About a month ago I signed me and my daughter up for the Woodruff 5K in Connellsville.

Had never run it before.

Signed us up for a gajillion reasons … most having to do with the race’s roots.

The run/walk honors the legacy of Connellsville native John Woodruff, who won a gold medal in the 1936 Berlin Olympics, the games where Jesse Owens famously won four golds.  

I grew up in Uniontown, which neighbors Connellsville in Fayette County. After college I worked a couple years in the sports department of the local newspaper. My colleague, Jim, was a lifelong Connellsville resident and former history teacher who loved all things track and field. I remember he always made sure the Woodruff results ran in their entirety in the sports section. I appreciated how he always referred to the race’s namesake as “Mr. Woodruff.”

I didn’t take up running until later in life. I can’t remember when or even why I started. 

I’ve come to appreciate running for the same reasons that I write … for the medicine of it. I’m not fast in either endeavor, caring less about finish lines than what I might notice along the way.

Since I had never run the Woodruff, I thought it’d be a cool hometown-y experience, a neat way to honor the legacy of one Connellsville’s favorite sons … and an even cooler summertime thing to share with my daughter, who recently picked up running. 

While we were both looking forward to the race, we also acknowledged that a mid-week race at 7:30 p.m., an hour’s drive from where we live, in the dead of summer … might present some logistical challenges. 

The day before last week’s race, peeking at the mid-80’s, high-humidity forecast, Emma exercised discretion and opted out (wisely for her). 

I was leaning towards doing the same. I can easily talk myself out of things when I’m by myself. 

Fortunately, my son volunteered to step in for his sister.

I was both glad and grateful he did.

So last Wednesday after work we made the hour’s drive to Connellsville, parking near Falcon Stadium, where we picked up our bibs. I asked the ladies at the race tables if Peter could sub in for his pre-registered sister. No problem, they said, and didn’t even bother switching their names in the system. “If you win a medal, it’ll be as Emma,” one of the ladies told him with a smile. 

We stretched ourselves out after our long drive before walking the couple blocks up the road to the starting point. 

Since it was my first time participating, I had messaged my friend Jamie earlier in the week. Jamie and I met way back in elementary school. She lives in Connellsville and has both run and walked the Woodruff a bunch of times (in addition to running double-digit marathons). 

Jamie let me know that the course was a bit hilly, but that it finished with a lap around the track at Falcon Field. 

Aside from that, I didn’t bother looking up the race route.

Figured I’d just follow behind the fast people.

Kinda’ glad I didn’t look up the course map, as it might have convinced me to follow in Emma’s footsteps and opt out. 

The first half of the race is a lot of uphill through neighborhoods around town.

So I was grateful when I found my pacer just a few minutes after starting. 

She was locked in. 

Professional race drip. 

Ear buds bluetoothed to her watch, at which she stole occasional glances, checking her pace … which was reasonable enough. 

It was my friend Jamie.

Though we trade messages sometimes, we haven’t seen each other in person in probably 15 years. 

I didn’t go out of my way to say hello when I saw her. 

Didn’t quite seem like the time or place to reminisce about, you know, Mrs. Schiffbauer’s second-grade glass. 

Plus I needed all my breath for the frickin’ hills. 

Also, she ran ahead of me pretty much the whole time. 

The only times we changed places was when she geared down into her practiced race-walker stride. 

Which I deduced was an intentional part of her race strategy. 

I didn’t have a strategy … aside from praying the goddamn hills would eventually start sloping the other way.

The heat and the hills can sure humble a person’s stride.  

But there are gifts in the humbling. 

Being in no great hurry gave me a chance to truly appreciate the course’s hometown-y-ness. 

Owing to the high temps and heavy humidity, there weren’t a lot of spectators out.

But a few residents stood in their yards with garden hoses … showering anyone interested in swinging wide to catch some spray. 

Growing up in Uniontown we ran under a lot of summer hoses. 

It was a blessing to be reminded what that feels like.

Eventually, (read: mercifully) the hills did relent, and Falcon Field came into view in front of me. 

I started to pick up speed when I hit the downhill leading to the old stadium, by which I mean I succumbed to physics and gravity. 

However, as my stride got longer and bouncier, it jostled might rear ear bud loose, causing it to tumble to the ground right before I reached the stadium’s gate. 

Since there were no, um, Olympic medals on the line, I decided I’d rather lose a few seconds than an ear bud … so I turned around retrieved it, and turned back around to enter Falcon Field. 

I have to say … it’s a pretty cool thing slow jogging into a stadium, especially after all the hills and heat … and asking your body for whatever it has left. 

Which wasn’t much in my case, but still. 

After crossing the finish line, I sought out my son on the midfield. He asked me if I’d had a popsicle yet, pointing to the concession stand. 

Whereupon the part of my heart that’s still young was reminded how good a grape popsicle tastes in summer. 

After catching my breath, I went looking for the only other two participants I knew: Jamie and Jim. 

Incidentally, they are friends with each other, having coincidentally met years ago, of all places, at the Woodruff’s finish line. 

I learned that Jamie had already gone back home to change. I texted her congratulations. 

“We ran with the hearts of (Areford) Colts,” I wrote, a nod to our old elementary school mascot.  

