I was never a good athlete. As a child, I was the last kid picked for a lunchtime ballgame, and could barely dribble a basketball. I retreated into reading, and drawing, and unhappily attempted to participate in school sports.
I was a sophomore in High School when I discovered I could run. Our team was competing in a cross country race in Griffith Park, just before the school year started. I went to watch, as my best friend was on the cross country team. He spent the entire summer running, I did not. Two miles seemed like a long ways to run. At the meet, a couple of guys from our team didn't show up, and the coach asked me to start, as our team needed 5 starters. He said I could stop when ever I wanted, so I thought, what the heck. My thought was to start with the leaders, and stop when I got tired. With a half-mile to go in the race, I was tired, but in third place, so I decided to finish and try to catch the guy in front of me. I did. I threw up twice afterwards, but the coach offered me a place on the varsity team.
That was a big deal to me. Me! A varsity letter! No one ever imagined, especially myself.
Later that year, two guys from our high school and myself started to drive to Santa Monica twice a day to be coached by Mihaly Igloi, who was a famous Hungarian coach. We trained with guys in their 20's who were out of school, and were making a living running track. This was a real eye opener. At the end of my senior year, Coach Igloi moved to Greece to be the national coach, where he stayed until he passed away.
I competed all four years of college, but got caught up in the training fad of the era, which was logging 100 mile weeks. While not that hard to do, this regimen (one 5 mile run, one 10 mile run; each day) did nothing for your speed, and my best mile never improved. I was able to run fairly well at longer distances, even running the Olympic Trials Marathon in 72. After college, I tried to train smarter, and my speed finally started to come back. I could compete reasonably well in bigger races, for instance getting 6th at Bay to Breakers a couple of days after my college graduation, and finishing top 10 in any number of larger races around the country. It seemed reasonable (to me) to think that with a little luck, maybe I could make an Olympic team. So I trained hard, was sponsored by Nike for a while, and traveled around the country trying to build a "resume" of results that would allow me to get invited to the fast races.
At the same time, there was the matter of making a living. My junior and senior year of college, I worked for Nike, helping open one of their early retail stores in Orange County. At graduation, I realized that any upward mobility required moving to Oregon, which was't attractive to me, so I quit and got a job at a local sporting goods store, eventually managing it. This lead to a job at Runner's World Magazine, where I held a number of roles. A number of people I hired there are still in the footwear business to this day, including the guy who really put Reebok on the map, and another guy who helped start Keen. By the time I was in my mid-thirties, I'd competed in more than a dozen countries, made friends all over the world, had watched any number of Olympics, and had done for more than I ever imagined, as a gawky, shy 15 year old running his first cross-country race.
Running allowed me to meet many people, which led to the development of a career. I was able to leverage those years in retail into a job as National Sales Manager for a running apparel company, then VP of sales for another, and then VP of sales for ASICS, the Japanese shoe company. I spent a couple of years working for a trading company, traveling all over Asia learning more about how and where athletic footwear was made. Later, I was hired by Umbro to create a footwear line for them, and later ran all product development and merchandising. This job took me all over the world, and allowed me to learn a lot about the "beautiful game", despite never having played as a child. My team mates at Umbro were great, and we still stay in touch.
I stopped running in my mid-thirties, as I developed a case of sciatica that would't go away, and it became increasingly frustrating to run on one leg. I did start riding a bike, and began racing a couple of years later. Living in South Carolina at the time, we could do 100 mile training rides, and see only a handful of cars. By the time I was 40 I had upgraded to a Category 2 racer and could hold my own in most any masters race, finishing 2nd in Masters Nationals one year in CA. I discovered cyclocross while in my early 40's and loved learning how to go fast on CX bikes on almost any kind of surface and terrain.
I never realized my goal of making an Olympic team. I have friends and training partners that did do so, and still remember watching raptly as they competed; feeling excited for them, and a little jealous.
I don't look upon this experience as a failure, as much as an extended journey, with multiple unexpected destinations.
Virtually every job I've had since 1972 has somehow been connected with people I met, or experiences I gained while competing. Most of my friends came through people I knew running (or cycling), and even my wife met as a result of her having worked with a pro cycling team sponsored by Pearl Izumi (where I worked at the time). Over the years I've developed a life and career that involves an interesting industry, have been able to travel extensively, and have maintained my fitness and health. I've also been surrounded by friends who are positive, upbeat, and have experience in setting and achieving goals. I feel very fortunate. Am I sad I never achieved my athletic goals? Not really. I've experienced so much more than I ever really expected or hoped for.
I've learned the journey is often the most valuable part of the trip. So far, this trip has been pretty cool.
