V 11 N. 33 Jon Tumilson, a Runner and a Fallen Warrior

 

                                                Jon Tumilson and Hawkeye

Yesterday we talked about Jon Fer, a man who was a great runner and a survivor of six years in the Hanoi Hilton.   In the past we've also talked about American and international Olympians who died serving their countries.  We remembered racewalker  Ron Zinn,  hurdler Cliff Cushman,  and sprinter Foy Draper from American teams and Janusz Kusocinski  from the Polish team of 1932 and many, many others.  Today I want to honor one who did not come home. He is not one whose feats you will find in the track record books, but he was a runner, and his community remembers him with a statue in running gear, and they have created an annual 5km race in his memory.  That man is Petty Officer Navy Chief Special Warfare Operator Jon Tumilson who did come home but in a flag-draped coffin to the little town of Rockford, Iowa to be mourned by a whole county of folks in the Midwest.  

In conversation with George Cummins a veteran of both the Peace Corps as well as the US military, I heard the story of a young boy who went straight from high school into the Navy with the goal of becoming a Navy Seal.  He was a wrestler in high school, but in addition to becoming a swimmer and a multidisciplined warrior in the Navy, Jon also became a runner. When he came home on leave he was often seen on long runs through the Iowa countryside with his dog Hawkeye tagging along.  In San Diego where he was sometimes stationed, he became a member of their running community. 

Though not a great runner at 220 pounds, he was a competitor and is remembered by folks out there for his regular participation and tough running in training runs with a local club.

                                                          Jon Tumilson, Ready for Work

Jon was a Navy Seal and he died along with 16 other Seals in a helicopter crash while on a mission to rescue other service men on the ground who were in desperate straits.  The crash took the lives of 30 Americans in total, the biggest single loss in the Afghan war.  At Jon's funeral you can see this picture of his dog mourning below his casket, and that is why Hawkeye is also remembered in that bronze statue.

                               Hawkeye at Jon's Funeral

As has often been said, "In war the first victim is truth".  But it is these young boys and girls who pay the price of the fools' errands of those who should know better.  I am happy that we are pulling out of Afghanistan after almost 20 years.  I am not happy at what it has cost us in lives and dollars, knowing that when we leave it will be like we were never there.*

Olympians who died in war   If you wish to see our past post on athletes who died in war, please click on this link.

In more research I found that Runner's World also did a story on Jon Tumilson.    RW Story

* I have to acknowledge Barbara Tuchman for this last phrase.  GB

Please have a safe Memorial Day weekend.  George Brose

V 11 N. 33 Remembering Our Veterans "Interval Training in Hanoi" by Jon Epperson

 

Oklahoma U., Oklahoma State, USAFA triangular cross country meet

                       Norman, Oklahoma September, 1961

                                 Jon Fer on the left

A few years ago, we published a Memorial Day piece remembering the POW's who were interned in the Hanoi Hilton during the Viet Nam war.

Particularly we remembered former USAFA runner Jon Fer who won the NCAA 10,000 meters and a few years later was shot down and spent six years in captivity.  One of our regular readers, Jon Epperson has written a moving tribute to Jon Fer and several others who spent long days and years in captivity.

So here is Jon Epperson's salute to those who served, survived and to those who died.  

Please continue below this for an interesting postscript sent in by Richard Mach.

Richard Mach (Western Michigan University ) sent this in after reading the above postings.


Geo -

Wrote this tiny piece for the celebration a year ago last October around the 50th anniversary of the back to back Div I team championships Western Michigan won in cross country.  The center piece is John Fer.  May have sent this to you earlier, but don't believe so.  He transferred from USC after at least 2 years there I recall and started all over again in the rigorous program @ the Academy so this guy was, like the Aussies often were who were coming over to compete in our nation's colleges, a few years older which did give them -- and him -- some advantage.  After the fall races, John won the NCAA 10,000 m race outright the following spring.
Here's what I prepared.

