Gloucester Catholic Cross Country Results from the 1970's

Coach Jack Daniels passes away at 92

 The world lost three of its greatest distance running coaches this year in a short span.

3-time Olympian and University of Oregon Coach Bill Dellinger. Adams State Coach Joe Vigil, and Olympian and Cortland College Coach Jack Daniels.

Besides being great coaches, all three were great men.

Here is the New York Times' great profile of Coach Daniels by Jere Longman.

I have in-depth interviews with Coach Daniels and Vigil in my book "Positive Splits."
Positive Splits: Positive Running Stories: Heath, Jack: 9781548655341: Amazon.com: Books

Jack Daniels, Olympian and ‘World’s Best’ Running Coach, Is Dead at 92

Tutoring Olympians, he created a simple workout formula that was said to produce the best results with the least effort, earning accolades across the running world.

 

The running coach Jack Daniels in 1996. “Before Jack, nobody knew how fast or slow they should go in training,” one running authority said. Credit...Robert Houser

By Jeré Longman

Sept. 19, 2025

Jack Daniels, a two-time Olympic medalist in the modern pentathlon and an exercise physiologist who was once described by Runner’s World magazine as “the world’s best running coach,” died on Sept. 12 at his home in Cortland, N.Y. He was 92.

His death was confirmed by his wife, Nancy Daniels.

Over seven decades, Daniels, armed with a Ph.D. in the subject, researched the physiology of running and coached Olympians and elite college athletes, as well as recreational runners. Perhaps his greatest contribution was to simplify and make accessible to coaches and runners of all levels — from the high school history teacher who doubles as a track coach to the world-class marathoner — the complicated science of human performance.

A runner or coach does not have to wade into the weeds trying to understand the nuances of Daniels’s measure of running fitness, which is based on the amount of oxygen consumption and goes by the acronym VDOT.

The only thing required is the numerical time it took to finish an all-out race — say, a 5K. That time can be plugged into an online calculator or compared with charts that Daniels and Jimmy Gilbert, a mathematician, devised in the 1970s. Daniels published it in 1998 as “Daniels’ Running Formula.”

The formula predicts an individual’s time in races of various distances, such as a 10-kilometer, a half-marathon and a marathon. It also establishes optimum paces for training runs of varying levels of intensity.

Daniels proposed individualized workouts for a runner to obtain the best possible results with the least amount of effort. A runner should not run too far or too fast, he suggested, and should avoid so-called junk, or unnecessary, miles.

“Before Jack, nobody knew how fast or slow they should go in training,” Amby Burfoot, the winner of the 1968 Boston Marathon and a former executive editor of Runner’s World, said in an interview. It was Burfoot who gave Daniels the best-coach appellation in the 1990s.

Critics said Daniels’s formula did not account sufficiently for individual variation. But others disagreed; Mike Smith, the former head coach at Northern Arizona University, who now trains Olympic-caliber runners, described it as “shockingly accurate.”

The criticism hasn’t diminished the formula’s popularity. This year, the VDOT online calculator averaged more than a million computations a month from users in more than 100 countries, said Brian Rosetti, who helped create the calculator and a coaching app with Daniels.

Daniels in 1988 with members of the women’s cross-country team at the State University of New York at Cortland. From 1989 to 1997, he guided the team to seven national championships. Credit...SUNY/Cortlandt

A coach and scientist of boundless curiosity, Daniels was responsible for other innovations as well. In the early 1980s, he helped figure out which running shoes were the fastest by determining that adding 100 grams (about three and a half ounces) to the weight of a pair of racing shoes increased the aerobic demand of running by about 1 percent — the equivalent of an extra minute in completing the 26.2 miles of a marathon.

And when Joan Benoit Samuelson, the winner of the first women’s Olympic marathon at the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles, had arthroscopic knee surgery 17 days before the U.S. Olympic trials — a setback that could have kept her from qualifying — Daniels came up with a workaround. At a Nike lab in Eugene, Ore., he rigged a bicycle so she could sit beneath it and pedal with her hands and arms, keeping her heart rate and her confidence elevated until she got back on her feet to win the trials and an eventual gold medal.

During the track competition at the Olympics that year, Daniels and Nancy Scardina, a former elite runner whom he married in 1985, counted the strides of 50 Olympians in events from 800 meters to the marathon. They calculated that roughly 180 steps per minute — with each foot strike landing toward the runner’s center of gravity, creating a flowing or rolling motion over the body — was optimal, because it minimized the time the body spent in the air and reduced the shock of the landing force.

“He was one to think out of the box at all times,” Benoit Samuelson said in an interview. “He was really ahead of his time.”

Jack Tupper Daniels was born on April 26, 1933, in Detroit, one of five sons of Robert Daniels, who installed telephone switchboards on military bases, and Louise (Giblet) Daniels, who ran the household. The family moved to the San Francisco Bay Area when Jack was six weeks old.

