an evening with itchy

itchy requires no introduction to many of you since his place in running spot lore is a favorite topic. suffice it to say that if you know itchy he's The Nicest Guy You've Ever Met by default, and beyond that remarkably open and generous and sincere. the easiest and least complicated person to know in the world. itchy moved back to tucson and broke away from cincinnati's clutches in january and has set up in another running store gig, great apartment nestled up against the northeastern hills, already months in to preparations for the stillers' 7/11 year. complete with hundreds of football cards (and one willie stargell card) pasted to the wall in a pattern that supposedly shows the outline of the lombardi trophy. (sorry, itchy, I still don't see it.) a bo jackson shrine, and a newly acquired lifesize jordan cutout by the microwave. anyway, he was generous enough to put me up for a night and drive me out to a fine burgers and beer joint (first decent beer in weeks -- an unexciting microbrew stout, but better than the usual choices in the uninspired plains). itchy and I were evenly matched as runners when I worked at the store. matched in terms of speed, that is. otherwise there's nothing in common. build, stride, form, training schedules...couldn't be more dissimilar. what we share, though, is unfounded optimism. this may sound unlikely given that itchy will never give up on running a 2.30 marathon and I've 'retired' five times in the last eight years, but the thing is that I always come out of retirement and itchy has a tendency to throw away running shoes and announce his disillusionment with running every time the next injury crops up. so I pretend not to harbor hopes of running fast again and itchy claims not to remember his myriad injuries, but in the end we arrive in the same place. and it shows in its purest form in the one running aspect where we converge -- race 'strategy.' that is, neither of us has a race strategy other than to go out hard and hang on. most decent runners who continue running into their late 30s figure this out, but I never have. perhaps itchy has, but I doubt it. for me this comes partly in a lack of confidence in my kick and wanting to establish a finishing position early on, but it's also that optimism. I may go into a race with modest (realistic) goals, but on the line they always evaporate.

anyway, this optimism infects more than just running for itchy. it's in his general outlook, it's in his unfailingly optimistic appraisal of people he knows, it's in his absolute conviction that the stillers will win every year. he's been commissioned to liven up the only steeler bar in tucson after his brief cameo at the tail end of last season. so it's not surprising that we were up at 5.30 for a 6am run up the sabino canyon trail not far from his apartment. itchy waited up for me as I lumbered up the trail...lumbered and tiptoed since I was wearing my vibram slippers. gorgeous run, great scenery, cool air before the blast of the morning sun. itchy inexplicably doesn't wear his glasses while he runs and kept jumping out of the way of 'snakes' that turned out to be cracks in the paved trail, and he sprinted ahead at one point where there's a sheer dropoff into the canyon (safely behind a guardrail), but it was great to run in the mountains. we talked about the usual topics -- but not just the same old boring running spot tales -- in the way that's so easy with someone like itchy. no agenda, no motives, no lame attempts to impress. if you're ever in tucson, look him up. just not on a sunday afternoon in the fall.