Robin Le Roy-Kyle

Doing the things we do.

In the past six months, I’ve finally begun to understand what it means to be a runner: identifying each run with a specific purpose or distance (or both) in mind; knowing the importance of good running gear and being willing to invest in it; understanding how nutrition, hydration, and rest affect performance; and most of all, making the mental shift necessary to run in spite of weather, time of day, aches and pains, family and work commitments, and even the little voice that says the couch is oh-so-much-more-comfortable than a run (!). 

It’s early morning and the tropical moon barely hangs over the ocean that washes Negril’s seven-mile strip of beach — celebrated as one of the worlds finest. The chirping crickets are joined in chorus by chanting Rastafarian drummers who set the stage for the Reggae runners — who are now electrified by the intensity of the beat. Yeah mon! On cue from the starter, torchbearers raise their flaming bamboo torches in a ritual that has become the signature of the start to the Reggae Marathon. As the horn blows, the runners are off and jammin’!

Bill Rodgers is best known for winning both the Boston Marathon and New York City Marathon four times each from 1975 to 1980. He twice broke the American record at Boston with a time of 2:09:55 in 1975 and a 2:09:27 in 1979. In 1977 he won the Fukuoka Marathon, making him the only runner ever to hold the championship of all three major marathons at the same time. He made the 1976 U.S. Olympic team. In 1975 he won the bronze medal at the IAAF World Cross Country Championships. Rodgers' most dominant year was in 1978 when he won 27 of 30 races.

Jeff Civillico set to dazzle and delight crowds as he “joggles” through 2010 Disney World Marathon

Entertainer to raise funds for special needs kids at Don Guanella School.

Running a marathon isn’t exactly a piece of cake, and juggling is hard enough to do while standing still; imagine doing both at the same time. Sound impossible?  It’s not, and Jeff Civillico will prove it Sunday, January 10, 2010 during the Walt Disney World Marathon.

Amby Burfoot won the 1968 Boston Marathon with a time of 2:22:17, becoming the first American to win the title in 11 years. His personal best marathon of 2:14:29 at Fukuoka, Japan in December of 1968 narrowly missed the American record at the time by one second. At the 1976 Olympic Marathon Trials he finished in tenth place. While at Wesleyan (Conn.) University, Amby placed sixth twice at the NCAA Cross Country Championships and ran an 8:44 2-mile indoors. He joined Runners World as an editor in 1978 and was promoted to Executive Editor in 1985. Amby has written four running-related books. His personal best running times include: mile – 4:19.0; 2-mile – 8:45.6; 3-mile – 13:44.8; 6-mile – 29:26 and marathon – 2:14:29. Since starting running, Amby has run over 103,000 miles.

GC: You are in a select group of Boston Marathon champions. Describe how it feels to have succeeded on so high of a stage and reflect on how it has influenced and continues to affect your life.

AB: It’s not so easy to describe in a few words. Winning the Boston Marathon was my big goal in life from the time I started running under young John Kelley in 1962 as a 16-year-old, and I achieved it just six years later. Ridiculous! Not that it came easily; I was totally obsessed by running at that point in my life and worked my butt off. It affected my life in ways that neither I nor anyone else could have imagined in 1968. Have a good-paying and exciting job in running journalism? Impossible! But changing times, a fitness-running revolution, and a Boston victory opened many doors.

GC: You basically came out of nowhere when you won the Boston Marathon in 1968. How did the race develop and what were some of the major strategic moves that day?

AB: Well, I wouldn't say I came out of nowhere, but point taken. I had been running 120 miles a week for two years, and hadn't lost a New England road race for more than a year - and New England had basically all of the road races. It was an Olympic year and the field was weak as runners saved themselves for the Olympic Trials and/or the Olympics itself. But Boston was special for me with the Kelley and New England connection and I wanted to give it a shot.

I happened to be in a magical ‘in the zone’ peak on that day and the race felt easy except for the full, warm sun. I did a little surge at halfway, broke the field wide open and then had to race Bill Clark one on one the rest of the day. I was a lousy downhill runner and figured I had lost the race when I couldn't drop him on Heartbreak Hill. But he was worse on the down hills than me and he cramped as soon as we began descending on the other side of Boston University. I struggled and slowed toward the end; he struggled and slowed more. We had no water on the course then and I was part of a Dave Costill fluids study. I weighed 138 on the starting line and 129 at the finish - major dehydration.

This is the first portion of an interview conducted by Gary Cohen, who writes regularly for Florida Running and Triathlon magazine. For the complete interview with Amby Burfoot and personal ‘Inside Stuff,’ visit www.garycohenrunning.com . Click the “Interviews” tab and Amby’s picture.