John Walker

This is a story that begins months ago, on the trip to Devonport with Jay and Bron. At the time I was looking for a book: No Bugles, No Drums, about Peter Snell. It is a fairly rare book and I had a hard time finding it in the states. We were walking down a strip mall and there was a rare books store so I thought I would drop in and see if they had it. To my surprise, they did, the owner also brought out two copies of a book called "John Walker: Champion," one of which was autographed. I got No Bugles, No Drums for 40$ and the not signed one for 20$ as I had, at the time, no idea who this guy was. It took me some time to get around to reading this book. When I finished I was very impressed. It turns out that John Walker was, among other things, the first man to break 3:50 in the mile (3:49.4). When I finished the book I got on Wikipedia to see what else I could learn about this guy. The last sentence of the wikipedia article was that John Walker currently owns an equestrian store in Newmarket (I live in Parnell, which is adjacent to Newmarket). I quickly discovered that there is only one equestrian store in Newmarket and that it was actually only .7k from my flat. This I was very excited about. It took me some time to actually get there however. 1st I didn't actually trust the wikipedia, I didn't think that he actually owned this store that I walk by every time I go for groceries and 2nd it said that he was diagnosed with Parkinson's 12 years ago, and I thought that the chance he was still actually running the store was really low.

On the 30 of April at about noon I was going down to the climbing store to buy myself a sling and I decided, completely spur of the moment to stop by and ask if he actually did own the store. I walked in and there was an older lady and a highly attractive younger one pretty close to my age sitting behind the counter. I started out with: "So, I have kind of a random question to ask you: who owns this shop?" The girl pointed at the lady and I got combined "she does/I do" after which followed a slightly confused pause on my part and I slurred out something to the effect of ohiseeiheardsomewherethat
JOHNWALKERdidandijustwantedtoseeifthatwastrue. I'm pretty sure that the only thing intelligible out of the whole thing was his name. The Lady responded, very politely that "John Walker is my husband, he's out in Newmarket right now at the bank, but he's due back shortly, come back later this afternoon and you can meet him if you would like."

Needless to say I decided to go back that afternoon. I left the shop, quite awkwardly upon retrospect, and bought my sling, headed back to my room, dropped everything off, grabbed my copies of 'Once a Runner' and 'John Walker: Champion' and headed back.

When I got back it was just the girl sitting there, she saw me and gave me a "so you're back" and I said, in the most suave and debonair way I could manage at the time: "so I am." She headed off to the back to get him and left me starting at bridles and other horse stuff. She came back in a bit, and informed me that he was on the phone and would be up shortly, so look around and make myself at home. We talked then for a bit, but I don't remember much of what was said which is kinda aggravating cause she was quite hot I do remember telling her that I couldn't really believe that this was about to happen - quite the conversationalist. She did mention that he has Parkinson's and has lost most of the feeling in his face so he won't smile at all and if he seems really serious, that's why.

His wife came back in shortly with a younger girl (who I discovered later was his daughter) and joined our conversation. When I heard footsteps coming behind me I almost didn't want to turn around, I was so nervous. The first thing he said was a curt "John Walker" and held out his hand. I wish I could say that he had a nice firm handshake, but I honestly don't remember, I was so amazed that I was actually shaking John Walkers hand, I have no idea what else was going on. I know I introduced myself - I hope I didn't mumble to bad. For the next half hour the five of us just had a conversation like it was the most ordinary thing in the world.

We talked a lot about training, what I was running, what I had run, times I ran, how old I was. The one thing he said was that for my age: if I were to run 70-80mi/week instead of 45-55, I would easily drop a minute and a half off of my 8k time of 26:12. He asked if I get injured much and since not, to definitely increase my mileage. I thought at first he meant that as long as one in not injured, one ought to increase ones mileage, which caused me some confusion as to how one knows at what mileage to stop at, but I think now that he meant me specifically, since I was not getting injured at the low mileage, increase my mileage up to 70-80, not indefinitely. He also said that speed will come with endurance, not the other way around, so I will get more speed just by virtue of the fact that the mileage is higher. While it is wise to run speed workouts, they should take a second priority to the miles, and especially do not over train them: going full pace or all-out on repeat drills will break the body down and not help. He said that his fastest 800 (1:44 - still the second fastest New Zealand 800, second to one that Snell ran) was run on a 110 mile week. He gave me the names of streets to train on, none of which i had heard of before and all of which were Maori names, so they all sounded the same, and I have no idea what they were. The one that I remember was that he said there was a running track about 2 miles down Broadway (I think) just straight down. I ran down there and couldn't find it though. Also he did a lot of training at one tree hill (down the same way) and on the waiatarua track to the west - somewhere I really need to try before I leave here. I mentioned that I try to run twice a day and his responce was that it's good, but make sure that I go at least 10mi in the morning and a 6k at night. I'm not sure if he meant both of them to be miles or both ks, or if he meant to mix the units, but that's what he said. That is a brief synopsis on the main points he said about training.

The discussion didn't end there however: I was grilled on my life - where I was from, how I ended up in New Zealand, how I liked it, what I liked most about it, what I was studying at uni, we even got into American politics: who I thought should be elected (not Clinton) he thinks that McCain will take the election, that America isn't ready for a black president, that Obama will probably be shot if elected, at which his daughter said: Daddy - you can't say that! (she was probably 11 or 12).

We talked for a good half an hour, starting with training, delving into everything else and then coming back to running by the end. As I was leaving he told me to come back whenever I want, and let him know how the training is going. I plan to run a 10k in June, so I think I will go before that, and maybe after wards too.

I shook every one's hands on the way out, and was then for the first time actually introduced to Katie, the hot chick, who I thought originally was one of his daughters, but I don't think so anymore. I was planning on asking him for a signature, but at one point Katie had a transaction form for him to sign, and the Parkinson's was fairly apparent - he signed with a large X, so I decided that it would be poor taste to ask for a signature - maybe I'll get a picture when I go back. Other reflections: Katie did say that this type of thing happens often.

It was quite an experience to meet him. I was shaking for the rest of the day, tried to climb and couldn't, couldn't do much in the way of work either. I'm finally typing this up on Sunday (I met him last Wednesday) and I am getting pretty shaky just remembering it all. I've been going around all week telling people that I just met john walker. I went to a comedy club on Friday night with Nicki and Ian Wallace and their family, I told Ian and he said that he used to run down by one tree hill at the same time that John did, that he would hear footfalls, so soft you could barely hear them coming behind and then John would just float by, they exchanged a 'hi John/hi Ian' and he would be gone. Ian said that watching him run was incredible, he did just float it seemed completely effortless. I wish I could have seen it.