Dateline: Boulder, CO
"Success is not a place at which one arrives but rather the spirit with
which one undertakes and continues the journey. “
Alex Noble
 |
| Guy Alton |
An
athlete will die twice, the second being the most definitive; but the first
often the most painful.
They are everywhere in this
mountain town, these elite endurance athletes. Cycling and running; gaunt in
frame with hollow deep set eyes, adorn in high tech and skin tight workout
gear, drawn to Boulder, CO like moths to a candle flame. This is Mecca for
those who push themselves to the brink of human endurance performance. The
light air at 6500 feet of elevation, by limiting oxygen intake, spawns a
training advantage by squeezing every last fiber of fitness possible for the
maximum exertion and exhaustion of the human body.
However, the real reason they
are here is not high altitude training, that being a mere guise to mollify
their “normal” friends and family who worry for they do not understand. No,
they come to immerse themselves in a culture that generates an informal but
effective support system that brings comfort to their obsessive need, to buffer
the biting inevitable failure as they battle the most invincible of all foes;
time.
 |
| Nell Rojas |
Their stories run the gauntlet
of the leader board of their sport - the up and coming, to the here and now,
the once been and the never have beens - some with legitimate Olympic dreams;
others simply hanging on, hoping against hope that somehow the magic will
return. Do not question their resolve. It is such a short shelf life, a small window
of opportunity, as they attempt to cram in more workouts than Ringling Brothers
crammed clowns into a Volkswagen. Then it is over.
Dreams (and stubbornness) fuel
their inexorable migration to the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains,
timelessly suspending them in an athletic induced Peter Pan lifestyle,
believing that long sought big breakthrough performance is just beyond the next
workout. Their lives revolve around beating (or at least tricking) the stop
watch (and the calendar), hell bent to shave just a few more precious seconds
(and years); before the gun sounds for the last unwinnable race with the
setting sun of their youth.
They labor at day jobs;
waiting tables in the sidewalk cafes, unloading freight at the docks,
babysitting as substitute teachers; selling shoes, mopping floors and stocking
shelves. Many, if not most, are college grads possessing diplomas from some of
the most illustrious universities in the land. But they have postponed
capitalist careers, turning their backs on financial stability, for this life
of the tramp athlete. They will take most any work to maintain a minimum of
self-sufficiency, to keep the dream alive. They sleep where they may, often on
an old couch in a shared rental house with other athletic vagabonds. They will
bum meals with no shame. The unaware general public views their panhandling behavior
as wasteful and irresponsible. Amongst themselves, the quest is held as noble.
How many times have we heard,
“It’s not about the money?” A professional athlete is offended by the mere
offer of millions for which in return he must throw a football or hit a
baseball or shoot a basketball better than 99.99% of us. But due to this
disrespect of an offer of paltry millions for remuneration to play a child’s
game, he refuses to participate- to thrill us in person or enthrall us on
television- until the pot is sweetened by several more million dollars, the salve
needed to repair a fragile offended ego. It is not about the money? Do any of
us really believe him? When it comes to our modern athletic super stars, we are
a cynical populace living in a cynical time; and for good reason.
I met Guy Alton and Nell Rojas
as they worked the retail floor at the Boulder Running Company. On a rainy fall
afternoon both were hustling to meet the busy demands of a store full of
clients. I had stopped by the store on a whim. I asked store manager Trent
Briney if he employed any athletes a step below the elite level; Olympic
caliber, who were desperately fighting both the competition and the calendar,
stubbornly refusing to let go of their athletic dreams? “That’s my whole
staff,” Briney said with a laugh. “How many do you want to talk to?”
Everyone in Boulder, so it
seems to an outsider, is physically fit and dressed on their perpetual way to
another workout. Boulder is a close knit running community – Rojas tells me she
knows 75% of the people who walk through the BRC’s front door – and a mere
rainy day does not slow down the store’s traffic. Rojas squats amongst open
shoe boxes in front of a middle aged, but fit, women, quizzing her as to the
snugness of the new trainer she has laced onto her right foot. Alton makes
numerous trips back into an unseen stock room, searching for just the right
shoe fit for his older client who is more concerned with comfort than
performance. In Boulder, I am later told, proper fit of workout gear is so
essential, especially high dollar foot wear, the status of an athletic shoe
salesman is often elevated to the same level as the family doctor.
Rojas is a Pro Triathlete, a
relatively new and still evolving sport that combines running, cycling and
swimming. She is on the fringes of the nation’s elite. Alton is a track athlete
who views the 1500 meter run (the metric mile) as his top track event. He runs
road races to supplement his track workouts. Rojas will also, at times, enter
road races.
Rojas is 26 years old, Alton
is 30. Rojas has aspirations of steady improvement in a sport she only has
recently immersed herself in, transitioning from an award winning college cross
country and track career. She hopes to soon win enough purse money on the
United States Triathlon Association pro circuit to support her career’s
lifestyle. Rojas knows – if her commitment remains solid - she has at least
another decade to improve her standing, before an aging body will limit her
triathlon pursuits. Alton’s goals are
more narrow and immediate; he wants to break the magical 4-minute barrier in
the mile run. He knows his body clock is ticking, making time in the pursuit of
his goal, of the essence. He needs to lower his time by five seconds, a quantum
leap increment in a sport that measures success in mere fractions of a second.
Alton feels he has one year, maybe two, before his body begins to betray him
and thus his dream. Both Rojas and Alton have taken divergent but also in some ways similar paths to land at their athletic zenith on the show room floor of a mountain town shoe store. Both are college educated, toiling now at a slightly above minimum wage job - one which, however, both express appreciation to store management for providing. Both are friendly, personable and intelligent; comfortable when articulating about themselves. Both are strikingly fit; well dressed with the confidence expressed in the body language that only those in the high elite state of physical fitness can espouse, creating silent envy amongst the rest of us. Both are living a simple lifestyle in pursuit of a noble goal that would make the Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha proud.
But that is where the
similarities end.
Life is not a race
Do take it slower.
Hear the music
Before the song is over.”
Unknown
Nell Rojas has a body most
women would die for. She has not always seen it that way. “I have been bulimic
since I was 13 years old,” she shares with me.
Like most adolescents, Rojas
found her junior high years awkward. “I matured early,” she states. “All
through junior high I was always the tallest in my class. In the sixth grade, a
boy jokingly called me ‘Big Mamma.’ I was going through that stage where
everything is changing and I am trying to process it all. I was, as most 13-year-old
girls, hyper-sensitive to my looks and my body. When I was called that name, I
didn’t handle it like an adult would; just shake it off. I handled it like a 13-year-old.
He was a friend and I am sure he didn’t say it to hurt me. But to this day, I still
remember it and it still hurts.”
Body image for adolescent
girls in this country has been under attack for years. Unrealistic images of
what the media bombards impressionable young girls with is dangerous, the
experts all agree, encouraging both unhealthy, and in many cases, unsustainable
if not unreachable levels of thinness.
