Watching Alan Webb Retire
I was Alan Webb’s last coach. The coaches who guided him during his career are some of the early 2000’s best: Raczko, Warhurst, Salazar, Vigilante, Schumacher. And then there was me. I don’t belong in that company.
I wrote Alan’s training plans, timed his workouts, and adjusted his programing as necessary. Sure sounds like I was his coach, but not really. Honestly, I was more friend, motivator, and cheerleader than coach in those last days.
Or better still, I was a witness to Alan’s final moments as a professional runner.
His final 6 months as a pro runner were spent with one foot in the running world and the other in the triathlon world. He was done with running and preparing to make the transition to professional triathlete. His attempt eventually ended abruptly with a bike crash and several broken bones.
Alan’s a world class human being. He’s a good friend. Devoted husband. Loving father. And now a budding coach of collegiate runners. At the time, both he and I were so accustomed to him being a world class miler that those final workouts around the oval were quite frustrating. Both for me to watch and him to do. He didn’t feel good. He didn’t run fast. And he didn’t see any signs of progress.
Knowing when to exit the arena is a superstar’s curse. Michael Jordan. Joe Montana. Tiger Woods. And many others, played too long past their prime. But when athletic excellence is all you know, you tend to stick with athletics even after your period of excellence has faded.
After years of his body responding to the intense work need to run at a world class level it was now rejecting that work. Long gone were the amazing workouts filled with the enthusiasm to press a little hard and get a little more out of himself. He tried. He wanted to stay world class until the bitter end. But he could no longer suffer so much to achieve so little in the shadow of what he once was.
His fire for the track gone, his farewell race was a whimper of his past athletic glories. It wasn’t a storybook ending. But it was the end. The end of a career which inspired a generation of runners and the memory of which will long burn bright.