Time of the End of the Season Part V

By Bob Hodge

Bob Hodge grew up in Lowell and went on to graduate from Lowell High (1973) and University of Lowell (1990). He was (and still is) one the greatest runners to come out of this region. He’s also a writer whose 2020 memoir, Tale of the Times: A Runner’s Story, is available at lala books in downtown Lowell and in Kindle format from Amazon. The following is an excerpt from his novel-in-progress.

Already published:

Time episode 1

Time episode 2

Time episode 3

Time episode 4

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Louis Spyridon

Atlanta Spiridon

In the afternoon I left for Atlanta, a bus ride that would take about ten hours. I planned to sleep through most of it and re-read “A Clean Pair of Heals” about Kiwi Champion Murray Halberg. Early in his career but after he had reached an international level of performance he travelled to Europe and the United States for a lengthy tour of racing and training living sometimes right on the edge of poverty with other athletes all determined to get their kicks and hopefully “come right” on time and win a medal at a major games.

It was me against the world fighting my own battle of Thermopylae defending my own free will, just barely nineteen years old, a sometimes-lonely struggle, but in Atlanta I would be joining up with another mentor who now owned a running store and would hire me to work for him as well. I would be pointing for the World Junior Cross-Country Trials in Gainesville FL in February.

My new mentor, coach and employer was Sal Parker, a former Olympian in the 10,000 M. Sal opened a store called Spiridon a specialty store with nearly all running related gear for inventory and a knowledgeable staff.

I was not sure yet where I would be living or if I would even be making enough money to get a place of my own. Sal was picking me up at the bus station when I arrived and we would talk things through. There was a pretty vibrant running community in Atlanta with a solid schedule of cross country and road races and track meets.

Spiridon had their own running team and I would compete for them at least until cross country trials six weeks from now and probably for a month or so afterwards somewhat depending upon if I made the team by finishing in the top six.

The bus trip was uneventful, I only had a cup of coffee and a stale donut and was starving when Sal picked me up around three in the afternoon. He suggested we go for a run from the store out around Piedmont Park. At the store he introduced me to Dickie and Freddie and Annie, my new clubmates and workmates.

I was immediately smitten with Annie, a little red head cute as a button beautiful and smiling. These three would become my constant companions and I gave them all nicknames. At some point Annie became “fire plug” Dickie became “jocko” and Freddie became “Hazel.”

They were all about four years older than me but somehow, I was already worldlier or world weary due to my recent lifestyle and experiences of life. We would share living space in a small house in a runner’s commune.

Dickie was mostly a road racer and pointing toward the Boston Marathon in April. He had recently run a 2:22 and won the Atlanta Marathon his first. Freddie ran the steeplechase and the mile in college and liked track racing best and Annie was aiming for the Senior Cross-Country Trial in Gainesville as well.

That first night we had dinner together with Sal and he handed us each an outline of upcoming workouts and races to prepare us for our upcoming events. We would run together every morning, usually a five miler, a combination of roads and dirt trails. In the afternoons Sal would meet with us for more individualized workouts which we sometimes did alone or with one or both of the others.

After a few weeks Annie and I ran in a small cross-country invitational with mostly college teams. I won the five-mile race in 22:45 breaking the course record by over a minute. Annie won the women’s race in similar fashion. Sal told me “Willy, I don’t really gush but that was fucking nuts. You have to be the best talent in the entire friggin country and you’re riding around on busses sleeping in parks…. WTF.”

Sal gave me and Annie the afternoon off from the store. We put together a picnic lunch and went to a nearby lake and found a secluded spot where we went skinny dipping. Annie let her longish red hair loose from its usual ponytail.

I finished up a long slog of a run known only as “the loop” by me and my old man friends who only occasionally these days, would take it on. Eight miles of up and down murderous hills with beautiful views of the Whites in the early Spring snow melting rivulets of water flowing down the roads in all directions.

Last night’s writings and dreaming’s brought me back to my youth, the days in Atlanta and Annie, beautiful Annie. None of the young women I met that year on the road wanted any kind of long-term relationship, I think knowing that at my age of nineteen and my peripatetic lifestyle I just was not ready.

Jocko had a big road race coming up the National 20KM Road Race Championship in Massachusetts. Hazel and another runner from Spiridon would also compete there as a three-person team hoping to knock off the favored Beantown Bombers, some of whom I knew from growing up in Mass.

I had only a few weeks to go until the Cross-Country Trials when disaster struck. My Plantar Fasciitis flared up likely due to the workouts I had begun doing in spikes on the grass. Sal wanted me to stop running entirely and rest but I didn’t want to so he taped it fairly effectively, problem was if you taped it too loose it was ineffective and too tight and it could make matters worse.

For a while it got progressively worse and it didn’t help that I was on my feet all day at the store, but there was nothing to be done. They needed me there. I continued to do my easy five milers in the mornings at a very slow pace but in the afternoon, I would run maybe a mile or two and then come home and stick my foot in a bucket of ice water. I took aspirin as well.

The week of the trial I finally took two days off entirely and Sal gave me a full day off from the store. It helped but there was no way I would be able to compete in spikes. Sal said, “Willy, maybe you shouldn’t run trials. “ “Sal, I’m running even if it has to be in training shoes. I am going to be on that team.”

Annie and I travelled to Gainesville together leaving on Friday morning flying down for the Saturday race. Sal was not able to make the trip but he had arranged for a friend of his to pick us up at the airport and this friend would also doctor my foot and tape it for me before the race.

Annie was a long shot to make the team and Sal had planned with her to have a conservative strategy. “Willy, what do you think about Sal’s race plan for me.” “Honestly I think you should go from the gun their fire plug because there is a good chance they will let you go since they won’t know much of anything about you and once you get that lead darling you ain’t coming back to them.” Annie smiled, “Oh Willy you give the best pep talks.”

