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A Different Kind of Success - by Eric Rosen It was the fall of 1988. I was at work and the receptionist buzzed me, advising me that a Mr. Richard Traum was on the phone. I had no idea who this person was, but I took the call. Little did I know how much pain, and how much satisfaction, this call would cause. Mr. Traum introduced himself as the President of the Achilles Track Club, which was comprised of disabled athletes. I had often seen athletes wearing Achilles Track Club singlets and immediately associated the name with the image of those less fortunate who struggled so valiantly just to finish races long after most of the other competitors had done a cool down jog, put on dry clothes and were hanging around obsessing over this and that detail of their race, their recent training, last year’s training…. Dick explained that he had seen me at the finish line at a very low key race the previous Saturday, which I was fortunate enough to cross before anyone else, obtained my phone number from the race application form, and asked if I would like to help a member of his club in an attempt to reach a certain goal. I told him I would be happy to help if I could. Dick then told me of a runner who had one of his legs amputated below the knee (he wore a prosthesis), who was attempting to improve on his own world record. This began to get interesting. I assumed the person was a sprinter or a middle-distance runner (that would be fun, my four-lap racing days were long gone but now I could live vicariously through a one-legged miler). Besides, I figured, how fast could someone run with only one leg? As I was about to learn first hand, the answer to this question was very fast indeed. Apparently this runner had set the world record in the marathon for runners with one leg amputated below the knee at Boston the previous spring, and he wanted to improve on it in the upcoming New York City Marathon. His goal: sub 3:15. My job: pace him. I advised Dick that he had the wrong person. I had never even trained for a marathon much less attempted to run one, and other than two or three ill-fated 15 milers over the years my longest runs were regularly in the 12 mile range. There was one other small problem: the race was eleven days away! Dick’s response was inevitable: “I saw you on Saturday and you are obviously in great shape, you can do this easily." I thanked Dick for his compliment but reminded him that Saturday’s race had been 4 miles, not 26.2. The pace was not a problem, but the distance was out of the question. Dick, however, would not let me off the hook. Would I pace his runner (and help him at every fluid station and generally be his body guard because if someone bumped into him he would fall and since he is a “special" athlete he -and I- would be starting in the front so there would be 20 some odd thousand people coming along to trample him….) through the first 18 miles? I told Dick I had never run 18 miles in my life, and to prepare myself do so at sub 3:15 marathon pace in eleven days was not realistic. For reasons that remain unknown, I then offered to pace this runner for the first ½ of the race on the condition that the club would have someone available to replace me at that point. No, I was told, the club only has someone to take him from the 18 mile mark to the finish. Would I just try? Foolishly, I agreed. I met this runner – a 24 year old student at Yale Drama School and a really nice guy - at a party a few days later, where I learned he had been doing 4 hour workouts, many with all sorts of variations of intervals thrown in, with a wet vest in a pool for months on end in preparation for this race, as well as swimming and biking. He was incredibly fit and there was no doubt in my mind that he was up to the task. There was also no doubt in my mind that I was not. Race day came and I lined up with him - my number was 00000 - and his prosthesis with a RACING FLAT attached to his “foot" in the front row (the race had a start for elite runners on the upper level of the Verrazano Bridge, and a start for everybody else on the lower level. We were at the front of the group on the lower level). I promptly took him through the first 4 miles too fast, but we settled in to about 7:10 pace and I just cruised. We talked constantly until about the ½ way point, which is at the foot of the Queensborough Bridge. I felt great, and inadvertently picked up the pace to slightly under 7:00 pace as we went up the incline of the bridge and back down. He stayed right by my side and the pace did not seem to faze him in the least. I had to catch myself (“Eric, the guy has one leg, remember") as we crossed the bridge and again as we ran through the tunnel of screaming people that was First Avenue, where my lack of preparation promptly crashed in on me. Somehow I got him to the 18 mile mark at under 3:15 pace, where my replacement jumped in. I thought (at least to the extent that someone is actually thinking when they are that tired, in other words, in a manner that is not entirely rational) “Well, I have come this far, I may as well keep going." The replacement and my one-legged runner friend dropped me within the next mile, and I found myself somewhere near the 20 mile mark sitting in a port-o-potty in the Bronx, completely exhausted with no desire to even get out. I eventually jogged, walked, shuffled and stumbled, and ingested any type of fluid and food that I could get my hands on over the next 6-plus miles, until I finished the race. I could barely move for almost half an hour after I crossed the finish line, but my pain was momentarily erased when I looked up and saw my one-legged runner friend’s face with a huge smile and then received a big hug and a heartfelt “thank you, I never could have done it without you." He had reached his goal - his time was in the 3:13 range. I then realized that I had reached mine too. By helping him succeed, I had accomplished a different kind of success than if I had prepared properly and raced well, one that was equally rewarding. Eric Rosen
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