Alberto Salazar, Dick Beardsley, and Americas Greatest Marathon Free
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FREE DUEL IN THE SUN: ALBERTO SALAZAR, DICK BEARDSLEY, AND AMERICAS GREATEST MARATHON PDF John Brant | 210 pages | 06 Mar 2007 | RODALE PRESS | 9781594866289 | English | Emmaus, PA, United States Watch the insane finish of the Boston Marathon (Duel in the Sun) - Citius Mag In front of some audiences, Dick Beardsley never even mentions the Boston Marathon. In fact, he barely touches upon his running career at all. When Beardsley finishes speaking, and the people are wiping away their tears and settling back into their seats after a standing ovation, then the host might explain how Dick Beardsley is the fourth-fastest American marathoner of all time, and that his race with Alberto Salazar at Boston 22 years ago remains one of the signature moments in the history of distance running; perhaps, in the history of any sport. Beardsley is not good at leaving things out. He tells the crowd of about getting creamed at his first high school football practice, quitting the team, and turning out for cross-country without knowing quite what it was. Beardsley is blessed with the fundamental trait of the born entertainer: a complete lack of self-consciousness. He strides back and forth in front of the podium, laughing right along with the audience, and Americas Greatest Marathon delighted as they are by his own buffoonery. His voice—honking, booming, unabashed—rolls around the conference hall in overpowering waves. Wearing jeans, a red pullover, and a blue fleece vest, whip-cord lean and with a lilt to his step, Beardsley might be mistaken for an athlete in his prime, rather than a man of You have to sit close to notice the hard miles showing around his eyes. But when Beardsley shifts gears, traveling back to Hopkinton, Massachusetts, on the sunny noon of April 19,the room falls raptly silent. Which only seems appropriate, because the Boston Marathon was great Duel in the Sun: Alberto Salazar two American runners, one a and Americas Greatest Marathon champion and the other a gutty underdog, going at each other for just under two hours and Duel in the Sun: Alberto Salazar minutes. Other famous marathons have featured narrow margins of victory, but their suspense developed late in the race, the product of a furiously closing challenger or rapidly fading leader. Neither man broke, and neither, in any meaningful sense, lost. The race merely came to a thrilling, shattering end, leaving both runners, in separate and and Americas Greatest Marathon phyrric ways, the winner. Since Beardsley was just 26 and Salazar 23, everyone assumed that this would be the start of a long and glorious rivalry, one that would galvanize the public and seal American dominance in the marathon through the Olympics and and Americas Greatest Marathon. After that day, neither man ran a marathon as well again. On that day, runners, virtually every one an American, finished the race in a time of or faster. At the Boston Marathon, by contrast, just 21 runners logged or better. If the glory of their marathon bore a heroic quality, so did their suffering afterward. At Nike corporate headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon, Alberto Salazar descends to the ground-floor cafe of the Mia Hamm building for a quick lunch. For the last several years, Nike has employed Salazar as a kind of coach-at-large, chartered to deliver that most endangered of species—The Great American Distance Runner—from the brink of extinction. Both teams, he reports, are thriving. At 46, Salazar appears every bit the proud, happy family man and flourishing professional. Now Salazar looks more like a fit-but-comfortable middle-aged monsignor, a man still true to his religious vocation, but also at ease in the worldly realm of fund- raisers and cocktail parties. A Japanese visitor approaches and politely asks for an autograph. Salazar graciously complies. Workouts that I used to fly through became an ordeal. For a moment, Duel in the Sun: Alberto Salazar poise falters and and Americas Greatest Marathon seems and Americas Greatest Marathon a traumatized man who, after exhaustive therapy, can finally talk about his past. After driving out to the start in Hopkinton, Beardsley and his coach, Bill Squires, avoided the high school gym that served as the staging area for elite athletes. For the last four months, Beardsley had spent all of his waking moments, and some of his sleeping ones, thinking and dreaming about Alberto Salazar. Squires wanted to keep Beardsley as removed from the race excitement as possible. So they camped out in the house of a town matron. Squires went into his usual patter. While Squires