THE VIETNAM WAR AND RUNNING @ ALTITUDE 

During this period in American history, we, as a country, were enmeshed in a far off war that soon enough invaded our living rooms every night on the news.  As athletes who competed against the service academies — all three - but especially the AFA, with which we traded venues each year in cross country and they were invited to the WMU indoor Relays in late winter, our trajectories intersected those of athletes who were going to go on to war after graduation.   One story especially is telling about the times then.  In 1962, Reid, Hancock, Bashaw, Green, Tom Martin myself and another flew into Denver the night before and spent a restless night at 6900 ft elevation @ the academy — our bone marrow trying desperately, on very short notice, to make much more hemoglobin.   The next morning coach warned us about the plebes, who were clustered at the start/finish line found @ midst of what proved to be a most daunting figure 8 four mile course, as to their not so polite inquires if we’d like an oxygen tank.  

At the gun, there on the Academy’s Eisenhower Golf Course nearly 7 grand above sea level, the race went downhill for the first mile running in the foothills away from the front range of the Rockies.  At the mile I was 7th or 8th in 4:21 The leader was about 4:18, a then 25 yr old cadet named John Fer, who was the following spring to win the NCAA 10 K championship.  We circumnavigated the bottom of the “Eight” and proceeded uphill almost immediately along a tightly winding path about  250 m long through a forest of scrub pine. Upon exiting, Fer was gone.  Out of sight.  Never saw him again.  At the middle of the figure eight, the halfway point, a plebe -- seeing that I was — by then — nearly green — asked if I’d like a peanut butter sandwich.   Then it was another lung busting mile uphill toward the front range before the top of the eight and then that last mile downhill -- quads burning -- to the finish.   At the finish, Air Force’s #2 guy was 9th.  Score:  20 to 43. Next time I saw John Fer was 11 yrs later on television getting off a plane of POWs @ Clark Air Base  shot down over N. Vietnam 6 years earlier. And still a stanch defender of our country.   And of John McCain, his cell mate at the Hanoi Hilton.

I took the top photo of the triangular meet at Norman, OK almost 60 years ago.  I was a freshman, and in those days could not run on a varsity team until the following year.  I lost my copy of it, but it came to me this morning from Austin, TX from Walt Mizell who is in the picture.  He in turn had only recently received it from Neville Soll (also in the picture) who lives in South Africa.   While preparing this post I had been looking through all my 'stuff' and felt that it was long gone, but it wasn't.  The race was three miles which accounts for the relatively fast first mile in those days.  All those guys have a story to tell. George Brose

George:

Thank you for honoring John Fer and all of these men on this Memorial Weekend!

John Bork

It is so great that you were able to find the picture from 60 years ago.  I wish I had taken pictures back in the day.

Reading the description Richard Mach gave of his CC race on the AFA Eisenhower Golf Course gave me PTSD!  The place gave new meaning to the term oxygen debt.  And in my case John Fer was “out of sight” much earlier in the race.  Sounds like Mach was able hang with him much longer.  Jon Epperson

Incredible story. The courage and strength of those men is truly inspirational and needs to be remembered. 

Thank you for posting.   Tom Pagani

V 11 N. 32 Request for Photos: Mt. Sac Pre Olympic Meet 1984

 We recently received the following request for photos:

Mt. SAC is looking for any pictures that you might have of the pre-Olympic meet that was held at MSAC in 1984.

This event at MSAC was the largest collection of international teams ever to compete in the world outside of an Olympic Games or world championships. This is part of the story that's going to be told in Heritage Hall and MSAC is interested in any and all photos that you may have.

So that's the request, if you have any such photos please email those to Doug Todd: dtodd@mtsac.edu. 

If you only have a hard copy of the photo then use your phone to take a picture of the photo and send it to Doug that way. 

V 11 N. 31 Incredible Tragedy in Ultra Marathon 21 Deaths

 An incredible tragedy took place in Western China during a 100 Km Ultra when a storm hit the event.  It was at high altitude making things even worse.  Five of the six leading runners died.   Race organizers will certainly pay a heavy price for this.   Here is the story from today's  The Guardian.

China ultramarathon: inquiry launched after 21 runners die in cold weather

Race organisers accused of not heeding warnings after rain, hail, and gale-force winds forecast across Gansu province

Hundreds of rescuers were sent to find the 172 competitors taking part in the ultramarathon in Baiyin, Gansu province. Photograph: Fan Peishen/AP

Helen Davidson in Taipei, and agencies

@heldavidson

Mon 24 May 2021 10.44 BST

Chinese authorities have launched an investigation into the death of 21 people in an ultramarathon over the weekend, as family and friends of the competitors who died in the freezing weather questioned how it was allowed to happen.

