FLRC history: RFYL, Jim Hartshorne, and the Masters Mile

General
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Bit of a story here. About a year ago, I heard from Don Campbell, a former FLRC runner who ran across some archived race results from the Ithaca Journal from 1975 or 1976 (back when the local newspaper would print race results!). Don was curious what the RFYL acronym was for, and while I assumed it was “Run For Your Life,” I cc’d some folks who might know more.

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Former local Caleb “Spider” Rossiter, who’s a regular at Hartshorne, replied:

Ha! I think your guess about RFYL is a good one, but who knows? I await instruction…Spiderlike
p.s. the Booker family and the Kleinsasser and Reppy married couples were regulars for years. Jim ran in some Triennials for and against Atrocious. George Gavras I think appeared in some early Hartshorne miles, and Chuck Collins was Don Farley’s constant competitor down thru the years. Check out Sarah Rossiter, at age 5, and her 4:42 half mile – she’s, yep, 52 now!

His brother, David “Truck” Rossiter (@D_G_Rossiter), chimed in too, saying:

I seem to remember that RFYL = Run For Your Life was for runners not affiliated with the AAU. I remember that when I ran my first Ithaca 10 in 1978 I had to join the AAU. The local rep. was someone up on Bryant Ave. or nearby. So maybe this was the division between « competitive » (AAU) and non- (RFYL). Or else it was part of a programme based on the Cooper test (distance in 12 minutes) and these were participants. I know Jim Hartshorne tried this to get more people to start running.

Among the other names notice Eric Smith who later became big in CNY Orienteering, including organizing ROGAINES in the region.

That gave me enough to go on to find more about the RFYL program at the RRCA and from Gabe Mirkin:

And then past FLRC president and current track starter Tom Rishel (@Rishel) provided more local color:

Yes, “RFYL” definitely was the acronym for “Run for Your Life,” and the idea originated with the Road Runners’ Club of America (RRCA), which had just begun to come to prominence as an alternative to the AAU, whose successor is nowaday’s TAC.

The meet results that Adam has posted are from March, 1975, I think [maybe 1976 – my age is listed as 34 years… but don’t trust that, 'cuz I note one competitor listed in two different races with two different ages]. Jim Hartshorne was still the FLRC club president, and he probably listed Chuck Dvorak and me as “race directors” because I held the clipboard while Chuck called off finisher times at the end of the races. Note how Jim separated each individual race as Competition, Intermediate and RFYL.

The Ithaca Journal article was probably written up by either Terry Habecker or Bob Congdon to be placed in the paper. Note how the article itself ends with the terse announcement of the upcoming “Boston Qualifier marathon,” the race that I later replaced with the Skunk Cabbage in, when, 1984?

Lots of names I remember, like Wilf Brutseart, Terry H., John Kaufmann, Paul McBride (faculty at I.C.), Jim and Sue Booker and their mom and dad; Cal Loomis, George Gavras (postman in Groton) etc.

I’d been meaning to share the conversation here for some time but hadn’t gotten around to it. And then I got another email from Ken Barbee from Drexel, who also raced at Hartshorne recently. He had inherited a treasure trove of running-related publications from his self-avowed track nut father, and while flipping through issues of Distance Running News, the precursor to Runner’s World, he ran across and forwarded an article by Jim Hartshorne, the founder of FLRC, entitled “Over-40 Running and the Masters Mile.” It’s a fascinating look at the early days of masters athletics from one of the guys who did more to make it happen than nearly anyone. There’s even a photo of Jim in an FLRC jersey winning the mile at the Heptagonal Games in 4:46… taken by his son Tom Hartshorne (@tom-hartshorne)!

Hartshorne Article.pdf (651.3 KB)

To tie these two events together, Jim Hartshorne’s article mentions Gabe Mirkin as one of the creators of the Run For Your Life program in 1964. Mirkin was a sports medicine doctor who also coined the term RICE (Rest Ice Compression Elevation), but who has since changed his advice because ice delays recovery.

Although he’s retired from practice now, he still publishes a free bi-weekly health email newsletter that rounds up the latest evidence-based recommendations on a variety of health topics, including those associated with exercise. I find it extremely informative—worth subscribing if you’re interested.

We now return you to 2024.