He attended the University of Montana, earning a bachelor’s degree in physical education and mathematics in 1955. In college, he was a standout member of the rifle and swim teams, experiences that served him well when he joined the Army following graduation and won a silver medal in the modern pentathlon team competition at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, Australia. At the 1960 Olympics in Rome, he won a bronze medal in the team event.

Daniels competing at the 1960 Olympics in Rome, where he won a bronze medal.Credit...AP Photo

The pentathlon, meant to recreate a soldier’s challenges on the battlefield, involves shooting, swimming, fencing, horseback riding and running. But as Daniels wrote in his memoir, “Luck of the Draw” (2019), he received no expert coaching in how to train for and run a race during his Olympic preparation. He came to realize that it was counterproductive to run as fast as possible all the time — that every workout must have a specific purpose, and that training needed to be balanced with rest.

He went on to earn a master’s degree in physical education and exercise physiology from the University of Oklahoma in 1965 and a Ph.D in exercise physiology from the University of Wisconsin in 1969.

Preparing for the 1968 Olympics in high-altitude Mexico City, Daniels conducted tests on the effects of running in thin air while training in elevated areas like Alamosa, Colo. He would sit on the hood of a car as it drove around a track accompanying runners and use meteorological balloons to collect samples of air that they breathed into tubes. Credit...Bettmann/Getty Images

Ahead of the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, held at an altitude of 7,300 feet, he and his colleagues conducted tests on the effects of running in thin air. During training in high-altitude areas like Alamosa, Colo., Daniels would sit on the hood of a car as it drove slowly around a track alongside runners, like the star miler Jim Ryun, and would use meteorological balloons to collect samples of air that they breathed into tubes.

 Daniels held roughly a dozen coaching jobs over his career, but his greatest achievement as a coach came at the State University of New York at Cortland (now SUNY Cortland), where he guided the women’s cross-country team to seven N.C.A.A. Division III national championships and the women’s indoor track team to one national title between 1989 and 1997.

In the summer of 1988, he wrote in his memoir, he helped a relay team of Cortland runners set a national record by running roughly 3,000 miles across the country in 13 days and 18 hours.

The 10 men and five women were divided into three groups, each group racing in four-hour shifts, said one of the runners, Judy Sparks Arlington. Daniels, she explained, devised a strategy for runners to alternate every 400 meters. This enabled them to run faster on each leg of the race than if they had been running a mile or more.

“Absolutely, it was Jack’s brainchild how we did it,” Sparks Arlington said.

In 2000, the N.C.A.A. named Daniels the top Division III women’s cross-country coach of the 20th century.

In addition to his wife, a registered nurse, Daniels is survived by their daughters, Audra and Sarah Daniels.

In the last week of his life, Daniels wrote a children’s book to encourage families to walk and jog together.

“Jack’s goal was to get America fit, the world fit,” Nancy Daniels said. “He wanted every kid to love to exercise.”

Jeré Longman is a Times reporter on the Obituaries desk who writes the occasional sports-related story.

A version of this article appears in print on Sept. 21, 2025, Section A, Page 30 of the New York edition with the headline: Jack Daniels, 92, Olympian and ‘World’s Best Running Coach,’ Dies . Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

 

