Eddie Reyna

Runner of the Month –June 2011

A self described “recovering workaholic who is trying to transfer it all to running,” Eddie is a 80 year-old retired physicist. Laid off from Lockheed a little over a year ago at age 79, he decided he could “now devote a proper amount of time to running, and study physics like I wanted.”  Unfortunately, he cheerfully explains that running has taken so much time and he feels so poorly organized that he sometimes wonders what he has done all day! Eddie grew up in Texas and after college, lived in DC and New Mexico among other places before being transferred by Lockheed to the Bay Area in 1987. As he tells it, “I’m a physicist.  There are only a certain amount of places where you can go!”  Married twice, Eddie has a blended family with several kids and grandkids.

This summer Eddie is entered in the World Masters Athletics Championships in the Marathon.

Coach: How did you start running?

ER: One night I was in the library stacks, and I came across Kenneth Cooper’s book – he runs a Dallas institute on aerobics and developed a point system for different types of cardivascular exercise.  I read his book, leaning against the bookshelves, and he convinced me!  I went down to the track at 2am, ran four laps in regular clothes and hush puppies, and that was it.  I ran many years in the Gulf Association [southern Texas regional association of USATF] and in 87, Lockheed transferred me here, so now I run in the Pacific Association.

Coach: Who is your running role model?

ER: Oh, I have a whole series of role models.  Any of the elite marathoners – when I see how far their legs return behind them when they run.  In 40 years of running...I really have a lot.   Tom Osler might be one.  He was one of the original ultra runner guys.  He ran races like 24 hours around a track and things like that.

Coach: What has been your most memorable running / racing experience?

ER:  2 or 3 of the Clarksburg 30Ks.  I probably got closer to racing a person than in any other race.  When I first came out here, I was not sure who they were, but I recognized them.  They were a lot younger than me but I was happy that I could keep up.

Another year, Sam Hirabayashi, who is a couple years older than me…we had been competing against each other for many years.  There was one race where we were within sight of each other for 15 miles, and then tried to put the hammer down on each other.  We don’t get to do that very often in the older age groups.

Coach: What have you enjoyed about working with Focus-N-Fly?

ER:   A couple of years ago, I realized I was having a hard time getting out the door and I recognized it as a real burnout.  I had never trained with anyone, but I started looking around online for training options and I am actually not sure how I found Focus-N-Fly.  It is so nice that I could join the twice weekly workouts, and be around the other runners.  The other nice thing that is that with the all the reading I have done over the years, I think that Tom has a really good approach to training, and I am finding myself very interested in trying the workouts. Some of them are different than anything I have ever done.

Coach: What is one part of your racing routine you can’t do without (sleep, pre race meal, tie shoes certain way, other ritual)?

ER: I am unbelievably methodical.  I don’t leave anything to chance.  I don’t think I have any great talents, except that I am extremely methodical.

Coach: What is your favorite place to go for a run?

ER: Before dawn, on a place like the Stevens Creek trail. I have never been much of an unpaved path runner.  Now, one of my favorite places is Cobb Track [where the FNF group meets].

Coach: In the next year, what goals do you hope to accomplish?

ER: I have never run a race at 80% rate age group grading [a sliding percentage scale based on the world record in a particular event relative to your age], and I think staying with FNF will help me do that.  My next goal race will be CIM.  I hope to get some respectable marathons.  I have had a couple of OK marathons, but my performances have never been as good as the half marathons and 30K’s,