From running log:
Ran 5.6 miles at 7:30 pace in New Balance 305s. BRC run with Jim Clark, Ken Haller, and Chris Whitaker. Talked and joked. Hope to go up north and run in the woods tomorrow.
30 years later:
The "running boom" that I wrote about earlier gave birth to any number of small town running clubs. Some still exist to this day. Others ended up being false starts. The "BRC" of this posting was our attempt to create the Baraboo Running Club. It was well-intentioned, but it didn't stick. I ran with:
Jim Clark - he's been mentioned before here. One of the High School teachers and a big fan of road racing, he was an all-season running stalwart in Baraboo. His life would end many years too soon, during a run, like Jim Fixx.
Ken Haller - he was a connection to the Harry Haslanger days at BHS. A talented runner with long legs and a loping gait. Unfortunately, he suffered a collapsed lung while not even 20 years old. Over the years, I've lost touch with Ken, but recently connected with him via Facebook, perhaps he will comment here and give us an update.
Chris Whitaker - a teammate and a bit of a rival in high school, he had moved to Wisconsin from New York a couple of years earlier. Like Todd Coolidge, he had gone on to run cross country and track at UW-Oshkosh. To me at that age, Chris usually came across as rather full of himself (he may have said the same thing about me!), but he was a talented runner and a good training partner. One good thing about Chris is that he could keep an honest pace during an easy run, unlike a lot of us who seemed to turn every workout into a race in some misguided macho contest for bragging rights. I've also lost contact with Chris, I wonder what he's up to these days.
By writing "going up north", I was referring to my family's island cottage in Solon Springs, Wisconsin. That locale offered plenty of back-country running on sand roads and overgrown trails. I still look forward to visiting there each year, both to see family and to head back into the woods on some of the same trails I ran 30 years ago.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Doug,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the mention. Harry was a great coach. In 1977 he coached us (Roger Fleming, Henry Nelson, David Sprecher, Todd Coolidge and myself) to the SCC championship and regional chanmpionship. We were a Class A school that year so did not have much of a chance at Sectionals.
The lung is fine now. I still run but don't race much. I am waiting till I turn 50 so I can place better :) Those years taught me gave me a love of running. The hills here in Canton, CT remind me of the Baraboo Bluffs. The running has kept me young and also has made me one of the most fit USSF Soccer referee in the state of
Connecticut.
Thanks again for the mention. And lets all thank Harry for those years that he built the program. His spirit is still here in the heart of coach Arndt (one of Harry's original Harriers)
Ken Haller