Mental Toughness for Runners

I Know Mental Toughness When I See It

Without a doubt, the most common lament I’ve heard from runners in over 25 years of coaching is: “Coach, I wish I was mentally tougher out there today. I know I could have done a lot better.” Over the years I’ve heard scores of runners blame disappointing performances and not being able to reach their race goals on a perceived lack of their own mental toughness. Exactly what is “mental toughness?” I define mental toughness as the ability to use self-discipline to get the best possible physical performance from your body on that day.
I know mental toughness when I see it: Alberto Salazar pulling away from Rudolpho Gomez in a cloud of dust after 24 miles, at sub-5 minute mile pace to win the 1982 New York Marathon. Lasse Viren getting knocked down, lying motionless, and then getting up to set a world record in the 1972 Olympic 10,000 meters. Bill Rodgers winning the 1975 Boston Marathon despite stopping to tie his shoe. These are just some examples that come quickly to mind. I’ve also seen mental toughness displayed from the high school runners I coach, sometimes when least expected: A freshman girl out-kicking senior runners in her first cross-country race, or a senior boy runner running negative splits and getting his best time in hurricane-like conditions. I’ve often wondered where the mental toughness comes from to rise above the ordinary.
Shakespeare may have framed it best when he said, “Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them.” Is the nature/nurture argument the same with mental toughness? Are runners born mentally tough or do they “have it thrust upon them”--and if so, how? First, a disclosure: Our family crest is a yellow chicken with a French inscription “Espere Mieux”. If mental toughness runs in our family it appears it may have skipped the generation when our family crest was inscribed!
Think about the races you have run where being mentally tough allowed you to rise above the pedestrian, above your perceived level of fitness to greater accomplishments. Maybe even to beat someone who you believed to be better. Wouldn’t it be great to know how to draw upon that same mental toughness at will? I decided to consult some of our all-time top runners for their views on mental toughness.
What exactly is mental toughness as it relates to running? According to Olympian and author Jeff Galloway: “The brain has two hemispheres that are separated and don’t interconnect. The left-brain tries to steer us towards pleasure and away from discomfort. The intuitive-creative right side connects us to our hidden strengths.”
By preparing mentally for the challenges you expect, you will empower the right side of the brain to develop mental toughness. As we accumulate stress, the left-brain sends us a stream of messages telling us to “slow down,” “stop and you’ll feel better,” “this isn’t your day,” and even “why are you doing this?”
What is mental toughness?
According to 1983 Boston marathon winner and American record holder at 10 miles Greg Meyer, mental toughness is one of the most important ingredients for reaching your potential: “I believe totally that the mental makeup of a runner, both over a career and on any given day is about what you called toughness, and what another might call confidence in their expectation of the planned outcome. The belief that one is “ready to run” and is confident in their fitness, allows the athlete to appear mentally tough. Bill Rodgers running the hills through Newton was as mentally tough as anyone—from a belief in his ability and his goal. When equal athletes compete, it is the one who doesn’t lose focus or waver in their belief who wins. The toughness of single-mindedness I call it.”
Bill Rodgers thinks the term “mental toughness” is “a description of how well an athlete prepares for the physical and mental challenges of their sport. I like the great Tanzanian marathoner Juma Ikangaa’s comment, ‘The will to win is nothing without the will to prepare.’” Lynn Jennings has said, “Mental will is a muscle that needs exercise, like the muscles of the body.”Here are 5 ways to increase your mental toughness:
First, create a competitive advantage through your training. Besides the physiological improvement that comes through investing more time in training, you receive a psychological boost if you do a workout that you believe no one else is doing. Hill workouts, negative-split workouts, and short fast repeats at the end of a long run are some of the ways runners look for a competitive advantage.
Galloway believes that incorporating mile repeats and long slow runs of 30 miles in his training enabled him to beat more talented runners and make the Olympic team. Bill Rodgers: “Most of my daily runs (two a day) were at a moderate pace (6-7 minute miles for me), but I always ran by how I felt. If I felt decent I would run harder for several miles at a time. This was true for 5 to 25 mile runs. I was trying to teach my body to ‘float,’ that is run as effortlessly as possible in some training runs.”
Finally, train with other runners. Jumbo Elliott, long-time Villanova coach, was fond of saying, “Runners make runners.” The synergy of proper training with other runners in a supportive (and not overly competitive) environment can take your training to another level while enabling you to run closer to your potential.
Gerry Lindgren, considered by many to be America’s best high school runner ever, ran a 13:44 5000 meters and an 8:40 two mile in high school and beat two World Class Russian runners, Leonid Ivanov and Anatoly Dutov to win the 10,000 meter event in the US-USSR Track Meet in Los Angeles in 1964. Lindgren used mental toughness to turn himself into a world-class runner:
“I used to do a lot of exercises to increase mental toughness. It was a game I used to play. Every time I went around a curve in training I went to the outside in training runs so I had to run further. I always had to take the hardest longest way to build mental toughness. I chased bikes. I did sprints at certain places in my training runs no matter how I felt. Every time I came to that place I had to sprint! It slowly built up my mental toughness.”