Bulimia is a relatively recent
form of a recognized mental health eating disorder. It was not officially
recognized by the medical world until 1979, coinciding, interestingly, with the
onslaught of the Title IX induced explosion of women’s athletics. Bulimia
affects an estimate 10% of female adolescents and will often carry over into
the adult years. The disease is associated with obsessive/compulsive behaviors,
with those inflicted going through binging and then immediate purging eating
behaviors.
“I hid it, the bulimia, I
thought pretty well,” says Rojas, “But my parents knew right away. My mom is a
nurse and my dad is a track and running coach, so yeah, they knew right away
when I hit puberty, I had a problem. It became a constant struggle for me
between wanting to lose weight and stay thin and the overwhelming compulsion to
binge eat. I would eat a whole carton of ice cream and then go to the bathroom
and throw up; then come back and eat another whole carton, then back to the
bathroom. I would feel guilty and ashamed afterwards—but it was a compulsion I
could not control.”
Adding complexity to the
equation was Rojas’ desire to compete at the highest level as a distance runner,
making the harnessing of her disorder even more daunting. “I am so
competitive,” admits Rojas, “and I am proud of that part of my character, but I
have also learned that if my competitiveness is left unchecked, it makes my
eating compulsion worse. If I thought I had lost a race to a girl because she
was thinner than me, then the panic would set in. I would go to extremes to
punish myself: crash diets and (overdone) workouts. I was never into the
laxatives and such like some girls I know were doing when they purged; my
problem was with body image. To get to a weight that I was happy with, both
with how I looked and how I ran; I had to do unrealistic things. What I wanted
to weigh was not a weight (that) I could maintain with healthy eating habits.”
Rojas comes with a gold
standard blood line for distance runners. Her father is Ric Rojas, former
national elite distance runner and today one of the leading track and field
coaches in the nation. He owns and conducts Rojas Running out of Boulder, CO. I
found it interesting – and refreshing-
that his daughter related that she did not feel pressure to succeed from
her well known and successful dad, who coached her as a runner through her high
school years. “My dad was good about that,” says Rojas. “He never pushed me any
harder than I wanted to be pushed. Actually, I was more into basketball when I
was younger, and my dad was ok with that, he even encouraged it.” So, don’t
blame an overbearing parent, living vicariously through his daughter’s track
career for her ensuing eating disorder? “Correct,” Rojas states. “My dad has
been plenty successful on his own. He never drove me beyond what I could
handle.”
After a solid, but not well
decorated career at Boulder, CO High School, Rojas agreed after her 2006 high
school graduation to walk on to the cross country and track teams at Northern
Arizona University in Flagstaff, AZ. “I was a good high school runner, but
there were many in the area better than me,” she readily admits. “But you have
to also remember that I was not a runner who had been over trained, like so
many highly successful high school runners have been. I played basketball, I
had other activates. I had a lot of room for improvement with my running, but I
was also not worn out from over training. When I got to Flagstaff, my freshman
year, I made the varsity cross country travel squad. I was the 7th or 8th
runner that year and we finished 7th in the nation, so it was a very strong
team and I was able to crack the top 7.” Not bad for a walk-on, I interject. “Absolutely.”
Over the course of her four-year
career at NAU, Rojas showed steady improvement. By the time she graduated in
2010 she was a two-time Big Sky Conference Track and Field champion in the
steeple chase. She was also put on partial athletic scholarship, a reward to a
former walk-on for her loyalty and hard work.
While in high school, Rojas’
parents’ marriage fell apart, eventually ending in divorce. Rojas described as
“hard,” the breakup’s effect upon her - but not damaging- and is emphatic that it
did not contribute to her eating disorder. “I spent a lot of time with my dad
growing up because he was always coaching me, but I have always lived with my
mom. She is from Deerfield, IL and has a Swedish heritage. My mom and dad met
in Boulder, when my dad was working on his MBA at CU. Dad is from New Mexico
and graduated from Harvard. My parents are both very intelligent and very
educated. They always stressed academics when I was growing up. Even after the
divorce, my parents both were good about letting me know I was still important
to them and their problems would not affect how they together would work for
what was best for me. I had every opportunity for a good childhood. I was
lucky, but still, with all the good parenting I had, I still developed an
eating disorder. It can happen to anyone, no matter how solid your home life
is. Parents should not be ashamed of a child who develops an eating disorder.
It is not the fault of the parent. What would be the fault of the parent is if
they did not give the support the child needs to deal with the eating
disorder.”
Still, her destructive eating
habits did create at times tension in the Rojas household. “You can’t stop a
bulimic who does not want to stop,” observed Rojas, “and that was me. Sometimes
my parents would get frustrated with me and that would lead to them getting
angry with me, but they couldn’t stop me. I mean, come on, you going to check
on someone every time they go to the bathroom? They did what they could, they
got me into therapy in junior high, but that did no good because I was not
honest about my problem with anyone; my parents, my therapist and most
importantly, myself. I was on medication for a long time. I don’t know if it
did any good or not; but I hated taking it and during my junior year in
college, after 8 years on it; I just quit. That is not the advice I would give
to young girls, just quitting a medication on your own, but being honest; that
is what I did.”
As an Exercise Science Major
in college, Rojas knew the dangers of her compulsive behavior, aware that
bulimia could weaken the heart muscle, erode tooth enamel, damage the
esophagus, foster stomach ulcers and burst blood vessels in the eyes. Still,
she could not control the binges.
Purging never helped Rojas
lose weight. She realizes now that her compulsion was more about ridding
herself of feelings of inadequacy than losing unwanted pounds. “I never had the
huge weight swings,” says Rojas, “My weight was never below 125 and never above
145, pretty normal for someone of my height and frame. So it was hard to see
that I had a problem. But I did, and it took a heavy toll on my enjoying
life."
"It is hard for me to be
happy," she continued. "I always feel I can do better. That is my
personality. But, as I have matured as a person, I think I now have a more
realistic image of who I am and what is important in life. That has helped a
lot with keeping my bulimia in check. But I have to admit, I still would like
to be thinner.”
I asked if she had ever been
pressured by a coach to lose weight to become a faster runner. “Directly, no,”
she answered. “When I signed to go to Northern Arizona out of high school, my
dad had a talk with my coach there and explained to him my problem (with
bulimia). So they knew. We did have an assistant coach, if we were in line to
eat on a trip; she would hold up her pinky finger and shake it, a sign that
meant ‘stay thin.’”
I asked Rojas for a good faith
estimate of the elite female endurance athletes she knows who have an eating
disorder? She estimated the number to be between 60% -70%; epidemic levels.
“It’s strange, but we never talked about it amongst ourselves. No one wanted to
admit they had a problem they could not control. It would be a sign of
weakness. Many had it worse than me. I had one teammate (in college) who was
anorexic; she went from a healthy, broad shouldered 145 pounds as a freshman
down to a skeleton in just a few years. It was obvious she had a problem, but
no one wanted to address it.”
