intently as she checks once again to make sure her shoe laces are tied.
“She will not do this,” Tim McGarry whispers to me as the two head for the starting line. “I guarantee it.”
Moments later, hundreds of – coulda been sixty – children take off running. They’re a half-inch taller than the previous group. I can’t pick out Lacey, but then, I hope you grandparents can forgive me, they pretty much all looked alike.
I feel, more than hear, a little sniffle. Her head buried in her father’s shoulder, the-little-girl-who-wouldn’t, didn’t. Postponing her competitive debut, just as Daddy predicted.
From the look of grim determination etched across the faces of the six-year-olds, they’ve just discovered the Mars Candy Company is one of the sponsors. M&Ms are waiting at the finish line.
There is not a single girl among the twenty fastest eight-year-olds. I find that interesting.
We applauded all the finishers. The slow ones. The few chubby ones. The walkers. Every last one of those beautiful youngsters. All were winners, and each was made to feel that way. Special.
Just like Joan Benoit. And every other runner who put themselves on the line at the Cascade Run Off.
As for Lacey McGarry, she said – just before heading to Ronald McDonald’s for a celebratory milkshake – she’ll be back next year.
She might even run.
Running is about more than just putting one foot in front of the other; it is about our lifestyle and who we are. – Joan Benoit
