Band of Brothers

  Updated on 02/03/2007 at 6:35:49 PM   (Tags: band, brothers )

There is a destiny that makes us brothers;
None goes his way alone:
All that we send into the lives of others
Comes back into our own.
-- Edwin Markham (1852-1940), U.S. poet.

At first these guys intimated me. Collectively, they had run two dozen-plus marathons, and this was in the early '80s, when the Running Boom was hitting its full stride. They wore the latest workout apparel and laced up high-tech shoes, if shoes of that era could be labeled as such.

They were an eclectic gaggle.

Craig graduated at the top of his Harvard Law class and was a Frank Zappa groupie in the early '70s. George, an ophthalmologist, was a deadpan humorist who had swum for Doc Counsilman. Bob, a Boilermaker attorney and one of the laboratory rats for early orthotics, loved high performance cars. Nelson, a vice president for a civil engineering firm, bled Cubs blue and was among the state's leaders in number of speeding tickets (mostly on Ind. 37) and actually was proud of his graduation certificate from Defensive Driving School.

Ubie was the token Iowa Hawkeye, a straight man for anyone's bad jokes and just a sweet guy. Duane, a senior manager for the company that moved the Colts to Indianapolis, had more jokes - which we laughed at whether they were funny or not, and mostly there were not - than Johnny Carson allegedly supplied to David Letterman. Pete was another Ivy Leaguer (Brown), a brilliant chemist with Dow, who, somewhere along the line, had picked up the nickname "Gumba."

Always serious, the other Bob was a darned good runner for his age, who hoarded at least 100 pair of adidas training shoes when they were discontinued in the mid-80s. Similarly, Terry stockpiled red, white and blue New Balance racing flats for the mile repeats he did up and down the middle of Indianapolis' Central Avenue at 4:30 a.m., before leaving for his job in Anderson. Steve, like Bob, a Boilermaker, worked in community affairs for a multinational company and knew everyone in town. For someone in a job where interpersonal skills were valuable, he left them at home when interacting with us on Saturday morning runs.

We were Quaker, Jewish, Catholic, Methodist, Democrat, Republican, Boilermakers, Hawkeyes, Hoosiers, Ivy Leaguers, and ornery.

The thing about these guys was that once they put on running shoes, job title, wealth, religious denomination, political and collegiate affiliation (except when IU and Purdue squared off), didn't matter.

Following some race in 1983, maybe the old Diet Pepsi 10K in Indianapolis or the Louisville Marathon, either Bob or Nelson invited me to join the guys, and so I showed up one fall Saturday morning.

They were all veteran runners who had run at Boston and New York. I was the neophyte, the pledge. But after a few miles, I was one of the guys.

Following long runs those Saturdays, we crowded into what was then a small, fledgling running store on Indianapolis' northwest side, where we stripped from our sweaty gear and lined up outside the bathroom in the back that housed a shower stall designed more for ballerinas than an odd assortment and smorgasbord of sizes of joggers. We rushed - with one or two nameless exceptions, and they know who they are - through showers before the one-gallon water heater expended itself.
I swear to this day that all of my personal bests from the'80s were the result, not of setting foot on a track, but of racing to be the first back to the store to shower while the water was at least semi-tepid.

During those Saturday runs, waits to get into the shower, and the Waffle House summits that followed, each of the guys shared something that enabled me to be, not only to be a better athlete, but a better person as well. Sure, I learned how speed work could help you improve your race times and that long runs would help you survive a marathon. But I also learned to appreciate others' intellect and humor. I found a wealth of life experiences from which to draw.

Most importantly, I found a group of people who accepted me and everyone else for who we were.

Nelson died of a heart attack at the start of a Saturday morning run two years ago. Ubie succumbed to cancer a year before that. Others have battled cancer and leukemia, or been cut open for various reasons. We've lost parents, been through divorces, gotten married, and had children and grandchildren.

As the youngest of the lot, I've had only to deal with declining hearing, bridgework that meant going cold turkey on Milk Duds, and overcoming the denial of the need for bifocals.

George and I talked at length one day about a study that looked at whether athletes who trained and competed in endurance sports over long periods of time have chronically impaired their immune systems. It got us thinking about the illnesses of our running buddies.

We figured, however, that life is all about choices. We figured that we could have stayed in bed all of those Saturday mornings - for some of us, a fourth of our time on Earth - and missed enriching our lives by running and talking with a bunch of the best people we've ever met. We could have missed holding court afterward at the Waffle House to dissect the important issues - few of which altered the course of history - of the day. We could have missed sharing the news of marriages and births, and supporting each other during time of family and political losses, job changes, and the athletic defeats of our alma maters.

We helped each other not only become better runners, by sharing our failures and our successes, but we also helped each other grow personally. Running was something that let us be us.

Thanks guys. I love you all.