Is she “cured,” I ask? “Yes,” is Rojas’ one-word
immediate answer.
An awkward silence ensues.
“And,” I probe?
“My junior year in college,”
Rojas begins and then tails off for another stretch of silence. Her darting
eyes tell me it is not easy, discussing such personal matters with a stranger. Another
pregnant pause ensues.
“The first semester (of my
junior year in college) was really bad. I was always a good student, A’s and
B’s. (Rojas, despite the one bad semester, graduated on schedule, in 8
semesters from NAU, with a degree in Exercise Science, not an easy task). But
that semester it was D’s and F’s. I just hit the wall. A female training for
Division 1 level Cross Country in the high altitude, on top of being bulimic, I
just hit the wall. I stayed in bed all the time, missed classes. I was just so
tired all the time. Looking back, probably anemia played a role. My purging was
keeping my body from getting the nutrients it needed. I think then my survival instincts just
kicked in. ‘This has got to stop,’ I told myself. I got off the medicine,
stopped the purging and started eating proper. Sounds so simple, but it was
very hard. I gained some weight but I also that Spring, when I was healthy for
the first time in a long time, had my best college season. I qualified for the
Division 1 National Outdoor Meet in the Steeplechase. That was something I am
very proud of, it is so symbolic of my personal journey. I fought this problem
for so long, but by finally confronting it, I won. The sense of empowerment, to
finally feel I had control over my eating habits, was just wonderful.”
Rojas points out that no
eating disorder can be conquered without help. “Much of my recovery has been
both helped and hindered by what and how my support system reacted to my
problem. My binging and purging was hard on those who know and care about me,
who love me. You can’t force a person with an eating disorder to change and you
can’t do all the hard (introspective) searching I had to do for them, either.
My family and my friends who showed compassion, encouraging me through the
whole recovery process, well, they made a big difference and it is important to
me that they know that.”
Rojas would like to become a
role model for younger girls and she would be a good one. What young junior
high girl could observe the talented, articulate, intelligent, likeable and
attractive Rojas and not think, “I want to be just like her?” Body Image is so
important, Rojas states, and emphasizes that peer pressure can be so
distractive (and destructive) to a person dealing with an eating disorder.
“When I ran cross country, it was harder; because elite cross country runners
are so skinny. Now doing triathlons, it is easier because the women tend to be
bigger because strength is so important in our sport. My competition now looks
more like me. Becoming stick thin is not going to help in a triathlon.”
What wisdom can the
self-assured 26-year-old, looking back now on herself as an insecure 13-year-old
give those just starting the transitional journey to adult hood? “Growing up is
never easy, no one gets a free pass through those tough years. Everyone
struggles. First, help others who need it. If you suspect that your friend has
bulimia, talk to the person about your concerns. They may deny bingeing and
purging, but there’s a chance they will welcome the opportunity to talk about
it, to open up. If you suspect you have a problem - and if you think you may,
you probably do- get help. NOW. It is out there. Bulimia should never be
ignored. God only gave you one body. Don’t abuse it. Realize how important this
is, your physical and emotional health is at stake.”
Rojas truly believed her
athletic career was over with the completion of the NAU 2010 Outdoor track
season and her subsequent college graduation. “I won the Big Sky in the
steeplechase that year and qualified for the Regional Meet. I thought I was
satisfied,” she states, her running career in the rear view mirror. “I was
done. I had agreed to teach English at a school in Spain for the upcoming
school year. I came home to Boulder for the summer and was helping my dad coach
his club team when he suggested I try the triathlon. From the start, I loved
the event. It reinvigorated me, but I kept my commitment and went to Spain in
the fall.”
The life style and culture in
Spain was not conducive to training for an up and coming triathlete. “It is
near impossible to stay in shape in Spain,” says Rojas. “You eat all the time,
the dinner meal is often as late as midnight and everyone takes a nap in the
afternoon, which had always been my workout time. I got way out of shape,”
Rojas relates to me, with no hint of humor, I note.
The summer of 2011 found Rojas
back in Boulder and under her dad’s training wing. “That summer I bought in,”
she says in describing her commitment to her new love. “The triathlon was
something I wanted to pursue and I wanted to be good. It was now ‘all in’ and
we got serious with my training. It took a big financial commitment to train
and compete, but I got myself back in shape and could see I was getting better.
I went back to Spain for the 2011-12 school year, but this time I joined a
track club and stayed in shape. When I got back to Boulder in the summer of
2012, the triathlon was now my life. I trained hard and in 2013 I earned my Pro
Card, which was a big step. It meant now I could compete in the elite meets
without paying an entry fee and I was eligible to compete for the purse (prize
money).”
The fall of 2014 finds Rojas
at a career cross roads. She does not doubt her talent, but finances have given
her a sense of urgency in hitting the fast forward button on the launching of
her career. “I want to make a living as a triathlete, but it is so expensive.
At first my dad paid for everything. My bike costs over $5,000. Then there is
the travel. It costs almost as much to fly my bike to a meet as it does to fly
me there. Training is almost in itself a full time job, but I still work full
time at the store, and I still can’t make it,” she says while shaking her head
in frustration.
Financial stress has strained
relationships on her personal consanguineous level; with her father. “I was
working for my dad and his track club. But my dad was also my coach and he was
paying all my expenses. That had to change. My dad shouldn’t have to support
me. And having my dad involved in so many roles in my life blurred the
boundaries. I mean, was he speaking to me as my coach, my boss, my business
partner or my dad? Then, the issue of how I now live with my mom; which is ok
and I appreciate her support of me; my dreams and goals, but still, come on, I
am 26 years old. I have no money. For a while I even lost my phone. If I forget
me lunch at home, then I can’t eat because I don’t have any money. Money is
right now a major stress in my life.”
While winning $5,000 on last
summer’s pro circuit, Rojas estimates she incurred $30,000 worth of training
expenses.
Rojas sees no immediate
solution for her unbalanced ledger sheet, until she claws her way into the top
echelon on the pro circuit. “I need help with my swimming. I do fine in the
pool, but it does not transition over into my performance in meets. I need some
intense high level coaching with my swimming.”
But, she laments, that type of expert coaching comes with a hefty price
tag, $75 an hour. “The top 20 women in the world can make a good living on the
pro circuit. That is my goal, to get into the top 20; but I have to figure out
how to pay the bills until I get there.”
Interviewing the charismatic
Rojas, resplendent with a passion for her sport that resonates so well in
person, I feel challenged in my attempt to transfer and replicate the three
dimensional live version to the two-dimension flatness and limitations of the
written word. She is a complex individual.
Life only happens when alive.
Nell Rojas is living a life many envy, pursuing against the odds her dreams. I
tell her that someday she will look back with fondness on this segment of her
journey - a grand and noble adventure. With her current vision obstructed by
the daily grind of living in the present, I don’t know if she sees it that
way.
