“How’d he die?” I asked, fighting my seatbelt. And I was right behind him, clinging to the seatback, trying to read the captions over his shoulder. Now, in the car, he was bent over a beat-up little book, flipping through photographs of an undersized, liquid-eyed runner. Just like that, his life had gotten interesting. And here he was, eight months later, the fastest kid in the freshman class. And so, the previous fall, almost apologetically, my brother had gone out for the one team that never cuts anybody: cross-country. We simply didn’t have the size for those sports our parents were maybe five-foot-four. My brother and I had always been sports-crazy, but as much as we dreamed about playing quarterback or even backup point guard, those dreams were confined to our backyard. From where I was sitting, in the backseat, my brother’s life had taken an unexpected turn. What I remember is that Mom was driving us home from our monthly ransacking of the Central Library. Fans, in general, of anyone possessed by that unique, unsustainable intensity that we called “American.” Axl Rose. In the spring of 1994, I was 13, and my family had just moved to Oregon. If there’s any trace of him left, I don’t know where to find it.ĪNYONE WHO HAS FALLEN under his spell can recall it happening. Everything’s already been said about Steve Prefontaine-he said it all himself first, and we’ve just been repeating and repeating his words until they’ve hardened into one giant Nike slogan. What an idea, creeping around Coos Bay, hoping to uncover something that hasn’t already been looked for a million times over. Maybe this is what you do when you’re a spectator, a fan of distance running-you end up judging everyone against someone who’s been gone for 38 years.

Maybe this is what happens when you sit in the grandstand. I’m at his memorial run, for goodness sake.

What an idea, to think that just because I’ve come to his hometown, Pre might actually appear. What the hell got into me last night? I can’t put it all on Bruce Springsteen and the late summer air. Aside from his face stuck to a bunch of sweaty T-shirts and the occasional fake mustache, there is absolutely no sign of him. Just the thought of pinning a number to my chest made me want to reach for the Advil.Īnd so, instead, I’m in the grandstand staring at all these people. Waking up in my motel this morning, however, the prospect of running a 10K on absolutely no training seemed about as relevant to my task as slaughtering a cow would to a food critic. Maybe it was like I’d been tapering for the past couple years. Maybe all this time off was exactly what I needed. The opening bars of “Born to Run” were soaring out over the Pacific, and the idea of lacing up my old New Balances and chasing after his ghost no longer seemed like such a potentially stupid and/or painful idea. As I swept past the dunes and onto the Coos Bay Bridge, I gave it one last college try: If you’re seriously going to look for him, was my logic, you’ve got to get yourself on that starting line. Last night, driving down from Portland for the Prefontaine Memorial Run, I almost convinced myself that I was still a runner.

And then there’s me up in the grandstand in my jeans and my Chuck Taylors and my different kind of ugliness. A handful of people propel themselves toward the finish line, unashamed of the spittle hanging from their lips and of their gasps and of having run themselves ugly. Old-timers limp around the turn to huge applause. People are crossing the finish line in every way possible-the buzz-cut high school kids out in front, the stoic folks wearing earbuds, the willowy 9-year-olds accompanied by red-faced parents. THE GRANDSTAND AT MARSHFIELD HIGH SCHOOL is nearly empty, but it seems like everyone in Coos Bay, Oregon, is on the track. Sign art by Benjamin Purvis Photo by Thomas MacDonald

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