Salazar trained by running hard ¾-mile intervals at the start, middle, and end of his runs. Alberto recalls running against Rudolpho Gomez: “I actually had two races against him in New York—1980 and 1982. The 1982 race was of course the very close race. I remember being scared of his kick, so I tried to soften him up with surges over the last two miles. They worked as I only beat him by a few seconds, and if I’d waited, it might have turned out differently.”
Second, train your mind. Frank Shorter says, “I think simulating racing while interval training is a good way to gain mental toughness. Imagine yourself in the race situation. Then, when you are actually in it, it will seem ‘familiar.’”
I tell the Gloucester Catholic boys and girls cross-country teams I coach that mental toughness is like a muscle that grows stronger through use. Passing someone when you are tired, surging, or starting your kick at a predetermined place—all of these things build mental toughness and make you that much tougher for the next race.
Jeff Galloway recommends fartlek training as a way to enhance mental toughness. Because there are no artificial barriers on time, distance, etc, you reduce the negative messages from the left-brain when things get tough: “Fartlek develops a sense of focus and resource coordination not found in other forms of training. You’ll still get those ‘pings’ from the left side but they won’t bother you as much. Fartlek desensitizes you to the discomfort and uncertainty of pushing and pacing beyond your current limits.”
Bill Rodgers agrees: “I recall using a technique while racing of visualizing an Olympic gold medallist at 10K, who was a terrific competitor; I would emulate his running form to steady myself mentally over the final miles of a race. I think training and racing a lot makes you experienced, i.e. tough as a competitor.”
Salazar says “Back in the ’70s and ’80s, it was felt that one’s mental toughness, resilience, and ability to focus were God given and could not be enhanced. Now, common sense tells us that even the naturally toughest competitors can become more relaxed and more focused through the use of mental and psychological training.”
Relaxation, visualization training, and hypnotherapy are all common psychological training tools. Steve Prefontaine once said: "Most people run a race to see who is fastest. I run a race to see who has the most guts."
Third, make sure you are really giving 100% effort. Larry James, the Olympic 400 meter gold (4x 400 relay, world record) and silver medalist from Villanova and a long-time coach and Athletic Director at Stockton College believes: “You can only give 100%. Whenever I hear someone say they just gave 150% or 175% effort, I suspect they are usually only giving 80% effort. No one can give or ask for more than 100% effort; it’s impossible, that’s the best you can do.”
If you are able to give close to 100% effort more often than your competition, you will appear mentally tougher than your competitors. Olympian Paavo Nurmi once said: “Mind is everything—muscles pieces of rubber. All that I am, I am because of my mind.”Fourth, break the race or workout into segments to make it more manageable. For example, author and former AAU champion Tom Osler recommends breaking a race such as a marathon into thirds: “The first third is run easy; the second third you start to get competitive and run at a relaxed pace fast enough to catch runners in front of you. Only the last third is raced at maximum effort.” Osler was also one of the proponents of inserting walking breaks in long runs to make them more manageable.
Our high school runners are taught to start their 5K kick with about a half-mile to go, and to run against the clock. By picking a point in your race in advance where you know you will go hard you are able to embrace discomfort for a manageable amount of time and also to use the element of surprise to appear mentally tough to your competitors.
Also, by not playing it safe emotionally, you will start to perceive yourself as a tough runner. By breaking the race into segments and by concentrating on running as hard as possible in that segment you will increase your mental toughness and test the mental toughness of competitors. Gerry Lindgren would often sprint the first quarter-mile after the four-mile mark of the race before settling back down to race pace. Very few runners were willing to go with him at that point of the race and Lindgren was often able to break the race wide open with this tactic.
Bill Rodgers: “My friend Andy Palmer used the motto “The Mind is the Athlete” as part of the philosophy he passed on to his athletes. I see talent as physical and mental. I think everyone has the innate ability to be mentally tough; what counts is whether one has the desire to explore that to the best of their individual physical abilities.”
Fifth, use your self-discipline to know when to and when not to push yourself. Knowing that you alone decide when to push and when to hold back can relax you and enable you to ration your energy for use at the right time.
Tom Osler says “the urge to push in extreme weather conditions in pursuit of developing mental toughness is counter-productive.” Osler continues: “You can’t beat Mother Nature. You will run much better, and be able to push harder in a race if you train at the coolest part of the day for example.” Coach and author Roy Benson adds: “Mentally tough runners have the discipline to not race in practice in order to ‘win’ the workouts. They can control their urges to run fast at the beginning of workouts or races when the running feels easy, and will not give in to the temptation to slow down when the inevitable fatigue sets in over the last one-third to one-half of the workout or race.”
Where the mind goes, the body will follow.
It turns out the inscription on our family crest translates to a useful slogan for anyone wishing to call on their own mental toughness: “Espere Mieux”--could be translated to “expect or wait for the best.” If you wait for the right moment and expect the best in each running situation that requires mental toughness, you will be much more prepared when you have your own “cloud of dust” moment. You will emerge from the other side victorious because you expected to do well based on your preparation. After all, your mind has already seen you do it before and expects nothing less.