“Some people create with words or with music or with a brush and paints. I like to make something beautiful when I run. I like to make people stop and say, 'I've never seen anyone run like that before.' It's more than just a race, it's a style. It's doing something better than anyone else. It's being creative.”
Steve Prefontaine
“To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night
and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any
human being can fight; and never stop fighting.”
e.e. cummings
A 30th birthday: a rite of
passage transitioning from the folly of youthful dreams to the world of adult realities
and responsibilities, a demarcation line that when crossed shouts, “Grow Up.”
Most have prepared though the decade of their 20’s, gradually and grudgingly,
for this day, knowing of its impending arrival. Now, time to march maturely
into the “rest of your life.”
Guy Alton has balked as such
wisdom, choosing to postpone - for the time being at least- the “rest of your
life.” Call it only a sabbatical from normal, for Alton has every intention of
someday returning to the conventional 9 to 5 world; “to settle down and raise a
family,” he promises, but only after one last all-out assault, “to exhaust my
gift. I have got to know I gave it my best shot. I don’t want to spend the rest
of my life wondering, ‘what if?’”
In 2014, the calendar year
that would see Alton reach the milestone age of 30, the native of Richmond, VA
abandoned the only home he had ever known, pulled up stakes and moved 2000 miles
west to Boulder, CO; a town where he knew no one. A soft spoken and polite
young man, Alton has given up the comfort and security of building a middle
class life to make a fully focused charge at accomplishing what was once,
before 1954, considered humanly impossible. Alton is waging war on the stop
watch; with hopes of doing what fewer than 1000 men in the recorded history of
the world have; run a mile on a flat four laps to the mile track faster than it
takes 240 seconds to tick off of a stop watch.
Alton knows there will be no
monetary reward for his efforts, no pot of gold at the finish line. His
motivation is purely intrinsic, noble with self-efficacy beliefs beyond
reproach. And that makes his story compelling, pulling a complete stranger like
myself into the Guy Alton rooting section.
In 1954, Englishman Roger
Bannister became the first man to break the four-minute barrier for the mile
run, surpassing a physical test some had labeled impossible, beyond the limits
of human speed. There were even those in the medical field who considered such
an attempt to be dangerous, perhaps even deadly. "How did he know he would
not die?" a French Doctor was said to have asked when he heard the news.
On a rainy May 3, 1953,
Bannister ate a lunch consisting only of a glass of orange juice mixed with
glucose. He was prepared, as he related after his record setting run, "to
release every ounce of mental and physical energy I possessed over four
minutes."
When the slender and scholarly
Bannister, a medical student and future respected doctor, ran four laps around
an Oxford, England 440-yard track in 3:59.4 seconds; the world was astounded.
Bannister’s feat was to the running world what Lindbergh’s Atlantic flight a
generation prior was to the world of aviation. With the barrier finally
breached, the flood gates were opened. Sub four minute miles became common
place. New Zealand star John Walker ran sub 4 an amazing 135 times in his long
career, spanning the 1970’s and 80’s. In 2014, a full half century after
Bannister’s triumph, a sub four-minute mile is considered a marginal
accomplishment on the world's athletic stage and will most likely register nary
a mention on the back page of American newspapers.
Today, the mile record stands
at 3:43.13 set in 1999 on an Oslo, Norway track by Moroccan Hicham El Guerrouj.
No woman has yet to run a four-minute mile. The current women's world record is
held by Russian Svetlana Masterkova, who in 1996 ran 4:12.56. In 1997, Daniel
Komen of Kenya ran two miles in less than eight minutes, doubling up on
Bannister's accomplishment
Despite losing its unreachable
standard, running the mile under four minutes is still an elite goal for track
athletes who focus on middle distance events. Running the mile has always held
a certain mathematical allure. As Bannister once explained, the figure
"seemed so perfectly round--four laps, four quarter-miles, four-point-oh-oh
minutes--that it seemed God himself had established it as man's limit."
The mile has historically in
the English speaking world been the flag ship event of a track and field meet.
Writer John Underwood gave this summation of the makeup of the inner workings
of those who challenge the upper end of human performance against this mythical
distance: “A mile runner does not run a mile; he bombards it with logic. He
plots it, schemes it, calculates, bisects, barbecues and bakes it. He plots not
only against the men who run against him but against the distance itself,
because in the end, to be successful at his lonely project, he must be prepared
to cross the finish line—to break the tape, if his itinerary is right and God
is willing—at the moment his lungs turn to brimstone and his legs to apple
butter.”
It is not the distance of the
mile itself that is so imposing. Most
any slightly fit person can run a mile. It is how a runner approaches the
challenge that makes the mile the glamor event it has always been. According to
Underwood, “it takes thought and maturity to be a miler. But most of all it
takes passion, and a man cannot reason his passion any more than he can hold
his heart in his hand or see love in a glass. What he can do is live with his
passion or live it down (often the wise alternative) or put it to use in the
form that it takes.”
A major problem facing Alton
in his quest to join this elite fraternity is finding the proper opportunities
to break the mark. In international track and field, the mile run is today not
even a championship event, falling victim to the metric conversion. With the
rest of the world locked into the metric system, 40 years ago the United States
ended its hold out and switched to metric measurements for its championship track
and field meets. In international track and field, the 1500 is now considered
the “metric mile.” But a 1500-meter race is only 93.2% of a mile. High schools
in the USA today run a 1600-meter race, which is much closer to a mile than
1500 meters, but still 9.34 meters longer. There is a conversion table for
converting a 1600 meter run to a mile time, and vice versa, but for a mile run
to be considered for the sub-4-minute club, Alton informed me, it must be run
as a true mile, on a four lap track and timed electronically.
Guy Alton has followed a
winding road to Boulder, CO. By the time he reached high school; his Richmond,
VA neighborhood, over a 10-year period, had transitioned from primarily white
to primarily black residents. “I was raised living with my dad and my younger
brother,” states Alton, “Our neighborhood was a tough one. I always focused on
sports, first soccer and then running and I kept a low profile, stayed mostly
to myself,” is his explanation of how he avoided the pitfalls of the inner city
streets. His younger brother, by one year, Jesse, was not as fortunate, nor as
wise.
To survive as a minority in a
violent environment, Guy Alton learned to fine hone his survival skills,
choosing disengagement over distemper. "I learned to lay low, be quiet and
not draw attention to myself," Alton says. His younger brother chose a
different approach. "He liked the feeling of belonging that the street drug
culture brought him. I had my running; he had his drug buddies and street
criminal friends. “Jesse always liked to be the center of attention; he was
always a cut up,” explains Alton. “Where I used sports to fit in, he didn’t
have that type of a positive outlet. He started getting into trouble, running
with the wrong crowd. It finally caught up to him. In 2003 he went to prison.
It was for repeated arrests for theft. But like most from the old neighborhood
that ended up in prison, his real problem was drugs. He stole to meet his drug
addiction needs."
