Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, Or what’s a heaven for? – Robert Browning

The Distance Gods have names like Joanie and Frank and Billy, runners whose reach touched the heavens, whose wings did not fall off as they rushed the sun.

As true in the races, another group stuck closer to the ground, trailed close behind but could never catch up. Despite all that time and all those miles and the pain, a grim determination to be great or crumble in the struggle, they couldn’t quite get there.

Folks hear “wannabe” these days and think some sort of loser. Wrong way to look at it. Wannabe Distance Gods, they’re the runners who did all the work, made the effort and more, but just couldn’t reach the stars.

I write this as a wannabe Wannabe Distance God. What must it be like to run sub-2:30?, I used to dream.

Running today needs far more WDGs.

Sure, you might crumble. At least you tried.

I tried. So did Richard Dodd.

He got much closer.

Richard Dodd

When did you start running and why?

I started running (and weight-lifting) in the summer of 1973, to get in shape for freshman football. In those days, all boys were supposed to do freshman football.  I was woefully undersized though, and likely should have gone out for Cross-Country but I had not yet even heard of it.

On the third day of football practice, by surprise, we had to run a mile in our helmets and cleats on our cinder track.  I lapped the entire team, save for my twin brother Pete, who was about a half lap in arrears. I was named “practice player of the day” and everyone clapped for me, and it felt really good!  I should have quit the next day and joined Cross-Country but I was not a quitter, and stuck out the miserable season.

The following Spring, I went out for Track, and ran a 5:09 mile as a freshman. I was hooked and have been a runner ever since. The next Fall I went out for Cross Country for the first time and, by the end of the season, had improved to the point of being voted Co-MVP of the Varsity team (as a sophomore).

Toughest opponent?

I would have to say my toughest competitor, even though he wasn’t incredibly gifted as a runner, was my twin brother. Pete had a “refuse to lose” mentality that I never really seemed to master. As twins, I likely had a little more talent than Pete had, but he more than made up for it with supreme mental toughness. Oftentimes, especially in the 1980’s, we would intentionally tie in races, especially if we were leading, and didn’t feel like “duking it out” with one another. But when push came to shove, unless he just wasn’t “feeling it,” Pete was better at “throwing it down” than me. We do have the same 50K PR (2:59:56) in a tie, however and our Marathon PR’s are 26 seconds apart (Pete – 2:19:12; Richard – 2:19:38). We may be, or are very close to being, the fastest American marathoning twins in history.

(Absence of contradictory evidence immediately available on the Google suggests the Dodd twins may just be the Top USA Twin Marathoners. Why not? And is ‘Marathoning Twins’ better?)

Most memorable race?

My most memorable race would have to be that aforementioned 50K, in Madison, Wisconsin on November 27th, 1982. Pete and I traveled to the race from Milwaukee with our father, Wilbur, who was age sixty-three at the time (Pete & I were both twenty-three). It was a 4.5-mile loop course to be done seven times, featuring one decent hill and roughly one-third of each loop on hard-packed dirt (the rest asphalt).

Pete and another guy, Bill Wilkey, took off at a 5:20 pace from the gun. I simply wasn’t willing to do that, in what was the longest race we’d ever run, so settled behind them in a 5:40/mile pace. At twenty miles, Pete came back to me and, when I caught him, we set out together after the leader (Bill Wilkey). At mile 28, we caught up and did the old Dodd one-two to pass him decisively. Soon we were out of sight. We came around the last turn and caught a glimpse of the time-clock, realizing we had a shot to break three hours!

We crossed the line, with conjoined hands, tied at 2 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds. At that time, two of only ten Americans who had ever broken three hours for the 50-Kilometer Run! Our “proud papa” soaked it all in – getting to see us many times on the course – and savoring the victory with us.  It was a new Wisconsin State Record for the 50K, which still stands as of 2026! We had no way of knowing it at the time, but it was the last race he saw us running together in, before he passed away eighteen months later.

Biggest disappointment?

If it is possible to have your greatest triumph and biggest disappointment in the same race, that was the 1983 Milwaukee Lakefront Marathon for me. Being within two minutes of the 1984 Olympic Marathon Trials Qualifying Standard for the 26.2-mile distance, I knew this fast point-to-point course in my birth city would likely be my best shot, so I trained specifically for it for four months leading up to it.  My twin brother Pete was injured, so wouldn’t be running it. He’d be driving the course with our dad; they’d stop every five miles or so to cheer me on!  Miller Brewery of Milwaukee, the race sponsor, had put up enough money to attract a nice field of Midwest runners.

It was one of those days for me where everything just clicked: perfect weather, I felt great, lots of runners trying to go sub-2:20. I rattled off a 5:18/mile pace for twenty-three miles like I was out for a Sunday stroll.  But a long sloping downhill at that juncture to the Milwaukee lakefront battered my tired thighs, and I slowed to a 5:30/mile pace for the final three miles. With approximately 150 yards to go, I could see the time (2:19:04) I needed to qualify for the Olympic Marathon Trials.

I came up short by 34 seconds. I would never again get another good shot at this, and by 1988 I had “gotten on with my life.”

As terribly disappointing as this race was for me, my 2:19:38 PR did get me letters from several running-shoe companies. For the next few years Pete and I represented the Saucony Racing Team. 

What would you do differently if you could do it again?  Why?

