Waiting at the starting line of the 1988 Revco 10-K run, you graze elbows with a cast of class-act people.

Physically, the 10,000 participants look mostly ordinary to skinny. But there are few phonies. That's because there's no faking it.

It doesn't make any difference whether you're rich or poor, your nose is a pug or a pickle, or tour kin came over on the Mayflower in 1620 or on a ferryboat from Haiti last week.

Small matter, too, whether you're tall or short, young or old, male or female. For a while, you are no longer the meter reader, ribbon clerk, pencil pusher, school marm, or whatever. You are simply a running person.

You have to propel yourself from Point A to Point B, a distance of 6.2 miles. And you have to make it on your own.

If, by chance you should see someone in the staging area who you were always inclined to ill regard, your viewpoint of him suddenly changes. Standing there in his trunks, stripped down to a common denominator, he's no longer the blowhard and pretender you thought he was.

Here he's competing equally. No special dispensation from gravity. No help from what money, or being the boss's son, can buy. No office lackeys strewing roses in his path. He will be facing the music alone, as they say in cliché circles.

You recall that the race course doubles back, and thus are reminded that where you run downhill, you will, upon returning, have to run uphill. You recognize, too, that if you pause to gulp down a dixie cup of water, or tighten a shoe lace the clock won't pause with you.

You resolve to dwell only on pleasant thoughts, but then decide that that's more work than it's worth.

So, while contemplating the rigors ahead, you try to remain calm by gazing over the sea of heads around you and affecting an air of indifference.

You remember the ancient parting wish of the Irish: "May the wind be ever at your back."

"Bang." Uh, uh, the starter's pistol. No more time for woolgathering. It's time to say, "We're off," and may the best running person win, hairy legs and all.
 
Editor's note: Chabek is a retired writer living in Lakewood who has been a frequent participant in the annual Revco 10-K Run. This article by Dan Chabek originally appeared in the Lakewood Sun Post on Thursday, May 19, 1988. Reproduced with permission.