It was going to happen eventually. Sooner or later I would finish last again in a race. I accomplished that feat last month in the Tuesday night Northampton Cross-Country 5K.
I finished last in some races my freshman year in college, when I was new to competitive running. Since then, I always finished ahead of someone. In my thirties and forties I could run pretty well. I never won a road race, but I finished second in one local five-miler, and I qualified for Boston three times.
These days I simply am slow. I’m not complaining. I’m glad to be out there, and I remind myself of something Bill Rodgers said after one of his Boston Marathon wins. He observed that while he ran 26.2 miles in two hours and nine minutes, people who finished the same race in four hours were sustaining an effort for twice as long as he was.
Great. So there I was on a May evening, plodding up and down those familiar trails on the former state hospital grounds. I didn’t need to look back; I knew nobody was about to overtake me. Everyone ahead of me was out of sight. My concern was whether there would still be some bananas on the refreshments table when I finished. I started writing this column in my head.
There still were bananas, and talking with friends afterwards was, as usual, the best part.
If I don’t finish last at the Lake Wyola Road Race/Walk on June 14 in Shutesbury, it’ll be for one of two reasons. (1) The first half of this 4.8-mile race includes a monstrous uphill, and somehow I can still run faster uphill than some people who run faster than I on level ground. (2) Instead of running I may help monitor the course.
I’ll probably go for option two. That way, I can stand at an intersection, point the direction where you’re supposed to turn and cheer as you zoom past.
Seriously, I recommend this event to anybody. Non-runners can register for the walk: same course, but you get to start earlier, proceed at any comfortable pace, and savor the woodland scenery. Runners can test themselves on that uphill and then appreciate how the downhill that follows is a dirt road, easier on your feet and knees than pavement would be. Kids have the option of a 1.5-mile fun-run.
To register in advance, find “Lake Wyola Road Race” on Facebook or Raceroster.com. Or register on race day, starting at 8:30 a.m. at the Lake Wyola Association Hall on Shore Drive, where the race starts and finishes. Starting times are 9:30 a.m. for walkers, 10 a.m. for runners, 10:10 a.m. for the fun-run.
Thanks to numerous local sponsors, the race awards cash prizes to the winning man and woman, merchandise to the top three male and female finishers in the road race, and prizes to the first three male and female finishers in the walk. Prizes in the fun run are for people under 16. Anyone may win a prize in the drawing that follows the awards ceremony.
I am sad to end with this note: Parker Morse, one of the smartest and most thoughtful people in the running community, died suddenly last month, of an undetermined cardiac event. A 1996 graduate of Amherst College, where he was captain of the cross-country team, Parker was 52 years old, father of twin girls, and husband of Alison Wade, herself an outstanding runner since her days on the championship girls’ teams at Amherst High School.
Parker was a behind-the-scenes star. His first job after college was at Runner’s World, editing and managing the magazine’s newly created website. That summer, thanks to his efforts, RW’s digital Olympics coverage of the first days’ competition were distributed globally before any other outlet. He managed the website of World Athletics, the international governing body of running. The Boston Athletic Association counted on him to coordinate kilometer-by-kilometer information from spotters along the route of the Boston Marathon.
He and Alison were wonderful partners in the sport, as in all their family life. When Alison created a website focused on female competition in races, Parker came up with the name that now identifies her substack: Fast Women. As she wrote when Parker died, “None of the work I’ve put into building Fast Women over the past 7-plus years would have been possible without him,” Her longer narrative of their life together (Fast Women, May 11) is as poignant as you might imagine.
John Stifler has taught writing in economics at UMass and has written extensively for running magazines and newspapers. He can be reached at jstifler@umass.edu.