Uta...sweet Uta has been found!

One of my major winter time/post heart surgery goals was to sort through all my running paraphernalia and make room for more paraphernalia to come. My God, the stuff I collected over the years was amazing. Everything from racing bibs, photos, 10 year old energy bars, every kind of gadget invented to secure your timing chip to your shoe, rock-hard sport jelly beans, posters, loads of first aid items, etc. etc. etc. It's amazing what one can collect at all the marathon expos. It's like Halloween...you know what I'm talking about. You and your running buddies gather in your hotel room, dump on the floor all the crap you collected, and you start trading. I'll trade you a travel size can of Adidas deodorant for two of your Snickers bars.

So what's up with Uta? Back in the early 1990's when I was getting back into running marathons, I started paying more attention to what was going on in the world of marathoning and how to train properly. I also started to read about world class marathoners...thus enter Uta Pippig from Germany. It was her accomplishment in 1993, winning the NYC Marathon, and in 1994, winning the Boston Marathon, (and her killer smile and good looks) that caught my attention...but it was her July 1994 Runner's World cover story and photo-log that made me a captive fan. One of the few Runner's World issues I did save and found in one of the boxes was that July 1994 issue.

Travel 13 years into the future to the 2007 Boston Marathon. I was running the 2007 Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge (DFMC) in support of raising funds for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. My buddies Bill Parady and John Clidas were also running Boston and I invited them to the Dana-Farber pasta feed, which included a number of presentations and ceremonies. I totally freaked out when I saw that Uta Pippig was a major speaker and supporter of the DFMC...actually, I think I began to sweat and my face turned red. I also think my excitement was a little obvious! You can only imagine how excited I was to meet and chat with her later in the evening. I think I sweat more while talking to her than I did running the marathon!

Boston 2007 was a marathoner's dream come true for many reasons. Not only did I meet Sweet Uta but I had a chance to see and hear many other Boston Marathon legends speak....that's another story for another time. Gee, I wonder what else I'll discover in the boxes I have yet to unpack...stay tuned.