V 10 Nn. 39 Dave Wottle Tells Us About that Race in Rochester, NY

May 6, 2020

A few weeks ago we published a piece on a mile race between Dave Wottle, Dick Buerkle, and Barry Brown.  A number of questions came up about the circumstances of the event in Rochester, NY in 1973 as stated on the picture in the article.  But we knew very little about the actual race and what led up to that event.  Normally we don't look to Rochester to see a world class track and field event.  Apologies to anyone from Western NY or Rochester.  In fact I was born there.  To get the answers to questions that were generated, I went to the best available source for this story, Dave Wottle who won that race by a whisker.   Here is Dave's very authoritative response with an incredible amount of detail.  If ever there was an argument for keeping a good running log, Dave's story is a shining example.    Dave indicates it was a hot afternoon.  I checked the weather on that date in Rochester.  It reached a high of 86 degrees with humidity at 72%, a scorcher.   The willingness of those runners to go at each other at the end of a long track season and to produce a near sub 4, is a tribute to their competitive natures, not just their abilities.   At the end of this article is a link to the original article.
George Brose

George, good to hear from you again.  I believe I can help.  The race pictured took place on Sunday, August 12, 1973 at the RIT track in Rochester, NY.  I remember it well not necessarily for the race itself but how horrible I felt during and after the race!  

A little background.  After the end of a rather long indoor and outdoor track season, Steve Prefontaine and I ran against one another in a mile in Eugene on June 20 trying to break the world record.  We both came up short but my 3:53.3 and his 3:54.6 made us the number three and number nine fastest milers of all time.  (John Hartnett of Villanova was third with 3:54.9, making him the 11th fastest miler ever and the Irish record holder).  A pretty good race.

Three days later, Steve and I were in Helsinki for the start of a month long race tour (along with silver medalist intermediate hurdler Ralph Mann) around Scandinavia, Belgium and Italy.  Pre went home shortly after our race in Italy around July 20.  I stuck around for another 10 days with races in Russia, Turku, Finland and Helsinki.  My last race was on July 30 in Helsinki.   

The reason I am telling you all this is to set the stage for the August 12 race.  After returning to the US after the Helsinki race, I was so tired I trained very little prior to the Rochester race.  In fact, in the 13 days prior to the race I only logged in 36.5 miles and had only one workout on the track…a very light 4 x 220 @ 30 sec. stride through two days before the race.  A long way from the 70-75 mile weeks I would normally do during track.  So the bottom line, I was not prepared to race against a couple of elite runners like Dick Buerkle and Barry Brown.  If my memory serves me right, the only reason I agree to race was because it would give my wife Jan and I an opportunity to visit with some friends we had in Rochester, Henry and Charlotte Clune.  We met the Clune’s on our flight to Oslo in 1972 prior to going to Munich.  Henry was an author and journalist and was about 80 years old at the time but just a wonderful man.  We loved visiting him and Charlotte (who was a Olympic swimmer back in the 1920’s).  Henry had attended every Olympic Games since the 1920’s and was in love with the mile.  So it was a treat for him to have me run the mile in his hometown.

There was a huge crowd for the race.  I think around 3,500 people standing right up to the edge of the track.  The race itself was brutal for me, and I’m sure for the others.  We were probably all tired after being on tour in Europe.  I remember it being very hot as well.  The finish of the race was a nail biter.  Dick and I came down the last straightaway neck and neck the whole way.  Neither one of us wanted to give in.  And they may have given me the win, but I can tell you, it was a dead heat.  And it was the toughest finish I can ever remember during my track career.  In my training log where I write down a one word descriptor of how I felt in the race, I wrote down HORRIBLE!!!.  In fact, I almost never wrote down much more than that in the comment section (when I won the Olympic 800 in “72 my comment was only FAIR, because that’s how I felt).  But at the bottom of my workout log in August 1973, I wrote, “8/12 Took me 1 1/2 hours to recover from race.  I’m mentally and physically exhausted.  Time to rest.”  I can remember after the race going away from the crowd and just sitting by myself for at least an hour trying to recover.  And I can remember that I was hallucinating!  That was my last race in the ’73 season.

Marty Liquori was not in the race and Rick Wolhuter, who was slated to run, did not.  It was a six person field.  I have attached three articles about the race I had in my scapebook.  A little long winded, but I hope it adds some perspective to the photo.

https://onceuponatimeinthevest.blogspot.com/2020/04/v-10-n33-track-story-coming-in-via-back.html     This piece generated today's article.

Barry was tough. To be able to hang with truly elite milers like Wottle and Buerkle. It always impressed me that he broke 4 minutes - something that Shorter and Bacheler never did. (I wonder if either of them ever gave it a serious try.)   Geoff Pietsch

I can attest about the weather in upstate NY in the hot months.  There was an Odd Fellows race in Hornell, NY on Memorial Day.  Great race (except for the weather): 7 miles (2x the town), free t-shirts, all our names in the paper the day before the race, free buffet, and complete results in the paper the day after.  Well, I felt like Dave Wottle after the race, and it took me an hour or hour and a half to recover.  I never felt that bad after a race before or after.  HOT and HUMID!!!

Don Betowski