Moments of Sheer, Radiating Brilliance

I've said for many years now that the main thing that keeps me in this sport is the people. Quite honestly, there are days that I could live without the training, but as I've said for a long time, running brings out the best people, and it brings out the best in people.

That said, there are also moments of sheer radiating brilliance that captivate and inspire all of us, no matter how many decades we've been at it, or how burned out we've been at any point. For me, one of those moments was spectating the 2017 New York City Marathon. Watching Shalane Flanagan win and the raw emotion; watching Meb Keflezighi's last race as a pro and seeing him leave it all on the course, despite being several minutes off where he'd been just a few year's prior. One of those moments was taking to the starting line with Eliud Kipchoge in Berlin in 2022, and just feeling the sheer presence he commanded, unlike anything I've ever witnessed in the sport...

And one of those moments was yesterday, in Toledo, Ohio.

Having just run the Albuquerque Marathon a couple weekends ago, I returned to work my booth for Gaynor Train at the expo and to spectate the Glass City Marathon; one of only 3 out of the last 15 that I'd be on the sidelines. I got to the race course and waited for the runners at around the mile and a half mark; not catching the start. The runners came churning into view, and way out in front of them all was a lone figure in a blue and green singlet. As he rolled by, already with a healthy gap on everyone, I thought what most people probably did at that point.

"Man, that guy is KILLING that half..."

After cheering on several of my athletes as they followed minutes later, I got in my car and drove to Wildwood Metropark; my favorite place to spectate. The course features a brief overlap in the heart of the park, with runners on the first pass through turning right onto the University Parks trail just after mile 12, and runners on the second pass turning left just after mile 21 to head back to the University and to the finish line. I love hanging out in the area, because I can watch the leaders go by both times, and catch virtually all my full marathon athletes in between, and even run alongside the course for bit.

I got to the mile 12 marker in plenty of time, but-as would be the theme for anyone on the course all morning long-didn't have nearly as much time as I thought. The lead vehicle rolled up, and the same runner in the blue and green vest came powering along closely behind, all alone...

And very clearly in the FULL marathon!

I looked at my watch. Having not actually made the start, I didn't have a running time. That said, doing the math in my head, I realized that even if they had started the race a couple minutes early-which NEVER happens at a race of this size-he would STILL have to be on a sub-2:10 marathon pace.

Sub 2:10 pace? In Toledo??? That kind of time could win Boston or New York! It was certainly early, and while the marathon is known as a game of pacing there are definitely some hot starts from time to time, but still...

Minutes passed. SEVERAL minutes passed. The trail sat empty. I stood alone in a bend of the course, without even another spectator in sight. It could have been mistaken for a regular early Sunday morning when the whole park was all but deserted. Yet with the knowledge that there was an entire marathon somewhere behind him-a marathon that included several athletes I know that were gunning for the 2:16 Olympic Trials standard-the silence felt eerie; almost supernatural...

It was at that moment I realized that we could be about to witness something truly historic.

At last the chase pack came into view-a sizeable one at that-and the rest of the race that I'd felt a twinge of doubt was actually back there followed reassuringly behind. Another 40-some minutes passed as I jogged up and down in the same general vicinity; checking in with all my athletes and cheering on group after group of runners as they rolled by.

Then-once again shockingly early-the lead vehicle came charging around the bend; just past the 21-mile mark. The figure springing along behind it had not lost so much as a step. I watched him pass, and immediately booked it to my car. I HAD to get back to campus. I HAD to see history be made.

Driving across town and trying to navigate the various road closures that always accompany road racing, I mused there was a realistic chance that I may in fact not be able to beat a man who was on foot. I reached campus and parked on the southeast corner in one of the nearest spots available, then ran up onto the University Parks trail to the 25-mile marker. I expected to see the runner distant to my left; off to the west and approaching. Instead, he was to the right, and probably over a quarter mile PAST the mile 25 marker.

For a moment, I stood on the trail. Once again, it was entirely empty, save for the lead truck and the lone bouncing figure, receding into the distance, with a handful of spectators dotting the way in between. Once again, that eerie silence... It was only a moment, but as I stood in the middle of an active racecourse, I didn't even bother glancing behind me, as I knew the next runner was quite literally MILES behind. Out of nowhere, the image of a Native American watching stagecoaches rumbling along through a pass below leapt into my mind. So foreign was this encounter to anything I'd EVER experienced, that my subconscious had put it there...

In a snap, it was gone. Rather, in another split second, I was doing math... While normally at mile 25 cognitive function declines to the point that even rudimentary math is out the window, on a day where I didn't run ANY of the race at all, it was johnny-on-the-spot.

And that's what concerned me... In that moment I realized that he was perhaps around 3/4 of a mile out. It was probably a little over a half mile back to the Glass Bowl and up to the finish-line if I drew a beeline across the grass. I TOOK OFF sprinting. I was wearing running gear... Not jeans. Still, as I flew along, I marveled-just absolutely marveled to myself...

