The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner Ends

So now we were an official club. We elected a president, vice-president, and treasurer, established dues, created a membership form (name, address, age, send money), and created a mission statement - "to encourage and enhance running at all levels". All of this was done at our official meeting spot, Gerry Grasso's mud room with a few beers. Life was simple - a bunch of friends running together, having a few beers after a race, and hoping to improve our marathon times.

Those were the heady days of the marathon boom. A handful of hotshot Americans became our long distance heroes - Bill Rodgers, Jack Fultz, Patty Catalano, and a few others - many of whom ran right here in the Boston area. With so few races available to run at that time, you couldn't help but bump into the likes of "Boston Billy" at a local 10k. But the big deal was qualifying for the Boston Marathon.

"Boston Billy" Rodgers wins Boston...again.

In 1979, the 1st year MVS made its appearance as a team, the qualifying time for a male under 40 was 3:00:00, no excuses...unless you knew Scott Mckettrick. McKettrick was the knarly old Scotsman who was the keeper of the registration list. He had no regard for whiners who argued that a 3:15 ought to be close enough to qualify. But if you were really close and made the pilgrimage into the Prudential Center to personally plead your case, you just might have a chance. My running partner, Ed, was the master of the plead. It seemed that every year his qualifying time would just miss... a 3:00:55 or a 3:00:12. We would drive in together and Ed would fall upon his knees. "Please, Mr. McKettrick, I was taking care of my deathly sick Grandmother. I promised I would run the race for her." He'd get the bye, run another "almost" qualifying time, and be back the next year. Poor Grandma.

The worst time was when The BAA decided to lower the qualifying time to 2:50(!). "I'll never qualify!" lamented Ed. But, of course, he ran a marathon in 2:50:38! Back to Mr. McKettrick. Pooor Grandma.

In our first year, MVS continued to grow. We outgrew Gerry's mudroom and moved our monthly meetings to Andover High. We began having hosted long runs, and even began gathering for training runs. Our coaching back then came from whatever one of us had read in Runner's World or in books written by the guru's of the day - Ledyard (LSD is good if it's long, slow distance), Jim Fixx (The Complete Runner...and then The 2nd Complete Runner), and the heart doctor, Dr. Sheehan (beer is a good carbo replacement drink). Just as MVS grew, so did our sport. No longer did we have to search out races to run. They began to spring up everywhere, and you could find a race to run nearly every weekend!

By 1980, the running boom was in full swing and MVS was on its way. There were lots of races to run and other running clubs were beginning to form. All this created a wonderful competitive spirit. The big race, however, still remained The Boston Marathon. Just like now, you don't even have to say the full name - just "Have you run Boston?" - everyone knows what you mean. This was to be our 1st year of the MVS Bus to Boston.

Yes, those singlets do look like basketball tops...they were!

We learned a few things that first year:

• Having a bus was awesome! We got right in without worrying about traffic - though we had to pretend we were an "official bus", a practice that was continued right up until Dave McGillivray became the race director. He knew our little secret, and created a club bus program. Thanks to Dave, we are now legit!



• Having refreshments on the bus for the ride home is critical...especially Dr. Sheehan's favorite carbo replacement drink.




Gerry Grasso sampling the bus beer.



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  Having a waiver that specifies that the fee covers the ride to Boston only, and the ride home is complimentary if you get to the bus on time is a good idea. We learned that the day after the race when I got a call from a non-MVSer that took our bus, got confused at the finish, and took a BAA bus back to the start to find our bus. He threatened to sue me and the club for abandonment!

1980 proved to be an important year for MVS in many regards. There were many firsts, many new initiatives, many successes and a few failures. We learned from them all, and our club continued to flourish. I look forward to sharing more stories from the past with you. For those who were around back then, let me know if there are any stories you'd like to hear.

More to come...

In the Begining....

December 1978

"Hi, Tom. This is Gerry Grasso calling. I
was thinking...how about we start a running club. I'll be the Andover coordinator, you be the N. Andover coordinator..."

And so it began.

I had been running since the summer of 1976 in an attempt to qualify for my 1st Boston Marathon. I had no idea what I was doing or what I was getting myself into. But I did have my first "coach", Barry O'Neil, and my long time friend, Phil Capodilupo guiding me through the training. I learned a lot starting with my first run (7 hilly miles) in July to my first race on August 15th - the Sons of Italy 10 miler. The race began at 1 PM and the thermometer on the bank on my drive to the race posted a scorching 102 degrees. I wouldn't allow my wife, Lyn, to come watch because she was pregnant with our second daughter, Crissy.

