Archive For The “Running Free” Category
Salazar Takes Rodgers That’s the headline from ON THE ROAD. Track & Field News. November 1979. Boston, September 16 – With a mile remaining, Alberto Salazar told Bill Rodgers: “Do what you have to do to win.” Then Salazar himself did it, sprinting to victory over Boston’s Living Legend and 3000 other runners in the…
Bob Hodge’s Serial Running Novella Aftermath Summer 1980 “Life can only be understood backwards but must be lived forwards” Kierkegaard It is a languid summer day but I am moving well and breathing easy on this early evening run in the middle of July.It is my second run of the day and I am several…
Bob Hodge’s Serial Running Novella Jacksonville River Run 15K Running was going well, and I wanted to test my fitness with a race. It had been three weeks since my mediocre effort in Japan and I was looking for a confidence boost. The River Run in Jacksonville seemed to fit the bill. In its third…
Bob Hodge’s Serial Running Novella Ohme–Hochi 30K Road Race 1980 As a result of my third-place finish at the Boston Marathon in 1979, I received an invitation to run in this prestigious road race in Japan, held in mid-February. I had heard many good things about this event and had even met some of the…
Bob Hodge’s Serial Running Novella New Year’s Day 1980 Runner’s World magazine organized a National Running Week in California, and I had been invited to participate. I had spent three of the last four years running 25 miles on New Year’s Day from the Eliot Lounge in Boston to a house party in Scituate, which also…
Bob Hodge’s Serial Running Novella Finishing Out 1979 In September, I moved to Scituate, Massachusetts, taking up residence on Lighthouse Road near Scituate Harbor. My employer and friend Sharpless and I moved into a winter rental until Memorial Day weekend. It is a beautiful spot, with the ocean on one side of the street and…
Bob Hodge’s Serial Running Novella Raleigh, North Carolina In the fall of 1979, a long-term goal for the GBTC was accomplished and I made the podium again. The GBTC as we knew it thus ended on a high note. I had joined the Greater Boston Track Club in 1974, and every year after that our…
Bob Hodge’s Serial Running Novella As a result of having won the Bay to Breakers race in May of 1979, I was invited to compete in a sort of “sister” race in Sydney, Australia, called the City to Surf. I had been having a busy summer, with invitations to all sorts of athletic-related events because…
Bob Hodge’s Serial Running Novella Just Watch Me In early May of 1979, I was basking in the afterglow of my recent third-place finish in the Boston Marathon. Yet I didn’t consider myself a marathoner. I was a runner and I still had many other goals, whether it was track racing at all distances or…
“I knew I could race the hills, ’cause we had run them very hard regularly in training. I just decided to hang tough.” I had been dreaming of a top-ten finish in this race. I also visualized beating my teammate and friend Billy Rodgers, sneaking up on him from behind like the Reverend Jeff Wells…