For an updated version of this article see the new book "Positive Splits"
https://www.amazon.com/Positive-Splits-Running-Stories/dp/1548655341/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=jack+heath&qid=1565713559&s=books&sr=1-3

Browning Ross: Distance Running's Founding Father

 

Browning Ross, Distance Running’s Founding Father
by Dr. Gabe Mirkin 

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Browning Ross was truly the father of road racing in America. He was a member of the U.S. Olympic Track and Field teams in 1948 and 1952, and Pan American Games 1500 meter (metric mile) champion in 1951.  He won many hundreds of long distance races through the streets of North American cities.  “Barefoot” Charley Robbins, also a U.S. national champion, called Browning the “most versatile runner of all time.”

• In 1957, he founded the first city-wide running club with regular races, the Philadelphia Road Runners Club.

• In 1958, he helped to found the first national organization created run by runners, the Road Runners Club of America.  This was an alternative to the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU), which was operated by non-runners who did nothing to organize running programs and made all sorts of rules that excluded people from running events.  Today, The Road Runners Club of America has more than 1500 running clubs with more than 200,000 members. 

 

Early Running Career

As a high school freshman in 1939, at age 14, Browning Ross won several cross country meets.  However, he was more interested in baseball, pole vaulting and broad jumping.   His future was set when he was cut by the baseball team and proved to be a mediocre field event competitor.  He was an outstanding distance runner who was so fast that he was eventually able to run a quarter mile in about 49 seconds.  By his senior year in high school, this skinny little kid in canvas shoes won the state cross country championship and three weeks later finished third in the National Championship Scholastic Cross Country meet. He also won the state and national scholastic indoor mile championships. 

 

Three weeks after he was graduated from high school, he was drafted into the navy and served in World War II.  He was unable to train during the war, but soon after the war ended he won an indoor two-mile championship in Madison Square Garden while running for the Navy.  He was recruited by coach Jumbo Elliot for the Villanova track team, where he had a very successful college track and field career and was the National Steeplechase champion.  In the 1948 London Olympics 3,000-meter steeplechase, he finished seventh.  In the 1951 Pan American Games in Buenos Aires, he won the 1,500 meters, finished second in the steeplechase and fourth in the 5,000 meters. In the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, he sprained his ankle during a training run and did not qualify for the steeplechase final.  He continued to run at an elite level into his 40s. In 1964, he set an American Masters record in the mile, and won the first Caesar Rodney Half Marathon in 1:07.

 

Battles with the Amateur Athletic Union

Browning started the first U.S. running magazine, the Long Distance Log, that listed the names of finishers in long distance road races throughout America. He financed the magazine out of his own pocket.  He had very limited funds, so he tried to support the magazine by selling running shoes out of his car. Because of this, the idiots in power at the AAU declared him a professional and suspended him from competing in running races.  These were the same idiots who tried to kick me out of the AAU because I held women's running races of longer than 1.5 miles. I still have the letters that were sent to me claiming that running long distances would forever keep women from being able to have children, in spite of the fact that there was no evidence to support such nonsense. Browning was also suspended by the AAU for permitting and  encouraging  women to run in the Philadelphia Marathon.  

 

The same AAU authorities ruined Wes Santee's chances for Olympic greatness by declaring him a professional for accepting a meager income for competing in races.  Santee could have been the world's first four-minute miler. Santee’s AAU ban prevented him from racing Browning in the Camden Street Run in the 1950’s while both were in their prime.  

 

At the time that the AAU suspended Browning, he had already won eight individual National AAU championships in distance races.  He was in his late forties and no longer competing at his very high level, but he was still running because running was his life.  Eventually Browning was reinstated as an amateur and became chairman of the AAU's national long-distance running committee.  He was the coach of the U.S. international cross-country team in the late 1960s.  (I also made peace with the AAU, started and became chairman of the AAU age group long-distance running committee and directed their age group programs). 

 

Teaching and Coaching Career

Browning taught history in Woodbury and Camden, New Jersey, high schools and directed exercise programs for teenagers at the Penns Grove Y.M.C.A. In 1972, at age 47, he started coaching track and cross-country at Gloucester Catholic High School. Despite a lack of track facilities, he was able to produce champion runners and teams.  Meanwhile, he continued to race at a high level as long as he could, and supported other runners by:  

• hosting road races for serious runners and "Run for Your Life" runs for everyone, 

• organizing running camps for kids, 

• publishing his monthly Long Distance Log to list how runners finished in road races throughout the country, and

• operating a sporting goods store. 

He won the Berwick PA nine-mile race 10 times, and hundreds of other races. 

 

Sudden Death

Browning spent his entire life running races until 1998, when he died suddenly at age 74.  The newspapers listed his death as a heart attack, but I think it is unlikely that he had a conventional heart attack, In which a plaque breaks off in an artery near the heart, followed by formation of a clot that completely blocks the blood flow to part of the heart muscle.  No autopsy was done.  His wife reported that on the night before he died, he had developed a pain in his leg that was so severe that he considered going to the hospital, but he was used to pain as a world-class distance runner, was in good health and had no history of chest pains, so he stayed home. The next morning after his usual three-mile morning run, he got into his car and backed out of his driveway.  Minutes later, a neighbor noticed that his car had backed into another car and Ross was sitting in the car unconscious with the engine still running.  Resuscitation efforts failed to start his heart beating again.  Evidently, on the night before he died, a clot formed in the calf of his leg and the next morning it traveled in his veins to block blood flow to either his heart, lungs or brain to kill him. 

 

A Fitting Tribute

Jack Heath, a competitive distance runner who was coached by Browning and later coached with him at Gloucester Catholic High School, has written a wonderful book about this man who did more for long distance running in the U.S. than any other person.  Look for Browning Ross: The Father of American Distance Running. Those of you who have competed in running races will see many familiar names of people who ran in American road races from the 1940s to the present.  It is also inspiring reading even for people who have never been in a race.  

