(3-19) Marc Bloom has enjoyed incredibly long, productive careers in running and running journalism, beginning in 1964 and extending to the present. His next book, Amazing Racers, is due to be published in early August. It's about the amazing success of the Fayetteville-Manlius high-school cross-country program in upstate New York, and how coach Bill Aris has inspired so many runners. Bloom's personal running is just as impressive. An undistinguished performer three decades ago, he now ranks among the nation's best for his age.When did you start running and why? It was spring 1972. I hadn’t run since HS grad in ’64 and had gained weight. I didn’t feel “right.” I’d been married three years at that point. My wife (Andrea) and I lived in Brooklyn and would go to a nearby HS track to play paddleball. I started jogging a few laps, one thing led to another, and I started doing some mileage on the roads, and by fall ’72 was running 40 to 50 miles a week and had lost my extra weight, about 20 lbs. My first race was a 3M on a frigid Thanksgiving morning, on Staten Island.
Peak running? When I was doing the NYC Marathon almost