Live to Run

I started running in the spring of 1972, I was living in Manhattan with my wife and 1 year old daughter, Melanie. I had just finished a 28 day stay at Columbia Hospital to cure a cluster of ulcers in my stomach, developed from stress, a bad diet and lack of exercise. My Doctor said I should do some running; I’m in my mid 20s with a body of a 40 year old. We lived on the east side of Central Park and I could jog to the park in about 10 minutes, run around the baseball diamonds and back in about 30 minutes in a pair of Converse All-Stars.

Frank Shorter was training in Boulder, CO for the Olympic Marathon in Munich and the running boom had yet to begin. Phil Knight had a dream and was selling Nike running shoes out of the trunk of his Valiant; in 2002 I would travel to Athens and find the Nike statue by the Acropolis.

My sales promotion business was growing and my largest customer Pepsi started a Public Relations program called Run America Run, it would later be called the Pepsi Challenge 10,000 meter races I went from printing 25,000 t-shirts to a million a year as the running exploded as a sport. I ran my first marathon, New York in 1978. John Tesh was a news broadcaster on CBS; we finished the race together in 4:17. I was so exhausted that I sat by a tree, no longer able to stand, as dust covered my body from the herd of marathoners moving beyond the finish line; I swore to never run a Marathon again.

The next day I was with my Pepsi client and went for a run with Lynn Petronella, she was on the Pepsi payroll and on the cover of Runners World the previous Month as a sub 3 hour Marathoner, all of a sudden my legs where back and I started thinking about my next Marathon which was 4 weeks later the Jersey Shore Marathon, I went under 4 hours in a Nor’easter with light snow.

Running was now my drug of choice. I would run everyday 8.5 or 10 miles and as my legs would break down I would still run everyday only I would ice my knees for 20 minutes and take 2 aspirin before and after the run. Running became a way of life and an obsession with breaking 3 hours for 26.2 miles.

My legs where a mess but one day I read an article in Runners World about a healing process called autolysis where you would fast having only water and juice after the third day your strong cells would begin to consume the weak cells of course the toxins in your body had to be removed each day with an enema. After the 5th day I was running without pain believe me it was like a miracle. I was now on my way to a second New York Marathon with a time of 3:36. My last New York Marathon was in 1980 and I would go on to run 8 consecutive Philadelphia Marathons, 1982 being my best time at 3:17.

I ran a few ultra marathons the 50mile AAU championship in 1982 and the Knickerbockers 60K both in Central Park

One Saturday afternoon I was sitting on the couch with my Daughter Michele and there was a race televised by ABC Wide World of Sports the Hawaii Ironman and I saw Julie Moss crawl across the finish line. I looked at Michele and said I’m going to do that race and well you know the rest it’s in the Journals.

After all these years I’m still running; my body won’t let me run every day but I run most days because I live to run.

Live to Run

I started running in the spring of 1972, I was living in Manhattan with my wife and

1 year old daughter, Melanie. I had just finished a 28 day stay at Columbia Hospital to cure a cluster of ulcers in my stomach, developed from stress, a bad diet and lack of exercise. My Doctor said I should do some running; I’m in my mid 20s with a body of a 40 year old. We lived on the east side of Central Park and I could jog to the park in about 10 minutes, run around the baseball diamonds and back in about 30 minutes in a pair of Converse All-stars. Frank Shorter was training in Bolder, CO for the Olympic Marathon in Munich and the running boom had yet to begin. Phil Knight had a dream and was selling Nike running shoes out of the trunk of his Valiant; in 2002 I would travel to Athens and find the Nike statue by the Acropolis.

My sales promotion business was growing and my largest customer Pepsi started a Public Relations program called Run America Run, it would later be called the Pepsi Challenge 10,000 meter races I went from printing 25,000 t-shirts to a million a year as the running exploded as a sport. I ran my first marathon, New York in 1978. John Tesh was a news broadcaster on CBS; we finished the race together in 4:17. I was so exhausted that I sat by a tree, no longer able to stand, as dust covered my body from the herd of marathoners moving beyond the finish line; I swore to never run a Marathon again. The next day I was with my Pepsi client and went for a run with Lynn Petronella, she was on the Pepsi payroll and on the cover of Runners World the previous Month as a sub 3 hour Marathoner, all of a sudden my legs where back and I started thinking about my next Marathon which was 4 weeks later the Jersey Shore Marathon, I went under 4 hours in a Nor’easter with light snow.

Running was now my drug of choice. I would run everyday 8.5 or 10 miles and as my legs would break down I would still run everyday only I would ice my knees for 20 minutes and take 2 aspirin before and after the run. Running became a way of life and an obsession with breaking 3 hours for 26.2 miles.

My legs where a mess but one day I read an article in Runners World about a healing process called autolysis where you would fast having only water and juice after the third day your strong cells would begin to consume the weak cells of course the toxins in your body had to be removed each day with an enema. After the 5th day I was running without pain believe me it was like a miracle. I was now on my way to a second New York Marathon with a time of 3:36. My last New York Marathon was in 1980 and I would go on to run 8 consecutive Philadelphia Marathons, 1982 being my best time at 3:17.

I ran a few ultra marathons the 50mile AAU championship in 1982 and the Knickerbockers 60K both in Central Park

One Saturday afternoon I was sitting on the couch with my Daughter Michele and there was a race televised by ABC Wide World of Sports the Hawaii Ironman and I saw Julie Moss crawl across the finish line. I looked at Michele and said I’m going to do that race and well you know the rest it’s in the journals.

After all these years I’m still running; my body won’t let me run every day but I run most days because I live to run.

Jim Muehe