ADAM GOUCHER - Can't Get No Satisfaction by Marc Bloom
It's an invigorating March morning in Boulder, Colorado as clouds give way to sun over the Flatiron hills west of town. Perfect day to run. But Adam Goucher, lugging a portable ultrasound machine, limps into the office of his massage therapist. Goucher, 25, is antsy. His left Achilles tendon hurts and he's missed training. It's only 206 days till the men's Olympic 5,000-meter final in Sydney in late September and Goucher, a potential medalist, feels he's losing precious ground to the favorites from Kenya, Ethiopia and Morocco.
Goucher, who has become America's best distance runner, concedes nothing to the Africans. Last summer, he dethroned Bob Kennedy to win the U.S. 5,000 title, improved his best time to 13:11.25 in Zurich and made the World Championship final in Seville. This season, he's intensified his training and is fitter than ever. His easy days are 15 miles at 5:40 pace, wind sprints, bounding drills up 315 steps of a football stadium and 90 minutes of weight training. On a weekend in February, he swept the U.S. 12k and 4k cross-country titles barely breaking a sweat.
But Goucher's mad at himself. His Olympic clock is ticking. The injury takes him out of the world cross-country meet in Portugal later in March. "I'm missing the chance to race the top guys in the world in the Olympic year," he says pointedly. "Guys who I intend on beating in the Olympic final. I want them to think, 'Who's this white American, what he's doing running so fast? I want to get into their heads, make them realize I'm going to be a factor in the 5,000."
No American has medaled in the Olympic 5,000 since Bob Schul won the gold and Bill Dellinger the bronze in 1964. Kennedy, the American recordholder (12:58.21), courageously carried the U.S. men's distance banner through the '90s, taking 6th in the Atlanta Games of 1996. Kennedy turns 30 in August and is moving to the 10,000. Goucher, showing the charisma of Steve Prefontaine and the willfulness of Frank Shorter, is the American distanceman of the moment.
Especially if Al Kupczak, therapist to Boulder's running elite, can work his mastery. "He can tell things with his fingers you can't see in an MRI," marvels Goucher's coach, Mark Wetmore, of the University of Colorado.
Kupczak greets Goucher with tenderness and a quick wit. His massage table is for both physical and emotional healing. Kupczak was once Michael Johnson's personal therapist. If he could keep Johnson's thundering hamstrings loose, a skinny 5,000 guy's Achilles tendon should be a breeze.
As Goucher lays his leopard-like, 5'9 1/2", 140-pound body face-down on the table, Kupczak says, "One day, you'll come in with your leg hanging off and plead, 'Sew it back on, I have to run.'" Goucher accepts the jabs. He knows he's done wrong. He knows that 11 days ago he blew it when he ripped off 20 quarters as part of a 90-mile week. He knows that after nursing his way through a knee injury that forced him to go easy for two weeks and slash his mileage from 110 a week to a mere 25, he should have come back gradually.
"But if you feel good," Goucher begs, "What should you do?"
Kupczak's heard it all and won't buy it. "Youthful indiscretion," he counters.
The kid even fooled the coach, probably for the last time. "I have to learn to have a certain disbelief when Adam tells me he's fine," says Wetmore.
When Goucher's tendon rebelled, he took a few days off, then ran on it despite continuing pain. He tried running in a pool for an hour but, even without a flotation belt, could not get his heart rate to rise, got bored and quit.
"Aaaaagggghhhh!" Goucher moans as Kupczak digs into his foot.
Kupczak then applies ultrasound, a form of heat, with an anti-inflammatory cream. "It's not very irritated, just a little swollen," assesses Kupczak. "But Achilles are funny, there's so little blood flow to the area."
Framed running posters decorate Kupczak's walls. There's a photo of Goucher winning the 1998 NCAA cross-country, his fourth collegiate title, before he was graduated from Colorado, turned professional and signed a six-year sponsorship agreement with Fila. For that race, Kupczak repaired Goucher's stinging glutes.
"After that," says Adam, "Al became God. I started worshipping him."
What we have here is the God of Boulder Healing nursing the God of Boulder Running. One is the angel of mercy, the other a merciless competitor who has trouble with the natural order, or disorder, of the universe.
"When my knee started acting up, I was furious," says Goucher. "Now the Achilles. Whoooaaa--what's going on? This is ridiculous! This is unacceptable! I've worked too hard for this to happen. I'm angry at my body for not holding up."
The session's over and Goucher awaits Kupczak's prescription. Goucher sports a fresh haircut with a Bill Haley curl in the front that gives him a mischievous look. In an old University media guide, Goucher's the only athlete with a guileful, menacing grin. It's not the grin of a prankster but of a young man empowered by a rare talent who knows he can beat you.
