PriorBlog

Alhough I pretty much gave up on my New Year’s resolutions in December, I have gone running 3 days so far in 2007. Today being a Saturday, I got to go for a run in the Blue Hills at the crack of dawn. The Blue Hills are great because even though they are super close to Boston, you can still be in them and feel like you are Rod Dixon in a Runner’s World shoot from circa 1982. I don’t know if you are familiar with the issue, I can’t remember the month and year myself, but it was an article about Dixon, the last of the great New Zealand runners, and one of the shots has him cruising through a giant open field. This had a profound effect on the young David Prior, who always thought it essential to know the distance of a training run for it to have any value. Seeing Dixon cruising through that field made me realize that there were more important things to precisely grading and evauating personal performance. This inspiration meant a lot to me, and is pretty much responsible for the downward spiral my life has been since. But, back to the open field, I did find, in the Blue Hills a small pasture that allowed for only about a quarter mile’s run before ending at a “Private Property” sign, however, the distance was just enough to make me feel like Dixon (sans mustache). The downhill slope didn’t hurt either, as running back up I felt like my old self again.

Another running picture that I have in my head when I go running sometimes is from a book my dad had called Kiwis Can Fly.  It’s a picture of Murray Halberg going out for a run.  He isn’t even off the steps in front of his house, but already his body is swinging into running motion.  I love that picture for that reason, his eagerness.  You know, it’s interesting the way memory works, because I was thinking of that photo today and had it in my mind that Halberg’s name was George Grant.  But looking for the Dixon picture online, I realized (seeing Halberg photos as well) that it was most likely Halberg.  Then I realized that George Grant, I think, ran at BC before I got there.  I never met him, but I remember the great Mike Atwood, who was a big fan of making runner murals, at one time or another placed a photo of Grant, a very good runner by all accounts (1984 Massachesetts State Champ), among pictures of the John Ngugi and Khalid Skahs of the world.  It may have been that Grant looked like Halberg.  Yes, I think that’s it.