 

Browning Ross

April 26, 1924 – April 27, 1998

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Catching up with Lasse Viren

Catching up with Lasse Viren in Myrskyla, Finland

By Pablo Vigil

 

Myrskyla, or place of storms; is a beautiful, small Finnish village, with scattered patches of rolling woods, roads, trails, barley, rye, wheat fields, some rock outcrops. Verdant, pastoral beauty is everywhere, along with many species of mushrooms and edible berries. A beautiful white, wooden church is centrally located, with a small cemetery and a big, beautiful lake behind it. Small farms and some small family businesses are there: Viren Trucking, Safu Fish Company, as well as, a famous red granite quarry. Typical fauna includes moose, rabbits, deer, small birds…and on rare occasions, a bear/karhu, or perhaps a wolf/susi.  
  In essence, a setting analogous to what the American poet, Robert Frost, or the Finnish writer, Aleksis Kivi captured in their writings. Aleksis Kivi’s famous book, Seven Brothers, could well have taken place in Myrskyla.

Old, beautiful church in central Myrskyla.

On August 25, 2011, I had the grand honor of visiting Myrskyla for the first time. This small village is approximately 1 hour northeast of Helsinki, capital of Finland, and is home to about 2,000 inhabitants. This summer also happened to be Myrskyla’s 375th anniversary.

 Vicariously, I had been to Myrskyla several times since first reading and hearing about it after the 1972 summer Olympics in Munich, Germany. Since then, I no longer thought of Myrskyla, as a place of storms, but rather, Myrskyla, the perfect storm: Lasse Viren!

 This serendipitous, “chance in a life time” meeting, was due to an old Finnish running friend, Henrik Sandstrom, former mayor of his municipality, Siuntio, and former international runner. For the past years Henrik has worked as managing director of a recreation area organization in the Helsinki region.

 The purpose of the visit was a business meeting with 2 special people. The first was the mayor of Myrskyla, Jouko Asuja, a tall, slim, kind man with a warm smile, bushy eyebrows, and glasses. He also has the physique of a long distance runner, but “attributes it all to genetics.” The 2nd was Myrskyla’s “favorite son”: Lasse  Viren, 4 time Olympic gold medalist.  His Tour de Force: 5K and 10K gold in Munich in 1972, and again in Montreal in 1976…Surreal!!!

Left to right: Lasse Viren, Pablo Vigil, Mayor Asuja

The main topic on the agenda was to discuss the possibility of collaboration between Myrskyla and the recreation area organization.

 
The meeting was to take place in the mayor’s office around noon, but Lasse was running late, no pun intended.

 I admit, I was nervous meeting Lasse after having first met him back in 1977 in Boulder, Colorado.   At that time, I trained with Olympian Frank Shorter, winner of the gold and silver in the marathon at those same summer Olympics in Munich and Montreal.

 Boulder, at the time, was a bubbling synergy of running talent, and continues to the present. Other Olympians, international runners, and national runners lived and trained there; for example: Garry Bjorklund, Mike Slack, Ric Rojas, John Gregorio, Mike Peterson, Guy Arbogast, Mary Decker, John Cossick, Michael Sandrock, Mark Johnson, Dick Quax, Bruce Gomez, Mike Ruffato, Mark Weeks, Skip and Ruthie Hamilton, Steve and Sheryl Flanagan, Steve Floto…ad infinitum.  Oregon’s Steve Prefontaine also made several guest appearances, along with Bill Bowerman, Kenny Moore and Bill Dellinger.

 Regarding Lasse’s visit to Boulder, Colorado in 1977: Finnish long distance runners in Colorado have a deeply rooted tradition, going back to the 1960s. The first migration of Finnish running stars arrived in Alamosa, Colorado in 1967 to run for Adams State College, under the coaching guidance of Dr. Joe I. Vigil/Chef des Chefs/Coach of Coaches.

These early runners included Juha Vaatainen and 2 other Finns. Years later, the Finnish migration would continue; for example: Martti Vainio, Jurgen Salo, Sinikka Keskitalo, Hakan Spik, Jari Nurmista, Tuija Toivonen, Arto Bryggare, Ari Paunonen, Harri Hanninen, Henrik Sandstrom, Tommy Ekblom, Sari Essayah, Valentin Konenen. Recently, Lasse Viren’s son also trained in Alamosa.

 Historically, Finnish runners have been big proponents of high altitude/high mileage training. Alamosa’s 7,543 feet/2,299 meters, infinite sunny days, dirt roads, great facilities, and great support by the community and Adams State College, have attracted Finnish runners for years. Equally, countless of other runners from all over the world and the USA have trickled to Alamosa.