A Varina, VA High School PE
teacher with a keen eye discovered Alton’s running ability by accident. “Being
a primarily black school, the distance running program was practically
non-existent,” says Alton. “My Freshman class PE teacher was also the track
coach and he encouraged me to go out for cross country, thought I had some
talent after seeing how fast I ran the mile in a class fitness test.” It turned
out to be a suggestion that redirected Alton’s life. “From the first day, I
loved running.”
“I ran for Varina my sophomore
year and went to state in both cross country and track,” recalls Alton. “It was
perfect timing for my self-image and esteem. I saw myself now as an athlete. I
couldn’t afford or have the time to get into trouble. But the situation with my
little brother Jesse was getting really bad; he was getting deeper and deeper
into trouble. In 2000, the decision was made by our parents that Jesse and I
would leave Richmond and move in with my mom, who lived in a small town outside
of Richmond called New Kent.”
With the change in scenery
came a change in status for Alton’s new found passion for running distance. “At
New Kent the distance running had a much better program and the new environment
really helped me, motivated me in ways that would have never happened had I
stayed in the city. At Varina, in Richmond, I was considered a freak for
wanting to run all the miles I did. At New Kent I fit right in with others who
had the same commitment to running that I did. The fact that I was successful
made the transition to a new school and a totally new environment, much easier.
I really thrived at New Kent, not only as an athlete, but just all around.
After the move I had status and I now had plans for a future. It was a very
good time in my life.”
The move for Jesse was not as
fulfilling. “He wouldn’t accept the change and ignored the chance for new
beginning. Soon he was back living with dad in Richmond, back running the
streets with his old friends.” It would in a short time prove to be a fatal
decision.
Running for New Kent his
junior track season in 2001, Alton won the state championship in the 1600, with
a then personal record time of 4:17.
Graduating from high school in
2002, Alton accepted a running scholarship to High Point College, a Division I
program in North Carolina. “I was all set to go,” he recalls, “then we found
out that summer that my dad had terminal liver cancer. He had no one to take
care of him. It was a bad time. I just couldn’t leave. I moved back to Richmond
to live with my dad, took some classes at a community college and helped coach
back at my old high school. Dad lived about 18 months after the original
diagnosis and died late in 2003, the same year my brother Jesse went to
prison.”
Despite the series of
setbacks, things would soon get worse. “When Jesse got out of prison in 2004,
he went right back to the streets, right back to the neighborhood. He said the
year he spent in prison had changed him; that he had learned how to stay out of
trouble. Turns out many of his new friends on the street, were guys he met in
prison.”
On November 6, 2005, Jesse
Alton was shot dead in his old Richmond neighborhood, on the same streets he
could never quite pull himself away from. “It is still a little sketchy as to
exactly what happened,” says Guy. “Jesse had gotten into some sort of argument
with a group on the street and then had left. For some reason, and we never
have figured out exactly why, thirty minutes later, he came back. That is when
he was shot in the back. He died on the spot. An 18-year-old and a 15-year-old
were convicted for the murder and given (each) 35 years in prison. I don’t know
if I have to this day come to grips with what happened to my brother. It still
seems very surreal. We were in some ways very different, but still very close.
I miss him every day.”
Since leaving the safe world
of his new rural high school three years’ prior, Alton’s life had pin balled
from one extreme negative emotional event to another. “My running career had
been so promising when I graduated from high school in 2002 and three and half
years later, my dad and brother are both dead and I am just wandering along,
day to day, in a fog. I had wasted three years that for most, the first three
out of high school, are productive years building an education or a career. Now
I am 22 years old and I had nothing to show for any of those years. At
Christmas of 2005, I did a lot of soul searching and said, ‘ok, it is time to
get back on track.’ I went across town to the Virginia Commonwealth University
and talked to the track coaches. They remembered me from high school, but it
had been almost four years since I had seriously trained. I don’t think they
were real impressed, but they agreed to let me walk on for the spring track
season and hopefully I could work myself back into shape.”
It took a full year to wear
off the rust, both athletically and academically, but Alton was determined to
make up for lost time, to not submit to the temptation of self-pity. “I had
some rough years, but I still felt a burden for both Jesse and Dad, to carry on
for them, to show that maybe they didn’t make it, but I could and they were a
part of me. By 2007 outdoor track, I was starting to reach times I always felt
I could run. That spring I ran a 1:53 800 and a 3:49 1500, which converts to a
4:07 mile.” Not great times in relevance to the national leaders, but marked
improvement for a young man who over the four years since his high school
graduation had been off the track and jaded by one life misfortune after
another.
Having graduated from high
school in 2002, by 2007 Alton’s NCAA eligibility was running out. Despite not
having gone immediately after high school to college to run track, his
enrolling part time in a community college in the fall of 2002 had by NCAA
rules - but unbeknown at the time to Alton - started his five-year eligibility
clock ticking. VCU applied on Alton’s behalf for a hardship 6th year of
eligibility, which was granted. But, the 2007-2008 school year, despite only
his third year of collegiate running, would be his last. He needed to hit it
big, but bad luck continued to be his constant companion.
“It was frustrating last year
of my college career. I got sick during Cross Country season that fall and
never took the time off of training to heal properly. I knew this was my last
year of eligibility and I just tried to gut it out. Early in the cross country
season I ran a 25:10 8K, which was a personal best. I thought, ‘finally it is
all coming together for me’ and I had a shot in the spring at sub 4 in the
mile. But I never got 100% well and I ran worse times in the spring track
season than I had the year before.” By the end of the outdoor season, due to
over training, Alton was hobbled with a stress fracture, his college career
ending with a thud.
Despite earning his degree in
Exercise Physiology that spring, Alton felt unfulfilled, not yet ready to give
up on his running career. “Deep down inside of me, I have always known that I
have a sub four-minute mile in me. I just needed to figure out how to bring it
out. I was not ready to quit, but with no more college eligibility, getting the
coaching and training I needed to continue to improve was going to now take a
lot more creative means.”
With student loans to pay
back, the 24-year-old Alton went to work in a Richmond athletic shoe store.
Injuries continued to hamper his training, but slowly his body healed and his times
began to drop. Alton found he could pick up some pocket change by running road
races in the area. “Every dime helped,’ he says with a laugh, “and it is still
true today.”
By the fall of 2010, Alton
found himself in the best shape of his life and his performances in road races
confirmed his self-evaluation, running personal record times in the 5K (14:56),
the 8K (24:15) and the 10K (31:17). “For the first time, I was healthy enough
to get my mileage in the fall up where I wanted it, close to 100 miles a week.
I went to Boston to open the indoor season and ran a 4:05 mile. I was thrilled.
But then I got the flu. I skipped the rest of indoor season in 2011 to continue
to work on my base, lots of miles. But in the outdoor season, I hit the wall. I
ran faster indoor than I did outdoor, and that shouldn’t happen. For the first
time I considered giving up competitive running. I was very low that fall.
