Mr. Marathon Runs On

Things change pretty quickly in sports. Seven years ago, the Pittsburgh Steelers won the Super Bowl, Cincinnati beat the Red Sox 4-3 in the World Series, and Bill Rodgers won the Boston Marathon.

Most hot sportsmen of the '70s have gone the way of disco and C.B. radios, but when the runners line up in Hopkinton next Monday for the start of the Boston Marathon, Rodgers will be among the favorites once again.

Rodgers has won the annual classic four times, but this time around, he's not making any predictions about his chances. "At this point, it's a big question mark," he said in a telephone interview from a phone booth somewhere in Rhode Island.

Rodgers had one of his questions answered yesterday when New York Marathon champion Alberto Salazar decided to enter Boston.

"If he has a good day, he'll be head and shoulders above the crowd," Rodgers said of Salazar, who set a world marathon record last October in New York. "I think he could win really easily...and then again he might get nailed."

Rodgers, of course, wouldn't mind beating the pack on Monday. "If I'm not in the top three to five, it'll be a letdown. I'd be disappointed," he admitted.

But while he has been logging about 120 miles a week in training, Rodgers hasn't been gearing up for the marathon in the same way he did in past years. He has directed most of his energy to road races of various distances all over the country--last year he ran more than 30.

"I race so much, it's kind of hard to train effectively," he said.

Rodgers' 35 career marathons may have taken their toll on the 34-year-old runner, too. But he claimed that the experience he has gained by running so many races will give him a psychological advantage.

"I don't drop out of races for psychological reasons," the veteran said. "It's the more inexperienced runners who have psychological trouble."

Although he seemed dubious about his training for the marathon, Rodgers may have a reason to take the focus off this stage of his career. While some may see him as out of the running, his goals are set further down the road, on the 1984 Olympic marathon team, and the American team for next year's International Track and Field Championships in Helsinki.

The Future

And after that?

"I don't think I'll retire for a while," he said. "I may race less, but I won't stop."

Bill Rodgers loves running. "It's more than just a sport," he said. "It's not just a fad. I think running is going to get bigger and bigger in the future."

The Present

But for now, he hopes to recapture some of the glory the Boston Marathon has given him in the past. Fans of the race have long spoken of Rodgers in streams of superlatives, and when he talked about Boston, he did the same. "If you know you're going to win," he recalled, "it's a tremendous pleasure. It's hard to compare to anything else."