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To Get There From Here: Run
By Erin Kyle
The Washington Post, July 18, 2000
 At age 55 most people believe they are what they are going to be. At 55, Bill Day was a successful lobbyist for a major manufacturer, a writer, an art collector and . . . 40 pounds overweight.
"The lobbying lifestyle," says Day, "is given to fund-raisers, which are typically held between 5 and 7 in the evening. You are working during that time, but with food and drinks. I became Porky Bill, the well-fed lobbyist."
This career and the demands of parenting three children left little time for regular physical activity. Then he made a midlife reassessment. "Who knows what that is--a crisis?--but something internally flipped a switch," he says. He began to run.
Day had not run since high school and didn't understand why someone would spend his leisure time doing it. Yet at the end of his work day, Day put on running shoes and headed down 14th Street to the Mall. In the shadow of the Washington Monument, he ran the beaten path past the Smithsonian museums between the Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial, at a pace appropriate for a well-fed lobbyist. The 6.2 miles took a little over an hour.
He soon decided to devote himself to running, in the same way he had devoted himself to other endeavors. He established a running schedule and stuck to it. Before long, he ran his first 10-kilometer race; within a year, his first marathon.
"There is something in all of us that wants to do something in a recognizably outstanding way," Day says, "whether it be to publish a book or finish a marathon."
Today, at 69, he has run 22 marathons in seven countries. Now he's training for November's John F. Kennedy 50-mile ultra-marathon in western Maryland.
So: How does an overweight, middle-aged, cocktail-partying, canape-eating lobbyist transform himself into a marathon runner in just one year, then continue to run two marathons a year as he approaches 70?
Day says the secret is all in your head. "You don't have to be a world-class runner. You don't have to be an accomplished athlete." Day's marathon times are mid-pack, though he consistently finishes high in his age bracket. "You simply have to want to do it and have the determination that the result is worth the exercise of going through it. I sense that is true of almost everything in life."
To get started, Day urges a would-be runner of any age to join a club. (He belongs to the Reston Runners Club.) "Clubs have regular runs, which means you build in the discipline," he says. "The runners are all on different levels and serve as coaches and counselors to each other."
To keep running, Day needs to balance his training schedule with his part-time work in radio and his social and family commitments: "One has to have a tolerant spouse to agree to serve dinner at 8 o'clock at night after the run." And when he's competing in a marathon, Day's wife, Carla, accompanies him, meeting him at six-mile intervals with orange juice and energy bars.
"Walking is acceptable, perhaps inevitable" as he gets older, she says, but "not finishing has never been an option for Bill."
Day never skips a run, but he does skip butter. He has also cut back on salt, eliminated sugar and added more chicken and fish to his diet. Can it be as easy as it sounds to change one's diet? Day says yes, if you are running. "There is a physiological relationship at play. The more you exercise, the less you feel the need for vast quantities of food." While training for a marathon, he cuts his entrees in half and eats more pasta to increase his carbohydrate intake. "The marvelous incentive to eat sensibly," he says, "is to know that you have to carry every ounce under very tough conditions."
Good running times don't matter much to Day. Finishing the race healthy and without injury comes first. Day subscribes to the method of the late George Sheehan--runner, cardiologist, philosopher and author of eight books on the joy of exercise and sport, including the 20-year-old bestseller "Running & Being: The Total Experience." Sheehan advocates running every other day, giving the body time to adjust, and pushing yourself a little more each time.
On days he is not running, Day does strength training in a gym--not a body-beautiful gym, he rushes to point out, but a center for fitness and rehabilitation. To help prevent injuries to his knees, one of running's most common hazards, he does leg press and extension exercises. He supplements them with back and hip exercises to help avoid muscular strains. "Knees, hips and hamstrings: These are structural elements that have to be strong in a race," says Day. And because injuries are often the result of poor posture while running, he adds, "I concentrate on keeping the pelvis where it belongs."
Day didn't run between the ages of 17 and 55, which may be another reason his body is able to absorb the exercise and leave him feeling like someone half his age. "I am in far better aerobic condition now, as a runner, than my 30-something kids, who live very sedentary lives."
Day stays committed to the long runs partly because the health benefits have been shown to be significantly greater. A study by the U.S. Department of Energy found that men who run 50 miles a week substantially reduced their risk of heart disease and took fewer medications for hypertension than men who ran 10 miles or less.
Another reason to go the distance is the prospect of making friends around the world. Ask Day why he keeps on running and he says the answer may be simpler: It makes him feel good about himself.
While in Athens, Day had the chance to train with former Olympic marathoner Jeff Galloway.
"I'm not really a runner," Day confessed.
"That doesn't matter," Galloway replied. "You're a man who runs."
A RUNDOWN ON RUNNING CLUBS
Running clubs offer structured runs and advice and support for the beginning runner; they can be an excellent way for seniors to ease into the sport. They also allow you to socialize while exercising. "Running is a very social sport," says Bill Day, 69, who came back to the sport late in life. "There is a theory which says your maximum use of oxygen is only accomplished if you can converse while you are running."
Here's how to contact a few Washington area clubs:
• Reston Runners
P.O. Box 2924
Reston, VA 20190
703-437-FOOT
• Montgomery County Road Runners Club
P.O. Box 1703
Rockville, MD 20849
301-353-0200
• Washington Runners
4616 Laverock Place NW
Washington, DC 20007
www.washrun.org
• Prince George's Running Club
P.O. Box 877
Greenbelt, MD 20768
301-486-0041
• Road Runners Club of America
629 S. Washington St.
Alexandria, VA 22314
708-836-0558
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