Maybe it was time.”
Alton concentrated on his
sales job in 2012 and 2013, moving up to a manager’s position at the shoe
store. He ran a few road races for fun, but did little training. In the fall of 2013, he traveled to Boulder
for a short vacation; and feel in love with the local running community. “If
you are a runner, you will fit in immediately. The camaraderie of the runners
here just relit my passion for running. I just had to give it one more shot. I
will never make the Olympic team, I know that. But I think I can break 14
minutes in the 5,000 meter run. And then the mile. Four minutes. It is such a
big goal, so definitive of a runner’s career.”
Upon arriving in Boulder last
January, bags in hand, and not much else, Alton found housing with two other
local runners, both with legitimate Olympic aspirations as Marathoners. Andy
Wacker is a former All-American at the University of Colorado and a legend in
the local running culture. Matt Hensley was a championship level runner at the
University of Florida, now training in Boulder’s high altitude. Both are good
enough to make decent money on the pro road racing circuit; freeing up more
time for training. Alton does not have that luxury, with no other source of
reliable income; he works 40 hours a week in the shoe store.
Alton is training in Boulder
under the tutelage of local coach Brad Hudson. “He has really helped me,” says
Alton. “Brad was a very successful runner in his own right and now a very well
thought of coach. I am fortunate to have his knowledge at this point in my
career. He has upped my mileage and the high altitude I have adjusted to, and I
am just so excited to see what I can do on the track this spring. Having a
knowledgeable coach oversee my workouts has allowed me to handle the increased
workload without injuring myself. Coaching myself, I always had problems with
injuries.”
When I spoke with Alton in
September of 2014, he was preparing for a half marathon to be run the following
week in San Jose, CA. He continued to gush optimistically. “I am so excited and
positive right now about my running,” he said. “It’s my running friends, the
support of the running community here in Boulder. Moving here was a great move.
I am very happy. I really thought two years ago that my running career was
done. To get a second chance, in this setting, I feel blessed and I am
determined to enjoy the process. But four minutes, that number is never far
from my thoughts.”
Alton understands he is now in
2014 racing both the stop watch and his aging body. In his 30’s, he knows that
this upcoming outdoor season may well be his last best chance to reach his
lofty personal running goals. He will admit that at times, on nights he cannot
sleep, the challenges seem overwhelming. He has endured with his running dreams
for 12 long years, while suffering numerous setbacks, both on and off the
track. At times he has seriously considered surrendering, throwing in the
towel. He will openly admit to questioning himself. Maybe that four-minute mile
is not, after all, embedded in the fiber of his well-trained body? Quit now and
refocus on what mainstream and conventional social thought tell us is
important? Late at night, his reflections focus on the many years he has
committed, having sacrificed so much for a goal most do not understand. It
happens to all dreamers: self-doubt creeps in; leeches onto the heart and soul
as despair begins to take over. Is running really worth all of this? But when
the sun rises on a new day, so does his resolve. “It is in me, I know it,” and
he vows to continue the quest.
I ask Alton, “If you don’t
meet your running goals, was this move to Boulder and all you have had to
sacrifice to chase this dream been worth it?” Alton is a young man who smiles a
lot, but my leading question elicits a sparkle in his eyes and an even wider
grin, “absolutely.”
“If you are depressed you are living in the past.
If you are anxious you are living in the future.
If you are at peace you are living in the present.”
Lao Tzu
Nell Rojas took a deep breath,
steeling her resolve before launching feet first into the outdoor pool at Rally
Sports Center in Boulder CO. It was the middle of January and the steam rising
from the water was a visual barometer of the illogical reasoning of her
actions. No normal person would submit to such discomfort in the middle of a
frigid Rocky Mountain winter, especially when a heated indoor pool lay just on
the other side of an adjoining window. For the gritty Rojas it was a symbolic
statement; her determination had returned, she was now all in with both feet,
back on task in her quest to break into the upper echelon of the world’s elite
rankings of women’s triathletes.
For several months the
cerebral Rojas had been brooding; not a sign of good karma coming from the introspective
and self-professed perfectionist. She acknowledged her career as a triathlete
was at a cross road. “I had to give this, my commitment to training fulltime, a
real personal evaluation,” she admitted to me over an in-between workouts meal
at a local Mexican restaurant. “Can I make this work? Is it worth it? It has
been so hard; I have just gone back and forth. Should I continue to pour
everything I have into my training, or should I get on with the rest of my
life? For me to train as a serious elite level triathlete, I have to put
everything else in my life on hold. Am I just being narcissistic? Am I being
selfish? There are just a lot of variables in my life right now, more people
than just (me) are effected by my training and lifestyle that I needed to make
an honest appraisal of what I want out of both the sport and my life.”
It had been a rollercoaster
couple of winter off season months for Rojas and her support team, as she
vacillated daily on her future. She
alluded to a “new guy.” She continued to bemoan the financial stress her career
was under. Her lack of progress in the swimming portion of her sport continued
to frustrate her. Was it time to move on to the real world of the retired
athlete? But when she was honest with herself, she told me after the swim
portion of her work out on an unseasonable warm January day, she had to stay
the course, not yet ready to walk away and shutter her dream. Rojas said she
listened to her heart, postponing surrender. She did, however, qualify her
commitment; “I have got to see progress this season, or its time to move on.”
What did she define as progress I inquired? “Make enough money to move out of
my mom’s house,” the now 27-year-old said with a laugh.
Heavily influencing her
continued commitment to the demanding sport was her recent hiring of a new
coach. For the past two weeks she had been under the tutelage of veteran
triathlete Mike Alvado, who had just recently retired from the sport himself,
now a full time coach. “Michael has given me hope that I do have it in me to
make a living in this sport. I really needed that as I was for sure beginning
to question if I was good enough,” Rojas said.
The intensely self-critical
Rojas admits she needs constant reinforcement. Alvado’s coaching style, she
said, fit that need. “I feel Michael is more willing to work with the ‘on the
fringe’ athletes like myself, the ones who have not yet broken through to
national elite. My old coach had so many athletes already on the national elite
level I didn’t always feel I was a high priority. With Michael, I feel more of
a detailed approach in his coaching style. He is coaching the total person and
I need that. He has really restored my confidence and in doing so, my
motivation to be a world class triathlete.”
Alvado, as a coach, has
developed within the Boulder triathlete community a no-nonsense and no spin
reputation. He had no hesitation in endorsing to me Rojas future. “For sure,”
he told me as we spoke in his driveway outside of his attached garage turned
training facility, Rojas had the potential to develop into a world elite
competitor in the grueling sport. “I can help her swimming,” he said, “and
right now that is holding her progress back.”
