It was the early 70s and I wanted to stay in shape. I had always liked cross-country running, so running something greater than a mile appealed to me. I decided to take in a Central Park 6 mile Winter Series road race.
There were two in the Series, the first on in December. At that time, road racing, road running wasn't even a nascent sport. It was an oddity. I had never run in Central Park before, knew nothing about the course, but had trained to run six miles.
When I entered the park to check in at the boathouse (no NYCRR club headquarters then) my girl friend (now wife) and I were stopped my a Daily News photographer who wanted to "stage" some pictures of me running through the puddles that had accumulated. I guess he thought I was nuts, and what the hell, nuts sell newspapers. After a few stupid poses, I grew impatient, and took off for the boathouse to pick up my number and my T-shirt and cap, sponsored by Pernod, a French licorice-flavored liqueur I had never had. Any sponsor then was considered. The photos never made any editions.
The start was at 90th Street and Fifth, where they still start races. As we took of, maybe a few hundred of us, I noticed girls, women in front of me. This was a shock to my still chauvinistic self. How is this possible? Okay, I hadn't kept up with competitive running since high school, but that wasn't that long ago and women in a six mile race? And ahead? And they stayed ahead.
I knew nothing of the hills, so I finished in 46 minutes. A personal disappointment, but I vowed to do better next month.
I trained harder, and longer. I ran up stairs with ten pound weights in my hands. I was in better shape when I took to the line in January.
I didn't remember seeing women around me either. I'm sure there were those ahead of me, but I was doing much better, flattening those hills. I could feel it. There are no people at mile markers, so you could only guess at how you were doing.
And there I was, coming up the drive along Fifth Avenue at the end, a long straightaway. I was well in front of whoever was behind me, and could see who was in front of me. A woman. A tiny woman. Time to try and get past this one.
Not enough time, and not fast enough anyway. In the chute I could see she was Asian, looking Japanese, but that's all I could tell. When the Road Runner newspaper came out with the results I could see I had done much better: 41:00 and change. I was pleased with myself. But ahead of me, in bold print, because that's how they identified the females, was Toshiko d'Elia, listed as in her 40s, nearly 20 years older than myself.
In the years that followed, I became somewhat aware of her because she was running with the Warren Street Striders, I think, a Jersey City track club headed by a lawyer named John Sweeney. They took many team titles. Years and years passed, and I no longer ran in Central Park, but my daughter did.
I picked up her NYRRC magazine and saw many photos of Toshiko at a dinner, described as having won nearly every age-group championship there was. She had become quite famous as an age-group runner. I never knew anything more about her until today's obituary of her, having passed away at 84.
She got three columns bylined by the retired track reporter Frank Litsky. Whether I live to be 84 or not certainly remains to be seen, but for certain I'm not getting three columns in the New York Times for finishing behind the woman I couldn't pass.
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