“One kid ran right into a small tree branch and nearly decapitated himself. It was awesome.”
How did you get your start in cross-country?
September 1969. I started my freshman year at Lowell High School but only in name; in reality I was physically at the Edith Nourse Rogers School by the South Common and a half mile walk from my home on Butterfield St. in the Acre section of the city. The Edith Nourse Rogers School was taking on the overflow of baby boomer students flooding the main high school building in downtown Lowell. At least they were taking on those students who were not in a college preparatory program. The Sisters at St. Patrick’s where I attended school advised me to this end.
Most of my friends were either going to LHS or some Catholic High School like Keith Academy just across the street coincidently from the Rogers. I felt a bit left out of things when my fellow students were taking entrance exams to different schools and so somehow or other I got the idea in my head that I would take the entrance exam for St. Francis Seminary away out in Andover on the Tewksbury line. I told my Dad and he said “what? You are going to LHS.” Well, in a rare act of rebellion I got up early one Saturday morning and I walked close to five miles to the Seminary School to take the exam.
Afterwards I started walking home and a friend I knew from St Pat’s had his Mom pick me up and give me a ride home. I told them that I had walked out there to take the exam and they laughed and didn’t believe me. Shortly after that I received a letter from the Seminary to say that I had not scored well enough on the test and could not be accepted for enrollment. So, I figured the Sisters were right and my Dad would not have wanted me to go there anyway, so I attended pseudo-Lowell High.
Over the summer and fall I played baseball in the AYO Acre Youth Organization League on the North Common, right outside the door of our tenement house where we had an apartment on the third floor. I was a decent pitcher and threw the ball sidearm, a frightening delivery for batters at the plate. Also, a friend from school who was heading to Keith Academy shared his reading list of books he was supposed to read over the summer. I remember reading Charles Dickens Great Expectations, one of the items on his list. It was a step up from my usual reading of Horatio Alger-type stories about sports heroes, etc.
My eight-year-older brother Billy was a good athlete and coach in multiple sports and he sometimes would challenge me to races on the Common. He would give me a little head start and then blow by me and laugh. Billy, who was drafted into the Army, would be headed to Vietnam around the same time I was starting high school. My four-year-older brother Mike was also a good athlete but not as committed to it as Billy. Mikey liked to chase the girlies.
There was a well-known boxer in our Acre neighborhood named Beau Jaynes. Beau would run around the perimeter of the North Common ,shadow boxing all the live-long day, in Army boots, in the summer heat. A few times my friends and I tagged along behind him for a lap. He would mostly ignore us but now and then he would turn around and throw some punches our way and laugh.
The first day of school I got all dressed up as I had in grammar school where we had to wear a uniform of white shirt, green tie and dark trousers. I was especially proud of my new “wing tip” shoes.
Well, I set off walking to school that day, fell in with other kids doing the same and I immediately began to sense they were all checking me out in my fancy duds. Most of them were wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Some were smoking cigarettes; I got quite an initiation in school that day. This was not going to be anything like grammar school at St. Pat’s. In gym class, where no one changed into appropriate clothing, but just wore their street clothes, we would pick out sides and play baseball. We had an oldtimey gym teacher who noticed my running skill on the base paths in my fancy pants, wing tip shoes outfit. He suggested I go out for the cross country and track teams.
I was flattered he thought I could be a good runner, but I only had a faint idea what cross country running was all about. Another kid in my class was already on the team, so the next day I met him after school and we walked out to Cawley Stadium, about two miles from the Rogers School. I almost quit before I started when I realized I would have to walk that far every day and then go run! That seemed too absurd.
When we got there, the rest of the team had finished practice and the coach had already left. We changed into some running gear, for me cut off jeans and a beat-up pair of sneakers and we did a bunch of 220-yard repeats. Then we showered quickly and walked home.
As I neared home, my baseball coach pulled up in his car and shouted to me that practice that night would be at six. I told him I would be there, but I already knew that if I liked this running thing I was through with baseball, which bored me anyway. The next day we went again to Cawley for practice after school. This time I met Coach John Lang. He wore a fedora and he smoked a pipe. I liked him right away. He explained how the cross-country season was half over and there were just a few competitions left that us newbies could compete in. One would be this coming Saturday at famed Franklin Park in Boston, the Catholic Memorial Invitational. The CMI had a frosh division with a 1.7-mile race. Coach Lang gave me a uniform and some forms to fill out and told me what time to be there on Saturday. I was so excited I ran all the way home carrying all my stuff. What a sap! I’m going to Boston, yea on a bus, yea.
