Excerpt of Chapter 7, Running Downstream, from In Search of Al Howie by Jared Beasley. Al Howie was one of the world’s first ultrarunners, taking on insane thousand-mile runs in split shorts and tank tops, fueled by beer and his own personal demons.
With addictive natures, if one is good, then ten is better, and Al Howie couldn’t stop running. He ran to work, 10 miles each morning, in blue jeans and a t-shirt. “It took away the anger and the jitters,” he told his co-workers. They didn’t get it. Family and friends didn’t, either. They thought he had gone completely mad. He even ran in his work clothes, with old leather shoes or ankle-high work boots on his feet, but he felt physically and mentally sharper. When the cravings went down with each mile, he had to run more and more. Running was the only thing that wasn’t “earning or spending or yelling and screaming.”
At work and at home, Al Howie was an easy mark. They made fun of how skinny he was getting and called him a fool to his face. He was already gone most of the day in the foundry, and with running before and after work, he only showed up at home for food and sleep. He became a ghost. The more he ran, the more he affirmed the cracks in his psyche that had been widening for years: He wasn’t meant to be a breadwinner, maybe he should never have become a father, and the modern world was shit and he was a victim of it.
Howie doubled down. He got some hand-me-down sneakers and soon started refusing rides home and ran back instead. Like a dam that had backed up over years of frustration and had recently been beset with epic floods, Al Howie was either going to break or overflow like a torrent of mad, uncontrollable water.
“Running is for weirdos.”
In the mid-1970s, there was almost a refugee crisis of hippies like Al Howie looking for an out and for somewhere to fit in. A small group of these vagabonds found it in running. While it is hard to understand today, it was quite a spectacle back in the day to see someone “jogging.” It was not something people did, especially on the roads and sidewalks where so-called normal people went about their lives. Dr. Jack Taunton, founder of the Lions Gate Road Runners in Vancouver, remembers getting run off the road, shouted at from cars, and pelted with projectiles. Frank Giannino Jr., a trans-America record holder, remembers being hit with beer cans twice in the same day. “It could be real dangerous.” These early warriors were scoffed at, misunderstood, and derided as freaks. “Running is for weirdos.”
The First Women Marathoners
For women, it was even more unacceptable. Kathrine Switzer had to pretend to be a man just to get into the Boston Marathon. Then she literally had to fight off race official Jock Semple, who came out of the crowd and grabbed her. Runners protect other runners, and she was rescued by her boyfriend and several men behind her. She burst out of the scuffle and pushed on to the finish line. Despite her heroics, women still wouldn’t be recognized in the Olympic marathon until 1984 in LA, where American Joan Benoit Samuelson took gold.
The Mayor of Central Park
If you were a runner, you were a rebel and a square peg in a round hole. Many stood out in the early days. Alberto Arroyo, a man who went to the Central Park Reservoir in 1927 and started running around it, was one of the first. He did it every day, in rain, in snow, or in stifling hot weather. He became a fixture, earning the title “Mayor of Central Park.” He was there every day for the rest of his life and became a local icon. Jackie O, Christopher Reeve, and Anthony Quinn all took up jogging in Central Park and made sure to say hello to Arroyo on his famous bench. He preached the creeds “your health is your wealth” and “your day is your life,” and backed it up day after day after day.
The First New York Road Runners
Former Olympic marathoner Ted Corbitt ran 20 miles each day to work and back from the Bronx, one of the worst areas in New York in the 1970s. It was so dangerous in the Bronx, New Yorkers used to say, “Don’t run to the cops if you want to be safe, ’cause up there, they are the targets.” Originally from the South, the African-American Corbitt helped form the New York Road Runners. They formalized small bands of runners that previously ran in the Bronx and, with Corbitt, organized the first New York City Marathon in Central Park, in 1970. He was as kind as he was talented and as driven as he was mocked.
An African-American running through Harlem and the Upper East Side in the ’60s and ’70s was practically putting a bull’s-eye on his sweat-soaked back, but Corbitt, like Al, had to run. It was a way of life for them. In 1976, Marathon Man came out starring Sir Laurence Olivier (Szell) and Dustin Hoffman (Thomas). Look closely enough at the pivotal scene where Thomas’s brother, Doc Levy (played by Roy Scheider), dies, and you’ll see on the coffee table a small book, Corbitt.
