The Ghost of Pre and Me

by Jay Kimiecik

I didn’t believe in ghosts until I met one. And that one ghost saved my life.

It all started quite innocently a few years ago when on the cusp of middle-age I could no longer see the athlete in the mirror. I decided to rediscover the athlete by taking what the late mythologist Joseph Campbell called “the soul’s high adventure.”
I started training to be a middle-distance runner without the foggy idea of what I was doing or why.

Then the ghost of Steve Prefontaine began to appear. Pre was the great American runner who ran for the University of Oregon and dominated middle distance events until a tragic car crash ended his life on May 30, 1975, at age 24. The first time I saw Pre’s ghost was about 6 months after I had begun a more vigorous training routine, which had been interrupted by a bad case of hives. I actually had to go to the emergency room and get pumped full of epinephrine. As I lay there in a drug-induced stupor, I floated in and out of consciousness until I found myself running on a track with Pre. We were side by side when the ghost spoke:

“So you want to be a runner?” Pre asked.

“Well, not so much a runner as an athlete.”

“They’re the same thing.”

“What do you mean?” I asked

But before I could get an answer, Pre waved and ran out of my subconscious.

What was that about, I wondered at the time?

I began running in 5k and 10k road races in which my performances stank. I would give in to the pain and discomfort. I didn’t feel like an athlete. During this dark period, I stumbled upon the movie “Prefontaine” during some late-night channel surfing. I was mesmerized by the story. In my trance-like state, I again found myself with Pre on the University of Oregon track. I told him I wanted to run big. Then I woke up and went to bed laughing at the audacity of my dreams. The ghost of Pre just wouldn’t go away.

One night as I was surfing the internet I stumbled upon masterstrack.com and found a schedule for masters track events around the country. Staring me square in the face was “USA Masters Outdoor Track and Field Championships, Eugene, Oregon, August 7-10.” It also said that ANYONE (if you fit the age criteria) could participate. Pre, I have to get out there. This could be the culmination of my quest. This is where I believe my journey has been taking me. It’s been taking me to you. I signed up for the 1,500—3 and 3/4 laps of pain and torture—not knowing any better. I couldn’t fully explain my infatuation with Pre or Eugene. What was pulling me out there? Where in the hell do these ideas come from? What do they mean?

Shortly after my online discovery of the Masters Championships, Pre appeared to me again at the track on a cold winter evening. As I warmed down with a walk around the track, a spotlight turned on that illuminated the light snow falling. As I walked toward the light, this feeling of power and warmth surged through me and then he was there right beside me.

“Hey, Pre, I’ve been reading up about you.”

“Oh, yeah, what do they write about me.”

“That no one really understood you. That you were a paradox.”

“Well, aren’t we all a little misunderstood. Aren’t we all a little bit of a paradox.”

“Good point. Did you really run a race not to be the fastest but to see who had the most guts, who could punish themselves the most?”

“Yeah, but my belief was that I had the most guts and so I was the only one who could win.”

“But how did you get guts?”

“Well, people didn’t understand that I had to win. I just had to. ”
“But why you?”

“To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the Gift.”

“But you also said that ‘some people create with words or with music or with a brush and paints. I like to make something beautiful when I run.’ How do you combine bleeding, guts, and punishing yourself with creativity and beauty?”

“That’s the paradox. That’s my Gift. See ya in Eugene.”

Pre’s ghost was gone.

While on our family summer vacation in New Hampshire—exactly two weeks to the day that I would need to fly to Oregon to compete—I still hadn’t made my flight arrangements. I would need to call before midnight to get the cheapest fare. The quiet of the night was pierced by the wailing cry of a loon out on the lake. Drawn to the mournful song, I walked out into the black and stood at the end of our narrow wooden dock. The Ojibwa tribe thought that the loon’s call was an omen of death. Was this a sign that my quest was dead? Maybe it was Pre calling to me. Didn’t some people think he was as crazy as a loon? I could just see him howling as he raced, singing his eerie song of death for all his competitors to hear as he massacred them. Pre wailed a few more times and then silence. I stood there in the darkness waiting for more screams but none came. I looked at my watch. Ten minutes to deadline. I decided I wasn’t ready to die just yet. I made my own call, maybe not as wailing as the loon’s but it felt eerie.

The two-hour drive to Eugene from my friend’s house where I was staying was very relaxing. As we neared the University of Oregon campus and hallowed Hayward Field, I was beginning to get a little jittery and impatient. I was hoping that was a sign that my taper would be in full force.

And then it was time for my race.

Pre, where are you?

I toed the starting line of the 1,500 qualifying race with nine other 45-49 year-old soul seekers. My head was filled with nagging thoughts and questions: Am I a real runner? Who are these guys? They look damn serious and damn good. Where are you, Pre?
The gun went off. I immediately fell near the back of the pack as I knew I would. Relax. No big deal. I cruised the first lap in 76, just a second over my goal pace. I was in last place but that didn’t bother me. This seems pretty easy. I’m used to racing against myself anyway.

