Alberto Salazar runs, but at a conversational pace, reports Blaine Newnham in The Seattle Times, November 4, 2007 Trying to organize my thoughts for writing this story, I decided to go for a run. Surely, it was appropriate. I was writing about Alberto Salazar, America's greatest marathon runner. Indeed, today is the running of the New York City Marathon, where he won three times and in 1981 set a world record. But was it safe for me to run? How far should I go, and how fast should I run? Or, at age 65, should I run at all?
I was shaken by the 48-year-old Salazar's heart attack last summer, and a second episode last month, when another stent was lodged into his arteries. And Saturday, the U.S. Olympic Trials marathon was marred by the death of Ryan Shay, 28, who collapsed during the race. I was reminded of when another running icon, author Jim Fixx, died at 52 after a run.
During the 1970s, Salazar and I lived in the same rustic neighborhood in Eugene, our daughters babysitting his toddler sons.
Of all the runners I had watched, he was the toughest, more willing and able to sacrifice himself than even the great Steve Prefontaine.
He hadn't earned his nickname — The Mule — easily, given last rites after a run at Falmouth, Mass., in 1978 when his body temperature reached 107 degrees, or after his 1982 victory in New York when they hooked him up to an IV and let six liters of a saline solution drip into his dehydrated body.
"I always thought it was mind over matter," he said this week. "I never wanted to give in."
Salazar has as big a heart literally as he had figuratively. Australian scientists determined in 1985 that his heart was stronger and more productive than any athlete they had ever tested.
Even after he retired from competitive running, he continued to train. He was trim, careful about what he ate, took medication for slightly elevated cholesterol and blood pressure, and had regular checkups. His cardiologist was a marathoner; so was his general practitioner.
But none of it mattered when he went face down June 30 at the Nike headquarters in Beaverton while walking across the campus. In the next 26 minutes he was shocked eight times to get his heart running again, and given constant CPR.
"I finally asked my cardiologist the odds of surviving something like that," said Salazar, "and he told me 10,000 to 1."
Had running nearly killed Alberto Salazar, or had it saved him?
"Running saved me," he said unequivocally. "Very few people can survive eight shocks. My heart is in great shape; the joke is that it's the plumbing around it that isn't."
Salazar had a physical two months before the collapse. He had no idea he was having a heart attack when he felt a sharp pain in the back of his neck.
"The problem was I've got clogged arteries, my dad has clogged arteries, and my siblings have clogged arteries," he said. "I was predisposed. Unfortunately, my doctors couldn't see inside my arteries."
Salazar, who coaches elite athletes for Nike, did a 4-mile run this week. He's back at it, but in a different, more gentle way.
"I know there were times when I pushed too hard," he said. "I ran with bronchitis in 1983 and I think it is a reason that I'm asthmatic. I ran with a stress fracture. You want to see that never-give-up attitude in an athlete, but you need a coach to rein it in."
So he advised me to get an annual checkup, to listen to my doctor and my body, and if I'm really concerned or have a rough family history, to get a stress test that can detect arterial blockage.
"After what happened to me," he said, "more and more elite runners are getting stress tests. They're calling it the Salazar Syndrome."
Salazar said he doubts he'll ever run another marathon, that he sees no real value in it physically.
"I think you run four or five times a week for about 30 minutes and at a conversational pace [allowing you to chat as you run]," he said. "Make it enjoyable so you'll keep doing it. Running more, or faster really doesn't do anything for your overall health."
When Salazar set the world record in New York, he averaged 4 minutes, 53 seconds per mile. For 26.2 miles.
Last week he averaged 8 minutes per mile, for 4 miles, and said he was sublimely satisfied.
"For me, it would be reckless to run a marathon again," he said. "It is too bad that runners equate the marathon with running success. Running a marathon has nothing to do with health. At least run a few years before you consider doing one." And yet, looking back, Salazar admits his greatest achievement was not making two Olympic teams, or holding the American record at 5,000 and 10,000 meters or winning three times in New York.
"In 1994," he said, "I hadn't run competitively for years but won the Comrades Marathon in South Africa even though I didn't think I could finish." The Comrades Marathon is 56 miles.
But this is a different Salazar today.
"I'm not pessimistic by nature," he said, "but because of what has happened to me I'm assuming this might be the last conversation we'll ever have, and I want to treat it that way.
"I'm enjoying every day for what it is."
A miracle.
By Blaine NewnhamCopyright © 2007 The Seattle Times Company