A further eight runners were injured when extreme weather hit the 100km (62 miles) high-altitude race in Yellow River Stone Forest near Baiyin in north-western Gansu province. More than 700 rescuers were sent in with thermal imaging drones and radar detectors to find the 172 competitors who were running with little protective clothing other than emergency foil blankets, some of which were reportedly shredded by high winds.

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Local authorities have launched an investigation, while observers blamed race organisers, accusing them of not heeding weather forecasts for the province, which is often hit by extreme weather conditions.

In a report on Friday, the provincial meteorological bureau had issued warnings for “sudden heavy showers, hail, lightning, [and] sudden gale-force winds” across Gansu. State media reported temperatures plunging far below zero, pelting runners with rain, hail and sleet.

In response to the tragedy, China’s sports governing body ordered improvements in safety managements in national sport events, including detailed contingency plans for incidents and measures for emergency cancellations, saying there were “problems and deficiencies” in the management model for races.

Among the dead were elite runners, including the 31-year-old record-holder Liang Jing, who leaves behind a two-year-old daughter, and the Paralympian Huang Ganjun.

Liang had won a number of Chinese ultramarathons in recent years while Huang won the men’s hearing-impaired marathon at the 2019 National Paralympic Games.

A runner receives treatment at a hospital after surviving the extreme weather during the 100km cross-country mountain race. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

“I’m still stunned by the news. How could this happen? I can not believe it,” Liang’s father told media.

Of the lead six competitors, only one – Zhang Xiaotao – reportedly survived. In a post on Weibo, Zhang described overtaking Huang, who was both speech and hearing impaired, on the mountain as the weather began to turn. He also described running with Wu Pan-rong who was in fifth place, for a time, supporting each other before they were separated. Wu is also reported to be among the dead.

Zhang said he fell several times, and at one point “could not get up”. He said he covered himself with the emergency blanket and set off his GPS locator before passing out.

He said he was rescued by a shepherd who had wrapped him in a blanket and carried him to a nearby cave, where several other runners were sheltering. After he regained consciousness, they descended the mountain together.

“As a participant, I would like to pay my deepest condolence to my fellow runners who have passed away. May they rest in peace. My utmost appreciation to the shepherd. I would have died if he has not saved me. What he has done will never be forgotten.”

The incident has prompted outrage on social media. Related Weibo hashtags and message threads have been viewed more than 120m times, with some calling it a “man-made disaster”.

“It is suffocating to know that this could had been avoided. It is purely a man-made tragedy,” said a story reporting Huang’s death.

At a news briefing on Sunday, Baiyin officials bowed and apologised, saying they were saddened by the tragic deaths of the runners and that they were to be blamed.

V 11 N. 30 Ron Hill, Marathoner Extraordinaire, R.I.P.

Ron Hill, remembered for so many things,  his several world bests in the marathon, consecutive days of running, a Phd. chemist, designer of running clothing, winner of Boston, European Championships, and Commonwealth Games marathons, Olympic disappointment, and general high spirited competitor who when being consoled after not winning the 1972 Olympic marathon when he was the pre-race favorite told his teammate to 'f--k off', has passed away on May 23, 2021.   It had been reported several years ago that Ron's running streak which went over 50 years was terminated by cardiac problems, an ailment not unknown to a lot of very good runners as they approach their later years.

Below is a well done obituary by Neil Shuttleworth that appeared in The Guardian today.   

One of the finer obits ever.  Captured his place in the running universe so well.  Thanks for getting this out. 

Richard Mach

George,

A couple of personal connections to Ron Hill.  I was also a Ph.D. chemist and I was a classmate at Georgetown University of Eamonn O'Reilly, who finished 2nd to Ron at Boston in 1970.  Eamonn finished 42 seconds behind Ron, but with an American best of 2:11:12.

I emailed Eamonn, who lives in Ireland now.  His reply:  "Ron Hill was tough to beat.

I certainly didn't but, as usual, I was thinking right away about how maybe to
do that.

Maybe if the east wind were not so cold: I did tighten up and struggle to
maintain contact and the conditions were a factor.

Hill had the advantage of preparing in the cold and wet and windy north of
England."

