Our series on the "Run For The Hoses" celebration events continue from the City Side in Cleveland Circle

Hey runners, you listeners, this is the final 50th anniversary of the run for the poses celebration

at the city side in Cleveland Circle. This will be the first of two episodes recorded that night

with conversations with former president of the Greater Boston Track Club and race director

of the Freedom Trail Rail Race. Someone with an unbelievable passion for endurance sports,

Don Callahan, and next grant will catch up with one of the former owners of the Elliott Lounge

and King of the Barroom banter, Mike King, and lastly a conversation with Dan Shawnessy,

legendary sports writer for the globe who has a multifaceted relationship with Jack and his wife,

Jan, through the marathon and the Dana Farber Institute. Good evening everybody, it is Friday.

What's the date, Don? Friday, I didn't want to say it. We are here at city side,

Tavern, literally at mile, 21 and a half, 22 and I'm with Don Callahan. Now Don's got an illustrious

Boston career, Boston area career, former president of the Greater Boston Track Club,

former race director of the Freedom Trail. Now remind me how long the Freedom Trail

will wait. Eight miles. Eight miles. One of those non-traditional distances.

That's right. The 99 intersections we had to cover in Boston. 99 intersections. Well that's worse

than the marathon, I think it's where it's at. But we're here in the final installment of

celebrating the 50th anniversary of the run from the Hoses, or the Hoses, excuse me.

Here at city side, in a very significant moment when, as rumor has it, Jack started to cramp

and route to victory. He was in the lead, he came off the hills, and now we had this question

of mine over a matter. But that's not why I wanted to talk to you right now, Don.

I wanted to, as I understand it, you and I both have a Boston under our belts.

And we did it for a dear friend. We did it as a fundraiser. So we were part of that next iteration

of the Boston. Tell me how you got involved with that and tell me about that one for a.

Well I will tell you that, but the first marathon I ever watched was Boston

in 1955, which dates me, but my family, my family would take us every year. My mother would cut

up oranges, and we would go to the Newton Hills in every year. So that's where I started falling in

love with the marathon. And you know, later ran like you did grants and not as fast as you

grants, but not the marathon. We were equal doing everything around Boston, and of course the

marathon was the pinnacle. And I ran three marathons before I ran Boston. And Boston has a

memory for me. We ran at the same year crack because we ran it as a fundraiser for our dear friend

Scott Carlson for ALS. And it was the first race in my life that I ran

non-competitively. I ran it just I didn't want to train for Boston ever because I didn't want to

run through the winter. I hated the guy. So I ran it for and when I got to the first hill just

after the fire station, it started to hurt. And I trained with our good friend Tommy Ratcliffe

and Jack. They were the ones who told me when on Christmas Day, we went out for a run. And I said

to the tutor and I said, can I do this? Because I really competitive. I was like, can I do this

just to do it? Oh, it never. Oh, of course. So I got to 80. I got to just after the fire station

up the first hill where the first pain and it hit me and I'm like, what's this? It's like this

isn't supposed to hurt. I'm just running slow for charity. And Grant, it was the most painful

run of my life because I wasn't competitive. It's just so that I and I spiral downhill. And I got

to just outside here at Cityside. Yeah. I was falling apart and a spectator was opening a big

bottle of Coca-Cola and I went up to him and I went, can I have that? And he was like giving it to

me like it was a drugless guy needs it. And I just, you know, shuffled my way into the finish line.

Now that's marvelous for me. So Jack, can you say in some way, say, perform the Jack kind of coach

yeah in a negative way because he said you can do this and it's like it was a very, it was just

a completely different experience because it's like this isn't supposed to hurt. I'm just doing

this for charity. So now let me ask you this because I ran it twice for ALS. Was this the really,

really cold air where everything was bitterly cold? Oh, yeah. Yeah, okay, it's the first one. Yeah,

I borrowed a fleece jacket from someone in Brookline and put it all, you know, a fleece jacket.

You know, Grant, we've run a lot of competitive races. Why are we putting a fleece jacket right?

