Return to Running Keeps Prep Coach on Road of Recovery

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Highfive

Richard Dodd qualified for his first Boston Marathon at age 18 in 1978, founded a four-mile run in his hometown that has been held annually on the Fourth of July since 1979, and set the Wisconsin state record for the 50K distance (essentially a marathon plus five miles) in 1982 — a record he still co-holds with his twin brother Pete and at the time one of only three sub-three-hour efforts ever posted in U.S. history. With the running world at his feet, a Saucony-brand shoe sponsorship followed. Fast forward to 2006, when Dodd saw a 16-year career as a running coach at his high school alma mater interrupted — and his adult life nearly ended — by alcoholism and three OWI citations in a span of eight months. Ironically, given his history as an elite runner, each traffic stop resulted from his driving too slowly. Since completing a prison sentence and rehab, a 14-years-sober Dodd is again sharing his distance-running knowledge with high school track and cross-country teams in the Greater Milwaukee area. AB senior editor Paul Steinbach asked Dodd to recount his course correction, and how his love of running and coaching saved him from personal destruction.

Can you describe how running has evolved over the span of your career?
I’ve been a distance runner for 50 years, so I’ve seen a lot of ebbs and flows. A few years back, we were kind of in the midst of what I would call the second running boom. There was a running boom in the early ’70s, and that’s when I got involved as a young teen. We might not have had all the technology and fancy shoes and whatnot, but we ran a hundred miles a week. We lived, ate, breathed running. Then I would say the 1990s were kind of a dead zone for the sport of distance running nationally, and there was a big drop in the number of events and participation. But then a little after the year 2000, the kids of the first running boom kind of mushroomed into a second running boom that had more volume, I think, than the first running boom. The race times weren’t as fast anymore, but all of a sudden, brand-new events were popping up. The event companies would go all over the place and do like the Rock ’n’ Roll Half Marathon series. Let’s face it, it was a changed world in 2000 from 1970, thanks to the worldwide web. And where there’s money to be made, event companies are going get involved. It just became a big business, truly, for companies to put on huge national and global events for that second running boom. There are economies of scale. If an event makes $10,000 and you do 50 of them, all of a sudden you have half a million dollars.

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