Don Betowski

Ron Hill obituary

British long distance runner who won gold medals and broke records in the marathon during the 1960s and 70s

Neil Shuttleworth

Sun 23 May 2021 18.44 BST

315

135

Ron Hill, who has died aged 82, was an exceptional and versatile British long distance runner who won gold in the marathon at the 1969 European Championships and the 1970 Commonwealth Games. He broke four world records in various events and ran in 115 marathons. Even today his best marathon time, 2hr 9min 28sec, ranks as one of the quickest by any Briton.

Running in the amateur era, Hill combined his athletics career with a job as a textile scientist, and revealed considerable entrepreneurial skills when he set up a multimillion-pound own-label sportswear company called Ron Hill Sports, which continues to this day as Ronhill.

Born in Accrington, Lancashire, Hill was educated at the town’s grammar school and won a scholarship to Manchester University in 1957, where he ran for the university as well as the local Bolton United Harriers & Athletics club, having switched there from his boyhood club, Clayton-le-Moors.

He gained a degree in textile chemistry in 1960 and began to make serious waves in British athletics while staying on at university to do a PhD. By 1962 he was running cross-country for England and representing Great Britain at the marathon in the 1962 European Championships in Belgrade, although he was one of seven athletes there who were unable to finish the event.

Ron Hill in 1968, soon after being selected to compete for Britain in the Mexico Olympics. Photograph: Central Press/Getty Images

In 1963 he won the six-mile run at the British Amateur Athletic Association championships in a time of 27:49.8, equalling the UK record, and in 1964, the year he completed his PhD, he appeared at the Olympic Games in Tokyo, finishing 18th in the 10,000 metres and 19th in the marathon. To run both events in the same games was an astonishing feat.

In 1965, on his home Bolton United Harriers track, Hill broke two world records that had belonged to the great Czech runner Emil Zatopek: at 15 miles and 25,000m. He then became the English national cross-country champion in 1966 and 1968, and won the AAA 10 mile event four times between 1965 and 1969, twice beating the world record at that distance in 1968. He came seventh in the 10,000m at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico.

It was over the marathon distance, though, that Hill really made his name. His gold medal at the European Championships came in 1969 in Greece, where he came through the field from Marathon to Athens in dramatic fashion, finishing just over 30 seconds ahead of Gaston Roelants of Belgium. The following year he took gold in the Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh, becoming only the second man to break the 2hr 10min barrier with his world record time of 2:09:28.

In 1970 he also went on to become the first Briton to win the Boston Marathon, in the then record time of 2:10:30, and in 1971 he won bronze in the European Championships at Helsinki, later being appointed MBE in recognition of his various achievements.

There was disappointment, however, in the marathon at the 1972 Munich Olympics, where Hill was favourite to win but finished sixth behind the winner, Frank Shorter of the US. In retrospect he said he made two mistakes: training at altitude and over-pursuing the then-fashionable glycogen-loading diet.

Ron Hill competing in the Athens Classic marathon in 2010. Photograph: Aristidis Vafeiadakis/Alamy

Those games proved to be Hill’s last, but he continued to run in marathons all over the world, reaching the 115 landmark with his final one in Boston in 1996. Having rejoined the Clayton-le-Moors club in 1976, he held the British best time for the marathon for the 40-plus age group (2:15:46), and raced in more than 100 countries before the age of 70, becoming one of the most travelled athletes in the world.

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He also laid claim to the world’s longest streak of daily running, having run at least a mile a day, every day, even when ill or injured, from 20 December 1964 to 30 January 2017 – a total of 52 years and 39 days. He reckoned to have competed in more than 2,260 races across his lifetime.

In 1964 Hill had become a research chemist at the Courtaulds dyeing research laboratory at Droylsden in Greater Manchester, and then in 1975 had moved into self-employment. His entrepreneurial activities began in earnest in 1970, when he founded Ron Hill Sports to develop the clothing ideas he had come up with both while running and while working as a textile scientist. Among his best known innovations were side-split shorts and mesh running vests, both designed to allow cooling air to flow around the body.

He owned the business until 1991, when he sold it, afterwards continuing as a performance textile consultant.

He is survived by his wife, May, and two sons, Steven and Graham.

 Ronald Hill, athlete, born 25 September 1938; died 23 May 2021