‘Go Slow’ Gardena Runners Club Is Fast Company : Track: Dan Ashimine runs an auto repair shop in Gardena. He also has an unusual approach to training distance runners. Members of the club he founded seven years ago are proving it works.
With every stride the pace seemed more dull for jogger Dan Ashimine, who likes his running that way.
It was almost noon. Along with 15 members of his Gardena Valley Runners club, Ashimine exited Crenshaw Boulevard at El Camino College, part of a 10-mile circle that begins and ends at Ashimine’s auto repair shop in Gardena.
Founder, coach and sometimes surrogate father to about 60 members of the club, Ashimine insists on a slow pace for all his runners. On this run there were no mad dashes, no wind sprints. The joggers, some in the street, others on the sidewalk, even stopped at red signal lights, talking among themselves as they went.
Ashimine’s approach to distance running, which he calls “discipline training,” is unorthodox. But as the Gardena Valley Runners post more victories in amateur street races, his ideas are drawing more attention.
Ironically, Ashimine has no formal training in track or road running, but most of his runners say his ideas have helped them post personal-best times. Said Deke Holgate, a veteran distance runner who does public relations for the Redondo Beach Super Bowl 5-K and 10-K Run: “The club is just one man’s personality. He took what he’s learned in running and applied it to others.”
Ashimine took up distance running a decade ago as a release for the tension of running a small business. He has a simple philosophy: “We start off easy, and I peak (the runners) at the right time.”
Years of pounding the streets around the South Bay on his own convinced Ashimine that conventional training did not work for the average runner, so in 1982 he founded the Gardena Valley club. Each member pays a one-time fee of $15. Ashimine encourages average Joes to join.
“I’ll take just about anybody,” he said, “but they have to be nice.”
Ashimine believes in daily street workouts of 10 to 20 miles. Each weekday at 11 a.m., members gather at his auto shop, behind an old house on 168th Street near Normandie Avenue. The club headquarters is a small wooden shed paneled with snapshots of the Runners in action.
From here they leave on a two-hour jaunt along 190th Street to the Redondo Beach Pier, or through the industrial section of Gardena into Torrance and around El Camino College and Alondra Park.
Each runner is thinly clad in running shorts, lightweight shoes without socks, and distinctive yellow T-shirts and tank tops bearing the Gardena Valley Runners logo. On a recent run, the yellow shirts seemed almost as brilliant as the plentiful December sunshine.
Along the street-racing circuit, those yellow shirts are becoming increasingly familiar. The no-name Gardena Valley Runners have made a name for themselves by dominating local 5-K and 10-K runs and marathons in the past few years. At the annual Torrance Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving day, the first six finishers wore yellow shirts.
“It’s a real strong club, very visible, but they have no big-name runners,” said Don Franken, a professional track promoter who handles some of the world’s elite runners.
The club’s successes have made Ashimine something of a track guru.
“If he started out with a famous miler and got him a world record, than he would have received the recognition he deserves,” said Holgate. “But he’s starting with guys that aren’t even known.”
Yet as word of Ashimine’s unusual training philosophy spreads, top-flight runners have begun to seek him out.
“You don’t attract those kind of guys unless you are doing something right,” Holgate said.
Road-racing experts such as Holgate and Franken see the Gardena Valley Runners at a crossroads. Already, Ashimine has trained distance runners from Europe, Africa and Mexico. Several top performers in this year’s Southern Section CIF high school finals are members of the club. And recently Ashimine acquired two road racers from Kenya, Sam Obwocha and William Musyoki. Both rank among the world’s 10 best, according to Holgate.
“If I keep pluggin’ with this system, I think that I might be able to change a few things,” Ashimine said.
The shop, down a driveway under a neon sign, is hidden behind the old house and its chain-link fence. On a recent morning, the pungent odor of axle grease filled the air. Mercedes-Benzes, Mazdas and Chevrolets were lined up three deep waiting for service. Ashimine, clad in faded jeans, tennis shoes and one of those yellow T-shirts, wiped his hands clean.
