Approximately a hundred yards from the finish of the Prefontaine Memorial 3k Fun Run, my right quad seized up and felt on the verge of tearing. I stopped. Running was impossible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A hundred yards to finish on the track at Marshfield High School where Pre set state and American high school records in the late 60s. A hundred yards!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pre would have gutted it out and finished, even if he had to crawl.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am no Pre. I limped off the route and made my way (barely) back toward downtown Coos Bay where my ride was waiting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It didn’t matter. Running the race was. It was the culmination of my 53-year-old special relationship with Oregon’s greatest sports legend, a relationship that included writing and publishing a book about Pre and stenciling a t-shirt with NEVER STOP PRE across the chest. I made the shirt for the race and wore it with pride.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My race analysis:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I took off way too fast at the sound of the starter’s pistol. Why?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was just so damn giddy surrounded by a sea of happy runners of all ages. Being surrounded by happy people running a race honoring an Oregon legend is the perfect tonic to these trying times that try our American souls (that is if you have one.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sure it was a temporary feeling, but I’ll take it nonetheless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For a moment, everyone was getting along and undivided. And I didn’t see a single MAGA shirt or hat anywhere, which seemed like a miracle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One moment stood out. Five hundred yards into the race I was ripping it up the left side of the pack when I beheld a homeless man with a striking resemblance to Santa Claus if Santa Claus had ended up homeless on the Oregon Coast for a decade. The man had an improvised sled (I’m not making this up) crammed high with possessions. I surmised he had also rigged up some kind of harness to pull the sled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Santa and the reindeer-less sled were not the most memorable images from this moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That would be Santa rooting the runners on. He had obviously been aware of the race and staked out a prime site on the sidewalk to yell out encouragement. A homeless man in Coos Bay. It is entirely possible he went to high school with Pre. He was well into his mid to late 70s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As I passed him, our eyes met. No, no twinkling nose. Just a silent thumbs up from Santa, and then I kicked it into another gear smiling the whole time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Approximately a hundred yards from the finish of the Prefontaine Memorial 3k Fun Run, my right quad seized up and felt on the verge of tearing. I stopped. Running was impossible. A hundred yards to finish on the track at Marshfield High School where Pre set state and American high school records in the late […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9567,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1264,5,75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-coos-bay","category-meditations","category-sports","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9566"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9566\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9569,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9566\/revisions\/9569"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}