But he can't win if he can't do his quarters and his Sunday 20-miler at 5:35 pace in Boulder's mile-high altitude. A doctor and the college trainer have both told Goucher he should put his injured foot in an orthopedic boot, which works as a temporary cast. He'd rather you pull off his fingernails.
Goucher collects the ultrasound contraption and Kupczak tells him how to survive the next week or two: "Strengthening exercises, ultrasound, massage, ice, cross-training and--I hate saying this--no running for now. You'll get better."
Goucher walks away, stops and calls back to Kupczak. "Does that mean I can't run?"
Goucher grew up in Colorado Springs and began running seriously as a high school sophomore. First, he did every other sport including archery. Each time, he had to get in over his head, take risks, do the utmost. At one point, he flew sailplanes, which is like hang gliding while piloting a small plane. "I soloed before I even had my driver's license," he says proudly over lunch in a Chinese restaurant.
In junior high football, where the teams were set up by weight, Adam was a scrawny 125 pounds but insisted that his mother call the league and push him in with the heavyweights. "I was a receiver and took some beatings," he recalls. "One time I got hit by a 210-pound guy, the heaviest in the league. He demolished me. I was laying on the ground, still. But I got the first down."
The coach told him he'd never seen anyone take a hit that hard. But at least that pain went away. Adam felt a deeper, sustaining anguish from his father, whose job in the horse racing industry took him away for months at a time. "He wasn't around like my friends' dads, and I always strived to get his attention," says Goucher, visibly saddened. "That's why I did so much, and I still do."
Goucher's parents divorced when he was 11. With two older sisters, Adam became the man of the house, acquired a sense of duty and a compassion for others. "I want to be the best at what I do, and I want to be a good person," he says.
Adam interrupts his meal to phone a friend, Julia Stamps, a heralded runner at Stanford. Her running is up and down and Adam counsels her. He also worries about a former girlfriend on the Colorado team. Recently he broke off the year-long relationship and is concerned how she's taking it.
Goucher wants to do better than his father. "My dad never saw me run in high school until my last cross-country race my senior year," he says. "And before that in junior high, in running or other sports, no, he wasn't there."
When Goucher discovered his running talent at Cardinal Dougherty High School, where he was senior class president, he learned hard work could fill an emotional void. He marshaled his bitterness into the warring, fearless racing style that makes him an Olympic contender today. As a junior in the 1992 Foot Locker cross-country nationals, he boldly gapped the opposition midway, daring the big shots to catch him. They ate him up and he slid back to 15th. But in a vengeful race the next year, Goucher crushed the field with glee for the title.
"There's something about controlling a race, chewing up an opponent," says Goucher in a measured, respectful voice. "Let's get down and dirty, let's fight it out. It's raw, animalistic, no one to rely on but yourself. There's no better feeling than that."
Goucher's craving is unmistakable every time he competes. At the Worlds last August, he finished his 5,000 heat jostling Kenya's Daniel Komen, the former world recordholder. In the Millrose Games 3,000 in February, he berated himself for not holding off Kenya's Paul Bitok, 2-time Olympic 5,000 silver medalist, who sprinted the final turn to victory. At the next week's cross-country nationals in Greensboro, North Carolina, he dismissed his double-win as too easy. "Just two runs," he said. "But I like being in control."
Everyone who knows Goucher is awed by him. Wetmore says Goucher can go deeper into oxygen debt than any runner he's ever seen. Shorter, the elder statesman of Boulder running, compares Goucher to '84 Olympic champion Said Aouita, who would never give an inch on the track, and has said it never occurs to Goucher that he won't win.
Goucher's closest friend, Tim Catalano, a former Colorado teammate whom he shares a house with outside town, has seen that assumption up close. Before Goucher's first NCAA victory, the indoor 3,000 in 1997, their conversation went like this:
Tim: "How do you think you'll do?"
Adam: "I'm going to win."
Tim: "What's your strategy?"
Adam: "I'm going to take the lead...and not let anybody pass me."
Tim: "That's a strategy?"
Adam: "Yeah, nobody will pass me."
After lunch, Goucher wishes it would rain. Every injured runner does. With fitness activity all around, Boulder is a bad place to be when you're hurt. Walk the Pearl Street Mall, the hub of town, any you'll see runners and bicyclists criss-crossing at almost any hour. Goucher tries not to notice. Boulder also has excellent sports medicine care, and Goucher takes his Chevy Blazer to the University to meet with trainer Kelli Lolito and deal with the Boot Question.
Adam tells Kelli he's been running through pain to test the foot. She tells him if he keeps testing it, the foot won't heal. "God should not have put Achilles tendons in our bodies," she says. But Kelli's optimistic because the injury's been caught early.
