Running Ruminations

There’s COVID-related news, over and beyond what I talked about on a hyper-local level last week, but for this week, I’m taking a break from that to talk about a dear friend and running partner, John. 

On Easter Sunday, I learned from Chris — who was telling Stacey and me over text — that she learned from John’s sister (when she texted him to tell him happy Easter) that he had died the week prior, on Sunday, 3/28, suddenly, unexpectedly. He was 57, just a month shy of his birthday. 

I am devastated, just fucking gutted. 

My heart shatters, and I feel like the wind is getting knocked out of me, every time I think about this — which is to say, a lot — since learning it on Sunday. 

I wrote a tribute to John on his memorial page one of his four sisters set up, and copied it over to IG and fb, in the hopes of telling as many Chicago runners as possible about his passing, since he didn’t use social media. His sister told Chris that they’ve been trying to tell his friends, but that it has been a bit haphazard, so consider this another contribution to that effort.  

I don’t know when I will get used to talking about John in the past tense. 

The Chicago running community lost one of the good guys. 

My running life — roger that, my life, period — was better because John was in it for as long as he was. 

If you’ve been reading my stuff for a while, you probably know that I have no reason or interest to return to the Boston Marathon anytime soon despite qualifying for it because I had such a positive experience there the second time I ran it. 

I ran faster the second time around, yes, but more than that, the friendships I made during that (of course, predictably) mega-shitty Chicago winter training for that race are indescribable and ones that I cherish. 

John has and always will be part of that reason.

When it came time to begin training for Boston the second time around, in 2010, I signed-up for Fleet Feet Chicago’s Boston Bound training group. Every Wednesday night, we’d run out of the Piper’s Alley location to the lakefront and Lincoln Park, often by the Grant statue to run “hills,” or in the zoo parking lot to run 800s, and run repeat after repeat in an attempt to get as fast and fit as possible. Every Saturday morning, for months leading up to Patriot’s Day race day Monday in Boston, the FF BB crew would alternate between running the flat Chicago lakefront or hauling out to the suburbs, more often than not to Barrington (or to Waterfall Glen, once the never-ending winter’s snow and ice had melted) to get our share of “hills” to prepare us for Boston’s unique course. 

It was in this FF BB training group that I met a group of training buddies — Erin, Stacey, Chris, John, Amy, and Margaret — who I’d spend nearly every Wednesday night and Saturday morning with for the first four months of 2010, in addition to countless other weekend or weekday runs in the years after.

You probably notice that John’s the only guy in the group and that he was a decade, maybe two decades-plus older than many of us. With Boston’s qualification standards at the time, many of the women in our little group needed a 3:40 BQ, and since John was older, the men’s standard for him was a 3:30. It made perfect sense for all of us to train together, so we did.   

Training with, and befriending, these fine humans was one of the best decisions of my life. 

It’s mind-boggling and hilarious to recount all the “challenges” we trained through that winter and in subsequent ridiculous Chicago seasons for other races (including the Chicago marathon) — “challenges” like bad weather that ranges from sideways freezing rain and sleet, to larger-than-life Lake Michigan waves that straight-up take out runners jogging between North and Oak Avenues, lightning storms (yes, you read that correctly), and of course the suffocating heat and humidity that only a midwestern summer can bring — but the weather never mattered because with John, the company was always excellent. 

Years after it happened, we never stopped laughing about that one time when we went to a group run at Waterfall Glen, only to find that the water stations were taken down before we got to them; we’re not that slow! Wtf!?! We took ourselves and our running as seriously as we needed to and not a modicum more, laughing about our running “egos” and keeping each other in check.  

Once John decided to go for the Six Stars and run all the World Marathon Majors, it was a long-standing joke that the NYRR would continue to deny him the opportunity to run NYC and make $11 off him each year, before the lawsuit that stopped that practice (and him eventually getting selected in the lottery. His verdict, from what I can recall: it was overrated, that Chicago was superior. Naturally). 

John’s biting humor and commentary always brought the much-needed levity to any situation, and I love that I can still hear his distinct voice in my head. When I was pregnant with A and working in the south loop, within blocks of John, we’d often meet-up for lunchtime runs around Grant Park and the south loop. In winter 2011, the day the city shut down due to “snowmaggedon,” somehow John and pregnant me got out for a lunchtime run, bemused at our ridiculousness. Apparently it never occurred to either of us that we were running in the moments before a blizzard overtook the city and made motorists leave their cars, buried in snow, on Lake Shore Drive. Instead, we couldn’t stop laughing about how the Congress Hotel’s windows were shattered and strewn all over S. Michigan Ave. Behold life’s experiences and weather phenomena that runners get to witness! 

