“What Happened to Your Legs?”
A Profile of Team Gennesee
By Gordon Wright
“Honest to God, Alan - what is it you want?”
Alan Gay wanted in his locked RV, for starters, and Marge was stolidly ensconced in the driver’s seat. He also wanted food, warm clothes and perhaps some kind words. But what he was getting as he peered forlornly into the passenger window was an earful from his mom, Marge, who is pushing 80 but is nobody’s pushover.
Marge had had a tough day. Dragooned into crewing for Alan and his teammate Tony Hampson-Tindale, she had piloted the 25-foot boat around a good portion of the vertiginous Rocky Mountains while dealing with a rooftop vent that had been torn off, according to Marge, “when Alan was trying to park it.”
But Alan, well - Alan’s having a tough week. His running partner Tony, whom he met over the internet specifically to do this race, was significantly stronger. It had snowed giant wet mush buckets on his head all morning, and the duo had pressed the limits of Alan’s endurance to meet the generous time deadline to reach Control Station 2 - a feat they attained with only 92 seconds to spare.
But Alan Gay is a study in dauntlessness. Even-tempered, sweet and thoughtful, he is delightful company, though the truth must be told: he may be a bit out of his league in this race - surrounded by adventure racers and sponsored ultra runners and gamine editors tripping lightly through the singletrack above Vail.
It’s not that his reach has exceeded his grasp; he completed an epic run in 2000 from Vancouver to Denver, logging up to 35 miles a day in order to publicize a new “positive message” radio station. We’re still not exactly sure what that means, but Alan’s effort - also crewed by the indomitable Marge - came the year after a solid run of sixteen straight years of competing in the Pike’s Peak Marathon.
The problem may be Alan’s training. Or lack thereof. Or specificity thereof. “I didn’t train that much for this,” he admits. “Now I realize I should have.” When asked how he trained, he mentions his fondness for half-mile hill repeats. Though he looks great for your average 46-year-old, he certainly doesn’t have the single-digit body fat percentage common to most of the field here. What he does have is a robust family life (four kids, ages 13 to 22), an MBA, 22 years of military service to his credit and his own financial planning business.
Hell, he’s even written a book (“Business for Life”) and how many of us can say that? The former Air Force major (Reserve), therefore doesn’t really deserve the jape directed at him by an unnamed competitor: “What happened to your legs?”
Nothing, really. They’re just not moving very fast. “I haven’t run a marathon in… well in quite a while,” noted Gay, which is a theme reiterated by Hampson-Tindale.
“Alan is a wonderful guy,” said his South African teammate while spooning down a hot cup of soup, “But it has been a while since he’s run a marathon.”
If Hampson-Tindale weren’t so gentlemanly, this is a partnership that could get ugly quickly. The 59-year-old Springbok, who allows that he’s enjoying the race “immensely,” is a lean, strong veteran of such gnarly running challenges as the Marathon des Sable and the Gobi March. After a long, not entirely illogical disquisition on why the GORE-TEX TransRockies Run should allow solo runners, Hampson-Tindale simply said that running with Gay had been, “frustrating.”
Gay knows that. “I feel pretty bad; Tony could finish an hour ahead of me.” All the same, even with a grumpy, octogenarian support crew and a teammate of far superior fitness, Alan remains upbeat.
“I forgot where I first learned about this race, but I thought it would be really cool.” And it is. So despite four kids who think he’s “pretty weird” for his running habits, and all the stresses inherent to his situation, Alan looks pretty happy. Like he’s having the time of his life. Like, despite some evidence to the contrary, he belongs here, among his tribe of fellow runners.
