The night before their wedding, Laddie
Lawrence’s wife-to-be Katie warned him that he’d better not be
late to the ceremony because if he was, she wouldn’t be waiting
at the altar when he finally arrived. Lawrence made it to the
church on time—he and Katie just celebrated wedding anniversary
number forty-five—but at 7:00 a.m. on his wedding morning he
wasn’t enjoying a pre-ceremony breakfast to calm his
nerves—instead he was at the beach nailing up course mile
markers for the second race in the Westport Roadrunners Summer
Race Series.
“I’m pretty fanatical about my commitment,”
Lawrence said, a statement that would surely prompt a bemused “no
kidding” reaction from most non-runners, but for folks in Westport, his
dedication wasn’t out-of-the-ordinary. By that time Lawrence had been
directing the series for ten years; he knew that he’d be able to put up
the course markers, start the race promptly at 8:00 a.m., time the one
hundred-fifty or so runners and get to the church for the noon ceremony,
shaved showered and dressed in something other than running shorts and a
T-shirt. “Everyone at the race knew that I was getting married. They
weren’t surprised.”
The series has been a labor of love for Lawrence
since its inception in 1962, although the first few years he wasn’t the
race director; instead he ran in the series of ten races held over ten
weeks as a high school student. “The new football coach at the high
school wanted to get people fit. So he and a local policeman and the
director of the YMCA decided to start a ten-week road race series, from
two miles building up to ten.”
However, except for the final ten-mile race, which
has been the Connecticut state ten-mile championship for the past couple
of years, none of the other races are exact distances. The three mile
run is 3.8 miles, the five 5.85, the six measures out to almost seven at
6.85 miles. “The reason for the oddball distances is because all of the
courses were measured using the police car’s odometer,” Lawrence
explained. “Except for the ten-miler, we never accurately measured the
other courses because people want to be able to compare their times over
the years, over the same distance.”
Lawrence was co-director for two years while he was
in college. He graduated with a degree in physical education, started
teaching at the high school (he retired seven years ago but still
coaches track and field and cross-country) and took on the job of race
director as something to do in the summer. Although he’s seen many
changes in the running world over the past five decades, particularly
regarding technology, he’s adamant in his dedication to maintaining the
series’ uniqueness—a throwback to simpler times.
“We do try to make changes that keep up with technology,” Lawrence said,
but followed that up by explaining that he hasn’t switched to
computerized timing (except for the ten mile race) because “the runners
want the socialization that goes along with turning in their tongue
depressor, hanging around after the race to see if they won anything in
the raffle.” Yes, except for the final race, all the other races are
timed via a stopwatch and numbered tongue depressors, which Lawrence
says he carefully disinfects and puts back in order after each event.
“It isn’t just me alone at the finish line anymore though, calling out
the times. There are six people now for the ten-mile race, and we do
have a display clock.
The social aspect of what happens once they’ve
crossed the finish line is one of the things that brings runners back
year after year. “Everyone loves the camaraderie of the raffle after
they’ve raced. We’ve raffled off lots of interesting things over the
years. Vintage T-shirts are quite popular. One year a woman in town
decided that all of the runners should get flowers. A guy gave us Yankee
tickets once but they were the only donation we couldn’t get rid of. No
one wanted them.”
Like most of his peers who’ve been in the business
for a long time, Lawrence has seen participation in the events decline a
little over the years as other races have emerged on the scene. “At one
time there were no other races within a fifty-mile radius. Now runners
have lots of races to choose from every weekend.” Despite the
competition, each race manages to draw over 100 runners, with the most
participants in the ten-miler.
Demographics in the Westport Series tend to mirror
those around the country, with most participants being in the 30-50 year
age groups, although the trend toward more women competing, which has
been the norm in most if not the majority of races over the past decade,
doesn’t hold true in Westport. As far as age groups go, Lawrence
explained that if a runner’s upcoming birthday means he or she will be
aging up to a new group, they will often wait to register for the entire
series until after their birthday. Runners are scored on their finishing
times via Grand Prix scoring, a good reason to hold off on registering
if there’s a birthday coming up mid-series.
In fifty-five years, Lawrence has missed only two
races: one the day his daughter got married and one that never happened.
“Several years ago we had to cancel a race because of thunderstorms. We
tried to wait them out but eventually we realized that it would be too
dangerous to hold the race.”
There was one other race that might have been
cancelled, but Mother Nature cooperated. “We call it the Great Hurricane
race,” said Lawrence with a chuckle. “It happened fifty years ago. A
hurricane blew in on Friday. Lots and lots of heavy rain and many trees
came down. I woke up at 4:00 a.m and it was still windy and rainy. But
when I got up at 7:00 the sun was out and there was no more wind, so I
went down to the beach to mark out the 6.85-mile course. There were
downed power lines and trees all around, so we had to take detours, but
the race went on just like always.”
Over the years many well-known people in the
running world have come to Westport to run, among them Jim Fixx, Amby
Burfoot, Peter Gambaccini, and Creigh Kelley. “We get runners from all
fifty states and from all over the world,” Lawrence said. “We’ve had
runners come from as far away as China, Singapore and Norway. A runner
from Germany who held the record for the four by one-mile indoor relay
ran here. There’s always a lot of really good local high school and
collegiate racers who show up during the summer. You never know who
you’re going to get.”
Lawrence has cancelled only one race in fifty-five
years, and he isn’t about to let COVID-19 destroy that remarkable
achievement. “We’ve had to go virtual,” he explained. “It has hurt our
numbers; so far we’ve had only about one-third of the registrants we’d
normally have.” (Note: registrations fees are $40 for the
entire virtual race series, and $10 per race.) “I’ve gone out and marked
the start and finish lines of the first couple of races, and small
groups have been gathering at what would be the race start time and
they’re racing each other.” Runners have from Monday through Saturday to
run the race distance for that week, and then submit their time to the
website. Like all virtual races, runners run the equivalent distance no
matter where they might be. “The series is going on like usual, but no
records will be set this summer.”
At the end of the interview Lawrence said that he
wants everyone to know that he just inherited the race series. “I want
you to tell people about the guys who put it all together,” he said, as
his voice cracked and Katie could be heard in the background murmuring,
“You’re tearing up now.”
There was a brief silence and then Lawrence said:
“The guys who started it were Chuck Smith, he was the assistant football
coach, and the policeman’s name was Howard Burling, and Matt Johnson was
the YMCA director. Those guys deserve all the credit.”
Lawrence possesses all the qualities of the ideal
race director: love of the sport, dedication and commitment, plus a big
dose of humility—easy to see why he’s been at it for five decades.
Claudia Piepenburg qualified for the 1988 Olympic Team Trials, was the 20th women finisher in the 1987 Boston Marathon, and the winner of the 1986 Virginia Beach Marathon. She is a freelance writer for running and non-running related publications and has written one novel and eight short stories.