and the grandma yakked, Beardsley stretched, sipped water, made a half-dozen trips to the bathroom, and listened to a Dan Fogelberg tape. At a quarter to 12 he heard the call for runners. He jogged out to the street, heading for the section at the front of the starting area roped off Dick Beardsley elite athletes. But thousands of citizen-athletes stood between him and the starting line. Beardsley panicked. He tries to scream at the nurse to stop, but not a sound comes out of his mouth. So Beardsley reverted to character. He Duel in the Sun: Alberto Salazar to make noise. I gotta get up to the front! The other runners, immersed in their last-minute preparations, eyed him coldly. The crowds parted, and Beardsley, his nightmare dissolved into a dream, followed Duel in the Sun: Alberto Salazar clear path to the starting line. He had read somewhere that pounding Duel in the Sun: Alberto Salazar muscles made them tougher. If he thought it might gain him a few seconds on the downhills, Beardsley would have tried curing his quads in a smokehouse. If he had any chance of beating Salazar, he would have to fly down the hills like a bobsled racer, capitalizing on the fact that Salazar outweighed him by 20 pounds. If that plan failed, and the race came down to a kick at the end, then Salazar, with his superior short-range speed, would do the pummeling. It was one of the most eagerly anticipated sports stories of He was fit and prepared, he announced to reporters upon arriving at the airport with his wife, Molly. If there were no injuries or unforeseen developments…well, the facts were plain: He was the fastest man in the race. Six months earlier, Salazar had won his second consecutive New York City Marathon in a world-record time ofwhich had earned him, among other honors, a White House audience with President Ronald Reagan. He had lined up the appearance money for Rono, who had shown up in Eugene looking fat and blowsy, in the early stages of the alcoholism that would eventually destroy his career. But once the race started, he ran with his trademark ferocity. For 25 laps around the historic track, Rono and Salazar belted away at each other. Rono outleaned Salazar at the wire, by the width of his jiggling belly, the wags in the press box joked. At the age of 16 he had determined that he would become the fastest marathoner in the world. Instead of the standard training—laying a foundation of endurance, then adding speedwork— Salazar did the opposite. He first honed his track speed to match that of a Henry Rono, then Dick Beardsley his strength so he could maintain that pace over the length of a marathon. His goal was to demolish his competitors, run so Duel in the Sun: Alberto Salazar out and Americas Greatest Marathon front of them that there could be no doubt of his greatness. At mile five, the lead pack passed a pond where a couple was floating around in a canoe, enjoying the beautiful afternoon. Bill Rodgers poked Beardsley. Then, a few miles Duel in the Sun: Alberto Salazar, Ron Tabb and Dean Matthews threw a rogue surge. It was way too early for a serious ante, but not so early that the contenders could afford to ignore it; they had to burn precious energy reeling in the pair. Beardsley laughed it off, but Salazar was genuinely steamed. The crowds were huge. Most of the spectators cheered for Salazar, the native son. When Salazar waved at his fans, Beardsley did likewise. He waved and grinned as if this were the Fourth of July parade back home in Rush City, Minnesota, and the folks were cheering for him. Salazar was not amused. He also noticed that, despite the glaring sun and degree temperatures, Salazar never drank. You had to accept cups of whatever a spectator might offer. As often as he could, Beardsley would grab a cup, pour whatever it contained over his painters cap, take a swallow, then offer the cup to Salazar. But he always refused it. On the morning of November 13,snow was forecast for the dairy-farm belt of central Minnesota. He rose at a quarter to four, blitzed through milking, skipped breakfast, and went to work loading the harvested corn in a grain elevator. Like much of the machinery on a family farm, the elevator ran on a device called a power take-off, a revolving steel rod connected to the tractor engine. For a horrified moment, he and Americas Greatest Marathon his left leg disappear into the maw of the machine. Then he was Dick Beardsley in a whirlwind. It crumpled his left leg, and flung his skull against the barn floor with each revolution. Beardsley screamed for help, but his wife, Mary, was in the house, too far away to hear. On each revolution he desperately reached for the shut-off lever, but it remained just a few inches beyond his grasp.