Honestly, if I could do anything differently, I wouldn’t, when it comes to running. I was a relatively average high school runner, who never qualified for a Wisconsin State Meet in Cross Country or Track, who went a long way in the marathoning (and 50K) world through sheer guts and dedication to training. It was a “caution to the wind” (no internet, no GPS, no Strava) kind of time for American distance-runners, and I wouldn’t change it for a thing. With the exception of not drinking so much beer.

During my heavy-training years, some Sunday long runs were “hangover classics,” to be sure. As the son of an alcoholic in Wisconsin, the “drinking gene” kicked in and wreaked havoc with my adult life. With Treatment and God’s help I got Sober in January of 2008. I now have over eighteen years of Sobriety.

Special song of the era?

My favorite song in the mid-1970’s, when I got serious about running (as a junior in high school), was “Born To Run” by Bruce Springsteen. Even though it was about street-racing cars in New Jersey, the runners of that era easily adopted it as our own. The song hit the charts literally the same summer that distance-running legend Steve Prefontaine tragically died in a car crash, giving it a double-meaning to runners: “highways jammed with broken heroes, on a last-chance power drive.” The song and the artist have remained favorites throughout my life – I have seen Bruce Springsteen in concert five times, in four different cities.

Favorite comedian?

My favorite comedian, for a few reasons, is the late great Chris Farley. Not only was he a Madison (Wisconsin) native, but he attended Marquette University during the 1980’s in my birth city of Milwaukee.  In 1990 he landed on the cast of Saturday Night Live and that, plus movies such as “Tommy Boy,” vaulted him into national stardom.  He fought against drug abuse (including alcohol) in his 20’s and early 30’s but, at age 33, lost his battle and died of a drug overdose in Chicago.

At his Madison (Wisconsin funeral, friends and fellow SNL cast members donated the funds to create the Chris Farley (Halfway) House to help those in need avoid Chris’s fate. Ten years later, in early 2008, I moved into the Chris Farley House from a Madison Treatment Center (fighting Alcoholism) – and lived there for the next seven months. The Chris Farley House saved my life, and I’m now in my nineteenth year of Sobriety. 

Favorite philosopher?  Quote?

My Philosopher since 1972, and I still have the poster, was Steve Prefontaine: “To give anything less than your best, is to sacrifice The Gift!”

What was your ‘best stretch of running?  Why do you think you hit that level at that time?

My “best stretch of running” had to be the late 1970’s – mid-1980’s, when I was running lots of marathons and training hard for them.  I had run my first marathon at age eighteen in October of 1977 on a dare from a fellow gas-station worker, and missed qualifying for the Boston Marathon by 31 seconds. So, I ran another one nine months later (still only age eighteen), nine minutes faster! 

My third marathon was the 1979 Boston Marathon and I ran 2:36 (a fifteen-minute PR), at only nineteen years of age.  It was obvious by then that the farther I ran, the better I was, so I began training specifically for the marathon distance. 

My collegiate (UW-La Crosse) running career ended in November of 1981, after which marathon training became my sole purpose. My highest-mileage training week was an even hundred. I hit that number just to say I did it, but I was in the 70-90 miles/week range for two to three years straight.

I was relatively injury prone (flat feet – plantar fasciitis), and any more miles than that was surely to get myself hurt. I have lived my life entirely in Wisconsin and, as you can imagine, a lot of these miles were run in very cold and snowy conditions.

What was your edge?

From late November 1982 to December 1983, I had what I like to call a “career year” in running – that 2:59 for 50K, followed by averaging 2:22 for five straight marathons (including my PR 2:19:38, and a 2:21:40 in the 1983 Boston Marathon). That average would have been more than a minute faster save for the 1983 Mardi Gras Marathon, in which I placed fifth overall (1,000+ runners) in 2:28:27 – twenty-four miles of it were into a direct headwind over the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway Bridge, slowing times down considerably.

My edge, and my twin brother’s, too, were that we were very mentally tough. Despite neither of us ever breaking 4:30 for a mile nor 32:00 for 10K, we each became 2:19 marathoners! We were actually “heavy” in comparison with our peers at 145 pounds (5’10” tall), most sub-2:20 marathoners of that era were 20 pounds (or more) lighter.

We also, pre-GPS, had a great sense of pacing and were very consistent with our mile-splits. Which wasn’t easy in those days, when you had to “do the math” in your head at every mile-mark.

What supplementary exercises did you do?

Probably not enough supplementary exercises, once high-mileage running became “my thing.” I did belong to Vic Tanny Health Club for a dozen years though, and was fairly religious about upper-body lifting. (Remember I wanted to be a football player, until I discovered I was much better at distance running.)  Looking back with 20-20 hindsight, I likely should have run less miles, and supplemented them with biking miles.

What was your toughest injury and how did you deal with it?

Due to my flat-footedness and running so many miles on crowned roads the previous three years, in early 1984 I sustained a serious right foot injury that required surgery. I had to back way off on my training mileage and marathoning (recall my “career year” the year before), and never again broke 2:25 in the marathon.

As of this (2026) writing: I’ve had surgery on both feet, both calves and three heart procedures, in addition to a broken neck and severe concussion!   

If you are telling me you broke your neck – concussed yourself! – because you so badly wanted to be a distance god, I believe you.