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Who Is John Gray? |
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The John Gray races are so named because several years ago the Cape Cod Athletic Club decided to have a half marathon in the fall to complement the well-established Johnny Kelley Half Marathon in the spring. I was the club's second oldest member and a somewhat successful runner although I never needed any Dan Quayle-type reminder that I'm no Johnny Kelley. |
| By then I was a threat only in age-group competition, but there was a time when I did run pretty well. For example, the first 12 times I ran the BAA Marathon, 1949-1961, I earned six medals (first 35 places) my best being 21st and a time of 2:50. I ran Boston 34 times, quitting three times and race walking twice. |
| For some reason I always did better at Yonkers a month later than Boston. Here in the national marathon, I once finished eight in 2:47 and was the third man on the winning team, earning my only national gold medal. I was also 11th in this race in 1964 when it was an Olympic Trial. In all I finished in the top 15 six times at Yonkers and missed the medals (top 30) only once in my 15 attempts. |
| In 50-plus years I have run or race walked in roughly 1300 races. Of them all my favorite was the old Hyde Shoe 12 mile handicap run in Cambridge. This was one of the pre-Boston races that got huge publicity in the Boston papers (pictures, headlines, long articles.) There would be fewer than 100 runners, and the officials knew them all and could assign reasonable handicaps. The start was staggered with the slowest runners going first and other groups leaving every 30 or 60 seconds after that. The best runner would start last, 12 minutes after the first in a 12-mile race. I'd leave about five minutes before whoever was the scratch man. I won the Hyde Shoe in 1949, finished second in 1950, and won it again in 1951 with free shoes, a nice trophy, and great pictures in the papers each time. The popularity of the sport killed these handicap races in the 1960's because who could possibly fairly handicap the huge fields we have now? |
| I have only two more final brags: my race walking and my sports writing. In walking I won a few New England titles some 35 years ago, something I never came close to as a runner, and in more recent years I have taken a few national golds in the over-65 and over-70 age groups. I'm hoping for a good 1999, when I'll be 75. As to the writing, I was sports editor of the Cape Codder [newspaper] in Orleans for over a dozen years, and I can guarantee that the publicity I gave to running was unequaled, not for the brilliance of the writing but for the total coverage I gave to every local runner. I'm sure those articles had a lot to do with the naming of the John Gray races. |
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Whatever the reason, it's
lovely to have a race named for me, and I thank everyone involved for the
honor. - John Gray, 1998. |
| On the eve of the beginning of John's 9th decade, he's still going strong. Although no longer living on Cape Cod, Mr. Gray makes it a point to get down to Orleans to participate in the race, finishing as course sweeper in the 10K race in 2003 in a rapid race walking time of 86:35. |
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