February 17, 2008. Stu Harris Interviews Walter Borz on Hamms Gulch Trail
Dr. Walter Bortz emerged from the mist this morning jogging steadily up Windy Hill, not his familiar shuffling pace, but stronger, someone who could honestly claim to have run fifty marathons. Even with his shock of white hair he could have been my age. "Hello, Walter, my name is Stu, one of the Ancients. We see you running Portola Valley Loop all the time. But today you look better, meaner."
"Thank you, Stu. You say you’re with the Ancients?"
"Yes, there’s more coming down the hill."
"I’ve just finished the Las Vegas Marathon. Ruth Anne and I made the centerfold of Sports Illustrated as the oldest couple to ever finish Boston Marathon."
"See, looks do count."
"I need to get faster. At Beijing, they closed the course before I finished."
"Angell Field track workouts are on Wednesday at noon, grouped by speed."
"When it comes to speed, do you remember Emile Zatopek?"
"Yes, three gold medals in a row."
"Emile was my hero, the finest distance runner who ever lived. Before the wall came down, he was shut away, a non person. The Soviets called him a public enemy. He wrote me that he could no longer run because of severe back pains. I wrote back and asked him to come to Stanford where we could fix his back, and sent him plane fare and money for expenses."
"At the airport he shot out of the plane like a cannon, and for the next month dashed all over California - speeches, tours, interviews - all the pent-up publicity that he’d been deprived of for so long."
"Wally and Ruth Anne," he told us, "this has been the finest month of my life. I knew you wouldn’t be able to fix my nerves, our surgeons said the same thing, but you’ve fixed my spirit, something they couldn’t do."
"Let me tell you a story of the Olympics. After winning both the 5k and 10K, my coach came up to me and said, ‘Emile, I checked the bulletin board and I see your name listed for the marathon. You’ve never even run a marathon.’"
"Well that’s true, coach, but I’ve got time and there’s nothing else to do."
"Once the race started I tagged along behind the leader, an Englishman, until we reached the half-way point, when I pulled up beside him. ‘This is my first marathon and I don’t really know how to run it, but don’t you think we should pick up the pace a bit? It seems awfully slow to me,’ and speeded up to where I felt comfortable. Maybe it was psychology, but the Englishman seemed to wilt and fell back, leaving me in first place to the end."