I was chasing this guy up a mountain in New Hampshire with my lungs on fire. His name was Stephen Chandler. He worked for the U. S. Forest Service as a District Ranger for the White Mountain National Forest. He was 40 years old, and he convinced me it would be a good idea to do the Mount Washington Road Race on my 16th birthday. So, I did. Upward we climbed, running until the trees disappeared, and I was lurching up the 22-percent grade of a wall at the very end.
“That guy is my dad,” I thought, as I watched him finish four seconds in front of me. I almost caught him that day in 1983. Happy Birthday!
My dad first took me running when I was in the eighth grade. That’s when this new thing called a curve ball used to make me jump backwards out of the batter’s box. As we ran together, I learned that, in this sport, you never had to “ride the pine.” My dad and I trained together almost every day. I won a medal in my age group in one of my first races. I was hooked. I eventually ran for the cross-country and track teams in high school. In the summer, my dad and I would still run together. We’d end our runs with a wicked sprint to our driveway. I don’t remember winning very many of those.
The summer before my senior year in high school, I realized I might finally be able to beat my dad in a race. I was pretty motivated, as he had crushed me again in the 1984 version of the Mount Washington hill climb. At a 10K in Franconia, NH, I decided I was going to take him. It was a muggy, hot morning in September. The gun went off and my dad was right there on my shoulder, stride for stride. Around halfway, I made up my mind to leave him behind. Otherwise, I’d have to face him down at the finish line. I feared the old man’s finishing kick, proven in the Battles of the Driveway. I put a surge into him and lost him. Amen.
Then, three or four minutes later, I heard footsteps, and he was right next to me. I pushed again at four miles. Shook him. Whew.
Then, pat-pat-pat-pat and he was huffing along right next to me. I cranked it up a notch at five miles and hoped he was gone for good. Nope. There he was again. We could hear the cheers at the finish line. He kicked. I tried to throw a rope around him, but I couldn’t keep up. My 41-year-old dad ran that 10K in 36 minutes flat, and his 17-year-old son finished in 36:04. Four seconds again! Those times are our personal records to this day.
Back then, with my teenage blinders on, I thought I’d lost to my dad. That was it. It made no impression on me that my father could run 6.2 miles at faster than a 6-minute per mile pace. It makes a huge impression on me now, as I struggle to reach seven-and-a-half-minute miles. I told the story of this race to a friend of mine and he remarked, “You’ve got to be pretty determined to run that fast at that age.”
My dad recently admitted that he used to carry his racing shoes down to my high school track and do speed work by himself when my team was out doing road work. Determined, hell. Obsessed is a better word. I did intervals myself this week, but there’s no way I’m as fast as my dad was at the same age.
A lot has happened in the past couple decades. I joined the Air Force, learned to fly F-16’s, got married, had two kids, became an airline pilot, and joined the Minnesota Air National Guard. I just returned from my second trip to Iraq as an F-16 pilot. Life has a way of filling the hours in your day. In my spare time, I’ve run five marathons. I’m training for another one this summer. I love doing them, but I’m not winning my age group. That pesky mortgage keeps getting in the way of my workouts. Sometimes I feel old. I’m not discouraged, though. The running glory days of my youth are not just sepia-toned, nostalgic reveries. They motivate me to be as fast as I was. The image of my dad in his top gear, four seconds in front of me, is a reminder that age is no excuse. I’ll be 41 in a couple years. Because of my dad, I keep training like I was 17.
Thanks, Pop.
Eric Chandler is a husband, father of two, and cross-country skier who lives in Duluth, MN. After high school in Plymouth, NH, and the Air Force Academy in Colorado, he served for 10 years in the US Air Force as an F-16 pilot. After 9/11, he joined the Minnesota Air National Guard and deployed to Iraq twice to fly in Operation Iraqi Freedom. He’s now an F-16 instructor pilot and semi-serious writer, who has been published in Flying Magazine. Visit http://ericwchandler.spaces.live.com for more of his work. This article previously appeared in GeezerJock Magazine.
- Login or register to post comments
- 879 reads
- send to friend
