The Long Journeys of a Marathoner:
Alberto Salazar
On December 11th marathon legend Alberto Salazar visited the two classes of seniors in the English elective Literature of Sport.
A man of many different long journeys, Salazar had much to teach students about fortitude, dedication, values, and spirituality.
A two-time member of the US Olympic team, Salazar is best known for winning three consecutive New York City Marathons--one in world record time--and the most dramatic Boston Marathon in history, the 1982 race that has since been known as the famous "Duel in the Sun" that went down to the final yards; in it Salazar went head-to-head for the entire race with Dick Beardsley.
Students were fascinated to hear of Salazar's first journey, his family's escape from Castro's Cuba in the early years of the Communist regime. Salazar was two years old at the time. His father was Cuba’s head engineer for public projects, a longtime friend of Castro, but when both Che Guevara and Castro told Salazar’s father that there was “no place for God in the new Cuba,” Salazar’s father decided to leave Cuba, which he did just an hour ahead of the secret police. A couple of months later, two-year-old Alberto Salazar and his siblings followed with their mother.
The first marathon of Alberto Salazar had begun. The family settled in New England, and Salazar grew up there, starring in distance running in high school.
His next long journey was all the way to the west coast to attend the University of Oregon and run in its renowned track program, which he entered in 1976, just one year after the tragic premature death of the superstar of USA distance running, Oregonian Steve Prefontaine. “I went to Oregon largely because of him. We all wanted to be the next Pre. We had to uphold the tradition of Pre,” Salazar told the students.
Known for training relentlessly and running confidently, Salazar ran mostly cross-country and the 5000 and 10000 in college before trying the marathon. He qualified for two Olympics, 1980 and 1984.
Nagging injuries and illnesses eventually brought an end to his illustrious running career in the 1990’s, but not before he had become one of the most admired, accomplished, and respected distance runners in the world.
Returning to health after years of setbacks was his next long, arduous journey.
Currently, Salazar works for Nike--one of the buildings on the sprawling Nike campus outside Portland, OR is named after him—in marketing and as a coach and supervisor in a special training program designed to create elite American distance runners to compete with the runners from Africa, the dominant distance runners for many years now. For his work coaching at Nike, Salazar was named 2009 Coach of the Year by USA Track and Field. The Nike program is seeing success with runners like Kara Boucher, Galen Rupp, and others.
But Salazar himself will tell you that the experience that transformed him more than any of his work was the unexpected heart attack he had in October of 2007 at age 48. Before his heart would sustain a beat, he had to be shocked eight times with a defibrillator during a twenty-six-minute period. Because usually only four minutes without breathing or a heartbeat means death, Salazar, a devout Catholic, believes a miracle was at work keeping him alive with no brain damage that day. It was only because years of intense training had given him an unusually strong heart that he was able to survive all the shocks and overcome a family history of heart trouble.
Passing on the lessons of his experience, Salazar told the students, “Every day I wake up now it’s a blessing to be around. You almost have to die before you really enjoy life. God gave me a second chance to go out and make a difference, and I hope when I’m gone I’ve had a positive impact on my runners beyond running. Our spirituality and how we treat other people are the most important things.”
He urged students to set goals and work toward them. He said, “Ask yourself, ‘What is it that is going to make me happy?’ That’s what you need to strive for. But you also have to ask yourself, ‘Do my values support that?’”
The thriving state of his life now is the latest stage of his most recent odyssey, a journey that has been more spiritual than anything else, deepening his faith, bringing him peace, and making him want to dedicate himself to treating others well, he said. A stirring Nike poster years ago that depicted dedicated distance runners like Alberto Salazar included the caption, “There is no finish line.” Perhaps this current spiritual journey of his is the one to which the poster applies most.
For the students who heard him speak on December 11th, the future will tell us how Alberto Salazar’s inspiration may have affected the direction of their own journeys.
