Whither the faster local guys?
Jim Johnson sent me a rather incredulous e-mail today (something he does all the time, being an easily confused man who recognizes me as an oracle, a beacon of wisdom in an ignorance- and misinformation-choked world) noting the 1984 results of a race called the Salem Screen 5-Miler. This October event was held in Salem, N.H., a small city on I-93 on the N.H.-Mass. border, for only a few years, but it drew some amazing talent, all of it from the immediate region.
Anyway--and I hate starting paragraphs with the word "anyway" and overusing the em dash--Jim, who looks like he should star in a prime-time soap opera named after a California zip code, was looking at Bob Hodge's Web site (originally assembled by yours falsely) and noted that Bob, who was third in the 1979 Boston Marathon, finished fourth in the '84 Salem Screen race in a time of 23:01. He asked me, only somewhat rhetorically, "What the f*ck happened to running?"
Jim was able to dig up more from the race in question:
1. 22:56 Guy Stearns, USA 1959
2. 22:58 Dan Predmore, USA 10 Sep 1958
3. 23:00 Bill Rodgers, USA 23 Dec 1947
4. 23:01 Robert Hodge, USA 03 Aug 1955
5. 23:38 Hank Pfeifle, USA 21 Feb 1951
6. 23:50 Larry Sayers, USA 1959
7. 24:19 Buddy Bostick, USA
9. 24:38 Douglas Sweazey, USA
He's not the first to notice how slow the winning times are in local New England road races these days, or that even when the winner is fast there's almost no depth to speak of, at least on the men's side.
I ran the 1985 Salem Screen 5-Miler as a 15-year-old just entering his second year of running, and, with a time of 29:08, I am certain that I was not in the top 50, I am pretty sure I was not in the top 75, and I may not have even been in the top 100. I know that Bill Rodgers was right in front of me because he ran for fun that year. I believe that Lynn Jennings, living up the road in those days, set an American record that day with her 25-something -- I will have to ask Bob if he has the full results.
I could list a number of other now-defunct races with equally eye-opening results, such as the Riverside Twilight 5M (or 8K) in Agawam, Mass. or the Diet Pepsi 10K in Nashua, N.H. I'm betting that Dave Dunham could help me immensely with such a project.
That road racing has lost some of its eclat isn't a monumental finding in itself. What's interesting about it is that this seems to buck some related trends. Consider:
1. More and more Americans are finishing road races these days compared to decades past, even adjusting for population increases. (Note that I didn't say, "More and more Americans are competing in road races these days." There's a big difference.)
2. High-school times have gotten considerably faster since the 1980s. When I was in high school, a sub-17:00 at Derryfield Park in Manchester, N.H. would have earned you a top-20 finish in the Meet of Champions even in perfect weather, maybe even top-15. This year, a total of 35 kids broke 17:00 at the D-I, D-II and D-III championship meets combined (these are still held at Derryfield, but the MoC has moved to a considerably faster course at Mine Falls Park in Nashua). If you remind me that Derryfield has undergone some modifications that have made the course slightly faster, I will point out that 400-meter tracks haven't gotten any shorter and that 10:00, considered a fast time in the mid-1980s, is nothing extraordinary in the Granite State now.
3. It's a lot easier for a guy at the Bob Hodge level to get sponsorship of some sort now coming out of college. A 28:30 NCAA runner could join any number of programs like Flagstaff Elite and the Hanson's and at least catch a break in rent and free shoes, things that matter a lot when you are training full-time.
So why haven't these things translated into more guys running around 14:00, 23:30 and 29:30 in local road races races? Or, as Jim more or less put it, what in the Sam Hill/tarnation/world/bloody hell/rip-roaring fuck is going on?