"Marathon Man"
A
serendipitous run leads to my ending up in the introduction to an
article in the November
1999 issue of Philadelphia Magazine.
Originally Posted November 3, 1999
Back
on August 13, the Friday that Markley, Weiss, and myself were to head up to
IM-USA for our volunteer stint, I got in an early morning run to shake out my
legs from a rough week.
Little did I know what that little run (5 miles), and a conversation with
a passer-by on a bike would eventually become.
From
the November issue of Philadelphia Magazine...since they don't post any articles
on their website allow me to feebly reproduce the opening page:
Marathon Man
by
Chris McDougall
In
the valley where Washington's army camped, the world's best distance runner is
leading a Kenyan revolution.
DAWN.
EARLY AUGUST.
THE FORECAST: A scorcher.
So Bob Mina slips out of the house before sunup. hoping to sneak in a
five-mile run before the streetlights click off and the heat sets in.
But it's hopeless: They Schuylkill River bike path is already as swampy
as a rain forest.
The workout promises to be a nasty one - until he spots a slim figure
shuffling along in the dark.
Well,
this should make things interesting.
When
the two runners fall into step, it's like the collision of two different
species.
Mina is a 28-year-old Ironman triathlete, six feet of sinewy muscle in
microfiber shorts and a sweat-drenched singlet.
The shuffling guy, on the other hand, is a half a foot shorter, 60 pounds
lighter, and lost inside his baggy track suit.
He seems so delicate that any anthropologist comparing their skeletons
would assume Mina ate him.
"Hi."
Mina says.
The
small guy lifts a single index finger in greeting...and then someone seems to
jerk Mina backwards by the tail of his shirt.
The little guy isn't sprinting, exactly, because his arms are drooping
lazily, his feet skimming the path, but he's flying away from the triathlete
like he's been launched.
Mina
looks at me, following along on my bike.
"Wow!" he exclaims.
"Do
you know who that was?" I say, trying to smooth over the rudeness of the
silent departure.
"Kagwe?"
Mina asks.
With
marathoning's biggest purse up for grabs in New York on November 7th
and the Sydney Olympics less than a year away, Mina has glimpsed something that
elite runners and sportswriters everywhere are hot to discover:
How's John Kagwe look?
He's won New York the past two years in a row, but rumor has it that the
30-year-old farmer-turned-champion isn't so sharp anymore- that his decision to
leave the hills of Kenya and train in the Philadelphia suburbs has softened his
mountain-man legs and dulled his genius for the most tactical of races.
The
answer is a half-mile down the path, and vanishing fast.
I set out to catch him.
"Good thing you have a bike!" Mina calls.