  Runners such as Gelindo Bordin and Stefano Baldini, both Olympic marathon winners, as well as Buddy Edelen, Juma Ikangaa, Laura Fogli, Jeff Turningheart, Greg Meyer, Chuck Smead, Jim Ryan, John Esquibel, Tony Niemczak, Rick Roybal, Pat Porter, Deena Drossin‐Kastor, myself included, have trained here. Alamosa, Colorado has really been an international/national revolving door of phenomenal running and athletic talent…and continues to the present.

 Meanwhile, the minutes ticked away in Mayor Asuja’s office as we waited for Lasse. Suddenly, the silence was shattered by a loud noise coming from what sounded like a large vehicle just outside the window. Lasse had finally arrived, having driven a large cargo truck, the kind used to haul really heavy rocks, lumber, maybe even elephants. Minutes later there was a soft knock at the door and in walked Lasse. I introduced myself and told him about first meeting him in Boulder, Colorado in 1977.

Lasse and his prized cargo truck.

The meeting started and before long, the only thing I could focus on was how beautiful and soft Finnish sounded as opposed to other languages I was familiar with. During most of the 20 minute meeting, I sat politely, as quiet as a mouse, not knowing, nor understanding a single Finnish word.

Obviously, no Finnish bad words were spoken, since I would have definitely recognized them. After the meeting, I humbly confessed to Lasse and Mayor Asuja that I neither spoke nor understood Finnish, with the exception of 5 popular bad words. After saying this, it suddenly occurred to me that they might ask me to elaborate on the 5 Finnish bad words and to ask how I had come to learn them.

  Luckily, they didn’t ask, but out of the corner of my eye I noticed that my friend, Henrik, had turned beet red and looked embarrassed. He was one of the culprits for my bad Finnish vocabulary!! After confessing my ignorance of the Finnish language, Lasse quickly pacified me by looking at me with a twinkle in his eyes and a half smile saying, “Finnish is very easy, even the very small children speak it!” I admit I did feel better after this, especially since this comforting comment came from Lasse Viren himself.

 After the meeting, we walked from the mayor’s office to a local restaurant to eat lunch. As we walked along, I kept thinking of what an amazing and surreal experience this was, how blessed I was to be walking in Myrskyla with great company and Lasse Viren, and just across the road was a statue of him.

 

*“Sisu” allegory, Myrskyla, Finland

 

The day had started off cloudy and overcast and now the sun was shining brightly on Myrskyla.

 While walking to the restaurant, during our lunch, and while walking back from our lunch, I noticed that not a single person took a second look at Lasse, or even really acknowledged him. I seemed to be more of a curiosity than Lasse.  This incident seemed very surprising to me, maybe even odd.

 *Sisu is a Finnish term analogous to “guts”, bravado, perseverance, tenacity, “will to win”, etc…in essence, the “Finnish spirit”.

 The Finnish lunch turned out to be a typical one: great salad with beets, lettuce, choice of dressings, real mashed potatoes, a thick gravy/broth with big chunks of real chicken and cooked vegetables, choice of rye,white, wheat bread, real butter. Really a wholesome, nutritious meal, typical of Finnish cuisine! Lasse also had extra butter and two glasses of milk. I drank some kind of burgundy‐colored, semi‐bitter, berry juice, but tasty. During our lunch we talked about different topics, but nothing really having to do with running and training.
  Better yet, we talked about our children, wild animals in the area, grandchildren, Lasse’s problems with his kitchen floor, the roof at his family’s trucking business, his phone. He spoke of his childhood in Myrskyla, driving a semi‐truck…etc. I confess, I did ask Lasse one running question: Did he currently run for fitness? He confessed that he had run maybe 5 times in the last 2 years. This was hard to believe. He looked amazingly fit: the same lean, small torso, extra long, lean legs and arms, same small, slender shoulders, long fingers, big feet. His once long flowing, sandy‐ brown hair was now very short and salt and pepper colored.
  His once Quaker‐style, sandy‐brown beard was gone, replaced by a full, salt and pepper, short beard, glasses covering his sky‐blue eyes. He wore a pair of worn white Asics training shoes, semi dress black pants, a short sleeved, navy blue, worn “Bolder Boulder 10k” shirt with a collar. In other words, despite his alleged lack of training and appearance, I’m convinced that he could still do some serious butt kicking…and I wasn’t about to challenge him!!!!

 

Lasse, still looking great years later!

After lunch we had coffee, which is typical of many European countries. The Finnish coffee is notoriously strong, compared to most wimpy, American coffee. Per capita, Finland consumes more coffee than any other nation in the world. Furthermore, Finnish coffee has been known to wake up the dead and kill the living…man, woman, or karhu!!!!