“Have trouble finding the place?” he said. “Most people do the first time.”
Soon runners began arriving to warm up for their daily jog.
Ashimine took a seat in the Runners’ office, next to the service bay. The only hint of the pressure he says he feels as a businessman was that telltale sign of the auto mechanic: black grime under his fingernails. All he wanted to talk about was running.
“I’m mad,” Ashimine said. “We have the best runners in the world in the United States, but we have no world-class results. I attribute that to our training techniques.
“We shoot for the short-term goal. We go out to win a marathon in two years. It takes most guys seven or eight years. That’s why in the Olympics you never see a young guy winning. They’re all 30 years old.”
Ashimine admits that he’s “just a little guy” in world running circles. But he said: “I expect to change the whole system. There’s no money in it. I got to do it for the love of the sport.”
Having the two Kenyans in his camp has boosted Ashimine’s stock. And five of his runners qualified for the U.S. Olympic marathon trials. He is now grooming several athletes for money races in this country and in Europe.
“I will change things strictly by example,” he said. “I want the results to do the talking.”
Others will talk about Ashimine, who prefers a low-key approach to coming off as cocky. Said Obwocha, who is attempting a comeback after an auto accident in Dallas two years ago: “Dan’s not a world-class coach, but you listen to him and do what he says and it works.”
Peggy Sullivan, who calls herself an average runner, continues to post personal bests.
“I can’t believe you can train so slow and still get stronger and stronger,” she said.
Ashimine allows his pupils a maximum of 90 road miles a week. Each passes slowly, but on race day he gives each individual a goal and tells him to turn up the burner.
“You don’t fatigue or hurt anything, yet it makes your muscles strong and ready for speed,” he said.
Alfredo Rosas of San Pedro, who recently won the Culver City Marathon, is another Ashimine disciple. His performances are approaching world-class status. He runs an average marathon in a little over two hours and 18 minutes.
“This is a little club, the only club in the United States of its kind,” Rosas said. “There is no pressure to perform. When you are ready, you are ready. Dan understands that, and he’s right there for you all the time.”
Rosas, who at one time was under contract to a major shoe manufacturer, said he became disgusted with the treatment he received.
“You never saw or talked to anyone in the company,” he said. “All you saw was shoes.”
Rosas and others say an important aspect of the Gardena Valley Runners is its family atmosphere, which Ashimine believes inspires runners to set personal records.
“Everyone here cares for you, and I like that,” Obwocha said as he chatted with other club members at the auto shop. All seemed to enjoy the others’ company.
Kidded Harold Letting, 36, of Redondo Beach: “We’re all really a bunch of snots. All of us hate to get beat by good runners, so we pull for each other. I’m running faster now than when I was in high school.”
Ashimine enjoys working with average runners.
“In a club like this you have to have balance,” he said. “The slow people, the average person, is the heart of the club. They support it; they do all the work for the others.”
Ashimine receives funding from private donors, whom he refused to name.
“They’re all doctors and lawyers in the community who do it just for the love of sport,” he said.
Franken says it’s a shame that more clubs don’t use the family approach.
“It’s not IBM or Pepsi or a generic name club,” he said of Gardena Valley. “But it’s an important club. Those are the things that keep track going. What (Ashimine) does is a real positive effort for the community.”
The Runners took a water break at the baseball fields at Alondra Park, rounded El Camino College once more and went east on busy Manhattan Beach Boulevard to Crenshaw Boulevard, where they turned back toward Gardena.
Some had removed their shirts to take advantage of the warm sunshine. Ashimine, his yellow shirt dripping with sweat, led the group slowly south along the sidewalk, an hour and a half after the run began.
At the Crenshaw Boulevard parking lot at El Camino, Ashimine stopped and let the others go on without him.
“Thanks for everything,” he said to a reporter who was following the group in a car.
A smile crossed his face. The yellow shirts were growing smaller on the horizon as they turned east on 168th Street. But there was no need to hurry, he thought. He’d catch up to them in his own time.