My February '08 TWRC Deer Tracks Race Report
I’m a journalist who just happens to run. I told Rocky Raccoon 25K/50K race director Paul Stone, who works for the Palestine Herald Press, a couple of years ago as I finished his event, “Not bad for a sportswriter, huh?” If my memory serves me correctly, it was also how I met Coach (Dan) Green at a Run The Woodlands 5K as a good media friend of mine, Scott Kaiser, had covered the Highlanders for years at both the Conroe Courier and the Houston Chronicle.
But at least, it has earned me some respect over the years with runners because I’m aware a little bit of what they go through to succeed. U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials qualifier Andrew Cook, from Flower Mound, who won Run Thru The Woods this past Thanksgiving and ran in the USA Half Marathon National Championship, said after I interviewed him for my Courier story that day, “It is good to see you with a number on.”
My very first running event came five years ago on Marathon Weekend. I weighed about 40 pounds more than I do right now, but I was wearing a 54 Large suit jacket and had pants with a waist of 44 inches. (They’re 46 Regular and 38 today.) I ran and walked the 4-Miler that day, but before the race, I went to visit a friend.
He was already known to everyone in track and field around the Southwest and in Texas, but I knew him as the Astros former public address announcer and a teacher at Houston’s Awty International School. When I covered private and parochial high school athletics in Texas, I met J Fred Duckett at their school’s basketball games. I think I befriended J Fred when I told him that I thought that the Astros did him wrong when they didn’t include him in the last regular season game at the Astrodome ceremonies, especially just to say “Jose Cruuuuuuuuuuz!” one last time in the grand building.
The next three years, it became an annual tradition, and as I crossed the finish line, I always had a spirited, personal identification. (It pays to know the people with a microphone in their hand!) Even when Waverly finished her half marathon two years ago, it was me that he picked up on not her. (My plan was for it to be the other way around.)
Before the start of the 2007 race, I listened for J Fred’s booming voice, but I didn’t hear it. I heard the same female voice that we heard this year. It was the same rah-rah baloney that you hear at Rockets games and a lot of other sporting events. A public address announcer’s job is to inform their audience, not to get them pumped up. When I crossed the finish line, I didn’t recognize J Fred’s voice there either. I double checked with Waverly (as she crossed with me) and she said that it wasn’t him.
When I got home, I e-mailed J Fred and he informed me that he had been fired by the marathon. A volunteer fired! The Astros and Rice basketball had led the way in those acts. (At least, we had still been blessed to hear J Fred’s voice at Rice football games and at area track meets.) However, the time to hear J Fred’s voice and enjoy his warmth and wealth of knowledge was drawing to a close and many didn’t know it. J Fred was battling leukemia.
And less than ten days after the 2007 marathon, J Fred’s wife, Baudine, had passed away at the age of 73. I was in Vancouver and couldn’t make her funeral. I saw J Fred, in what would prove to be the last time, at the Victor Lopez Bayou City Classic track meet. He would pass away on June 25th. His memorial service was so large that it was held in Autry Court where he called so many Owls basketball games.
When I registered for the marathon on the last day of “cheap” prices, July 31, I put in my request for a bib name, “RIP J Fred”. Shortly after that, I thought about signing up and raising money for Leukemia & Lymphoma Society on behalf of J Fred; however, I didn’t want to draw any attention to what I was doing (and I wasn’t sure that I could either.) I’m not one that asks for money very well.
As the Expo approached, I figured that given some challenges with the event that there would be no way that I would have been granted my original request. At the very end of packet pickup on Friday, I went to pick my bib number up and when the volunteer looked at, I had my first chance to explain why I was doing what I was doing: to honor J Fred.
Sometime during Saturday’s Expo, I remembered the microphone lying on the floor of my office next to Waverly’s karaoke machine. It dawned on me that I should carry it the entire race. Waverly helped me Saturday night to tape it up, and I carried it the entire way!
Oh, the race itself? It wasn’t my best time and it wasn’t my worst either. Altogether, I probably ran a little bit better 12 days earlier when I ran the Kingwood (Texas) Marathon, plus I walked around the Expo – ferreting out information – both days and the pounding on my lower back didn’t help. A little extra weight isn’t allowing me to bounce back as well as I did when I ran four marathons in five weeks in the spring of ’06 – two of which included my best and third-best marathons ever.
The biggest highlight on race day, even better than shaking President “41” Bush’s hand in the area of mile 19, was having Waverly run in with me all the way from the mile 23 Finish Line Sports water station. She worked there for about three hours on race morning after walking out with Bill Dwyer.
Thanks to Carol Steele and Dana-Sue Crews for a “pick me up” after mile 14 and before mile 24 as well as the moral support of Peter Manry of “Other Brother”, the DJ who plays music at the Huntsville Half and many of the HARRA Fall Series races, at mile markers 15 and 23. What a great guy who is a Christian as well.
I also saw Woodlands Fit director Rich Cooper before turning on to Shepherd, and was surprised to see Karen Felicidario’s husband, Mark, and daughter, Emma, at the mile 17 marker. I surmised that Karen was ahead of me and that they probably missed her. Right at that time, Bill had called Mark to recommend them going to mile marker 25. After they left, I shed my windshirt, and stopped to stretch a tightening lower left back (which I would repeat often).