 We then got in Mayor Asuja’s car and started off to see a beautiful trail and area on top of a small hill just outside of town. On the way out, Lasse pointed out the house where he grew up. I asked if we could stop for a quick photo. I quickly jumped out of the car and snapped a picture, only to have an older man come after me shouting “What are you doing here?”. It turned out to be Lasse’s older brother, who also happened to be a retired policeman! Oh, great!!
  The possibility of being thrown in jail in Myrskyla for trespassing quickly flashed through my brain. Luckily, Lasse called out the car window to his brother. I then quickly shook Lasses’ brother’s hand and took his picture. Also, next door to Lasse’s childhood home was an old, red, quaint log home, which Lasse told me was where his grandfather used to live and at one time had a berry‐juice business. Naturally, I had to have a picture of Lasse’s grandfather’s home. What a rare, prized moment! After this exciting ordeal, we zipped off to a nearby beautiful wooded area on top of a small hill with a winding, beautiful trail: Lassen polku/Lasse’s trail.
  This great trail curves around the rim of a small hill and wooded area full of tall, slim pine trees, lots of wild mushrooms, and delicious blueberries, which Lasse and I couldn’t stop eating. I think I got the best of him by eating the most blueberries. This trail also winds around for about 3.5 kilometers over soft, sandy ground covered with mossy, forest vegetation, with some slightly rocky areas. All in all, Lassen polku is the kind of trail that most runners and hikers drool over, or dream about.

Along the edge of the rim is also another trail, that branches down about 80 meters over 800 meters in length. Lasse trained here countless times, so he knew this area like a wild karhu. On another side of the trail rim beautiful cliffs appeared.  Meanwhile, the sun shone like wild honey as we walked along stopping sporadically to eat wild blueberries. Along the way, Lasse also pointed out vestiges of an old, 300 meter track, now overgrown with forest vegetation and once used by Finnish soldiers during WWII to maintain fitness.

 

Lasse at Lassen polku/Lasse’s Trail…still looking like a “lean and mean running machine”.

Finland, fitness/running, are synonymous and nothing new. Per capita, Finland has produced some of the greatest distance runners ever: Wille Ritola, Paavo Nurmi, Juha Vaatainen, Martii Vainio, Hannes Kolehmainen, Pekka Vasala, Tapio Kantanen, Kaarlo Maaninka, are just a few.

As we continued to walk along, Lasse, Mayor Asuja and Henrik stopped periodically to view a detailed forest map of the area. Lasse also told us another interesting story regarding a small plaque and monument in one end of the forest. The gist of the plaque read: This memorial is in gratitude of all the Finnish women and their generous contributions during WWII. During WWII, Finnish women had not only worked as nurses, cooks but also as sentries.

Left to right: Mayor Asuja, Lasse, Henrik Sandstrom at Lassen polku.

While at Lassen polku, I asked Lasse if he had encountered any wild life during his training runs in the woods and trails in the area. I was imagining and expecting great stories of wild bears, or wolves, or the possiblility of Lasse fighting off a bear/wolf, then sprinting off to safety. What crazy thoughts, but I felt compelled to asked Lasse these stupid questions. Lasse  simply answered that he has only seen bears in zoos. What??? And what about a wolf/susi??? He replied, “I have never seen one and I hope I never see one!!!!” So much for my stupid questions and imagination. I got what I deserved, albeit, disappointing!!

After this, we drove back to Mayor Asuja’s office where he presented both Henrik and me with a beautiful book about Myrskyla. This special book contains copies of old black and white photos taken in the 19th  and 20th century, along with recent ones in color. Both Mayor Asuja and Lasse signed our books, plus Lasse autographed several postcards of himself wearing his 4 Olympic gold medals. I then followed Lasse to his monster cargo truck and asked for one last photo. The last photo taken, I thanked him for his generous time and hospitality and… most of all, his inspiration.

 

One thing for sure: next time I visit Myrskyla, I will definitely insist on Lasse showing me how to drive his cargo truck, after all, he assured me that driving a big truck was easier than driving a smaller vehicle. Again, Lasse seems to have a way of making many things look and sound easy…maybe even winning 4 Olympic gold medals??? Furthermore, I think Mayor Asuja and I need to have a meeting ASAP concerning my idea for a name change for Myrskyla: I was thinking of changing Myrskyla to MyrskyLasse….It is only a simple change of 3 extra letters!!!

PS: Special kiitos/thanks to Henrik Sandstrom, Mayor Jouka Asuja, and Lasse Viren for my 1st visit to Myrskyla…home of the perfect storm: Lasse Viren!

Kiitos! Kiitos! Hyva! Hyva!...Sisu!!!!!!!

 

Author contemplating future “MyrskyLasse” sign change…only 3 extra letters!!!

 

Many, Many thanks to Author Pablo Vigil for his great article and pictures!!

 

Author Pablo with Lasse and US Gold Medal Winner Frank Shorter

 Lasse Viren of Finland crosses the finish line to win the gold medal in the 5000m with a time of 13:24.76 during the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal,

 

Lasse and Steve Prefontaine

 

Frank Shorter 1972 Olympic Gold Medalist in the Marathon