Word: miles
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...WORKOUTS officially began on Sunday, March 24, when I ran five miles, three times around the circuit from Newell Boathouse over Eliot and Larz Anderson Bridges back to the Boathouse. I had run, intermittently, distances like a mile or two throughout the year. I loved those five miles, but picked up blisters. Two days later I ran an energetic two miles or so, but blisters stopped me and kept me idle on Wednesday...
Goals. I naturally had to have something to shoot for. I had averaged under 8 minutes per mile for 15 miles, but just aimed for breaking four hours. I also wanted to finish in the top half of the field off 900 starters. Never having run for a track team and in fact, never having been much of a jock, I was scared of the other runners. The Herald ran a picture of six members of the Harvard track team preparing for the race. How could I ever beat such professionals...
...COURSE is downhill for 300 yards, and after the first quarter mile, I had a stitch, rare for me. Panic. I thought I was really losing big and wondered what the next 25 miles might bring. Soon, the stitch went away...
...game. People along the route, some of them, seemed to be playing their own little game: fool the runners. They were a minority and meant well I think, but gave incorrect information on the distance we have covered. Somewhere out there I was sure I had done 15 miles and asked a cop as I went by him. "This is the 10-mile point," he said. This irritated me no end, and was to get worse...
SOON I was clearly in Boston, the calf getting worse and my grimaces thrilling bystanders. Then some guy finally said, "Last mile." It was a lie, of course, but the race was undeniably nearing completion. The Prudential came closer and closer. Estimates by the crowd of distance remaining was all contradictory and more a handicap than a help. But they meant well...