"I've WON this race multiple times. I am actually-quite literally and honestly-not sure right now if I can beat him back to the finish-line, STARTING FROM THE 25 MILE MARKER AND CUTTING THE COURSE!!!!"

Yet beat him back I did... I rolled up with perhaps a minute to spare, in time to see one Vincent Mauri break the finish line tape of the Glass City Marathon-my hometown race and the one that I treasure most-in a time of 2:05:54.

An American debut marathon record.

The 5th fastest course record in the entire nation, behind only Boston, New York, Chicago, and Houston.

Faster than the Olympic Games Record. Not the TRIALS record. The OLYMPIC record.

Standing with my good friend and one of the ultimate authoritative figures in running statistics Jessie Squire just minutes after the race, we began to compile the above list. It is a list that continues on and on, and will only continue to grow as many join us in unpacking the ramifications of this feat.

A few minutes after the finish, I waited for a momentary pause in the cameras and crowds of well-wishers swirling around him, and stepped up to shake his hand.

"I just wanted to say congratulations; my name's Evan and I'm a former course-record holder here. I guarantee you one thing; I WILL never get that back..."

"Sorry man!" he said with a laugh.

"Don't be at all..." I said with a grin.

A couple minutes later he was seated at the temporary BSCN news desk erected in the middle of the field, with the live broadcast being streamed on the jumbo-tron. The superimposed race-clock ticked along in the bottom corner. I marveled that it read 2:15-a time that I always dreamed of running-and he had been done for TEN minutes. We'd had a full conversation... He was halfway through a news interview... And the second-place runner was still over a MILE out...

The rest of the morning, it seemed that the conversation could scarcely be of anything else as the magnitude of what we had just witnessed continued to be unpacked. I talked to Bob Masters-a long-time co-worker of mine and one of the great runners in Toledo history that I always looked up to-and realized in shock...

"That would have been a WORLD RECORD while you were competing! In 1999! Here in TOLEDO! I mean, you're 50, not 100!!"

We both laughed, but the gravity of the realization was real...

A bit later on, after the awards ceremony, I was able to talk with Vincent a bit more. I asked him about his background and training. Then I told him,

"I had the honor of working with Bill Rodgers for an event here in Toledo last year, and a big part of the reason I wanted to do it was because he raced here in 1982, and 40 years later people were still talking about it. Forty years from now, Toledo runners will talk about two days: The day Bill Rodgers came to town, and today."

He nodded, and I could see a look in his eyes that I'd seen in those of athletes before. It was a mix of shock, bewilderment, and recalculation in the realization that life will never be quite the same from that moment on.

Then I said, "I'll let you get to it; I know you've got a lot of people that want to talk to you. You're a celebrity now."

I've said a lot of such things facetiously or jokingly over the years... I was not joking then.

We shook hands and I walked off to go find more of my athletes.

As the epic race had unfolded, all the while news of the first sub 2:00 hour marathon in world history-run by Sebastian Sawe of Kenya at the London Marathon just a few hours earlier-began to spread all across the running world. It seemed providential that this historic barrier had been broken in London, just 50 miles from the Iffley Road Track where Roger Bannister had first broken the 4:00 mile in 1954. Both were barriers of ultimate symmetry, and both were once thought beyond the limits of human endeavor. Both were arguably of equal historical significance in the field of human athletic achievement.

And yet, several news sources concurred with the sentiment of those of us that were there in Toledo that morning. The sub 2:00 marathon was only the second most impressive race result of the morning. Even Sawe himself was quoted as saying that "it was only a matter of time" before the 2:00 barrier was broken. Vincent Mauri's race in Toledo, rather, was an entirely different kind of race.

It was the kind of race that a runner gets to witness just once in a lifetime.

A bit later in the morning I was chatting with my old friend and one-time college rival Nathan Martin, who was there spectating as well. In my opinion he's celebrity in his own right, as a pro runner, the fastest American born black marathoner in history, and whose recent down-to-the-wire win at the Los Angeles Marathon went viral even far outside running circles. We were talking about races from college back in 2010-2011.

"Can you believe that was SIXTEEN years ago?"

Then the topic switched. I starting saying:

"I tell you what that kid today..."

I stopped myself dead in my tracks, then started chuckling. I recounted how the year before the then 24 year-old Adam Buechler had rolled a 2:19 marathon-the first sub 2:20 marathon ever run in Toledo-in a thrilling race that I was honored to be a part of. Afterwards I caught myself cutting around the after-party all morning long calling him "the kid" without even meaning to... But, as I'd marveled out loud in talking with him, he was 12 years old the first time I'd won Glass City!

Alas, it just couldn't be "the kid" yesterday though... Because one thing is for DAMN sure: He ran that race like more of a man than I ever will...