I am fortunate enough to be a runner's world for 50 years and running around the world
for 50 years and I guarantee you I've never met a more enthusiastic race director.
I believe I'll hold judgement until after the event tomorrow.
I believe he must be one of the best race directors and the reason I say that is because
the spirit of peace and love and acceptance and welcoming to everybody is so extraordinary
at this event and I think that's an extremely big and important part of the sport.
And last but not least, the one thing where I am absolutely sure, absolutely positive
that he exceeds all other race directors is he has the loosest mouth, I think, and it's
loose but welcoming.
Also, I want to say I feel, I've never been to Ireland before, luckily my wife and my
brother are here with me so we're all enjoying it, but I have been lucky enough to know extraordinary
Irish athletes and marathoners for 40 years and more and that does include, previous to
tonight, knowing Frank Freely, it doesn't include knowing Neil Cusack, it doesn't include
knowing John Tracy and Aamon Coglund and others, I won't go on and they were the Kenyans of
my age, that is how we looked at them back then and the thing to me that always stood
out for the Irish athletes was they didn't know what a Garmin was for sure, they knew
what Guinness was and they ran with absolute heart and soul and purity of sport and courage
and purpose, no one worked harder or deserved their victories more than the Irish athletes
and so it's wonderful to be back here with them and with all of you tonight and lastly
I wanted to talk just briefly about my own 2013 experience and winning the Boston Marathon
is nothing compared to all the years that I've been back in of course 2013 was an insane
year in every way, shape and manner, the leg is gone, I was going to point out that my
sister has one of those and has had one for 50 years, my sister is a below the knee amputee
not from an accident, from an illness and so despite the fact that Adrienne and I have
not really met before this weekend, I feel a closeness and an affinity to her immediately
and to all others who were harmed on that atrocious day, from the very minute it happened, from
the very first interview I gave to people afterwards I pointed out very specifically
that it was not an attack on the Boston Marathon or on Boston Marathoners or Marathoners anywhere
it was an attack on freedom and liberty and the right to community and to enjoy peacefulness
on our own streets whether chronicility or Boston or Dublin or Cork or wherever and
it was a true terrorist attack not against the Marathon but against us the people and
the freedoms and the democracy that we love so much. Adrienne does not know that two nights
before the Boston Marathon I had dinner in the front window table of the Quorum restaurant
literally just feet from where she was standing when the bomb went off several days later.
I had dinner that night with Joan Benoit, Frank Shorter and Bill Rogers and we were
speaking of how much we loved Boston and the Boston Marathon and running and runners and
all of you and everyone and so of course we had no idea of the atrocity to about to befall us.
But 2013 was a special year for me because if you're really good at math and if you know that I won
the Boston Marathon in 1968 and you go to 2013 you realize that that was 45 years after my win
in Boston so I'm running the Boston Marathon in 2013 celebrating my own 45th anniversary of
winning Boston thinking I'm the coolest kid on the planet and the whole race is about me and all
the fans are cheering for me and having a great time and I'm feeling good and I get to the 25 mile
mark and suddenly there's this black hate and they won't let us run any further and all the other
people around me were pissed off. I was pissed off what is going on they're stopping me from
celebrating myself and my 45th Boston Marathon and we were all as angry as could be. You can
imagine how we felt later and found out what was really going on at the Boston Marathon and how
you suddenly your pride and everything else disappears and your heart goes out to everyone.
