A Race of Runners in a Rite of Passage
Runners are an ethnic group.
Oh, you can’t identify them by the color of their skin or hair, or the letters in which their surnames end.
What gives their ethnicity away are the squarish quadriceps in their upper legs, the way their twinkling calves bulge comically from skinny ankles, the relentless good cheer among them whenever they gather for their principal tribal rite, the organized race.
But, a little respect. We are talking about my people here. A proud people. An ancient people. A people that has known afflictions--shinsplints, strained Achilles tendons, over-pronation, the despair of that final mile of a long race that . . . just . . . won’t . . .end.
At 8:30 a.m. Saturday, while many another ethnic group snuggled abed, an army of my people assembled on Thousand Oaks Boulevard near Kanan Road. Jiggling our legs, blowing thin clouds of steam into the cool air, we waited for the 10-kilometer portion of the 12th annual Great Race of Agoura to commence.
“They say we’re going to be delayed a half-hour,” confided Pete Petracek. Pete is 69 years old, a biotechnology consultant from Woodland Hills and an elder of our people. He is gaunt, white-haired and affable. For a description of his legs, see third paragraph, above.
At last we were marshaled in the wide street. You could already feel tension in the air. For once the gun sounds, all ethnic solidarity gives way to an unforgiving competitiveness that would make a Wal-Mart executive weep for joy.
Bang!
As the mass of our people stepped off, the buzz of conversation abruptly stopped. All you could hear was the shuffle and flap of thousands of untimed footfalls, and, soon, the huff of labored breathing.
Here is what I want to tell you about the Great Race of Agoura:
From the very beginning, I was eating my ethnic brothers and sisters alive, insinuating myself into gaps in their ranks, passing them two and three at a stride.
On the first hill, I heard--incredibly--another runner gaining on me. It was a young woman in flowery blue running shorts, and she pulled ahead of me.
But the hill began taking its toll, and Ms. Happy Shorts started to falter. I shifted into passing gear and motored on by her.
I was gaining strength from each person I passed, like a cannibal noshing on one enemy after another, ingesting their power.
Up ahead was a man in a tank top and flowery blue running shorts. Mr. Happy Shorts. My next meal.
And then, in the last of the 6.2 miles, I devoured a lean, mild-looking man with wire-frame eyeglasses, The Professor.
I crossed the finish line on the Agoura High athletic field in a breathtaking burst, triumphantly ripping the tag from my numbered entry bib--No. 1557, a number that would go down in local history--and handed it to the astonished-looking race official.
My time?
Better than anyone in the age division by more than a minute.
That’s what I want to tell you about the Great Race of Agoura. . . .
What I must, now that the need for the savage distortions of race time is over, is that:
Ms. Happy Shorts blasted past me on the next downhill stretch and disappeared into the distance.
Mr. Happy Shorts stayed behind me for only a few strides before churning ahead of me for good.
The Professor sped by on my left as we reached the Agoura High field, tossing me a deserved look of superiority as he did so.
The only age division my time would have won was for runners 70 and older.
Of course, afterward, chewing bagels and bananas and gulping fruit juice, my ethnic group had come together again in concelebration.
Pete Petracek had finished third in the men’s 60-69 age set, but, really, it wasn’t quite fair he’d had to compete against so many relative kids in his division.
“I was a little slow,” he said of his 46 minutes, 16 seconds time (90 seconds faster than mine). “I ran the half-marathon in Huntington Beach last week, and I’m a little tired out. What I’m really shooting for is to run a good race at the San Diego Marathon next Jan. 19--when I’m 70, and in a different division.”
Ms. Happy Shorts, cleverly disguised as 22-year-old Pepperdine University law student Shannon Rogers, had won the women’s 19-24 age division with a time of 45:07, and was beside herself with fellow feeling.
“There’s nothing in my life that’s just so much fun,” she enthused between bites of a banana. “I wouldn’t want to be in Paris shopping or in Vail skiing. At a race, everyone’s in such good spirits. All runners have such great personalities.”
Mr. Happy Shorts turned out to be Ken Curry of Oak Park, the 51-year-old manager of an aviation company in Van Nuys. A former triathlete, he’d finished third in the men’s 50-55 division (my own) with a time of 45:46.
“I used to always run under 40 minutes,” he said, shrugging. “But since ‘91, I haven’t been training as much as I used to. I still love being outside, looking at the hills and being in shape. I can’t stand just sitting around. Just into that Southern California lifestyle, I guess.”
I never did catch up to The Professor again. For all I know, he’s still running, and might be somewhere in the Central Valley by now.
In the 386-runner, 10-K field of the Great Race, which raised $85,000 for Agoura Hills schools, Shannon finished 70th, Ken finished 82nd, and Pete finished 89th.
Me, I crossed the finish line behind just 114 of my brothers and sisters, and I really want to tell you, that was just fine with me.