Keep the pace. Stay strong. Stay smooth. This is starting to hurt. The pain means nothing. It’s a sign you’re pushing. That’s what you want. I was still in last place but not far behind the guy just in front of me. Keep him close. Man, my throat is dry. Two laps down and the electronic timer showed 2:32. Okay, another 76. Good pace. Stay tall. Here we go. The pain is coming…

This hurts so much, I want to quit. Why would anyone voluntarily succumb to this pain and torture? At least I’m not going to be lapped. Stay tall, stay strong, hold on. Stay with this guy. Maybe you can pass him on the last lap. My lungs are going to burst. Embrace the pain, Jay, embrace the pain.

At the end of lap three I was at 3:48. Another 76. Great job. Three hundred meters to go and the pain is over. Hold on. I’m losing it. Help me, Pre. Help me, God. Someone help me.

A heaviness came over me on the backstretch unlike any I have ever known. I felt as if death was near. And then I was on the home stretch—the final 100 meters—and I felt lighter as if someone was carrying me along. But it was too late. I had lost too much time in the previous 200 meters. I imagined myself flying. I tried to catch the guy in front of me. Too late.

4:52—a personal best but too slow for qualifying for the finals.

After lunch, my friend drove me to Alton Baker Park so I could take a slow, solitary jog on Pre’s Trail.

I wasn’t alone for long.

“Well, Pre, I’m glad you decided to join me. Where were you when I needed you?” I asked.

“I was watching,” Pre said. “You got guts kid.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t qualify.”

“Don’t look for sympathy from me, man. When I was running someone like you would have been a bug on my windshield. Plus, you know you didn’t do this race to qualify.”
“It would have been nice.”

“But how do you really feel right now, at this moment.”

“I feel alive,” I said.

“Right. That’s how I felt when I ran. I had lots of disappointments in my career. There were times when I questioned what I was doing. Over the years, I’d given myself a thousand reasons to keep running, but it always came back to where it started. It came down to self-satisfaction and a sense of achievement.”

“Dreams and goals,” I said.

“Right. I loved watching you suffer on that backstretch. It reminded me of why I loved running so much. It reminded me of my dream of pure guts at the end. You didn’t handle it too well but you did pull it together at the end.”

“Yeah, I felt lighter on the home stretch.”

“Like you had somebody helping you?”

“Yeah…hey, was that you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sonofabitch, Pre. That was you.”

“Yeah, well don’t tell anybody. I had some help. Plus, I don’t want people thinking I was a nice guy. It’ll ruin my image. Well, I gotta get going. Other bliss seekers are calling.”
“You know about bliss?”

“I lived it till the day I died.”

“Joseph Campbell, the mythologist, says that when you live your bliss, your passion, you are helped by invisible hands, like today on the home stretch. You helped me and I didn’t even realize it.”

“Yeah, well I don’t know about any of that stuff. I just loved what I did and tried to help others when I could. I wasn’t perfect. I gotta go. You don’t need me anymore.”

“Thanks, Pre.” I started crying. “What should I do now?”

But he was gone.

I had one more place to visit.

Pre’s Memorial marking the spot of his death was difficult to find. No one knows exactly what happened the night Pre died but as we drove around the hairpin turns of the hills of Eugene, it was easy to imagine how someone could lose control of his small MGB on these rain-slicked roads, especially if he had been drinking. We finally had to ask a local for directions and spotted “Pre’s Rock” a few minutes later. I took a few pictures and then read the inscription on the rock:

“PRE”
For your dedication and loyalty
To your principles and beliefs…
For your love, warmth and friendship
For your family and friends…
You are missed by so many.
And you will never be forgotten…

I got back in the car. “We can go home now,” I said. “I’m done.”

On the flight back home, I had about 4 hours to reflect on what I was bringing back with me. Athletes like Pre go for the pure engagement, the feeling of being totally alive. And that’s what I was bringing back with me. You don’t have to be an outstanding runner to feel rapture—I finished 18 out of 20 in the1500 prelims at the US Masters Outdoor Track and Field Championships. Campbell writes that the soul’s high adventure results in leaving one condition and finding the source of life to bring you forth into a richer or more mature condition, and that this transformation involves both a death and a resurrection.

A death and a resurrection. And that’s why Pre’s ghost had been calling me out to Eugene—to help me kill off the part of me that I didn’t need anymore. And then my bliss took over on the home stretch, bringing me back to life—leaving one condition and finding the source of life for a richer condition. I am forever changed, forever transformed.

Pre’s ghost was right. I don’t need the ghosts anymore. I am now one of them. I am now alive.

Jay Kimiecik is an average masters runner who happens to be a professor at Miami University of Ohio. He is the author of “The Intrinsic Exerciser: Discovering the Joy of Exercise” (Houghton Mifflin). This ghost story is loosely based on his book “An Athlete’s Diary: On Feeling Alive and Getting Good in Sport and Life at Any Age,” as yet unpublished.