My racing experience dates back to the days of $5 entry fees and as an incentive for runners to sign-up organizers offered runners a free T-Shirt! Well, the shirts are mostly still here and thankfully they are a much-improved product too. In recent years some races recognize that many runners have drawers full of T-shirts and the shirts are no longer the incentive they initially were during the early years. Fast forward to current time and see some organizers offering a different incentive to runners. They offer runners to not receive the shirt and in turn pay a lower entry fee!
So come race morning I wake early and find that the last thing I really wanted to do was run a race, let alone a faster pace 5K race. It’s not unusual for me to have “race entry remorse” on race day anymore.
I am going to go way out on a limb here and assume that you, like most runners, are not a world class runner and therefore will never come close to challenging a world, Olympic, national, regional, or similar record. In the world of running, runners instead celebrate their personal records or PRs. It does not matter how fast one ran a race, what matters is how fast the runner ran for a specific distance relative to that runner’s past performances. Since most runners compete in races of various distances, most runners will accumulate their own best finish time for each distance. Thus, the title PR for that distance.
This post is why the 14th Brooksie was important to me. This year’s race was more than about returning to the event after last year’s virtual race.
Typically you will hear people say they need to start running to lose weight. Well, leave it to this architect to think differently. I knew I needed to lose weight in order to run!
A bit of background here. My friends and running buds know that I have been running in some form or another for more than 50+ years, and over the years my weight as gone up and down, so why now? Well, the short version is that I had several non-running injuries and two different surgeries during the past four years. This along with the lack of any motivation to race is how I gained unwanted pounds. Just when I was starting to recover from most recent surgery along came Covid and the end of racing.
There are a number of things that people have spent at least half of their life doing. Many adults have likely spent at least half of their life in the same occupation, or perhaps they have lived in their home for half of their life. When it comes to running many runners have spent half of their life enjoying the sport of running, but when it comes to races few have spent half their life running the same race!
The Reasons
Thousands of runners begin their 10 mile journey through Flint at the start of the Crim 10 Mile event.
This coming Saturday, August 26 in beautiful downtown and around Flint Michigan I will be running the Crim 10 Mile for the 36th time in my 71 years here on planet earth. When I mention this to people the question I often hear back is why? What is the attraction? along with many variations of congratulations of course. So, why and what?
For me it’s a very personal reason. I grew up in the Flint area after my family moved from Royal Oak, Michigan to Grand Blanc in February 1964. I was in the middle of 6th grade and came from a very strict Catholic school setting to a public junior high school. The Beatles were appearing on the Ed Sullivan show for the second time the same day we moved. It was also Valentine’s Day weekend. Trivial, but facts nonetheless that I have always linked to our move. At the time, no one would have suspected how much the social and political order was about to dramatically change forever. I didn’t know it at the time, but my world was about to change as dramatically for the balance of my life too.
Young Lee, second grade, Guardian Angels school, Clawson, MI
I’ll spare the many details of my new life as a young teen and the adjustment to attending a public junior high school and simply say that it was not an easy transition for me. But it was actually running that helped me greatly to adjust to my new way of life. For it was one day in gym class, in May that I gained the respect of my classmates when I out sprinted one of the fastest kids in our class. Then later the following spring (1965) I actually not only “made” the junior high track team but actually did quite well in various events! This is when I knew that running was “my” sport.
University of Detroit School of Architecture, 1974, just prior to receiving my bachelor's degree.
I also believe I owe an obligation to Flint for being able to pursue my lifelong dream of becoming an architect. The Flint Chapter of The American Institute of Architects honored me with a $1,000 scholarship to start my college career at the University of Detroit. Difficult to believe in these days of higher education but this amounted to nearly one third of my total freshman year cost! Then later during my grad school years I was honored again with another $1,000 that made a huge difference in allowing me to obtain my Masters of Architecture degree, also from U-D.
It All Started in 1977
The race’s namesake, Bobby Crim competing in the very first Crim 10 Mile, 1977.
The offices of Nelson, McKinley, Reed, & Associates. January 1977 and my first job with an architectural firm following graduation. My desk was at the second story front window. The office was on Grand Traverse about a block away from the Crim finish line.
