This Reporter Lives for Thrill of Writing Stories on the Run

Three Sundays ago, I spent some time covering my beat in Huntington Beach on the run. Literally.

In the company of about 3,000 other runners, I took part in the Run for the New Pier race along the city’s beachfront. It turned out to be like a big birthday party, with the honoree being the city’s new pier. That $11-million new structure--something that will be an Orange County landmark for years to come--is to be officially opened in two weeks.

But the June 14 run officially kicked off a month of celebrations leading up to the pier opening. And since my beat is Huntington Beach, I was able to mix business with pleasure: checking out the pier race by participating in it.

It was the latest among several times that I’ve put my avocation to work as a newspaper reporter.

Running is my hobby. It’s also my sport, my health maintenance and my peace of mind.

I got into running through my work here at The Times. More precisely, I got trapped into competitive running because of ignorance and vanity.

One of my reporter colleagues, Lanie Jones, who lives in Laguna Beach, six years ago tried to get friends in the newsroom to participate in the Laguna Beach 10-K Classic. At the time, I had just started jogging--actually it was more like fast walking--to try to get rid of a middle-aged gut. But I had grandly exaggerated to Lanie that I had become a runner and loved it.

In truth, I was only shuffling around a city block and hating every minute of it.

Lanie, however, believed me. “Since you’re a runner now, Bill, how about joining us in the Laguna Beach 10-K?” she asked. I responded, without thinking, “Of course!”

Later I asked a friend in the sports department: “How far is a 10-K?” He answered: “It’s 6.2 miles.”

I turned ashen. I wasn’t sure I could even run a mile, let alone 6.2 miles.

Too proud to admit I was a couch potato, I showed up for the race in Laguna Beach in April, 1986. Some Tustin Unified School District teachers I had covered in a recent strike were among those standing with me at the starting line. “Go for it,” one teacher said. “You can do it.”

And sure enough, I completed the race. It remains my favorite memory of running: seeing the green hills of Laguna Canyon and feeling the ocean breeze on the downhill finish. All along the route, the friendly people of Laguna Beach waved and applauded the runners.

Since then, I’ve become a genuine and enthusiastic runner, albeit never a fast one. I’ve been in scores of 10-kilometer and 5-kilometer races. And occasionally, I get to run on company time and then write a feature about the race.

For instance, when I was on the education beat, I took part in Orange Coast College’s Tribute Run one year. At the starting line, I heard an unusual cheer. A distinguished-looking man was waving his hands to runners in the pack and chanting: “Go, economics!’

I later interviewed the man and found out he was Michael Olds, an Orange Coast economics professor. Olds said he had urged his students to enter the race because running had a connection to economics.

“We’ve been studying why some people make more money in life,” Olds said. “Well, many people make more money in life because they’re healthy and they live longer. And running is healthy.”

In September, 1990, I covered and participated in the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station’s Run of the Runways. It was a poignant event because that year most of the station’s Marines were in Saudi Arabia in Operation Desert Shield. In their honor, all of us runners wore yellow ribbons on our race numbers.

This past April, on another Times assignment, I ran in the newly created Bach Bay 8-K. The event featured the playing of Johann Bach’s classical music along the Back Bay race course in Newport Beach.

I felt inordinately proud when a young musician I interviewed after the race said: “Oh, you even ran in the race yourself! How wonderful!”

How wonderful, indeed. Running has added a new dimension to my life. I now experience things, on runs in Orange County, that enrich all my senses and become indelible memories.

Running even seems professionally appropriate. After all, reporters are supposed to be in a hurry, aren’t they?