It has been popularly regarded as the most individualistic of sports. Few people actually saw the movie or grasped the full meaning of it’s title, but the "loneliness" of the long distance runner became an instant cliche (which is odd, because in truth, few athletes are as gregarious as distance runners). Still and all, most running is done on a solitary basis. There are few road racing teams of any sort, and fewer still for marathon racing. So it is semi-amazing that during the mid seventies such a team came to be, and that it enjoyed such success that it has spawned many imitators. Even better, from this storytellers point of view, the squad in question hailed from right here in Boston. Better than that, this team no longer formally exists, but lives on in the hearts and minds of it’s veterans. Simply put, individuals may no longer belong to any of the great GBTC teams- officially the teams have been disbanded, and no more are being formed-but wherever he goes, a onetime GBTC member is likely to be identified as "one of those Boston guys."

There are worse ways to be identified. Consider the teams most famous alumni, Alberto Salazar and Bill Rodgers. In the past three years, each has been called the greatest marathoner of all time by reputedly reliable sources. Such timeless claims are almost always specious, especially in an event where the number of all-time greats is less than ten, but for these two men it is not just moonshine. After all, Salazar does hold the world’s best time for the event, and Rodgers has been the standard against which other marathoners have been judged for the past five years, especially for the Boston race. Both runners have been so successful as individuals that most marathon devotees forget their local boy origins. Each has become the stuff of national magazine covers and "Up close and personal" interviews with Howard Cosell. Salazar has gone so far as to move to the other city that calss itself the nation’s capital of road racing, Eugene, Oregon.

It’s a traditional development for heroes. Once they hit the big time, their fans- even their hometown fans –tend to forget roots and intead concentrate on the stars amazing feats. Running fans are no different from other sports fans. The nova effect of men like Rodger’s and Salazar is naturally going to command attention. It'’ understandable, if regrettable, that said attention comes at the expense of their former teammates. Fans want to hear about the best, and devil take thosewho have the misfortune to be merely damn good.

But what makes the Boston guys special isn’t just two extaordinaty individuals. It’s that favorite cliche of coaches, depth. Since the presidency of Gerald Ford, the world’s top road races have featured as least one Boston guy as a favorite, and often as a winner. As the sport has spread across the country and around the world, so have the former GBTC teammates of yesteryear.

"Yeah, it’s funny" noted Bobby Hodge, a charter member of this informal aggregation. "I mean, I go down to Florida and run into Billy and we train together or when I was in Japan for the Beppu Marathon in February (he won), Randy Thomas who’s been living in New Zealand, was there and we trained together before the race. The way the sport has spread out now days, that’s when you see people."

As Hodge’s remarks indicate, the alumni of the GBTC teams of glory are still close, if no longer together. Hodgie one of the most popular men in road racing among his peers, is perhaps uniquely suited to represent that aggregation in appraising the April madness of Eastern Massachusetts. For one thing he has ben a orld class competitor without yet achieving the type of victory that brings Wheaties ads. For another thing, he is one of the few famous "Boston runners" who actually lives here in town.For a final thing, Bobby Hodge is the only one from his old team who decided early on he would point for the 1982 Marathon.

It’s a fitting decision, for the only time Hodge got the the attention his record merits was at the 1979 Marathon, where he finished third amid perhaps the strongest field ever assembled for the race. As one might expect, the first of the classic Rodgers-Seko duels got all the ink (including from this reporter sad to say) as Rodgers won with a marathon record time of 2:09:27 (which Seko broke last year by a second). But among aficionados, Hodge’s marathon was the prime subject of post race analysis.

2:12:30 is going to win most marathons, but it wasn’t the time that surprised people. As Hodge himself has observed, "When you finish third in a record time marathon, well, I looked up at the timer when I hit the finish line and it was really strange, I thought at first that I should have run faster." Since his previous best had been 2:28, at the 1977 Marathon, he was probably the only guy in Boston who thought so.

Bob had been given bib number 1066, a token of esteem that doesn’t even ensure you won’t be trampled by the milling thousands behind you. Still Hodge "thought I was fit, and I figured maybe I could run 2:15. It was a perfect day, with the cool weather and as I started to run, everything just flowed really well. I was surprised, sure but not flabbergasted."

Even now three years later Hodge is ambivalent about the race where he first came into public view. "It’s a tough race to point for because it’s a strange time of year, because of the weather. And it’s kind of unreal with all the public attention focused from this area. If you are from here and a distance runner, it’s almost impossible to avoid it."

Hodge is a low key individual, careful to be precise in any public statement, but his comments on Boston weather came straight from the heart. He is a typical marathoner. His idea of good weather is the kind that makes any non-runner stay indoors. In that regard the 1979 Marathon was delightfully miserable. To this day observers cannot figure how the mayor and the governor avoided pneumonia, since both went the Bowie Kuhn route and shunned topcoat and umbrella. Hodge recollects it as a "perfect day," but then, he also admits to "keeping my house no warmer than 50 degrees. When people come over to visit in the winter, they usually keep their hats on."