But I did to get me to finish something because as you know, it gets cold. So it's so absolutely

that I was thinking if I, if my fingers weren't so frozen, I'd take the safety pin out of my

finger, if I'd stab my claws, hoping to get some blood flow, it was that bad. So let me ask you this,

50, do you have a memory at all of the runs for the Hoses? I don't. Okay, that's fine. I don't,

but I was there watching it. You were? Okay, because I only missed for many years, I only

missed one. Okay, watching it. I never wanted to run it because I didn't want to train it at all.

So let me, so now let's bring it back to Jack. Bring it back to the mandatine on power.

What prompted you today of all the days to come here? This is now the fourth or fifth of these

on the tour. And I don't believe, God, that we've seen you at any of the stops, not even Ashland made

a good answer for that, Chris, because the other previous ones were when they were in the winter.

And I was in Costa Rica and Florida, or I was the other one doing your heat training, I say.

Yeah, doing my, and getting out of the cold, which I hate. So this is the first, but Jack,

I mean, just the sweetest guy who could ever meet, just a wonderful guy, always around him.

But I'll say this, he is, he is a much better runner than he is a golfer. He's a terrible golfer.

But you'd only know that if you played with, well, that is something. That isn't it.

More? I think we're in, I think right now, John, this is a perfect vignette.

And I'm going to have one more thing. Okay. If Ron Gillily cuts me out and cuts off too much of

this, I'm going to go pay him a visit. I don't like the sound of that. That sounds kind of serious.

Very good. Thank you, Don Dellaan. All right. Here we are again, back at Cityside,

Mile 21, 21 and a half. We've all just come down the hill and we're rolling towards Boston.

I am joined right now by Mike King in a press area in a variety of different disciplines here.

Not only is he a film producer, he had co-owned for the longest time net, amazing,

a watering hole for runners, the Elliott Lounge. Now, in addition to that, Mike is married to

Karen Smiroff, world champion triathlete, and he himself is a veteran of multiple marathons.

So, help us, Mike, first understand how many solar marathons you've brought and how many of them

owe just in the context of an Iron Man, just to keep things honest. You know, I would say that I

have run three marathons, Chicago, New York and Boston, although I didn't finish the Boston.

So, those are the three marathons by themselves, but I probably run seven or eight marathons

in five or six of them being the Hawaiian Iron Man to be the late class Iron Man.

There we go. I know that course well. Yeah. So, you've been in this area ever since graduating

from Providence, way back in the day. Not true. No? Okay. No? Okay.

I know when I graduated from college, I came with an education degree. I came here,

I came back and, well, in the summer, I went down to the Hampton, so as a bartender,

and I met a couple of people there that said, if you ever want to go to New York City,

we'll get you a job, blah, blah, blah. I came back to get a, probably get a teaching job. I had

an education degree, but it was a very difficult year. It was getting jobs. So, after a while,

I friend called up and said he's moving to New York City, so I moved to New York City,

ended up who said, if you can't get a job, my brother-in-law can get maybe a bartender's job for you.

So, I was there for, you know, two or three months, had a couple of close calls and getting jobs

on the teaching side. No, no. You know, part of his Wall Street, where you guys, you know,

getting here a card via a suit and do it for your four interviews before you call me for an

interview, and I got a haircut, got a job, I had got a suit, but I never did any interviews, so

it was the first interview I had, and I totally put it in. So, but then I almost had another job

with muscular dystrophy, I think with Terry Lewis, whatever that, yep, yep, yeah, company, and then

after a long time sleeping, running out of money, I just had to get a job, so I took the cab driver's job,

okay, and with the gift sheets, pasted, like a Friday,

Thursday, I went to the cabbie's place, and they said, start tomorrow at four in the morning.

Oh, great. And I got home, and my roommate said, my brother-in-law said, this is a guy looking for a bartender

down the street. Okay, so I went down at him, and he said, can you start Monday?

So, I ended up driving a cab one day, just the, it cost $70 to get the cab lights up, right?

All right. So, I wanted to make the money back of doing that, so I drove a cab for one day,

then bartender, and then ended up meeting someone at the bar who makes TV commercials,

but I dropped there, then moved out to LA, so that's where the film stopped started.