America’s First Running Boom
Those who pushed through the ridicule saw a stream of events come together that made the running boom burst wide open. Frank Shorter won the gold medal in the Olympic marathon in 1972, becoming the first American to do so since 1908. Steve Prefontaine melded power, image, and fearlessness into his five-foot-nine frame and was on the verge of becoming the greatest 5K runner in history before his unexpected death in a car crash. The Oregonian was a powerful antiestablishment symbol and ran at a suicide pace with eyes always forward and a finger in the face of authority. He wore long hair and a thick moustache. He wasn’t a ’60s hippie, he was a hard-boiled force, a rolling stone with a bravado that inspired millions. Bill Rogers won the New York City and Boston Marathons four times each, and Grete Waitz became the first woman to run the marathon in under two and a half hours. All this happened in the ’70s.
If One Is Good, Ten Is Better
It is estimated that 25 million Americans had taken up running by the end of the 1970s, and thousands tackled marathons all over the world. But Howie was already running far beyond the marathon distance. He was constantly on the run, and it took precedence over everything else.
And then it got serious.
One day at work at the foundry, a buddy teased Al Howie about how long it would take a horse to make it from Toronto to Niagara Falls compared to a runner. He thought Al’s running was nonsense—“what a waste of time.” Howie was a grown man, after all, and his sporting days were supposedly long behind him. Al fired back: he could make it in less than a day.
The bait swallowed, the man placed his bet. He put a whole case of beer on the line and made it a public challenge in front of all the foundry workers.
No one took it seriously; not one single person thought it was possible. It was 90 miles as the crow flies to Niagara. Word skipped around the foundry lightning fast, and now several people were willing to supply Al with beer the whole way there. “The skinny Scot is going to run 90 miles in a day. He’ll be off his ass drunk before he gets out of the city limits.”
90 Miles in 1970s Running Gear
In those days, the pattern on the bottom of running shoes could have been made with a waffle iron. In today’s world of air-cushioned, smart-sole technology and breathable outers, the shoes of the ’70s are museum pieces. The clothes were even worse. Everything chafed. Tops were not breathable. Socks were not blister-resistant. Giannino, who now sells top-of-the-line running equipment, recalls, “It was horrible. The shorts weren’t made for that stuff. Your junk would be hanging out all over the place.” It was the age of high tube socks, headbands, and cotton sweatpants. Watch the first Rocky movie and see how he looked. If you ran in the cold, you bundled up with layers of sweatshirts; they would keep you warm in the beginning, then hold the sweat in after you got worked up, and freeze you in the end.
Small work roads wind out of the foundry rows in Toronto like snakes coiled up against the crusty Canadian landscape.
As the sun started to peek through the dusty smog, several of Howie’s co-workers stood huddled around a trailer. That’s when they saw the thin frame come over the hill, trotting along the street. He had run from home as usual, as a warm-up.
Al popped open his first bottle of Labatt’s and the 30 or so thirsty workers burst into applause and toasted him. When the “support” truck pulled up, Al was already gone. He had taken off without them. When they finally caught him, he was winding through the sleeping suburban streets and onto the highway. They pulled in behind and turned on the emergency blinkers. They were there to give water, food, and beer when he needed it, but more importantly to make sure he didn’t cheat.
Lake Ontario arose on the left and violent wind gusts ripped over the road, sending pebbles and twigs hurtling at Al’s legs. The sound of rolling waves thundered against the blackened stones beneath the thin shoulder, and the slow hum of the truck gearing up and down followed the sinewy runner along the banks. He reached Oakville, then Burlington, and over Queen Elizabeth Way past Hamilton. Suddenly, Al looked fatigued and slowed, causing the fellows in the truck to pull over and call back to the foundry. He’d put up a brave fight, but it looked like the bony, brogue-tongued Scot was gonna give out. This group of blue-collar Joes was the first in a long line to underestimate Howie’s grit. Like many, they didn’t look close enough. Howie’s eyes stayed locked across the water and into the distance, toward the great falls that loomed miles ahead. In just under 18 hours, Howie ran into Niagara Falls and into the local lore of the foundry. The boys made good on their promise and they all drank their fill.
Howie looked down at the tumult of water and earth. Like the Hellespont, the falls had claimed its share of adventurers. Then there were those names: Sam “The Yankee Leapster” Patch, Annie “The School Teacher” Taylor, Bobby Leach, and the Canadian Karel Soucek. They had rolled over the crest of Horseshoe Falls and into legend. Al savored his Labatt’s; he had done something few could do: 90 miles of open road, three and a half marathons in 18 hours.
What else could he do?
Explore In Search of Al Howie
Al Howie was one of the world’s first ultrarunners, taking on insane thousand-mile runs in split shorts and tank tops, fueled by beer and his own personal demons.
Then he disappeared amidst a swirl of kidnapping allegations and an Interpol investigation.
In Search of Al Howie is the critically acclaimed story of a man who ran forever and how author Jared Beasley found him—uncovering the origins of ultramarathon and exploring the larger-than-life personalities who carry on the legacy.