Sometimes, Rob Knight’s passion to win hurts his jaw.
Take that marathon in Burlington, Vt., last May, for example. Knight checked his metaphorical rearview mirror, a turn of the head, searching for a rival he simply had to beat. He checked and checked and checked some more.
Where was that hotshot runner from Massachusetts who regularly had beaten Knight in so many New England 5-kilometer events? Was he gaining ground?
“I was hanging on because I wanted to beat this guy,” said the 71-year-old Hopkinton resident, who will compete today in his ninth Boston Marathon. “I looked at the race photos and in every one I was clenching my jaw, struggling. So I did it for two hours trying to finish the race.”
He beat his rival that day. He also ended up with damage to his temporomandibular joint, which, in this case, translated into a clicking sound for three months, every time Knight ate. It hurt with every chew.
It’s a reflection of a man who has no business looking like he does, tall, dark, handsome, 50-something. He also has no business running sub-23-minute 5k races, nor should he be shooting for a sub-four-hour time today.
Not at 71 years old.
“I take care of myself and train a lot,” Knight said.
He says this competitiveness, this fire, is part of his DNA, in all areas of his life. He says he’s a perfectionist, which kept him late in the office when he worked at Yankee Barn Homes in Grantham for 25 years. He’s that way with the Five Rivers Conservation Trust, doing farmland conservation projects.
In college and beyond he ran for fun, to stay in shape, but things changed in his late 40s. “I was astonished how fast real runners could run,” Knight said.
Now Knight runs fast, routinely winning local races in his age division the past 20 years. He ran Boston for the first time in 1990, and continuously finished in about 3 hours and 30 minutes through his 50s.
He’s a member of the Granite State Racing Team, founded by Bob Teschek, the godfather of road racing around here.
Teschek retired as team coach and spends winters in Arizona these days, but he was plugged in enough to email me this column idea. Knight, Teschek says, “inspires me with his racing. He’s a year or more older than me and tearing up the 70-plus group. You probably have followed him a bit as he races a lot in the area.”
Last year was a good one for Knight. He won his age group in the New England Grand Prix, a series of seven races sponsored by USA Track and Field.
He runs on trails a lot and runs with his dog Cooper, a ciao/retriever mix. He ran a 22:49 last spring in a Concord 5k. He’s been training 25 to 30 miles a week, preparing for today, pushing himself to finish in under four hours and make some noise in the 70-plus group.
That’s what Knight does. He pushes. His wife, Audrey, put it this way in an email: “Everyone thinks he’s so calm and low key, but he’s actually quietly strategizing on how he can improve. He’s not terribly bad about being competitive with those of us in the family, although he does like to hide the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle so that he can put in the final piece.”
Added Knight, “You might think I run to win or beat other people, and I love winning, but I want to see how well I can run the race. It’s partly physical, but mostly mental. If you think you can do it, you can do well. If there’s a little bit of doubt that slips into your mind, you won’t hang on.”
In the Burlington race last May, Knight’s lone marathon since turning 70, his focus burned hard on beating a man named Rick Stetson, one of the best senior runners in New England.
New England Grand Prix runners were grouped up front, near speedsters who run a 7:30 pace, and that sucked Knight and Stetson into the flow, at a pace they were not comfortable with.
“A dumb beginner’s mistake,” Knight said. “I kept looking at my watch and thinking, ‘oh, man, I have to slow down.’ By the time I slowed down, it was a disaster, it was too late. It was warmer the second half of the race and I was getting cramps.”
Still, he beat Stetson by more than 50 minutes, finishing in 4:04:09. He wants to average 9:15 per mile today, which would put him a shade under four hours. There are no guarantees, though, that a competitor like Knight won’t move outside his boundaries, then suffer later.
His jaw is proof of that.
“If I see an older woman or a guy with a limp ahead of me, as a competitive guy, that kills me,” Knight said. “I’ll want to pick it up, but I’ll have to let it go.”
(Ray Duckler can be reached at 369-3304 or rduckler@cmonitor.com.)