What Should I Do with the Rest of My Life_ - Bruce Frankel [9]
Not long after, an acquaintance of her husband, impressed by Margie’s times, recommended that she ask Bob Lunsford, Nashville’s guru of running, to coach her. She laughs at the memory of how nervous she was to approach him at the Green Hills YMCA of Middle Tennessee, where he was director of the Wellness Center. He was not taking on new runners, he said, but after hearing her out, he suggested they go out to the track and see what she could do.
She started out well, but about a hundred meters shy of completing a 1,600-meter run, she stopped running. “That was good, but why’d you stop?” Lunsford asked.
“I got tired,” Margie said.
With a gently self-deprecating laugh that often accompanies her thoughts, Margie says Lunsford only agreed to coach her because he wanted the challenge. He designed a simple program aimed at strengthening Margie’s core, increasing her endurance, and making her leaner, as measured in muscle-to-fat ratio, not weight. The unvarying schedule he created for her included a four-mile run on Mondays; cross-training (fifteen-minute warm-up on an elliptical runner, twenty minutes on an exercise bike, and thirty minutes running in the pool) on Tuesdays; four laps of 1,600 meters at a 7:20-a-mile pace, resting five minutes between laps on Wednesdays; two days rest before a run and one day off after. Lunsford was particularly concerned that at her age Margie got lots of time to recover.
Five foot five and a half inches tall, she lost five pounds in the first two months and another five pounds over the next six months, dropping to 109 pounds. “I’ve kept the same weight ever since. And yes, I went down a size in jeans. My hips got narrower, and I definitely feel stronger and more energetic. I notice my increased strength in my legs and upper body when I play tennis. When I get to the ball, I can do more with it. My increased upper-body strength comes in handy, too, when I carry one of my three grandchildren upstairs to bed.”
As important as the physical conditioning, Lunsford also gave Margie her reason for running competitively: “Go for the glory,” he told her. She made the phrase her mantra and began a remarkable transformation as a runner. “I had a very clear sense that I was improving. My times were coming down at each race. It almost seemed too easy,” she said. “I guess there is such a thing as a natural.”
In October 2002, just sixteen months after her first road race, she notched her first single-age state record, running the Oktoberfest 5K in Lebanon, Tennessee, in 22:46, cutting nearly four minutes off her first 5K race time with a 7:27-mile pace. Setting the record was no accident. Margie had looked it up online before the race. “Near the beginning of the race was a steep downhill. Since it was raining and slick, some people slowed down, but I told myself to take quick short steps and to keep going. I don’t think of anything else when I race,” she said. “The important thing is to focus and not waste any steps.”
Nine months later, she posted two of her most satisfying victories at the 2003 National Senior Games in Hampton Roads, Virginia. She took first place in the 5K, with a time of 23:39. She won the 10K with a time of 49:57, one minute thirty-three seconds ahead of the silver medalist. The highlight came when she learned the official results. “It was like being on Miss America,” she said, of the countdown from eighth place to first. “After they called second place, and I knew I’d won, that was really something.” She began crying as soon as she stepped up to the winner’s podium to receive her gold medal.
Margie’s early triumphs and having a coach were as exciting and validating as they were redemptive for a woman whose dreams and opportunities as a potential