I was looking through some drawers that held some old papers and booklets looking for an old photo album. I had to dig through some papers and booklets to find what I was looking for. What I did find was some old posters that I used to hang in my office. The posters dealt with running and brought back some fond memories.
One poster was the classic Nike photo of some marathoners after a hot day running 26.2miles. A common practice to cool runners off was to have a fire hose shoot water into the air and have it fall like rain on the runners. Several runners were lying down on the pavement, others were just standing still with their head down, but the main focus was a runner standing with his head back letting the water run down his face. Any runner that has entered a long distance race on a Texas hot day can relate to that photo. I have been in 5K and 10K races in July, and friendly neighbors who understood what running in heat is like would stand on the curb with a garden hose and cause a minor rainfall for the runners. There were not many runners that went around that cooling water offered by that neighbor.
The second poster had a title at the top that read, “The race is not always to the swift, but to those who keep on running.” The photo showed a lone runner at the top of a hill looking at a long road ahead of him. The road looked to be over a mile long and the countryside was all green and tree covered with a few cars off in the distance. It reminded me of photos that Robert Bermea took of my Better Half Marathon and the runners coming up Center Point Road all strung out for most of the distance. It was all countryside on a county road that made that race one of the most scenic. Along the route runners had views of cows, antique tractors, red tail hawks and some llamas. Win or lose it was a fun race out in the country.