But at least, it has earned me some respect over the years with runners because I’m aware a little bit of what they go through to succeed. U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials qualifier Andrew Cook, from Flower Mound, who won Run Thru The Woods this past Thanksgiving and ran in the USA Half Marathon National Championship, said after I interviewed him for my Courier story that day, “It is good to see you with a number on.”
My very first running event came five years ago on Marathon Weekend. I weighed about 40 pounds more than I do right now, but I was wearing a 54 Large suit jacket and had pants with a waist of 44 inches. (They’re 46 Regular and 38 today.) I ran and walked the 4-Miler that day, but before the race, I went to visit a friend.
He was already known to everyone in track and field around the Southwest and in Texas, but I knew him as the Astros former public address announcer and a teacher at Houston’s Awty International School. When I covered private and parochial high school athletics in Texas, I met J Fred Duckett at their school’s basketball games. I think I befriended J Fred when I told him that I thought that the Astros did him wrong when they didn’t include him in the last regular season game at the Astrodome ceremonies, especially just to say “Jose Cruuuuuuuuuuz!” one last time in the grand building.
The next three years, it became an annual tradition, and as I crossed the finish line, I always had a spirited, personal identification. (It pays to know the people with a microphone in their hand!) Even when Waverly finished her half marathon two years ago, it was me that he picked up on not her. (My plan was for it to be the other way around.)
Before the start of the 2007 race, I listened for J Fred’s booming voice, but I didn’t hear it. I heard the same female voice that we heard this year. It was the same rah-rah baloney that you hear at Rockets games and a lot of other sporting events. A public address announcer’s job is to inform their audience, not to get them pumped up. When I crossed the finish line, I didn’t recognize J Fred’s voice there either. I double checked with Waverly (as she crossed with me) and she said that it wasn’t him.
When I got home, I e-mailed J Fred and he informed me that he had been fired by the marathon. A volunteer fired! The Astros and Rice basketball had led the way in those acts. (At least, we had still been blessed to hear J Fred’s voice at Rice football games and at area track meets.) However, the time to hear J Fred’s voice and enjoy his warmth and wealth of knowledge was drawing to a close and many didn’t know it. J Fred was battling leukemia.
And less than ten days after the 2007 marathon, J Fred’s wife, Baudine, had passed away at the age of 73. I was in Vancouver and couldn’t make her funeral. I saw J Fred, in what would prove to be the last time, at the Victor Lopez Bayou City Classic track meet. He would pass away on June 25th. His memorial service was so large that it was held in Autry Court where he called so many Owls basketball games.
When I registered for the marathon on the last day of “cheap” prices, July 31, I put in my request for a bib name, “RIP J Fred”. Shortly after that, I thought about signing up and raising money for Leukemia & Lymphoma Society on behalf of J Fred; however, I didn’t want to draw any attention to what I was doing (and I wasn’t sure that I could either.) I’m not one that asks for money very well.
As the Expo approached, I figured that given some challenges with the event that there would be no way that I would have been granted my original request. At the very end of packet pickup on Friday, I went to pick my bib number up and when the volunteer looked at, I had my first chance to explain why I was doing what I was doing: to honor J Fred.
Sometime during Saturday’s Expo, I remembered the microphone lying on the floor of my office next to Waverly’s karaoke machine. It dawned on me that I should carry it the entire race. Waverly helped me Saturday night to tape it up, and I carried it the entire way!
Oh, the race itself? It wasn’t my best time and it wasn’t my worst either. Altogether, I probably ran a little bit better 12 days earlier when I ran the Kingwood (Texas) Marathon, plus I walked around the Expo – ferreting out information – both days and the pounding on my lower back didn’t help. A little extra weight isn’t allowing me to bounce back as well as I did when I ran four marathons in five weeks in the spring of ’06 – two of which included my best and third-best marathons ever.
The biggest highlight on race day, even better than shaking President “41” Bush’s hand in the area of mile 19, was having Waverly run in with me all the way from the mile 23 Finish Line Sports water station. She worked there for about three hours on race morning after walking out with Bill Dwyer.
Thanks to Carol Steele and Dana-Sue Crews for a “pick me up” after mile 14 and before mile 24 as well as the moral support of Peter Manry of “Other Brother”, the DJ who plays music at the Huntsville Half and many of the HARRA Fall Series races, at mile markers 15 and 23. What a great guy who is a Christian as well.
I also saw Woodlands Fit director Rich Cooper before turning on to Shepherd, and was surprised to see Karen Felicidario’s husband, Mark, and daughter, Emma, at the mile 17 marker. I surmised that Karen was ahead of me and that they probably missed her. Right at that time, Bill had called Mark to recommend them going to mile marker 25. After they left, I shed my windshirt, and stopped to stretch a tightening lower left back (which I would repeat often).
posted by WalkSports.com | 7:10 PM
2 Comments:
Jon- I think you should have run with TNT. You don't have to be good at asking people for money. You just have to be good at telling your stories about J. Fred to others. What a great opportunity to help raise funds to cure the disease that killed your friend. I think next year, you request that same bib and you run with TNT. You won't regret it. And I know Bill and Erin and Erica and all the other TNT kids would tell you the same.
Nice recap Jon. I didn't know the story behind Fred like you can tell it. The marathon program guide didn't do him justice. During most of the marathon, I was running behind a couple of guys wearing "50 marathons in 50 states" T-shirts, which reminded me of you. Keep up the running and reporting.
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