Well, New York and Los Angeles, and then coming back here, my mother was sick, so I was here,

and while I was here, I had to put a movie I was working on with the idea of going back,

but while I was here, a friend of mine said they were buying this, thinking nothing about

the bar business, okay, and because I was in the movie business, it was like, what do you say?

I'm naturally a natural connection, right? Yeah. So, I knew something about the bartending

bar business, they asked me to help them start it up, okay? And after doing that for a bit, then they

said, do you want to become a partner? So, now what, what year roughly? That was like 1981, 1982.

So, that was one of the heydays, or back in the heyday, so tell me a little bit about the

connection with the Elliott, given its location, relative, especially on Marathon Day, because

it became the classic watering hole. Well, I knew nothing about that, and obviously the connection

was coming, and you know, he had all, you know, we had to build our edges of the world,

and coming in after Rodgers and what have you. So, I made a fun fact, as my father used to,

I don't know, he wouldn't come to Toronto, but he would be running in the 60s and done to make a

pond. I would come home and say, there's a long yet picky kid, that's supposed to be pretty good,

as he would go and know, and it was Bill Rodgers, so he was kind of a quote unquote friend of Rodgers.

Okay. So, yeah, Tommy, you know, and then, you know, just with the Elliott, the big days for running

were the races, like the Freedom Trail Race, Tony Bell Race, New Year's Day, there used to be a

way to run from the Elliott down to situate. Okay. And after a couple of years,

Charles Jones, who had the house on situate decided it was too much, so then we changed it from

the Nike store and what is he down to the Elliott? Yep. And then we have a big party after that run.

So, those are the, you know, I mean, part of the culture, really, which part of the,

right? Yeah. But having said that, you know, as someone said, you know, if you're going to

rely on runners to make a car business, you're going to go on there, right? So, it was great the

days of the running purpose, the majority of our business was, you know, locals, you know,

et cetera. 100%. Yeah. Now, it was, you would mention something off mic about free beer, give me

a context, if you want. So, I think there was a rule, I don't know who initiated it, but whoever

was the first marathon, a fisting marathon finisher who made it to the Elliott would get a free beer,

and John Grumman would invariably with that. We will note for the record that up to three co-hosts

of the runner's room in podcast, Grumman is conspicuous by his absence, but there he is, he gets

a mention. So, going back to the clientele, we're running clientele. Many names that, you know,

the big names that would come in there, you know, to see Tommy, you know, honestly, one, I think

the biggest one was Coach Bill Spire. Okay. You know, he would, you know, kind of think, you know,

there was a lot of runners that would come in. But, yeah, Bill was the most consistent.

And there was, you know, he was, yeah, I mean, as far as that's concerned, it would be Bill.

So, on non-running days, Bill would say a lot. Oh, he would still be there on non-running days.

Oh, yeah. He would be the best non-running day. Oh, okay. So, that's a footnote for sure.

Any good Coach Spire stories from Tommy or otherwise?

Well, I'm Ryan Goole, he tells me the story of your co-host. I think this is the story that he

was waxing co-edically about how he could stay and be drinking for many hours because he would

drink half a beer and then pour a light beer into it. That's right. And then I think Tommy let it

go. Coach, I'm always giving you full beers and so I think the coach was drunk and then he died.

Well, but he handled it well. Yeah. So, you know, we are here now. This is the final stop on this

50th anniversary tour. What brought you and Karen out tonight to come here?

Jack is a good friend of ours and Jack lives in Lincoln. And we missed the first

couple of them. Yeah. So, we wanted to give him a shout out to wish him a congratulatory 50th

anniversary. Yeah. Really? Well, Mike, thank you so much for joining us. This is going to be great.

And I can guarantee that Ronzo will not leave this on the editor of the tour.

Thanks so much. Thank you. Again, here we are at CitySight American Tabernacle. We really have

a special treat for our listeners. I'm joined by that esteemed writer from the Boston Globe

Dan Chonisee. Dan is ventured out tonight on a Friday of all nights to help celebrate Jack.