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Dad took me and a couple other youngsters down to Catonsville, MD in 1965, to race youth cross country races that were promoted as Run for Fun races. They were fun, but the future Canadian marathon women’s record holder {she set the record at age 13 or 14 a couple years after our race = 3:15 approx.} outran me by 5 seconds for first in the 1.5 mile run.
The next year dad took us to DC area to race in a race promoter’s Run For Your Life track meet. He wanted to see how the director set up the races and who participated, etc. The 1st - 3rd awards were very nice paper weights out of marble with a medallion of JFK’s image glued on top. Dad was totally hooked by the concept of mixing competitive races with Run For Fun/Run For Your Life (i.e. run to maintain your health and longevity) races in the same meet promoted by a local sport’s club. The morning before the 1984 NYC Marathon myself and a few rabble rousers from my Brooklyn community group got up on the Williamsburg Bridge at 2AM and with 9” rollers and extension poles painted RUN FOR YOUR LIFE CRACK ZONE!! to protest the lack of policing of the exploding crack gangs that took over our neighborhood in a matter 6 months. It made the news as the marathon ran under that bridge and the camera crews on the lead truck couldn’t help but film and comment on it as they proceeded down Bedford Avenue at the 10 mile mark. I never told my father about our adventure that night as I was not sure he would have appreciated the skewing of the RFYL mantra.
As far as the RFYL as alternative to AAU registration and participation: Remember that Pre was very hostile to the high pressure tactics of the AAU trying to force every running event to cow tie to registering with them and paying the AAU fees for the pleasure of having your event associated with them. Dad groused about the AAU all through the 70’s and really objected to their strong arm tactics. Putting RFLY down as alternative to AAU # was in my memory simply a way of protesting the AAU pressure tactics and not that you were in the non competitive trend necessarily, but, rather that you wished to remain in a non AAU track. Lots of interesting history, Tom
Note: 1 Mile Intermediate - Matt Fischer listed below (I believe the spelling should be Fisher) ran for Harold Porter IHS XC as did Jim Booker. Matt is a renowned theoretical physicist now at UC Santa Barbara, while Jim Booker is a Professor of Mechanical Eng. at Carnegie Mellon Univ. in Pittsburgh. Jim’s mother, Barbara, was the FLRC president in the mid 80’s, if I remember correctly.

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A few more tidbits: I stumbled upon this post while reminiscing with my daughter about the FLRC meets and the wonderful people who were all around as I was growing up.

The Hartshorne Mile, and Jim winning it is one of my earliest track memories. Running in many, many, monthly meets was pretty much a Booker family habit: the results posted here include all of us. It was spring of 1976, my sister Sue was 13 years old then, and I was a high school senior. Many of my IHS track buddies are scattered in among the results, including fellow cross country captains from the previous fall Joe Arthur, Bruce Bauer, and Maarten de Boer - who is the actual Carnegie Mellon Mechanical Engineering Professor, and gave a talk at Cornell just this Tuesday. His parents Tob and Joan, and sisters Claire and Yvette are also more than familiar to many.

My coaches were at this meet too. All of them: Terry Habecker (phys ed and track at DeWitt), Bob Congdon (phys ed and track at IHS), and Hal Porter (xc at IHS). It’s fun to see just how fast everyone was back then – speedier than yours truly for sure. I never properly thanked Hal for not going ballistic when I ran (unofficially of course) the FLRC marathon in the middle of my 9th grade xc season. I recall the next day’s phys ed class started with a one mile run: Terry made sure the others didn’t slack off by referencing my previous day’s effort. And during phys ed class periods in high school, Bob would sometimes encourage me to “sneak” off for a morning run through Cayuga Heights.

One more coach lurking in the results, and not such a familiar name for FLRC folk: Gary Moore, age 20. I lived in Alfred for ten years, and a just right aged Gary Moore lived across the street from me. More to the point Gary was an important part of my life there and was the very successful Alfred State College track and xc coach for many decades.

A last note to Tom Hartshorne: as an eighth grader when you were a senior, I looked up to you in many ways. That might be related, or not, to my first run with the team: somehow you got me up Sand Bank and back past IC to the high school. I was sore for days!

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Great stories, Jim, and I’m so happy to have them here on the record for others to see in the future. The Good Idea Fairy (an evil little sprite that loves to consume nonexistent free time) has multiple times suggested to me that it would be great if we could oral histories with folks like @tom-hartshorne @Rishel @bob-congdon @sryan004 and more.