Saturday arrived, and we headed down to Boston for our big adventure. A regular yellow school bus and only half full as we did not have a very big team. Maybe a dozen runners all together. No one spoke much on the way down and I realized everyone was pensive and a bit anxious about the upcoming race. This race would have a huge stampeding field of greenhorns like me and it was going to be war! When we arrived and got off the bus I sort of mimicked the others, as I had no idea what to do. We got our numbers from Coach and pinned them on. Coach Lang said, “jog for ten minutes and then do some striders.” I just did what everyone did.
Soon we lined up in our assigned boxes at the start and before I knew it we were all hurling ourselves out of there. I was scared shitless. The race started up at the entrance to White Stadium and after a few hundred yards we crossed the road to the golf course where we ran a loop around the perimeter and then back across the road to the finish. I ran the whole distance engulfed in a huge pack and was just happy I stayed on my feet. Some unlucky bastards went down and you could hear them cursing. One kid ran right into a small tree branch and nearly decapitated himself. It was awesome.
After our race we hung around and watched the upper classmen run. The guys out in front in those races looked like stallions, they were flying. On the way home, we were quite the lively group, yip yapping like a group of thirteen-year-old girls. I realized I had finished ahead of some kids on my team and Coach Lang told me I did well in my first race. What I did not realize at the time – this was the beginning of a long involvement in running that took me far and wide.
What surprised you about the second race?
Was on our home course Shedd Park Lowell MA. The team we raced from Haverhill had about 30 athletes to our six or seven and while they formed a circle and went through a routine of calisthenics and stretching we sat on some swings in an adjacency playground cracking jokes about them and their little dictators coach.
Please describe your training (progression) for the season.
Zero to maybe 12 miles a week.
I am guessing you picked up the mileage later in your career.
http://bobhodge.us/hodgie-san-1979-training-log/
What do you consider your greatest XC performance?
Third place 1979 AAU Nationals and member of winning team GBTC.
Favorite race or venue?
Franklin Park, Boston. Just a feeling the vibe from the first race there which caught my imagination to the last as a senior citizen.
Any XC memories you care to share?
World Cross Country 1987 Warsaw
My first ever race was a cross country race and through a long and arduous career I always wanted to compete at least once in the World Champs. I competed in the trial race in 1979 in Atlanta, finishing 16th, and in 1984 at the Meadowlands, again finishing 16th. Top nine make the men’s squad.
By 1987 I had spent a decade with athletics as the center of my life and I knew this was reaching and perhaps past its apex. I was now 31, married, we were soon to become homeowners. The gypsy runner was settling in with just a few more opportunities available, looking back in wonder at the whirlwind of a charmed life.
I was now a college coach at the University of Lowell and enrolled in classes toward finishing my undergraduate degree in American Studies. It was a bit strange being back in Lowell, haunting. I had also begun running for a local running club in Lowell; my years of sponsorship with a shoe company club having come to an ignominious end.
I had begun coaching the Women’s Cross Country and Track Teams in the Fall of 1986 and I pointed my running efforts at the International Cross-Country Trials race to be held in February in Dallas TX. I had finished off 1986 running the New England Cross Country Championships and a few local road races.
The highlight for 1986 was a come-from-behind, 6th place finish at Boston in 2:14:50. This was the first Boston with prize money and my last Boston as a racer.
How much?
Since you asked – $8500.00 U.S.
Coaching was enjoyable but challenging; I ran some with the team and fit my runs in around classes and commuting daily from Hopkinton MA to Lowell. As winter set in, I kept my focus on the Trials. I ran some indoor races and road races – nothing spectacular. On my regular evening runs, usually a 6-miler before stopping at Dunkin Donuts for a coffee and snack for the ride back to Hopkinton, I took to leaping over garbage cans and fences and visualizing cross-country.
I had to fund my own trip to Dallas, as my local running club didn’t have the funds and were only interested in the little local Grand Prix Circuit anyway. I figured I would represent Lowell itself, having come full circle from my High School days in the city.
When I arrived in Dallas I was happy to see old New England friends Scotty Graham, Coach Bob Sevene and fellow competitor through many running wars, Dan Dillon. Also, Lynn Jennings, Leslie Welch, writer Joe Concannon from the Globe and Tommy Leonard, temporarily re-located to Texas. Good Karma.
At a pre-race gathering I exchanged pleasantries with some of the stalwarts of USA Cross Country, Pat Porter, Ed Eyestone, Steve Plasencia, et al. I was left feeling a bit like the ancient marathoner at age 31. Perhaps they were wondering what I was doing there. It played on my mind a bit but also, I was becoming locked in. Locked and loaded.
