It has become known in Boston Marathon lore as: “The Run for the Hoses.”
A half-century ago, on April 19, in the Bicentennial year of 1976, the main topic of conversation amongst the field of 1,893 runners gathered on Hopkinton Green, about to embark on the 80th running of the Boston Marathon, was the challenging weather conditions.
The official temperature had spiked to 96 degrees Fahrenheit, making it the hottest start to the fabled race on record, and there was grave concern about the potential of heat stroke, and even the possibility of a heart attack.
Those concerns had built to such a crescendo that it led to several of the runners, one of whom was reported to be a cardiologist, approaching the irascible legendary race co-director Jock Semple and pleading with him to change the starting time to 3 p.m.
But the Scotsman’s stubbornness was under full sail, and he would have none of it.
“The sun will be shinning on everyone equally. If these people don’t like it stay home. The trained athletes will run well. The slobs will drop out, Good. They shouldn’t be here in the first place,” spouted Semple in his classic unfiltered way.
One of the entrants who was ready and eager to accept that toasty 26.2-mile challenge was Jack Fultz, a 27-year-old follically challenged, mustachioed Coast Guard (1969-73) veteran, and Georgetown University track star.
It would prove to be the race — and victory — of his life.
Fultz was making his fourth run in Boston, and was intimately familiar with the contours of the quirky challenging course.
But for this race, he was laser focused more on his finishing time rather than on his position, and what would earn him a second consecutive invite to the Olympic Marathon Trials in Eugene, Oregon scheduled six weeks after Boston.
With that mindset, the future sports psychologist, who would go on to teach at Tufts University for 27 years, approached the race with a Zen-like stress-free attitude exuding the same easy flowing confidence as that of Laura Nyro sitting at her piano singing her classic “Stone Soul Picnic.”
Fultz was also fully confident in both his preparations after stacking consecutive 100-mile training weeks, with a focus on the hills, as well as a strategy of when to attack, and the weather conditions be damned.
“I was looking to qualify for the Olympic Trials, focusing more on my time in the race rather than my place in the finish results. Consequently, I viewed the other runners as allies rather than opponents,” he said.
“And I think that mindset was a significant reason behind my victory because it freed me from competition anxiety,” said the now 77-year-old former champion, who is the highly respected training coach for the Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge, as well as their other charity teams.
At the Gary Cooper appointed hour of high noon, the crack of the starter’s pistol signaled that the warmest Boston start on record was officially underway.
The leaders, of which Fultz was one, hot-footed into Framingham, then steamed into Wellesley, and at the 12-mile mark Fultz was cruising comfortably along in 10th position.
“I looked up ahead I could see the nine runners I was chasing about a quarter-a-mile up the road running in single file formation. I felt great at that point. I felt like I hadn’t even started. I was in cruise control,” said the future Georgetown University Track Hall of Famer, who after his induction in 1996 went jogging with then President Bill Clinton.
That was also the spot where he experienced a rare road racing epiphany.
“I knew that I was going to have a good day, especially since I considered the runners up ahead of me not as enemies, but as I said, as allies. I had no anxiety, I was moving in Robo efficiency,” he said simply.
In 1971, Fultz, as a member of the Coast Guard, won the first marathon he ever attempted in Washington D.C., and who also ran his first Boston Marathon that same year, began to methodically pick off that string of runners.
He moved into fourth place as he passed Newton Hospital, and that was the spot where he had an unexpected roadside visitor.
“That was when Billy Squires, the legendary coach of the GBTC (Greater Boston Track Club) whom I didn’t know at the time, scooted out, and ran alongside, giving me some ice cubes. He was excited that another American, (Billy Rodgers had set the course and American record of 2:09:55 the year before), might be able to win the race,” Fultz recalled.
As Fultz began to approach the hills known for breaking hearts, he grabbed the lead for good passing a fading Richard Mabuzza of Swaziland at the Brae Burn Country Club near the 18-mile mark.
He continued to motor along with the easy steadiness of a metronome, extending his lead to a full minute, as he appeared as relaxed and carefree as Dean Martin on stage at the MGM in Vegas.
Starting to climb the famous hills, the sweat soaked and drenched leader of the Boston Marathon had his number washed off his Georgetown singlet courtesy of the rainbow spray from the oasis of countless garden hoses.
The supportive and knowledgeable homeowners living along the route heeded the block lettered handmade sign attached onto the front of media truck which read; “Hose the Runners,” hence the race’s nickname; “Run for the Hoses.”
But now, minus his identifying race number, he was temporarily anonymous to the guys on the photo truck.
“The guys on the photo truck were asking who are you?” recalled Fultz.
“So, I played along. ‘Guess?’ I yelled back,” said Fultz. “I was wearing my Georgetown singlet, and they initially thought that I was one of my teammates, but eventually they figured out who I was,” he said.
As Fultz crested Heartbreak Hill, and ran past Boston College, Mother Nature greeted him, and the rest of the following gritty field with a welcoming sea breeze that had dramatically lowered the stifling temperatures.
But, as every runner is aware, no marathon is ever truly stress-free.
Nearing the twenty-two-mile mark on Commonwealth Ave, just before turning onto Chestnut Hill Ave, then onto Beacon Street, a check engine warning sign popped up as Fultz experienced his first anxiety inducing moment of the race.
“Suddenly, with four miles to go, I had some cramping in my calves, and at that’s when I had a moment of panic.”
“I had to back off a bit, because if your calf goes, it’s like a flat tire on a car, and if that happens you are finished,” said Fultz.
“But then I thought, even if someone caught me, I was still running the race of my life. I would qualify for the trials, and that thought process helped me relax. I got me right back on my pace, and fortunately the cramps never returned,” said the soon to be crowned Boston champion.
Approaching Kenmore Square and heading toward Hereford Street the exuberant and rowdy spectators, remember there was no crowd control in those pre-corporate days, helped Fultz surf toward the finish line.
The huge crowd was shouting the most comforting words a marathoner can hear as he is about to capture most prestigious title in the sport; Boston Marathon Champion, “There is no one in sight, and you have this in the bag!”
“I was aware, that if I could hold on to win, that my life might never be quite the same” he said in one of the great sporting understatements of 1976.
“And when I crossed the in 2:20:19, qualifying for the Trials, and 54-seconds ahead of second place finisher Mario Cuevas of Mexico, I felt that I had run the perfect race,” said the newly crowned Boston Champ.
And despite traversing over the Macadam layered course, in which the temperatures soared to over one hundred degrees, Fultz amazingly felt refreshed.
“I stopped because the race ended. I wasn’t tired. I was still feeling good at the finish line,” said Fultz, who would finish fourth with a PR 2:11:17 in 1978.
It is also funny how fate works.
If Jack Fultz had qualified for the Trials in his two earlier attempts that year, he would not have run in Boston.
And hence, he would not have captured the coveted Laurel Wreath as the winner of the 80th edition, which, because of the blistering starting conditions, has grown into legendary status.
It would also have been unlikely that he would have established his rewarding relationship as the mentor and training coach for the Dana-Faber charity running teams which began in 1990 and has raised north of $140 million for cancer research, and even his longtime teaching position with Tufts University would likely not have occurred.
But on that “Run for the Hoses” day, a half-century ago, none of that happened, as the hottest Boston Marathon on record became the coolest of life-changing days for Mr. Jack Fultz.