Billy Boy wrote:
"Most people wouldn't want to live my life," he continues in a suddenly pensive tone. "People don't want to go through that much hard training, that much boredom. If they did, we'd have a lot more good distance runners. Even a lot of the elite guys don't want to keep at it. I don't do a lot of things that my friends do. Ten years or so ago, Rob de Castella, Greg Meyer, Bruce Bickford and all these characters were always going out golfing and bugging me to go with them. I'd say to them, 'What do you want to go golfing for? Your'll be out in the sun for three hours. You'll get dehydrated. You have to take care of yourself.'"
He adds, unnecessarily,"Most people aren't going to think that way. People think that I'm just really talented and that I've done well mostly because of that. Tom Fleming thinks that he's a runner who didn't have that much talent and that he just worked really hard. I used to tell him, 'Tom, I work pretty hard, too. You can beat me at 400 meters, so you have more leg speed than me.'
"I know lots of athletes who have a lot more talent than me, but their energies are pointed in other directions. People think that I'm scatterbrained. Well, you don't win Boston four times if you're scatterbrained. You have to be like Cosmos Ndeti. You have to say, 'This is it. Nothing can stand in my way.' I've done two-hour runs at JFK Airport. It's not exactly nice running on access roads, but you have to get it in. If you let other things interfere, fine, but you're not going to beat me."
EXCELLENT! thank you!