But this is a funny story I was running with a cell phone for the only time in my life perhaps
that day my wife and family were following the race and just as I stopped the cell phone rings
and I reach in and I answer the cell phone and it's my wife and I think she's gone to congratulate me
and tell me what a great guy I am or something like that. She says there's been a bomb at the
finish don't you dare keep running your pants in the hotel. And like every other full blooded
American male I've never listened to my wife in my life but there was such urgency and fear in
her voice that I actually in fact did wish she requested and walked around to the to the hotel
and as we did we saw the ambulances and the police and the first responders and the way that they
responded that day was just fantastic and Adrian talked about it the fact that they got people to
the hospital as fast as they did and gave them the treatment that they got. I'm very interested in
medical history and since that race in 2013 I read more of the stories of the medical responders
and medical journals than I have stories about the race that day and it's just phenomenal how
people responded. It's phenomenal how people of Boston who were not affected both took care of the
injured there and also took care of the runners because a lot of the runners they were on 25 miles
they were depleted they were getting cold their cell phones weren't working they couldn't contact
anyone in the world they didn't know what was going on and the people of Boston poured into the
streets and took people into their homes and fed them and say here use my phone and call home
tell everyone you're all right and it was went from a great marathon race and feeling to the
most shattering experience that anywhere has ever had in the marathon and then very quickly not
too quickly but fairly quickly came this feeling of strength and resilience and we want to make
this thing come right we want to repair whatever we can of the damage that has been done and you
know the story of the 2014 marathon and you know that everybody in the world wanted to come to
Boston and run in 2014 not just those of us who had run in many years people who had never run
in before people who hadn't run it for 20 years wanted to come and say I felt two things were
really important to say that a we wanted to reclaim the marathon as a marathon of peace and
the history and excellence but to me the more important thing was to come back to the people of
Boston who were the ones afflicted and injured by the terrorist blasts in the days of a city being
shut down while the manhunt was going on and the terror everybody saw on TV around the world
until it had ended I wanted to come back and thank the people of Boston for having been there at
the Boston marathon cheering for us for decades and decades and decades because I've been going
there for 50 years and the people have always been fantastic and so the next year in my tradition
ever since then has been to run the race with a little business card which I hand out mainly to
the eight-year-old kids and other people along the street which just says thank you for your hundreds
of years of support of the Boston marathon and to you the people of Boston that make this such a
fantastic event so we have fortunately reclaimed the Boston marathon we can never take back or reclaim
the lives and the injuries and loss of the terror of that day but people like Adrian certainly make
it a little bit easier Adrian it's wonderful to have you here and have your smile and spirit so
with us and again I want to say it's wonderful to be in Ireland and to feel the support of this
wonderful community and every I try to go to every pub in town and have a lot of fun
and you meet these great people at every turn and so even before this race it's been a delight and
now I'll sit down
What a fantastic introduction, that was very nice. I have one of your folks here and it is
it's not about speeding, it's about refusing to be stopped. When I read that, I can't, you know,
think about making a story and she absolutely refused to be stopped but what would you mean with
those sort of words? Well words like that I could go on too long again but but I will say as I just
said you know winning the Boston Marathon is a once in a life experience and it's just fantastic
and those of us who are fortunate enough to be in the in the little club of Boston winners
consider ourselves very very fortunate indeed but to me you know I trained my arse off I didn't have
the talent of Neil and the Kenyans and the people who've come since then you know I deserved to win
but so frankly did lots of you know dozens or hundreds of other runners in the race that day
and I was just the lucky guy but what I'd like to think is more the theme of my life is just going
back to the Boston Marathon and other runners and other races and I feel extraordinarily
passionate about lifetime fitness and the fact that I haven't you know I have a line on in my room
of how much slower I'm getting year by year it only goes in one direction it never goes back up
I don't know what's wrong in that damn line but despite that despite the fact that I'm not pleased
about getting slower I am excited to be out there I still think it's important to be part of life
to be to be part of energy and activity I think all of us after a certain number of years sort of
realized it's not necessarily that running will add years to your life but it will definitely add
life to your years and I've passed 70 a couple of months ago and I'm feeling pretty good and I'm
eager for the race tomorrow and so I feel guilty that I'm only running the hat now
I felt especially guilty when I saw the folks go out this morning on their 26 miles and I know
they're all doing it tomorrow that makes me only one quarter of the runner that I'm here to have fun