Kelli treats the foot with iontophoresis, a form of muscle stimulation with anti-inflammatory cream. When she brings up the boot, Adam hangs his head like a sad puppy. With Adam out of earshot, Kelli says sympathetically, "It's an Olympic year. Adam's got goals." They agree to wait on the boot till Wetmore chips in with his opinion.
Wetmore and his assistant, Jason Drake, gather with the men's and women's squads at the university's indoor track. Goucher volunteers his time as an unpaid assistant. It's a dim, drafty fieldhouse used by the team for plyometric drills. Goucher also does these leaping, strength-building movements but not today. Wetmore, a man of few words and a practiced distrust, says Adam's usually a "three-day healer," so now an extreme measure might be necessary. The dreaded boot.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, a woman from USA Track & Field turns up to give Goucher an unannounced drug test in accordance with national policy. Accompanied by her male aide, Goucher takes an official USATF cup into the bathroom to provide a urine sample. "I hope you're testing the sprinters, too," he calls out.
Nothing turns Goucher's stomach more than a cheater. Many people believe that the rush of fast distance performances worldwide is a result, in part, of drug use. Goucher takes pride in telling how last June a European steeplechaser who'd come off a drug suspension and wound up in the world championship final showed up at the Colorado track and asked to train with him. "I looked him in the eye," says Goucher, "and told him, 'Druggies not invited.'"
Wetmore is concerned that when Goucher's times drop under 13 minutes, he'll be held suspect by the rumor mill. Goucher is concerned that no matter how much he improves--"I intend on running very fast"--cheaters will prevail. "You know what hurts the most?" he offers. "If you're not honest, it destroys my faith in humanity."
Goucher's faith has also been shaken by a nasty break with his agent, Brad Hunt, of Gold Medal Management (GMM), based in Boulder. Last fall, Goucher left Hunt, whose clients include Michael Johnson, after nine months of a two-year agreement. Goucher contends that Hunt's group did not take care of travel arrangements and other services for him. Seeking to recover lost revenue, GMM filed a breach-of-contract lawsuit against Goucher, who's filed a countersuit, claiming damages.
Like Prefontaine fighting the AAU in the '70s, Goucher has stood his ground before in a risky confrontation. As a Colorado sophomore in 1995, Goucher threatened to leave school if Wetmore, then an assistant, was not named head coach after the previous coach resigned. Goucher was in the face of the athletic director and his action mobilized support for Wetmore.
Goucher's toughness surprised people at last summer's Zurich's 5,000, which had a field worthy of an Olympic final. Goucher had the slowest times of any runner and the meet director was worried that he'd get lapped and embarrass him. "Am I in over my head?" Goucher asked Wetmore. "Yes," said the coach. Goucher proceeded to place 10th, defeating half the field with his 13:11, a PR by 14 seconds.
"An honorable time," Goucher calls it. "I think I gained some respect."
He certainly did from Wetmore. "Hemingway's definition of courage--grace under fire. That's what Adam has," says Wetmore. "He is not beyond fear. What he is beyond is failing in the face of fear."
Goucher needs this quality when he returns to the trainer's office, takes a deep breath, and is fitted with the orthopedic boot. "It's an attractive look," deadpans Lolito.
That evening at home, Goucher hobbles around the kitchen preparing a steak dinner with Catalano, 28, a high school teacher and track coach. They share a four-bedroom house in a suburban development, and the same values of priestly virtue. Goucher likes to cook and his mashed potatoes have to be perfect, too. To relax, Adam plays the drums. Tim plays guitar and they have a little studio in their basement. "Serious jammin'" says Goucher. "I can get out my aggression."
Usually, Goucher does that on the track, with workouts like ten 500s in 76 seconds with a 35-second rest between runs. People tell him he should train with the Kenyans like Kennedy has, but Goucher runs mostly alone. "If you're tough enough," he says, "you can push yourself."
Goucher is wary of close relationships. As a college junior, he was engaged to a girl he'd known from high school. He broke it off in the fall of '98 and soon after suffered another loss when a teammate and dear friend, Chris Severy, was killed in a bicycling accident in Boulder. "When I got the call from Mark, my heart stopped," says Goucher, his eyes moistening.
In his heart, Goucher searches for a more perfect world--a world he can try and control through running. Even there, fulfillment is elusive. "Adam once said to me, "I don't know if I'm ever completely satisfied with anything. Any race, any workout...'" says Wetmore. Adam agrees. "I'm hard to satisfy. That makes me a good runner, but it worries me in my personal life. Maybe I'll never find the right mate."
Too many worries in an Olympic year.
Postscript: Goucher did find a mate, Buffaloes' runner Kara Wheeler, and they are married and now living in Portland, Oregon, with Alberto Salazar as their coach. However, Goucher has suffered a number of injuries in recent years and fallen behind otherAmericans.
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