The Coach gave upfront notice
to the biggest hurdle in Rojas’ way, economics. “This is an expensive sport,”
he admitted. “Triathlon is a sport that is very ‘gear’ driven. From bikes to
performance attire, at the elite level, cutting edge technology is a must. If
it is new and it is better, then you have to have it,” says Alvado, “or you
lose ground to those who do have it.”
“What you find in Boulder
(are) two types of triathlete’s; one, the kind who has family money, has trust
funds to draw from and (they) don’t have to worry about finances or paying
(their) bills,” Alvado observed. “Then there are athletes like Nell who are
trying to make the finances work and it is a real hurdle. That was me when I
was Nell’s age. I can relate to what she is going through. To train at the
level Nell needs to in order to compete on the elite level is a full time job
within itself, not only in terms of time but in terms of energy. When an
athlete does the high level intense workouts Nell is doing, your body breaks
down, it takes a toll, and you are simply tired all the time. Then, if you have
to work full time on top of that, it is a wear and tear not only on the body
but also on the mind. It is very normal to question if you want to go on. Right
now, that is where Nell is.”
Alvado commented on the
current evolution of improved performance in what is still a relatively new and
little known sport, thus raising the standards for those in Rojas’ generation.
“We are just now starting to see athletes enter the higher ranks of our sport
who have specialized in the sport from the beginning. Until now, the athletes
who would take up the triathlon were transitioning from other sports, most
commonly track and field. Now, we are seeing athletes who from the start – 5 or
6 years old - have been nothing but triathletes. That is going to be a big
boost to the sport, both in terms of performance and generating interest in the
sport.”
Currently, Alvado informed me,
the NCAA is taking under consideration, for Title IX equity concerns, the
sanctioning of women’s triathlon as an NCAA sport. “That would be huge,” in bringing
the sport more into the mainstream of the nation’s sporting landscape, the
coach said. “It would really help young athletes to be able to train in a
college supported facility and on scholarship, to help with the financial
strain.”
Rojas’ mother, Mary, had
joined us for a late lunch/early dinner at a popular Boulder Mexican cantina.
Mary is solidly behind her daughter’s quest to make her athletic dreams come
true. Interestingly, the mother herself had recently caught the triathlon bug,
at age 67, finishing two recent events. “Nell is my coach,” her mother related,
“and she only charges me fifty dollars per coaching session,” she said with a
laugh. (The going rate in the Boulder market for triathlon coaching is $400 per
month or $75 per hour.) “She finished first in her race in November,” the
daughter/coach proudly claims. “Yeah, but there were only two of us in the
race,” Mary says with a laugh, “so that made me next to last, as well.”
“Nell has always been such a
kind hearted person,” her mother said. “I have never known her to be mean to
anyone. She has always been willing to help anyone who needs help. We are a
close family and she knows she has the family’s backing no matter what path she
chooses. I know living with me is not something Nell likes,” the mother
relates, “but I really don’t mind if it is a way for Nell to continue to follow
her dreams. Her sport is so expensive.”
“Well, mom, I mind,” Rojas
interjects from across the table. “Living with my mom at my age, come on.”
“I came down with the flu
right after Christmas,” Alton said, “and that set me back some, but I am
feeling much better now. I am looking for a good week now of workouts to get me
back where I need to be. The fall training was good; outstanding, really. When
I ran a 10K (a 6.2-mile road race) out in Richmond (VA) in October, I could
tell that the high altitude training was really working. I went out too slow,
ran negative splits (faster on the last part of the race than the first) and
had way too much left at the end of the race. But - and this is really
encouraging - I still ran my second fastest 10K road race time, ever. That
really motivated me and set my winter training off to a confident start. It is
hard to run as fast at high altitude as it is at sea level, but the high
altitude training makes you so much stronger. I underestimated in the (Richmond)
race how strong I was and didn’t go out hard enough. The theory is to train at
high altitude and to race at low altitude. I can see now from my Virginia
experience how it is working and that really gives me a lot of confidence for
the upcoming Track season.”
Alton’s running goals might be
shifting. “I would like to break the 14-minute mark for 5000 meters (3.1
miles). And the sub four in the mile, I inquire? “Maybe,” is the one-word
response I receive back.
He has not hedged on his
personal enforced deadline. “This is it, this season,” Alton confirmed. “I
either get it done or I accept that I gave it my all but it just wasn’t meant
to be and I move on. I am 30 years old. My body hurts now after a hard workout
like it never has before. Even if I wanted to continue after this year, I don’t
think my body will ever respond to running fast like it will right now. So I am
being honest with myself. It is now or never. Historically, the longer distance
runners peak in their late 30’s, but for middle distance like the mile, past 30
years of age, the body is going to start to slow down.”
How confident are you, I
asked? “More so than ever,” responded Alton. “My coach has me running more high
mileage than what I ever have before, even when I was focusing on the longer
races. I feel very strong right now. We will soon start more speed work. That
is when I should really take off.”
One year ago Alton put his
entire life on hold to move to an area where he knew no one with the intent of
using the high elevation of Boulder to fuel his running dreams.
I asked the same question I
had when we had shaken hands good bye in September, “Has it been worth it,” I
inquired? “Without a doubt, no question,” Alton said. He had met a girl within a
month of moving to the area and that relationship, he stated, had grown. “I
could not be happier than I am right now. Sure money is tight, but I have been
able to live out my dream. I love Boulder; maybe this is where I will settle, I
don’t know about that yet. This would be a great place to settle down. But long
term is not my current focus, I am looking short term. I am really excited
about the upcoming season.”
I prodded, as I sensed his
running goals were shifting from the mile to a more to “be determined later”
performance standard. No, Alton told me, “If I can stay healthy, if I can hit
good weather for training this spring, if everything comes together like my
coach and I have planned, then I can do this. I have known since I ran 4:05
indoors back four years ago, that sub 4 is in me. I know it. I feel it. I get
more confident after each workout. It is in me. I just know it.”
“If ifs and buts were candy
and nuts, we’d all have a Merry Christmas,” I once heard Don Meredith muse. By
Guy Alton’s own admission, a lot of stars must align at just the right time;
weather, health, the right level of competition, to name a few, knowing that
paramount to the pursuit of any high standard, luck would be a much needed but
uncontrollable ingredient. “For sure,” laughed Alton.
Pace in the mile run is
paramount to producing maximum performance. “I need to find a race that has a
bunch of 3:57 to 3:59 runners in it and let them pull me along,” Alton said.
“And weather might be the most critical factor I cannot control; not windy, not
cold, but also not too hot. A calm sunny 65 degree setting at dusk would be
perfect. And I have got to stay healthy between now and then. Injuries are a
big part of running. You have to push your body as hard as you can without
breaking down. That is where my coach comes in. It is so important to have a
coach you can not only talk to but also one who listens to you. You have to
trust your coach.”
Determined to concern with
only what he could control, Guy Alton pushes confidently but with fingers
crossed into the most critical stage of his training, fully aware that lady
luck can be a harsh and fickle mistress.