Even after my family and I moved out here, of course I kept in touch with John and my FF BB buddies (with Erin, in SF, being one of the only people I knew in CA when we moved here), and I always looked forward to the standing text thread I was in with John and Stacey. Every weekend, we’d recount our runs and/or races, and we’d celebrate when they were smooth and effortless (which rarely happened) and commiserate when they were laughably shitty beyond repair (as was more likely the case). 

John’s texts always warmed my heart because he’d always abbreviate as much as he could — like your uncle who writes w/o usng letrs 2 sv on carctrs — making me wonder if he liked to abbreviate, so he did, or if he thought that messaging apps still charged by the character. It didn’t matter, and I never asked. Him always checking in, catching up, congratulating and commiserating after each race — while humbly talking about his own exploits, and only when you brought them up — was how he showed love. 

In 2017, John came out to California during my kids’ President’s Day week off, when my parents were also here visiting. He came in from SF, where he was visiting old neighbors of his, to come run with me in SJ, very excited about the prospect of running to Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara. It barely rains here, but of course, on the day that he came, and we went for a 10 mile run on the Guadalupe River Trail, it was an effin’ deluge! Surely it’ll let up any minute now! Yeah, nope. 

Again though: the weather never mattered because the company was always excellent. He came over, hung out with my parents and C and me (and 2 y/o G and 6 y/o A), and we all went out to Sweet Tomatoes before he left. I’ve seen so few friends from Chicago in the almost eight years we’ve lived here, and I always thought it was so kind that he came.

A couple years later, in 2019, when my family and I went to the midwest, we got to run together again, and it was incredible to be running back on Chicago’s LFT for the first time since we moved away nearly six years earlier. By then, the Navy Pier flyover was completed, and I couldn’t get over how different (and safer!) it was. And of course, even though it was a late June day, of the couple times we got to run together, one day had horrible weather — barely 50 degrees and sideways, chilling rain — and the other was sweltering and suffocatingly humid. We had a penchant for running in terrible weather, but again: the weather never mattered. 

When I was last in the midwest, not only did I get to run with John a few times, but he also came up to Stacey’s one night and hung out with her and her son, her boyfriend, and the girls and me. John was the type of friend with whom you picked up right where you left off, as though there was never any pause or interruption since the last time you ran or talked. He always asked about you and yours, impressively recalling something you casually remarked on a run months (if not years) ago, some obscure story or mention about your family that came out on the run. You always knew he cared. His love and pride for his huge family was so apparent, as was his devotion to them. No doubt he was the cool, fun uncle.   

I think if more people had the type of friend like John was, more people would be happier (and by extension, probably healthier). John was selfless and never thought twice about doing for others before he did for himself. He was a pace group leader for CES for many years, fundraised for the Arthritis Foundation and their Joints in Motion program, and was always a helper. He took care of his health to a T, which makes his death all the more mind-blowing. Our John? He was so healthy! He ran! He took care of himself! Making sense of it has been frustrating and elusive.  

My greatest hope is that in life, John had even the smallest hint of how greatly he was loved by so many, and that in death, John didn’t suffer whatsoever. Every day this week, even after attending his virtual funeral service on Tuesday, I keep refreshing his obituary page, anticipating that the latest refresh will finally reveal some weird GOTCHA! screen, that some weird joke someone is playing is finally up. 

Instead, all I see every day is his friendly smile, reassuring me that he is, in fact, gone. 

I keep wondering why I have an email thread entitled “John’s memorial” in my inbox with Chris, Stacey, Margaret, Amy, and Erin. 

With an email with that group of people going, I wonder why John hasn’t responded yet, like he always would. 

It sucks, and it’s so, so hard. 

I will miss John’s hilarious and colorful hot-takes on everything from the racing and running world to politics. 

I will miss his humility, his gentle soul, and his ceaseless generosity. His family asked that in lieu of flowers, in accordance with John’s wishes, that people donate to the Lakeview Food Pantry; donations have almost surpassed the $10k mark. I mean, c’mon. Even in death, what a human.  

I will miss my loyal and trustworthy running partner, someone I’ve been proud to call my dear friend since 2010. 

I will miss his text messages with all his funny abbreviations and sparse or absent punctuation marks and all his unique John-isms. His voice will always stay with me.  

I will miss our runs together, infrequent as they became due to our cross-country move, and I don’t know that I’d ever be able to run in the south loop again, starting at Jackson/Wabash, without thinking about him. 

I rarely run on the GRT anymore, but I will always think of him when I run by Levi’s Stadium. If it’s pouring cats and dogs or god forbid, snowing here for some reason, I’ll know he’s trying to tell me something or just laughing at — nay, with — me. It’s never been about the weather, though. The company was what has mattered, what I’ve treasured, most.   

I miss and love you, John. 

Thank you for making the world — and so many of our lives — better and brighter. 

What a great joy it was to be your friend. xo