Runners

No. 78 [Runners]

James RogersLeave a comment
No. 78
Photo by James Rogers

“This summer in July, in Charlevoix, Michigan, I ran the Jeff Drenth 10K. I had been suffering from an IT band problem, and it was giving me knee pains in my right leg. I was doing great, and I was making goal pace, until the fifth mile. Then I got knee pain, and I struggled through it for another quarter-mile. And then I was just completely frustrated, and I had to walk for about 30 seconds. So I just decided to take my shoes off because I felt that they were the reason why I was having the problem. I ran the last mile with no shoes. It was great, too, because it was wet, and they were pretty much water-logged anyhow. I was just running in long, shin-high socks. Just basketball socks. … I came in, and my mom was like, ‘What’s he carrying?’ I had a shoe in each hand. I came across the finish line like that. And I still won in my age group.”

Nos. 76 & 77, Revisited [Runners]

James RogersLeave a comment
Nos. 76 & 77
Photo by James Rogers

“It was during the summer of 2013, and we just started—we didn’t even know each other, did we? It was seventh-grade year for us. We wanted to join cross-country, and they said they were doing a ‘square’ that day. And we had no clue what it was. It’s a six-mile run. So we were nervous, and we ran together, and, well … Almost about halfway through—or we thought it was about halfway through—it wasn’t. It was one mile in, and we died. We just stopped. We were walking. We were so out of shape. … We also got pretty lost. Our coach comes around to see who’s still running and picks us up, and we got picked up. And he’s like, ‘Why are you still out here, ya losers?’ He was kidding, he was kidding. … It was our first impression of cross-country, and it wasn’t a good one.”

[They told me the “Square” is not a fun run. It’s not shady, it’s hilly. Then they told me about the “Megasquare”—a nine-mile run.]

Nos. 73, 74 & 75 [Runners]

James RogersLeave a comment
No. 71
Photo by James Rogers

“[Steve Prefontaine] just wanted it more. He wasn’t afraid to lead. If he wanted to win it, he was gonna win it.”

“What do you love about running?”

“It’s just so much fun, and you get to meet a bunch of really great people, and it’s a great community.”

“What’s the best piece of running advice you’ve ever received?”

“Run your own race.”

“As for the teams we’re facing, just go and get them. Be better than them.”

“Do you remember what got you into running?”

“When I was younger, I had a really mean, bad baseball coach. He made me end up quitting that sport, and my sister ran, and I said, Well, I don’t want to deal with him as a coach, so I might as well try something else. That’s what got me into running. So if it wasn’t for that guy being the way he was, I wouldn’t have gotten into running.”

Nos. 70, 71 & 72 [Runners]

James RogersLeave a comment
No. 70
Photo by James Rogers

“Perry. It was out in the middle of nowhere, by the side of a highway. It was right next to a mobile home park in the middle of the woods. I mean, it was all uphill and downhill. And it rained the night before, so it was all mud, and we were crawling up and down the hills. This one hill, we went to the bottom, and it’s all mud, and you have to get on your hands and knees to crawl back up. … No one PR’d that day. We just went there and had fun.”

“Did your coach give you any advice before the race?”

“Use the hills. Use the hills to your advantage. Yeah, and he said just be careful not to fly off into the bushes. … After the race, we went to that [muddy] hill and did it a couple more times, just crawling back up it.”