College Distance Running
A few days after I enrolled as a freshman at the University of Michigan, I walked on to the college cross country team. It took several months to get in shape, and I continued with the indoor and outdoor track teams. My times improved so much that I made varsity, earning three letters in cross country and three more varsity letters in track. In Big Ten Meet competition, I earned a medal for finishing sixth place in the 1976 outdoor steeplechase, then a sixth-place finish in the 1977 outdoor 10K race, and a second-place finish in the 1978 indoor three-mile run.
I also scored as the fourth man on the Michigan Team when we won the 1976 Big Ten Cross Country Meet. Three weeks later, I finished as the third man on the team in the 1976 NCAA nationals. My biggest regret in college occurred in the winter of 1978, as I was hitting the peak of my career; I overtrained, causing injuries to my legs that took months to heal.
Best college times include:
After college, I ran and won several road races, including the 1980 Hinsdale Marathon. Because I entered into the evening MBA program while working full-time at IBM Corp, I decided it was time to quit racing. There wasn’t enough time to do everything, plus I was sick of being sore all the time.
After 45 years of no road races, I completed a 5K at the Lansing Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving Day 2025. It took months of training to build my legs back to the point where they could handle a full 5K, but I ran the full distance, finishing 6th out of 57 people in the 65-69 age group.
