What follows in the first entry are those words I wrote that day. I do not think this blog will be all about running, although there is an awful lot about running that corresponds with everyday life. I also feel like I have learned a lot from training and running marathons, and I will recap what I saw and felt during my races. So, I apologize now if there is too much running or too much about sports. I’m writing what I know. I’m writing what I live. Some entries, like the first one, will be somber. Others will, I’d like to think, be comical. Life is a range of emotions, and my goal for this blog is to write the truth. I hope you enjoy it.
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| Michael Fontes at the 2012 Bear Chase |
When I hear bad news, I often go numb. It may appear that I have no emotions at all. It just takes time to truly comprehend something that I don’t want to hear.
This morning, as a few of us were on the return portion of our 14-mile run with Runner’s Edge of the Rockies, we saw cops redirecting traffic at the intersection of Speer and Downing. At first, we didn’t think much of it, figuring it was some sort of fender bender.
But then I saw a group of runners talking to the police. I turned and saw a lone running shoe in the middle of the road. My heart sank. I knew it had to be a friend. Within minutes, that fear was verified when we discovered it was Michael Fontes, who I had spent countless hours running countless miles with over the past two years.
The run started like any other, as I sprinted the first half mile or so to catch up to the 3:30 pace group. When I finally reached them, I interrupted a conversation between the two guys at the back, Jay Coon and Mike. They both looked back over their shoulders, laughed and said something like, “We knew we’d see you at some point.”
That’s the thing about this pace group. We love to spend time together, and we spend most of it laughing. Although he was sometimes quiet, Mike always fit right in. The conversation I joined was about him doing a cardio test a few days ago and deciding to run this particular run by heart rate instead of pace. Being the ass I am, I asked if he still had a heart rate. “I think so, although the watch won’t tell me until after the first mile,” he said with his ever-present smile. At the first aid station, Runner’s Edge coach David Manthey was taking some photos. “Oh great. I’m sure that’s going to be a great one of me stuffing a Fig Newton into my mouth,” Mike said. Not long after that, I was sort of veering into the traffic lane and someone made a comment about not wanting to deal with me if I was hit by a car. It was one of those jokes that runners say from time to time. You just don’t think it will happen. You think that drivers will obey traffic laws, pedestrians will remain safe in crosswalks and everybody will get where they’re going.
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| Erin Brumleve (from left), Ted Dunst, Jay Coon, |
| Michael Fontes, Jim Lynch, Wayne Cousineau, me |
| and Nicole Mattson after a Satrday morning run. |
Later, Mike said something about how he doesn’t recover quite as well from his races as he used to. I had forgotten what he had run most recently, and he said it was the Eugene Marathon, adding quickly and emphatically that it was his PR. He didn’t say his time. He didn’t need to because we always celebrate anyone reaching a goal. Running is mostly about testing your own limits. But after falling early in that particular race and scraping himself up pretty badly, he got back up and ran a 3:38, more than an hour better than he had been running just 18 months earlier. I love stories like that.
We started talking about Eugene, and I mentioned Kenny Moore’s “The Men of Bowerman.” He said he would read it right after he finished the new book by Scott Jurek, who he planned to go meet at Runner’s Roost during a book signing in a few weeks. We were talking about the movies about Steve Prefontaine. Mike said he watched both of them right before he left for Eugene. That was the thing. Mike always lit up when he found out something new about running. My guess is that Mike was the kind of person who lit up when he learned anything new, which is an absolutely wonderful trait.
With these Saturday runs, everybody starts together, but the group gets smaller as runners going shorter distances start turning around. Conversations, many in midsentence, end abruptly. Nobody really cares. Conversations on the run have unwritten rules. One of them is that you can start it back up days, weeks or months later. Or, you can have the entire conversation over again on another run. When you go long miles, even repeat conversations are appreciated, as long as they ease the pain of the distance. At the southwest corner of Denver Country Club, Mike said goodbye. I told him, “Have a good run back. We’ll see you at the finish.” His reply: “I’m not done yet. My heart rate is too high, so I’m going to take it a little slower.” That’s how our conversation about Eugene, Prefontaine and Oregon running ended.
I wish Mike had stuck with us. I wish he would have turned around instead of just slowing down. I wish that he would have stopped to tie his shoe instead of crossing at that moment. Anything to keep him away from that intersection for just a few seconds. Instead, it ended in tragedy and with a lot of people grieving.
Though I am sad and brokenhearted, I realize how lucky I was to run with Michael Fontes for the past few years. Over the many miles, we shared our dreams and frustrations. Sometimes we talked about nothing, speaking just to pass the time on a difficult run. Almost always, we laughed. This morning, I had a fun conversation with a friend. A friend I was fortunate to know.
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