Cold

Can weather conditions induce memories? Oh yes. The chilly weather of the past week incited a flood of remembrances of things past to course through my mind. None, however, topped my recalling of the winter of 1980. Here’s what happened.

I had gotten into a fitness program at the Downtown YMCA in Little Rock, AR in 1975. Excessive body fat and high blood pressure limited me to one waddle followed by one walk nine times around a 30-laps per mile indoor track. I followed the program, and by 1979 I was up to jogging several miles a day. Then, a new neighbor moved next door. As fate would have it, we hit it off and began running together.

That’s when it happened.

One morning, from out of the blue, he said, “The Arkansas Marathon in Booneville is March First, why don’t we train and run it?”

“Okay,” I said, thinking more about negotiation the coming hill than forming any soundly logical reply. But train we did, getting up to nearly ten miles a day as the day approached. Then we did a couple of 20-mile Sundays. Things seemed good.

The day before the race, a winter storm moved in and two of the TV stations predicted a blanket of snow and freezing temps overnight. The third station allowed a slight possibility of simply freezing weather. We decided to take I-40 to Little Rock and spend the night in Russellville, AR. That way, if the snow stayed away, we could cross the river and make Booneville by race time. Otherwise, we trusted the interstate to get us home. Okay. We kissed our wives goodbye. No, we didn’t. I made that part up. We actually tried one last time to convince them we weren’t totally crazy, but long-held beliefs aren’t easily displaced, particularly with counter-evidence staring them in the face.

We just left them shaking their heads.

As a precaution, we stopped at a big-box and purchased headgear, gloves, and pantyhose. Yes, pantyhose, not uncommon for runners in those more innocent times. He bought the regular kind. I bought “Big Momma” heavyweights. Later, in the motel, we tried them on. In the middle of that exercise, I suddenly imagined a police raid and statewide headlines announcing that two prominent Little Rock professionals (he was at least) had been apprehended in a central Arkansas motel up to some big-time mischief.

Well, to put a point on it, we made the race. The temperature was 15 degrees above zero and the wind was strong enough to shred the edges of flags along the route. By midway, when the wind was at our backs, I felt good. By this time, my friend had left me behind and I was in the company of another running pal, the late John Woodruff, then a reporter for the Arkansas Gazette. We laughed, joked, and observed that we had met the marathon standard that one should feel pretty strong at the ten-mile mark. We met the man who had led me into the fun already coming back and he looked good as well, except for a couple of runs in his pantyhose.

Then we started back. I can only describe that portion of the race as having an automatic cannon firing ice into you at each step. Runners with beards passed us with them totally encased in ice, looking more like Yeti than humans. Totally exhausted, I finally settled on running to one light pole and waddling to the next. I cursed my friend, the YMCA, Bill Rogers, the day I was born, and fate in general.

After a century or so, I heard the sound of a loud speaker. It came from the finish line in downtown Booneville. Suddenly, I was beautiful again. Pulling my face into a smile required the very last of my strength, but I, in my Big Mommas, crossed the finish line to the applause of the crowd of maybe 20 that were still there. My time? Four hours and six minutes. I still have the proof if anyone should disbelieve me.

I never ran another. There are some bucket list things that don’t bear repeating.

I've seen lots of down towns, but
not one ever looked better than this.