It has been one year since my
chance running shoe store encounter with Guy Alton and Nell Rojas. In October,
2015, I return to Boulder for my 4th and final update upon the
progress on each’s quest.
Both have lived on the
economic margins long enough, they say, surviving on macaroni and cheese and
tuna most every day, living at home with mom at 27 years of age or sleeping on
at friend’s couch at 30. Both have put off relationships long enough, of not
having the time to devote to a significant other, tired of their running shoes
riding shotgun.
I have followed the paths of
Nell Rojas and Guy Alton for one year because I wanted to know what it is like
to be so near the best, better than 99.9%, but still so far from the top. You
work as hard, maybe harder than the champions do, but your payback is miniscule
when compared to the rewards heaped upon the champion.
In America we love numbers, we
love to rank. The Fortune 500, the Final Four; we relentlessly chart the
numbers, compare and then re-rank. And with the case of Nell and Guy, most of
the world is behind but the few that matter, where their competitive focus
lies, are the few who are still ahead. Trying to catch the elite few is a
frustrating chore. Do you try a new diet, a new coach, a new technique? Or do
you reach a point where you settle to, where you accept your rank and move on
with your life?
In terms of the quest, both
have now called it quits – kind of - and outside of a few friends and workout
buddies, nobody takes notice. No announcement on Sports Center, no news
conference, not even a friends’ only get together to drink away the old and
toast in the new. Nothing, and as maybe it should be because it fits with the
process both know so well: growth, dreams, reality, struggle and then finally; the
truth.
I find true inspiration in
those tilting at life’s windmills. If we are honest with ourselves, as we age,
we look back at the dream that got away and anguish that if only we could turn
back time and find the intestinal fortitude of those who do not surrender the
aspirations of their youth so easily, the "what if" haunting us as
the years roll by. What more contentment can the truly committed, like Guy
Alton and Nell Rojas, seek? This is their struggle - to do. Never achieving,
perhaps? But they are the blessed, they got to struggle, they have felt the
burn.
It is the great paradox - should
we hold out hope against hope, chasing a noble dream? Or should we find victory in acceptance of
our human body’s fallible state? When does hope transcend to foolhardiness, and
when does acceptance become negativity?
As an off and on heavy weight champion
of the world, from the early 1960’s through the mid 1970’s, Muhammad Ali
mesmerized the world with his lighting fast fists and his curt and off beat
wit. He should have quit in 1974 after the “Rumble in the Jungle” and “Thrilla
in Manilla,” his reputation as the greatest fighter in the history of the ring,
long ago cemented. Instead, “The Greatest” became a traveling sideshow carnival
act, once sparring with a martial arts fighter in Japan, another time a rigged
bout with a professional wrestler. Ali carried on such sham exhibitions for ten
years, prostituting his legend while claiming he needed the money. In 1980, his
hands showing noticeable trembles, Ali fought Larry Holmes, the reigning heavy
weight champ. The Greatest was destroyed by a fighter who could not have served
as a sparring partner for an in prime Ali. A ring side observer described the
mismatched bout as, “like watching an autopsy performed on a life person.”
Sadly, after the Holmes debacle, dementia and Parkinson’s disease finally forced
Ali out of the ring and the public eye. Today, the once glib champion is
relegated to a cloudy world of a punch drunk has been.
Aging basketball super star
Kobe Bryant was recently told by Los Angeles Lakers’ Hall of Famer Jerry West, "Don't
play beyond your time," which led to Bryant’s logical follow-up question:
"How do you know when it's your time? How do you know?" Bryant then
put the same question to the recently retired soccer super star David Beckham.
"You just know," Beckham replied.
Nell Rojas always knew she had
to someday step out of the pool, off of the track and park her bike. That day
has come. “I have given up on the triathlon,” she tells me in October, 2015. “I
was just tired of always been tired, tired of always being broke and tired of
the pressure to push even harder. I am still running and don’t ever see that
changing. I have run a few road races since quitting the Tri and have done
pretty well. There is a big part of me that says to keep on running, just not
on as intense level as I was, I love the competition, I love the support you
get here from the running community. I will never give that up.”
Rojas has still not settled
completely upon a career path, but will soon begin EMT training with the goal
of within a year getting accepted into Physician’s Assistant school. “I still
want to make an impact on people, especially young people,” she says. “My
undergrad with physical performance fits well with this. I think I can do
well.”
While Rojas claims to have
crossed over into the post running years, Guy Alton has hedged on his earlier
promise to move on after the recently completed summer track season. “I am
going to keep with it,” he informed me as we shared a meal. But what of your one-year
self-imposed limit on pursuit of the four-minute mile, I ask? “I didn’t make
it. I broke down this past spring and I just didn’t have the juice I needed
during the summer racing season. But it’s all good. I am (now) running the highest
mileage I ever have, over 100 miles a week,” he reports with obvious pride.
“I ran the Rock and Roll half
marathon last week in Denver in 70:50 and finished 7th. My fitness
is way beyond anything it has ever been. The high altitude training has done
its thing. But my legs, oh man, they are dead. The idea is to train at altitude
and then race at sea level. I am anxious to see how I will do when I get that
chance. I still think I can break 4:00 in the mile and 14 in the 5K. Those
would be great accomplishments and I am not giving up. Actually, just the
opposite, I am super optimistic right now.”
So you are delaying any
permanent focus on career I asked? Are you still content to work odd hours in a
shoe store and crash on the couch of friends? “Once again just the opposite,”
Alton says. “I have a second interview in Portland coming up with Adidas for a
job in their sales department. They like the fact that I am still a high level
competitive runner. As a product rep, dealing directly with coaches, it gives
me real credence and immediate acceptance. I hope by January, the new year, to
be on a more direct route to my future. Combining my training with a high level
performance company like Adidas would be a dream life come true.”
“I have loved my time in
Boulder, Alton says. “It was the right decision for me to move out here. It has
really gotten my life on the track I want it to be on. The future looks very
good and my love of running will continue to drive what I do.”
What are the odds of you ever
running a 4-minute mile or a sub 14 5K, I ask? “Probably not good,” Alton says
with no hint of discontent. “By it sure has been fun to try.”
I sensed when first meeting Nell
and Guy on a raining Boulder, CO fall day a year ago hence, that both were of a
special breed, bathing in the struggle, running marvelously where only the
truly brave dare to go. Their running may now slow but their respective life’s
journeys’ will continue to take both through light and dark places, mountain
tops and deep valleys. I hope both will continue to push their boundaries.
For both, that fore looming
and imminent day every athlete dreads has arrived. Their goals to join the
elite of the athletic elite will not be met, and deep inside themselves, both
Nell and Guy know it - even if Alton still hedges. I hope they reflect back on
their athletic journey with pride, not a critical eye. Both have fought the
good fight. When the dreams of our youth roll from sight it need not imply that
our quest has failed, only that the path has now bent. Now, time to move on,
move forward. With the God given talents both possess their futures are
boundless.
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