I'm here to enjoy the community and to be part of it and the spirit and energy but you're very
lucky to have been here and again we're doing the research I look back at the it's fascinating
and actually to look at Boston American winners this it's only like in the 1980s the Kenyans and
the Africans there being great on them but just even if you remember American you know
nice past world there was winners from right across the world you see all the maps it's
very interesting but I look back to John J. Kelly the junior and he won Boston 57 and he
ends up in your coach he works with you he's a legend in his own right but how do you have to
yeah one of the great gifts of my life was at first as a youth my father was a sports director
and so as a kid I played all the traditional American sports I practiced them insanely
hard and I thought I was good and I got skilled at basketball whatnot but then you get to high
school and all of a sudden you get to high school and you find out that there are other kids who
are bigger stronger and faster than you are here I am with no muscle on my entire body so if I go
on a basketball court they just boom right off the court so I've got no hope against them I decided
to try out for the cross-country team because that's where the skinny scrawny kids like me were
and who should happen to be the cross-country coach at my high school but the fellow who is
the best American runner for 10 years a Boston marathon winner a two-time Olympic runner an
eight-time national marathon champion of irish descent of course John Kelly and he had a great
irish storyteller rockham turr and scholar he was and he was just the most incredible influence
on my life and there are some others here from his community who are share the irish and the
running and the Kelly love with me and he was not only the best possible coach you could have
but he was an organic gardener 50 years before anyone knew what that was he was a philosopher
he was a literature scholar he believed in community and living peaceful with all beings
and animals and all other life and the same kind of things Bobby did was talking about earlier I
mean they were like the same person and so I just was extraordinarily lucky to have
my very first athletics coach who's a coach who believed not in the stopwatch and the whip and
the cranking down but in the joy of running through the orchards and along the sea coast yeah
and you won the um Boston in 1968 uh two hours twenty two minutes
yeah uh it was a warm day
later in the year in Japan almost kneeled territory but not quite but I truly I was one of the last
of the road runners people like me and Bill Rogers and then the track athlete came along and the
real talent and when all of a sudden you've got the Rod Dixon's and Jeff Smith's and people like
that right it's a whole other world but uh what's important to them by the marathon I think it's not
that we're trying to be big canyons or or anyone else but that each of us uh use running and
fitness and then the distance to be the challenge that's appropriate to us and I understand and I
hope I'll just write this um Bill Rogers uh room to the people in the coverage etc yes Bill Rogers
and and Jeff Galloway and myself all went to the smallest little college you can possibly imagine
in the U.S. just by chance and we've all spent our careers in interesting different areas of
running Bill of course was a great champ and who's been the icon forever Jeff has traveled the world
teaching middle and back runner how to be successful runner and I was lucky enough to have the career
at the magazine I was behind the desk most of the time isn't that incredible that the three
massive iconic names came in smaller it's completely crazy wasn't it just due to the
yard influence each other did you all bother each other all we I used to build a little bit Jeff I
didn't know until I got there but uh it was pretty much uh a float we didn't even have a good team
we had like three world class athletes or two more that's terrible we are on the worst cross
country team but because three of us really pushed each other I was again a little bit larger
it was born in Boston 1975 78 79 and 1980 one of four times to the one New York four times as well
yeah Dan have you ever had a city one window you're raised like that eight times that's
remarkable about Bill that he kept it going and one reason was because he had a relaxed attitude
towards running he loved it he pushed hard he was a fierce competitor but if he learned anything
from me it was the Kelly idea that we should enjoy the training and enjoy every part of it
and again look down to this also this is obviously Bobby's 66 67 68 you know if there's a treatment
there who's not a garden after you as well and Neil is in there in 1974 and Ron Hill in 1970
Ron Hill said he was some man for a man as well I remember that day very well and I have to say
about Bobby and the women my other favorite joke line is you know I was a skinny scrawny geeky
guy with big glasses you know you think I wanted women I could get a date to save my life you think
I wanted women the marathon she bet I'm politically correct to say this but I think Bobby looks pretty
good in her bathing suit and her polka dots because the truth is there were very few of us
on the old days and anyone who wanted to join us on the road we were happy oh I knew very well
I followed Ron for the years I only wish I were half the runner of that he was but he was brilliant
so you you to have something that your friend who doesn't know Ron Hill is on the running streak
he's won every single day since December in 1864 so much so that he uh he was in parents at one
point the story I think he was in hospital I think it was suspected suspected fractured leg
and he was in the hospital at least all was in his mind is how am I going to keep my streak on