We ran over the course, typical Texas Cross-Country. We were to run up the sides of hills, irrigation ditches likely and leap over makeshift barriers. It was still a hard run if not inspiring. I remember at the pre-race we were told about the drug testing and I worried about the Advil I had taken. Seems laughable to me now what a naïve dimwit I could be.
As I remember, the race went out rather fast and I laid back a bit off the leaders. I felt good the entire way and with Tommy, Joe, Sev and Lynn Jennings urging me on, I finally made a USA XC Team, finishing 6th.
My drug tester escort followed me around, I was packed and ready to head straight to the airport as soon as I could pee and he had agreed to drive me. They had some Coors Silver Bullets in the drug test tent and I asked if it was OK to drink them as I knew I would be peeing instantly with a couple of those bullets in me. I got the green light.
After taking care of business, we headed to the airport. I had to coach a meet the next day at Holy Cross. I was still in my muddy running gear when I got to the airport with Silver Bullets sloshing around inside me. I went to the restroom, put on some civvies and caught my flight. I did it, I made the friggin’ team, holy cow.
I arrived in Boston at midnight, got into my VW Bug, scraped the inside of the windows and shivered my way down the deserted Mass Pike to Hopkinton.
I had only made one other USA team against the USSR in Outdoor Track in 1982, running the 10,000. I had been offered a spot on the Pan Am Team in 1979 but declined, not wanting to run the marathon in July in Puerto Rico.
The World Cross Country was six weeks away in Warsaw, Poland. I was also invited to compete in a second race – the famous Cinque Mulini (five mills) race in Milan, Italy, a week after the Worlds. Our managers for the Men’s Team were old friends, Dave Martin and Joe Vigil. Lance Harter was there for the women.
The weeks passed quickly. Running was going well, then shortly before leaving, I began to fall apart. Sciatica and plantar fascia, two injuries that had plagued me since high school, dogged me. We were told to bring food with us as the supply in Warsaw was not reliable. Really, how much food you gonna pack for a week in Poland?
When we first arrived, and were collecting our baggage at the airport, I chatted with a manager for the Japanese Team, a JAAF Official whom I had met on one of my sojourns to Japan. He mistook me for the team manager and couldn’t believe I was still running! I wanted to say, “hey, I finished 6th at Boston last year, don’t you follow results?” then I realized no one cares who finished 6th anywhere.
Warsaw in March 1987 was a drab place, despite the history. Between hobbling about on my sore plantar, visiting concentration camps and then getting physically ill – probably with some strange bug or the food – I was miserable. My roommate George Nicholas abandoned me after I was retching all night. The team called a meeting and I was relegated to the last starting position in the cue. Runners started front to back, generally on order of finish at the trial race. I was planning to run, regardless if I had to crawl through it.
The morning of the race I got my plantar taped; the therapist on our trip was great and an immense help to me. We went out to the horse race venue and competed nearly 300 strong in the Men’s Senior event. I was engulfed the entire race, legs churning, mud, cursing obstacles that got bigger every lap. It was war and I was in the trenches.
Results https://en.wikipedia.org/…/1987_IAAF_World_Cross_Country_Ch…
I ran poorly and the USA Men were ninth, not a good showing. The women and Juniors ran much better including a few future stars, Todd Williams and Marc Davis.
The next day, some of us left for Rome and then on to Formia, a lovely training center south of Rome. I recovered well that week by the Mediterranean, running twice most days in the lovely hills overlooking the sea.
I also did a two-mile time trial at the track one day with Marc Davis and Mark Mastilair, runners on the Junior team, pacing me for most of it. When I had arrived at the track, they were banging out quarters under 60 seconds. I also heard a bit about the training regimen at Stanford under Brooks Johnson from Mastilair. Yowser.
We also spotted Jamila Kratochlikova – Women’s 400M WR Holder – at the track running intervals. Double yowser.
I was hoping to redeem myself somewhat with a good race at Cinque and I did, finishing 34th. I was 4th place for our team and we finished third behind Kenya and Italy.
I look back fondly now on this entire two weeks’ experience. It was interesting and exciting to be around other athletes, all younger and, of course, Dave Martin and Joe Vigil, who I enjoyed good conversation with at breakfast or in the evenings with a glass of vino.
My fitness came along and just a few weeks after returning I ran 28:29 at Penn Relays, finishing third in my second-best time ever. So, I had a Nationals and Olympic Trials qualifier in the 10,000.
Cross-country strong. Cross-country tested.