We jogged the course together on Friday afternoon, a flat as a pancake course which was going to be fast, not good for me since I could barely get up on my toes on my injured foot. The Junior Race would be eight KM two four KM laps. I brought spikes but decided to go with flats and I had to take some of the tight turns on the course real wide to stay on my feet.

At the end of the first lap I was in the middle of the pack with a lot of work to do and I dug deep and started to pick people off. I could see a straight line of runners ahead and I figured I was about twelfth.

With about a half mile to go I went into an all-out kick all I could muster and I moved all the way up to seventh before I started to run out of gas slipping all over in my flats.

I caught the runner ahead of me but could not get past him. This was for the team I never imagined not making it. We finished in a dead heat. I was unsure if I had made the team and the officials were all huddled around conferring.

“Are you the Desmarais who was leading Senior Nationals back in November?” “Ya, that’s me.” “Why the hell are you wearing flats?” “Plantar injury.”

Annie was lining up for her race and I headed over to watch. She was right out into the lead, man if this strategy doesn’t work I hope Sal never finds out it was my idea. After the first lap she had fifty yards but the pack was closing. “You look marvelous fire plug, keep your foot on the gas!” I think she actually smiled at that.

I watched as they came out of the woods for the final half mile, Annie had fallen back to fifth and was passed by one other but she made the team. Annie and I did a short cool down run and my foot was killing me. Sal’s buddy took us to the airport, no shower no time no room anyway off to Atlanta.

“I hope you are on the team with me. Willy, it would be great to travel to New Zealand together.” “Ya, thanks fire plug, guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”

I ordered a beer on the plane, the first of many I would have that evening.

Sal was in touch with the US Track & Field Cross Country Committee that week and the Manager/Coach for the team wanted to put me on it as a sub after it was determined that I had finished seventh.

But that would not be happening. USATF weren’t known for being magnanimous.

The plantar was still hurting in any case even worse than ever after trying to race on it. Annie and the others tried to cheer me up but I was despondent. Dickie had finished second in the National 20KM and looked to be coming right for Boston. Freddie had just run a four flat mile indoors.

I continued to limp through the five miler each morning and then after work, on the days where I didn’t go for ultrasound treatments, I would go by the library and borrow some books and then buy a six pack and sit with my feet up reading all night.

I realized the truth of athletics that all athletes get injured no matter how careful they are. The human body will have its way, no matter how strong you are mentally you cannot outrun that fact. No question I was in a funk and Sal came over one night and saw all the empty beer cans and piles of books. “Willy, you look like a frat boy college student.” “I had no use for college Sal, that’s why I’m here with you.”

I staggered off to bed around midnight looking forward to my run the next morning hoping the plantar would be better. I pulled back the covers and there lay sweet little fire plug Annie, resplendent, naked as a jaybird. I right then forgot all my troubles and all my cares.

The next morning, I was up early making breakfast coffee for me and Annie whistling and smiling stupidly when Hazel walked in and said “Willy, you have the look of I just had sex repeatedly all over you.” “Ah Freddie, just looking forward to another great day.” “Well from the sound of things you had a great night.”

On our run that morning I never even thought about my plantar and it was like the injury had never even happened. I went for ultrasound that evening and the therapist could not believe the difference from just a few days before. That evening I ran our ten miler alone in fifty-one minutes singing “sexual healing” in my head and smiling the entire way!

I rolled out of bed legs creaking back and hip achy I shuffled my way to the bathroom slowly waking up ever so slightly easily slowly and then downstairs kettle on the boil newspaper retrieved from outside slice of toast nicely burned with lots of butter the sit down on couch roll foot on roller old plantar injury and stare out the window while I slowly sip my coffee bringing it all back home.

The days in Atlanta were some of my best days and memories but Massachusetts still tugged at me in New England in my bones, family there and friends who thought I had gone mad.

Annie left for New Zealand and I was so very happy for her and envious too, but now that my own running was coming around my outlook on the world had improved and also through my reading I was beginning to broaden my horizons and Athletics was the prism I saw this world through.

I did some long runs with Jocko and Hazel, one a twenty miler at 5:15 per mile, the pace that Jocko hoped to run at Boston. It felt okay, not as hard as I thought it was going to be and Jocko was cruising.

“Jocko, you can handle 5:05’s no problem.” “Kid, what do you know about the marathon?”

He was right, I didn’t know much.

Me and Freddie went to the Florida Relays in March where Freddie ran a 3:39 for 1500M qualifying for Nationals which would be in Knoxville in June. I won the 5 KM in 13:44 a huge PR but I had never actually raced a 5KM before only three miles.

Sal planned for me to run a 10KM on the track in May to hopefully qualify in that event as well. Sal gave me fatherly advice and explained that I had some bad luck mostly brought on through inexperience and just plain bad luck.

Yes, luck plays a part I’ve learned and mine had been running well but I had worries and concerns I was not immune, no.

Back home in Mass. My Dad had had a stroke and his recovery went well and my brother and sister made sure he and my stepmom were going to be okay, but out here on my own engrossed in my own obsession, hesitate to call it a career where none existed, I wondered if I was doing the best right thing.

Annie ran great in New Zealand and didn’t come back cause the fire plug went and met her a fella, a New Zealander international.

She sent me a long letter, so I knew she loved me, but I was just a dumb kid and needed to mature, my interpretation.

I felt elegiac.

I was hurt but truth be told my running was going great and she was my real mistress.

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Darlingside – Futures official music video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sy0YM71i0Y