Interestingly, Hodge is one GBTC alumnus who credits team spirit for his and his mates successes. "From 1975 through 1979," he recalls, "pretty much anytime one of us had a good performance the rest of us said we could do that. After all, we all trained with the guys, I mean all of us-Randy, Vin Fleming, Bill,Scotty Graham, Dan Dillon, everyone. In 1977 I went cross country on an expedition, and I kept on hearing in different places about what the Boston guys were doing in different races. It kept me running, kept up my dedication.

Such sentiments are usually voiced by graduates of the North Carolina basketball program, but for Hodge, as for almost all Boston guys, it rings true. The comments about how he enjoyed meeting his fellow alumni were volunteered to this reporter, before I’d even thought of an opening question. In fact Hodge sounds a little more than wistful when discussing what used to be. "There definitely was a spirit in Boston in the 70’s," he said. "I mean, in the 40’s 50’s, 60s once you got out of college, you got married, got a job and stopped running."

"I’ve been reading Clarence DeMar’s autobiograhy. He was an outstanding athlete and he was viewed as being really "out to lunch." Society has changed, you know. That’s how the GBTC guy’s got together, so they could keep competing after college. You go through college and everything is handed to you-the gym, the pool, the trainer’s room-and all of a sudden you are out and you’re support apparatus disappears. Now the shoe companies are helping athletes keep running." (he’s right. He is also employed in the advertising and promotion department of the New Balance Shoe Company.)

"Think about it. Look at the winners of the marathon in the 50’s and 60’s. They were unemployed, or teachers or whatever, but they had the kinds of jobs which allowed them to run. Not many have any idea of what effort that means."

Marathoning is no longer a three event per year sport, which is why Hodge is the only Boston guy who decided definitely to head for Boston back in the dead of winter. "It’s not the only one now," he noted. But for a native New Englander, it’s still important enough that , "I’ll take a chance to run Boston. I’m running a risk this year. I ran Beppu and I’ll do Boston, but that’s wrong. I should just have pointed for one."

Of Course the reporter must point out that Hodgie said this in March, having won Beppu the previous month. He was dealing from a position of strength.

Kindly but firmly, Hodge informed his interviewer that Beppu had been an ideal situation, "except for all the interviews. It was covered more than Boston is, especially by television. We were on every day, one interview show after another, and the morning of the race, they filmed the American runners eating their breakfast...Except for that it was pretty relaxing, I was pretty confident, Randy was with me, and we would go for runs together. Beppu is famous for hot spring baths, so we’d run then take the baths.

"The overwhelming thing was the wind. It was windy every day on the course, and I knew there would be a tail wind on the way out. That’s bad, because you go out and you develop a false feeling that you are doing well. When I got to the 10k split it was four seconds faster than I had run for 10k at a race in Florida four weeks before, I felt very confident. At the end it was phenomenal to be in the lead breaking the tape with the crowds going crazy."

It was suggested to Hodge that such a victory might install him as one of the pre-Boston favorites. He probably correctly, doesn’t think marathons have favorites. "It (being favored) doesn’t bother me. Certain people are not too informed. A guy’s best might be 2:15, and nobody is aware of him, but he could come in here in great shape , thinking he can beat anyone who ran a marathon two months before, like me. It’s fun to predict a marathon, but it has no validity, really."

"Iwas interviewed by the press after Beppu, and of course I was really out to lunch, and afterwards they had my comments down as saying that I knew after all was said and done that I would be victorious. Everyone who saw the race must have thought, that cocky bastard. Leave that for Muhammed Ali"

Team spirit dies hard. Hodge hastened to assure this reporter, who knew he meant nothing of the sort, that his remarks were not a slap at Alberto Salazar. "I find it incredible when Alberto predicts a world record. What if it was hot? There are so many things that can go wrong in a marathon."

Actually there are those who would say that Hodge is at his best when a race has factors that no one could consider. After his 79 Marathon, he won the Bay to Breakers race in San Francisco, a modest affair with a mere 20,000 official entrants. "It was total chaos," Hodge remembers, "I wouldn’t consider it now but it was fun to go to California and race. When it started about 100 people jumped in in the first mile. I spent that weaving through all of these people. You did not know whether the guy in front of you was official or some phony. Then I got my expenses paid to a sister race in Australia, City to Surf, and it was exactly the same, chaos." In those two races alone, Hodge placed ahead of roughly 39,000 people.

Appropriately enough, the only race Hodge brought up on his own in a 90 minute interview was one the average fan has never heard of- the 1979 National Cross Country Championships in Raleigh, North Carolina. "We (the GBTC) had tried for five years to win the team championship, and that is when we finally did. We had Alberto, Greg Meyer, myself, Bruce Bickford, Dan Dillon, Randy Thomas. We finished one, three, four, five, twelve, which is the lowest score ever recorded in the meet history. Our sixth man finished 25^th. That fall we had trained together, we really wanted it. It is rare to find that kind of team effort once guys get out of college.

Maybe so, but team efforts are a result of individual efforts, Hodge said that "after that race we broke up and went our different ways." This reporter disagrees. Whatever befalls Hodge, or Salazar, or Rodgers, or any of the others from that unique band, the running world is likely to regard their doings as a continuing part of the famous Boston guys. I know I will, but then I’m from here.

This article appeared in the "Official 1982 BAA Boston Marathon Souvenir Magazine.