Adarq.org

''Running is like hitting yourself over the head with a hammer,'' Garcia said. ''When you stop, it feels good."

Hostility is the word the runners turn to. Objects are tossed at them, obscenities hurled, gauntlets flung. Tires squeal and exhausts belch in their faces. The comics lean out the window and bark "hut, hut, hut," like sergeants, or make crude sexual comments. In Gainesville, where Shorter attended the University of Florida Law School, his wife Louise had to give up running alone because of the constant vicious provocation. In New Mexico, where Shorter's parents live, his father once had to shadow him in a car, packing a handgun, to ward off those psychotics whose regular amusement was to try to run Shorter down.

Frank Shorter (testifying before the President's Commission on Olympic Sports): "Well, I graduated from Yale in 1969, and I decided that rather than go into medical school I would become a runner, much to the chagrin of all the Puritan-ethic people in New England, and I started training about 80 miles a week, and it has gone up to 150 and 200 miles in a week, and I think in the last seven years I have maybe not run 15 days, and that is twice every day in the last seven years, and just day in and day out, all of the year round...."

Shorter says, "It is a fine line, but to me the object is not to beat someone, but merely to live up to your potential. If you do, then you will end up winning a lot, but you won't be beating anybody. I hate to lose as much as anybody I know, but beat people? I guess that's why I never could have been a good team player—because it's never been that important for me to beat people

The coach says, "Even after he won the gold medal, if he was at a track meet and heard a gun go off, he'd start running—5,000 meters or something, which he couldn't possibly win. So once I told him, 'Hey, Frank, if you really want to get beat, why don't you go in the shotput?' You see, I was worried for him. Most guys get very upset when they're beat. But then it occurred to me that Frank isn't ever bothered by losing, so why shouldn't he compete?

"To start with, distance runners have a more ascetic mentality, the kind that the saints of the ancient church exhibited. But that doesn't mean we should ever make the mistake of feeling sorry for them. Why should we? After all, to feel good again all they have to do is stop. Now Frank's of this type, like all these sackcloth and ashes guys, but he can still have a lot of fun, too. Life is more important to Frank Shorter.

With time on his hands, he approached Giegengack one day and said, "Gieg, if I really worked at it, how good could I be?"

Without pausing for breath, the coach shot back, "Well, I think if you really applied yourself you could be very good. I think you could make the Olympics and even win a gold medal."

Shorter nodded and promptly began two-a-day workouts. A month later, he was the NCAA six-mile champion. And one thing led to another and so on and so forth, and three years later he won the gold.

Says Kenny Moore, a fellow Olympian, a good friend and the man who introduced Shorter to the marathon, "Frank does whatever he has to do, whatever is needed. Ultimately, he even won a gold medal that way. That may not make much sense unless you know him, but that's the way he is."

"These things just work out for me. I've always been a good scrambler. I was always predicted to underachieve, but I always got by. If one approach doesn't work, I'll try another, and I have the confidence that it'll work out. And if you're living where you want to live, like I am, then it's easy to be satisfied with your work, with your life. I'm not iconoclastic or a misanthrope—nothing dramatic. I just get by. It's nothing complicated. But I guess it's just functionally impossible for the cafe mentality to comprehend my life."

"I've always been able to work hard at what I was doing," Shorter says. "That's never been my problem. It's only a matter of making up my mind in the first place. Whenever I've made decisions, major decisions, it's just been a case of me getting up in the morning and sitting there on the bed and deciding, yes, I'll do this. Like that."

Shorter says, "After 20 miles everybody slows down, and it is just a matter of trying to hold on. It's no longer a question of racing. In distance running, the definition of faster doesn't mean speed anyway, but just a matter of maintaining a pace longer. After 20 miles, the places are set unless a guy dies." Marathoners commonly use that verb instead of "collapse," "drop out," or whatever. They all say die.

The best runners are those that attend strictly to business once they are on the course. The less successful long-distance men tend to be those who "disassociate," who admire the scenery or who let their minds wander. By contrast, Shorter cannot even recall running through two beautiful parks in Munich. All the time he is running, he is busy concentrating on strategy—how the race is shaping up, his form and rhythm; indeed, he uses the word "feedback" as if his own body were a foreign object he was studying. But then, we all know time just flies when you're having fun. Instead of two hours and a quarter—to be precise, 2:12:19.8 in Munich, the second-fastest Olympic marathon—it hardly seems like 45 minutes to Shorter.

Despite the overriding issue of stamina, a marathon is not devoid of strategy. The matter of the lead is crucial, for the man in front carries an emotional burden. The runners-up dogging his footsteps may be moving exactly as fast, expending exactly as much energy, but somehow the man out front assumes a great burden. The others wear down, but the man in the lead is torn apart.

"Psychologically, we are using the leader not unlike the way automobile drivers use the physical principle of drafting," Shorter says. "If the man in front cannot break away, he will eventually get caught. I cannot tell you exactly why, but I can promise you that it will happen. Therefore, if I am in a position to take the lead, I know that I must be capable of more than that. Once I've committed myself on the lead, I have to quickly pull away, break that mental contact—if just by five or 10 yards—so that the others can't use me to get drawn along."

By offering an innovative $250,000 prize money package, due largely to Rodgers' outcries and two-year boycott, the Boston Marathon has thrust itself back on top of the running world.

"Runners have to eat, too," Rodgers said. "Runners are just like everybody else, with bills to pay and everything. I owe too much money to too many different banks. I have to run and the prize money is a major factor."

Rodgers "dropped out" of the Boston Marathon the last two years when the Boston Athletic Association refused to join other major marathons and offer prize money. With the world's best runners opting for the wealthy marathons, the BAA finally responded to Rodgers and other elite runners who warned the world's oldest marathon would rapidly lose its prestige.

A 10-year, $10 million contract with the John Hancock Life Insurance Co. has given the marathon new life. And Rodgers, who said his 'No money, no me' attitude was not a question of selfishness but a question of feeding his family, has returned to the fold.

"Last year was a joke. It was terrible." While Geoff Smith was walking across the finish line because of cramps, ahead of a weak Boston field, Rodgers was being paid $20,000 just to show up for the New Jersey Waterfront Marathon, in which he finished second.

Lopes, 39, of Portugal, who won a gold medal in the marathon at the Los Angeles Olympics, heads the men's field for the Miami Winter Games Orange Bowl 10K, Feb. 1 at 7:30 p.m. There will be a separate field for invited runners and an open field for the local runners' race at 6 p.m.

Many of the world-class runners will use the Miami Winter Games competition as a tuneup for the Feb. 8 Gasparilla 15K in Tampa.

Scott, America's premier miler, will join some of the world's top milers for the Miami Winter Games World Class Mile, also on Feb. 1, at 5:15 p.m.

New Zealand's John Walker, who has run a four-minute mile in more than 100 races and Ireland's Frank O'Meara, winner of last year's Fifth Avenue Mile in New York, will also compete. Former world record holder and 1980 Olympic gold medalist Steve Ovett withdrew because of a schedule conflict.