This race was one of the long time traditions in the Merrimack Valley and been run for the previous 60 years. You could rub shoulders with many of the top runners and icons of the running world back then. Jock Semple could be found at the starting line, and Clarence DeMar could be found in the list of previous winners. Water stops were few, mile markers were unheard of, and women were an anomaly. But, if you called yourself a runner from the Merrimack Valley, you toed the line with guys like Gerry Grasso, Frenchy Vermette, and the famous Tony Sapienza.

There was no such thing as runner's watches (Casio would unveil its first runner's watch two years later - the F 100 ; no lap memory on this baby), there was no Lycra or poly pro - cotton shorts were it. Gatorade wasn't invented yet, so we relied on exotic concoctions like water and flat Coke, and the new shoe idea was from this little company in Exeter, New Hampshire called Nike - the "waffle trainer". I proudly wore my red Nike's, blue cotton shorts, and borrowed singlet - Barry lent me his Sprinfield College singlet which was apparently made out of some kind of miracle absorption material as it weighed about ten pounds by the time I finished the race. But I did finish in 72 minutes and got the opportunity to experience heat exhaustion. But I now considered myself a "real" runner.

Less than 4 months later, I headed to Baltimore for my first marathon on December 7, 1976. Crissy was born just a few weeks before (November 26th), so it was a fairly emotional sendoff. The truth is that Lyn cried so much, I nearly didn't go! But, as always, Lyn supported this crazy idea of running the race so I could qualify for Boston. "Honest, Lyn, I just want to do it once."

The qualifying time was 3 hours, and I really didn't know how hard that would be. Barry said I could do it, and I believed him. After all, I did EVERYTHING he told me to do, including 3 weeks of 100+ miles and a carbohydrate depletion week (a week starting with a 3+ hour run, followed by NO carbs for 3 1/2 days, and finally nothing but carbs for the final 3 1/2 days leading up to the race...crazy!). But Barry was right. I ran a 2:52 to qualify on a course that featured a 3 mile hill at 18 miles.

That Spring, I similarly trained for the big one - Boston.

Knowing it was a special race, I made the pilgrimage to the new running store, Bill Rodgers Running Center. There was no Whirlaway, Athlete's Corner, or any other running specialty store in the Merrimack Valley. But, Bill Rodgers waited on ME - that was a real treat. My first Boston Marathon uniform was yellow and green, made by Dolphine, and sported nothing on the front or back.

At my first Boston I learned two things. First, this would not be my only Boston (sorry, Lyn), and you simply have to run with something on the singlet to get the girls in Wellesley to yell to you. My 2:54 qualified me for the return trip.

On my singlet at my 2nd Boston I decided to be clever. There were no running clubs in our area (the BAA and the N Medford clubs were too far from home), so I had iron on letters spell out my affiliation - "Unattached Strider". That got me all the attention we males seek at Wellesley and along the entire course. I re-qualified and looked forward to doing even better in 1979.

That's the year I got Gerry's call.

We met at Gerry's house, had more than a few beers, named the club the Merrimack Valley Striders, made Gerry the president, I was a VP, picked our club colors (gold and black - we were widely known as the "bumble bees" among other running clubs), identified our mission (nobody had mission statements in those days) as "a club dedicated to encouraging and enhancing running at all levels", and planned our first event - the New Year's day fun run. We figured a dozen runners would come. We bought a box of donuts and Lyn brought our coffee peculator. Thirty runners came and we knew that we would really have a club.

With membership fees rolling in (nearly 40 members!) we designed and ordered our first MVS singlets. They looked suspiciously like men's basketball jerseys (they were), and the material was made of a nylon material that had the same abrasive qualities as 30 grit sandpaper - lots of bloody nipples those days! The good news for me was that I would run my 3rd Boston as an official member of an official club!

And so our club was born. There remain only 5 members of that charter group - Lou Peters, and the Licciardello clan. The membership has now grown tremendously. We've come a long way in the past 31 years, and we'll continue to have lots of new stories to tell. Still, it's fun to take a look back every now and again.