Eugene Quinn for East Greenwich Schools
Running
I ran cross country and track at Providence College as a walk-on.
In the late 1960s runners were not a common sight, especially identically dressed in a large group.
I remember people on the street yelling "Why are you running?". Kids called us "underwear men".
I'm somewhere in this photo taken on a Saturday morning in the Fall of 1971.
My race number from the 1969 Boston Marathon (age 18)
- 1,300 entrants.
- No prize money
- 10 trophies, 25 medals. Only finisher certificates for those not in the top 35.
- Officially, no women (a handful ran unofficially).
- No qualifying times (last year for that). If you had an AAU number and the entry fee, you could run.
- No water stops.
- That day the course record was improved from 2:15 to 2:13.
- In a long-gone tradition, finishers were served a bowl of beef stew in the Prudential cafeteria.
Boston Globe coverage of the Bay State Marathon. Sunday November 7th, 1971.
About 9:00 PM on November 6th, a teammate called and said "Hey, there's a marathon tomorrow in Framingham, do you want to go up and run it?".
Sure.
I was the first Rhode Island finisher in the 1972 Boston Marathon, but you will need a lot of patience to find me in the BAA Historical Archive which is just 105 years of partial results strung together in a giant PDF.
I was the first East Greenwich finisher in the 1978 Ocean State Marathon.
My race number from the 2020 East Greenwich Virtual Hill and Harbor Turkey Trot (age 70)
I was the first finisher in the 70-99 age group(mostly because I was the only finisher in that age group).
Rubbing elbows with a delightful group of serious runners and triathletes from the East Greenwich Track Club at one of their Thursday sunrise workouts.
Runners of all levels are welcome. In this group, I'm the slowest by far. EGTC Website EGTC Facebook group