I spied Jim after he finished the walker’s portion of the race. 

I confessed to him that he was among the reasons I signed up … as I wanted to congratulate him in person on his retirement from the paper a year or so ago. In his farewell column, he actually mentioned me by name, thanking me for training him when he joined. 

Which says as much about him as it does me.

I’ve always said that the sports department should build a statue to Jim. 

Jim loved covering high school track and field. 

Volunteered for every assignment. 

Which made him the MVP of the sports department as far as I was concerned. 

For me covering high school track and field meant standing around for several hours and then flailing in vain trying to make “she ran fast,” and “he threw far” sound interesting across 15 inches of copy.

Jim had a heart for it, which made him great at it. 

I introduced Jim to my son, Peter, mentioning how it was his first Woodruff, too, and how he had written a report on its namesake way back in elementary school. 

“Oh, did you see the tree?” 

“Oh my gosh!” I said out loud. 

I’d forgotten all about The Tree. 

Which coaxed a fresh history lesson on Mr. Woodruff from my former sportswriting colleague.  

Jim recounted how the gold medalists from the Berlin Olympics in 1936 were each gifted an oak tree seedling. 

And how Mr. Woodruff brought his home to Connellsville. How it was originally planted at the high school’s former site. The story goes that one of the teachers at the high school was afraid the site might be too confining for the tree to flourish, and so it was re-planted at a Carnegie Library a block away. 

It was eventually moved to the north end of Falcon stadium, where it currently stands strong, 90 years after Berlin. 

If I ever knew about the tree’s full backstory, I’d forgotten it.

Just like I’d forgotten the backstory of Mr. Woodruff’s gold medal. 

I had to look it up to remind myself that he won gold in the 800 meters.

Whereupon I learned that Mr. Woodruff was one of 18 African American athletes representing the United States in Berlin in 1936. 

And that half of the 18 won gold medals, disproving Hitler’s theory regarding Aryan supremacy.  

In fact, Mr. Woodruff was the first African American to win gold at the 1936 games. 

And he did so in a performance that is still celebrated today as one of the greatest comebacks in track and field history. 

Which I made myself look up.  

In the backstretch of the first lap, he found himself boxed in on all sides, owing to the leader’s somewhat sluggish pace. As he hugged the inside lane, there were runners in front of him, to his side, and behind him.

I read a couple accounts that mentioned that Mr. Woodruff was very mindful of not accidentally bumping any of the other runners.

There was a great deal of controversy at the time about the black athletes’ participation in the games, and it’s been written that Mr. Woodruff did not wish to give the judges any excuse for disqualifying him for incidental contact with other runners. 

So he did the most extraordinary thing an Olympic sprinter running the 800 could do. 

He stopped. 

Actually slowed down to let others pass him … so he could swing to an outside lane. 

So that, with nothing but open ground in front of him, he could hit his legendary stride. 

Legendary.

Standing a bit north of 6’3” he possessed a stride nine feet in length, which earned him the nickname, “Long John Woodruff.”

He zoomed to the front of the field and held on for the gold.  

If I ever knew any of the above, I’d forgotten it. 

Like the oak that bears his name, his performance is still an extraordinary thing to behold 90 years later.

While looking it up (you should too) I also learned that, at the time of the Olympics, Mr. Woodruff was a freshman at the University of Pittsburgh, which did not allow black students to live on campus at the time. So he lived at the local YMCA. That he had to run a greater distance — taking the outside lane — than his Olympic competition seems even more poignant in that light. 

After the Olympics he returned home to both a hero’s welcome — celebrated by a parade of over 10,000 — and a still-segregated United States. Before graduating from Pitt, he won NCAA titles in 1937, 1938 and 1939 in the 880-yard run. After graduating he went on to a distinguished military career.

Having grown up in Fayette County, I’m embarrassed that I did not know all of that. 

But like I said, I appreciate running for the same reasons that I write. 

I’m more concerned with what I might notice along the way rather than how long it takes me to finish. 

There are gifts in the humbling.

__

At Jim’s post-race suggestion, my son and I walked over to The Tree. 

There’s a poetry to the tree’s story, especially how it moved from its original location when it was discovered it didn’t have enough room to flourish. 

Just like how Mr. Woodruff won his gold medal.

Standing in the shade of a 90-year-old oak tree grown from soil that Nazis once called home, I couldn’t help but think about … roots. 

About getting to trace roads once run by an Olympic athlete who grew up not far from where I did, but had to travel greater distances for everything he accomplished in life.

About getting to follow in the footsteps of an old friend from elementary school who knows where the local hills are and what to do with them.

About getting to share new old roads with my son while remembering how good grape popsicles taste in the summertime. 

I thought about all the things I have yet to learn about the few things I know. 

By the time we left the stadium and returned to the car, I knew this, though. 

If I get to do it all over again next year, I know what my race strategy will be. 

When I see neighbors in their yards spraying garden hoses into the street …

… I will slow down. 

And let others pass me before I swing to the other side of the road. 

And as I take my time under the cool spray,  I will remember Mr. Woodruff … and remind the piece of my heart that is still young to be proud of where it comes from.