Fast forward to 1977 this was the year of the first Crim 10 Mile race. It was also the year that I started my first full time position within an architectural firm, Nelson, McKinley, Reed & Associates. Coincidentally their office was also located in downtown Flint about a block away from the finish line of the Crim. Yet, I had no idea or knowledge of any kind that there was a 10 Mile race. Running during my college years and shortly thereafter was very intermittent. Afterall the “Running Boom” and running as a sport for regular people was still in its infancy. It was not until a few years after getting married, moving back to the Detroit area, and starting a family did I begin to run regularly and enter various races. I credit joining the Novi Trackers Running Club for this.
It was actually through the Novi Trackers back in 1983 that that I learned about the Crim. I simply felt an obligation to return to my running roots and enjoy the Flint area. Back then the race started on the campus of Mott Community College and not very far from St. Joseph Hospital. This was special for me. As 1983 started, I was visiting St. Joe’s ICU along with my family as we watched my father pass away from us. He had just suffered a second heart attack within several days. I remember this juxtaposition vividly as I stood at the Crim starting line and have been heart conscience healthy myself ever since.
Crim Innovation
The Crim has also been known to be very innovative and introduced many new and unique ideas into road racing. From inviting and paying world class runners to compete back when such was very controversial to innovations with finish line scoring including the first chip timed race, excellent local TV coverage, hosting a pre-race expo, to post race party, and much more the Crim was always special.
Members of the 30 Year Club. The gentleman in the white shirt and tie is Billy Mills! The only North American runner ever to win Gold for the 10K in Olympic competition. He shared his memories of his victory and how his Native American spirit guided him to victory!
Perhaps the most unique innovation was establishing the 30 Year Club. 16 years later is still unique to Crim. On the 30th anniversary of the Crim back in 2006, race director at the time Deb Keirtzner, honored 21 runners who had run every single Crim 10 Mile. They were each recognized to the many thousands of runners competing that day just ahead of the official race start. They were also given a 15 minute head start on the field of thousands runners. This tradition has carried on each year by recognizing runners who will be running their 30th or more Crims. The original club has also spurred 35, 40, 45, year runners and a handful of runners who have run every single Crim 10 Mile! This year the club’s membership will reach 253 runners who have run at least 30 Crims.
My induction into the 30 Year Club, class of 2016. Steve Kenyon and Bill Rogers assisting the Crim race director. I could not resist giving Bill Rogers a bit of running advice !
It was then that I realized I had ran 20 Crims so I started my countdown to joining the 30 Year Club. It took another 10 years. In 2016 I proudly joined the 30 Year Club which also was the 40th anniversary of the Crim. There to help celebrate the event was the winner of the original Crim race was Great Britain’s Steve Kenyon and an also ran from that first year by the name of Bill Rogers. Included in my class of 2016 30 Year runners was the man who started it all, Bobby Crim.
My Goal
There is nothing like finishing strong down the bricks of Saginaw Street after 10 grueling miles.
About a week or two after each Crim I set my goal for the next Crim, some 50 weeks or so in advance. In recent years I have overcome several significant roadblocks to even competing. Everything from a non-running related knee surgery, a fractured foot, and this year a very serious infection that drained my strength for nearly six weeks. Fortunately, each of these events have occurred in the spring of the year and I had an opportunity to get in shape to at least compete. One needs to also have an annual streak of good luck to remain healthy each year too!
My condition earlier this year totally drained my strength, and I was not able to resume any reasonable amount of training until late-June. Nonetheless, I was consistent, slowly built my strength back, and most recently managed to include some longer and faster runs. So, I am confident I can complete the 10 miles once again and I simply want to finish somewhere near my time from last year.
At 71, I am very grateful for simply being able to continue to show up to race 10 miles each 4th Saturday of August in Flint. I realize many of my age range are not able to do so. My longer-term goal is to continue to my 40th and ultimately 50th Crim, God willing of course.
Members of the 30 Year Club receive a head start on the field of elites and thousands of other runners. So, I took full advantage back in 2016 and led the way! Well, at least for a while.
I hope to see you running along side me this year (if not passing me by), or at least part of the crowd support. If you are not a Michigan runner, I encourage you to put the Crim 10 Mile on your bucket list of races.
My younger brother Keith (on the left) finally caught up to me in the 2005 running of the Crim!
Thanks for taking the time to read this post. Please check back in the days following this year’s Crim to see my results and race report.
Coach Lee
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