IRUNWHY Recap – Superhero Edition

Life is locomotion… if you’re not moving, you’re not living. But there comes a time when you’ve got to stop running away from things… and you’ve got to start running towards something, you’ve got to forge ahead. Keep moving. Even if your path isn’t lit… trust that you’ll find your way. — The Flash

They’ve inspired us and they’ve motivated us, today we ask (and answer) – what if our hero runners were superheroes? What would they look like? What would they use as their secret weapon? Without further ado, here we go:

THE FIRST MARATHONER – PHEIDIPPIDES

He was the man who started this whole Marathon craze taking over the world.  As a superhero, he brings good news from far away in a timely fashion. You won a battle in a far away place – he’s there to tell you about it. His special weapon – perseverance.

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STATUS QUO BUSTER! – KATHRINE SWITZER

She stood up to the ignorance and injustice of how women were treated (not so long ago).  As a superhero, she seeks out ignorance and wipes it off the face of the earth. Her special weapon – will and determination.

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THEY RUN AS ONE – TEAM HOYT

In their path – where unbreakable walls once stood – there now is a pile of rubble. They are the classic dynamic duo and inspiration is their weapon of choice. Marathons, Ironman Triathlons, running and biking across the US – they’ve done it all and with very impressive times. (Special congrats on finishing Boston Marathon a few days ago)

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HE RAN LIKE A DEMON … AND IT STUCK – JACK KIRK

He is responsible for the best quote in the history of running, always worth repeating:  “You don’t stop running because you get old, you get old because you stop running.” He not only spoke wise words, but proved them to be true by running cross country races well into his nineties. His superpower – running circles around young runners.

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RUNNING OUT OF CHALLENGES – KEVIN LIN

“He is the king of distance,” is an understatement.  He has ran across every major desert on this planet and he continues to defy what we think of as possible.  His special power is turning back time (superman style – by circling the globe at lightning speed).

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HE ZOOMED BY WITH A SMILE – HAILE GEBRSELASSIE

“Hard work, grit, determination and composure are the ingredients to his success.  He has moved the goal posts in competitive running by adjusting world records in all of the distances he’s competed. His special weapon is the smile that turns his competitors – and all evil doers – into stone statues.

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“NO!” IS NOT AN ACCEPTABLE ANSWER – TERRY FOX

His fight was an inflection point in the battle against cancer. His run across Canada inspired an entire nation and raised millions of dollars to fight Cancer – all this as he was suffering from the disease himself. His superhero weapon is: being there, whispering in your ear: “You can do it!”, when doubt creeps into your thoughts.

 

 

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HE SHUFFLED PAST THE COMPETITION – CLIFF YOUNG

He waited until he was 61 to show the young ones what long distance running is all about. His record breaking race from Sydney to Melbourne – leaving all the competitors half his age in the dust – taught us we can learn something from the wise mature men. He trained while chasing sheep on his grazing fields, his special weapon are the magic gumboots that let him shuffle past the competition.

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STALLION AND BUTTERFLY – ROCKY AND ALI

Only Ali gets a superhero for this post (Rocky is already fictional). He gets the highest honor possible on this blog – he is here and he is not even a pure runner. His training and mental attitude inspired thousands of runners around the world. His special weapon needs no explanation – dancing like a butterfly and stinging like a bee.

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THE MIGHTY CZECH LOCOMOTIVE – EMIL ZÁTOPEK

He ran not with money in his pocket, but dreams in his heart. He was a runner’s runner – loved by all lucky enough to have met him. He raced with the most contorted grimace but with the most domineering results of the time. His special weapon – inspired by his grueling training techniques – is picking up the evil doers and running them to the end of the earth on his back (coming back and repeating if there are more there).

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More running stories coming soon.

Special thanks to the artist behind the superhero drawings – Rob. You can find more of his work here: http://lovekillsslowly.thecomicseries.com/

The Queen of New York … From Norway – Grete Waitz

“It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.” ~Leonardo da Vinci

Bare with me for a bit here as I get to the point in a little round about way. Recently I was thinking about a graphic I once saw about how much a PHD student expands humanity’s realm of knowledge. It looks something like a little pimple sticking out of the circle. The circle represents all that we know.

 

There are only a few people in the history of the world that really have an impact bigger than the pimple in growing our collective knowledge (Newtons, Einsteins are most notable).

The same can be applied to running: very few people have advanced the sport further than a little bump. Grete Waitz is one of those people. Her contribution can be visualized as the following (an all around expansion across the realm of running) :

 

When we talk about Grete Waitz, we have to go back to that shady time not so long ago, when the accepted belief was that women were not quite on par with men when it came to long distance running. We’ve already talked about Kathrine Switzer’s bold stand against the status quo. While Kathrine challenged what was being said and thought at the time, Grete unequivocally proved again and again and again all those thoughts were myths. Grete won the New York marathon not once, not twice, but 9 times in her career.

She was invited to participate in her first NY marathon in 1978 by Fred Lebow, one of the race founders. She not only won on her first try, but took 2 minutes off the women’s world record. Her path to becoming the queen of NY began. Over her nine NY victories, she reset the world record three years in a row and lowered the total time by nine minutes.

While reigning over the five Burroughs of New York City, Grete also showed how it’s done in the old world. She won and set new course records in London and Stockholm. She also won Gold in the 1983 World Championship in Helsinki. In other words, she owned the marathon for a decade.

In the early days of women’s long distance running, Grete showed the world not only that it is possible for women to compete, but that it is possible to be a bad ass woman runner. She inspired legions of new runners to participate in the sport and thereby expanded the realm of running.

Grete ran her last NYC marathon slowly. She ran alongside Fred Lebow who was fighting brain cancer but was determined to finish the race with her now old time friend. They both finished in 5 hours 32 minutes, more than twice as long as Grete’s first marathon in NYC.

Sadly, Grete herself died of cancer at the young age of 57 in 2011. She was buried with honors by the government of Norway – only the sixth woman in the countries history to be so honored.

She is missed, but she still remains the queen of NY.