the road and ask people to put my legs on he got out of bed snuck out and read the mind around
the hospital and went back in for him you know because he reckons that his streak is that if you
run by the day that's wrong but you're on another streak yeah my wife thinks I'm completely bonkers
but I don't run every day but you have I do have one I pretty I will be going on my golden
life now is to get back and run I'm still running Boston every year to run it in 2018 which will be
the 50th anniversary of my win but I do have an annual race on our Thanksgiving day an 8k race
that I've run for 54 years in a row
I'm going to run a hill but that's a good one
we touched on it earlier about the difference between training then and now did you do the
148 150 webix I did 120 mile weeks and I didn't really know anyone else who was doing them in the
60s I was a little just ahead of Neil and those people but I did them all slow every single mile
was slow and how I race fast I still don't understand that these days but the guys who came along and
had the talent and the speed and also did 120 miles a week that's when the times got past
I think the first time I realized there was such a difference between back then and now it was
an incident that I had with Mickey Malloy who represented Ireland in the 1964 Mexico that
next year 64 he would use it it was in Mexico 68 and Mickey Malloy represented Ireland he was
absolutely fantastic on it and getting on an age now and you know I met him a few years back then
and about five or six years ago in a church and he said behind me tapping on the shoulders
he said how are you doing there you're doing a bit of running I said I am Mickey I am I'm actually
do you know what I'm doing now next week I'm running 10 marathons in 10 days
he said I am here now 10 marathons next and that's the thing about 10 marathons 10 that's
unfortunately 82 miles a week or there's no much that's that's what you legend is
you know that's why you need your money because we live different animals come on we're the softies
you with our ears well I we were crazy back then I don't I was saying to Neil I have no idea why
we ran so much because nobody ever paid us but we enjoyed it there's always the personal challenge
we all feel and as someone who's been through the 50 year running boom I just love all the people
who are running it now and I love the guys who can run in two hours in two hours two minutes
God bless them but I like the eight hour two-minute brothers just as much
okay just before I just I just want to know your time of words were you were editor-in-chief
I was editor-in-chief I've lost track for about 35 years maybe of 30 and now I'm retired but I'm
still writing for them and you know when I grew up there was no such thing as making a living in
running you couldn't sell shoes you can sell bars you couldn't sell who there was nothing
couldn't sell magazine yeah and to think that you could actually spend a career doing something
that I would have don't tell them I would have done it for nothing it's just unbelievable and I'm
I'm sure you've got all the rights in your time I've been lucky enough to meet men because I
never seen anyone go to an Olympic starting line where everybody looks like they're going to get
shot I was doing the Berlin marathon and I wasn't far from all because I'm forever
expert but the elite's past is as they were all up and I look every status in the front and I
think it was fun to find all the other canyons and the Europeans were up on the teams in front
and somebody told me after it's a respect thing that nobody would pass not even in the warm-up
they wouldn't pass not just purely able to respect you please that I can't and you mentioned in one
interview about me as a peck you know I still I grew up reading about the middle side of peck
to my way of thinking nobody has ever done more than he's done I met him once in my life he was
invited to the New York City Marathon he was at a 75th floor exclusive suite that somebody
rented for him we watched him to the room this guy bundles off to me and he starts serving tea
and that was in meals out of that he just served everybody in the room rather than being in meals
out of that he wanted to make everybody comfortable and happy and he was just an extraordinary human
being and all the stories about him giving his gold medal to Ron Clark the stories go on and
on I can't remember what Olympics it was he won three absolutely yeah but in Marathon 52
right here yeah nobody so
you enjoy yourself I'm running a half marathon tomorrow I'm gonna draw myself I'm gonna look at all
the coastal views and whenever the hills come up I'm gonna ignore them
it should never be about time or a tiny finish and I'm sure you'll enjoy the scene
I'll be finishing in let's say 159 58
I do have an agreement with the timing crew already
tell them when we're gonna finish it
no I don't think we'll be
105 tomorrow
ladies and gentlemen hope you enjoyed this one today
I just want to give you just 10 just
I had to put up an assault group to have a chat about team
how Ron and chair she brought over this morning from Boston to sign it and then the factor lost
the amazing points absolutely um so this is the late running chair it is our newest model
design it was designed by my father and so my family and I work on it together and we've partnered
with team wait to allow these chairs to be sold around the world to families and teams everywhere
so tell me what this picture chair why is your so this is the blades and it's the official
colony of the water from marathon blade they are sponsoring this chair for a family of a team anybody
who's interested in using it and they're willing to lend it out to anybody in the UK Ireland hero
and
I hope that you don't want too much being it has been an absolute pleasure to have
all seen it next time very very much