Dan, thank you very much for being here. Thank you. It's great to be here. So, I'd like some of

the other people that I've interviewed or talked to tonight that had a Elliott Lounge connection,

a Boston Marathon connection, a Freedom Trail connection. Yours is much more personal

and poignant, I believe, with Jack. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Well, there's actually

two. And obviously, the Jimmy Conn, Dana Farmer, is a bigger three, but the one that also connects

me is I was a young reporter in 1976 covering the marathon. I was hit the goal because of

the hard time of coming high schools and things like that. I was 22 and it was very privileged to

get out there. I was in one of the pace parts for the globe. They were doing radio reports back

through the building to get the who are the leaders who are competing with this in the world.

And there was a strong guy, Jack Wilson, who's confused about his name and who's this guy.

He's another runner and George Chan, obviously, he's really rough. And tonight I have a

scrapbook. I kept it on my clip to those days. I have the article on the sidebar guy,

and there was a theater on most of those days, right down by the finish line,

the church in the library, and it was the Paradise Theater. And the marquee that day was

Godday after him, which was the film of Al Pacino in 1976 made that horrible box robbery.

And all that thing. But the title struck me as interesting given how hot it was that day.

You know, we had reported it 101 down to 96, but it was boiling. And I talked to Jack for a

little bit about tonight, like something on Jack a lot of years. But that day, none of us knew Jack,

and who knew he'd become such a, of course, the community and the local efforts and he and Chan

what they've done. So, so I took a picture of the article and I, oh, that's me, Jack.

Is it on one of the banners? No, I just haven't my call. You got your pocket. Okay, let's go.

Jack's not even mentioned, because I was, I wasn't important enough to write about the leader.

So I was just going to sign cards about the heap. So it was that. But so yeah, I remember the day,

and it was 50 years ago, and it's a very fine memory in my career. And, and of course, Jack was

a teacher. But fast forward to where we are, you know, in 1992, I got a date,

was eight years old, diagnosed with leukemia, ALL, and, um,

in treatment. And, uh, we, we get, that, that's a total care. It's, it takes a

village care where you get a lot of support for all different groups. And, uh, we were,

unfortunately, to have the whole army of the Dana-Fargan team behind us on that. So,

this came to middle of our three children, and my younger son, who's here tonight, he's

38, nine years old now. Uh, and so he's seen people, he hasn't seen, like, three years ago.

Kate was, uh, hit throughout the first pitch. It's been my part, uh, in 1994, I think,

she was in treatment. And, uh, we run the marathon route down by ten more. And just years later,

when Jack and Jan got so involved with the running team, with a team of fund Dana-Fargan,

our family's involved. Kate's mother-in-law was a runner and wrote a grant for the Dana-Fargan

Community Fund. And so we were just really, and I'm seeing a few, I saw, this is Anne Fountain

here tonight, you know, a long time, uh, Dana-Fargan Community Fund employee, and, uh, seen

Jan and Jack, and just going over all the times. And really, the work they've done is

very inspiring. So I don't know how it, the family are all doing well. Thank you. Yeah, we

were very blessed. And again, because when your child has cancer, it's bad luck, but it's good

luck to be living six miles away from the rest of the world. We were. So that was a great blessing,

and it paid, uh, paid head two years of treatment. And, uh, you know, again, you're not going to

win. You never get too popular. She's now a runner of three boys. Well, I can't, like,

coaches off-wall coaches, volleyball, new board, high school, and the husband also features

and coaches at the same school. That's really good. So I want to give you a little,

in a spherical context here, it was 1990, the first time that Jack and Jan organized the

Dana-Fargan team. That first year, the inaugural challenge had 19 runners and they raised

$51,000. So it wasn't that long. Yeah. You know, so if you look, again, from more now from the right

into respect, if you again, you, you, you've covered the city, you, you understand it. What's your

sense of how the marathon has changed or now fits in the public zeitbites? Kind of. It's just so big,

and, you know, it's an international global, obviously, and, uh, there was a running room in 70s,

and, you know, go Rodgers and Trudy had the big way. Still had, still had won the race in 75.

Trudy won three more Boston's after that. It's four New York's and all that, so he was hard.

He still had a store, right? Right below the little sit here, uh, in the circle,

I've got a Rodgers branch. So, yeah, he was a local legend and one pro guy, and I know I,

I called. And so, but as you think about the bros of the marathon, from that civic engagement

perspective, what strikes you now? Let's say since 1990, how it's changed? Well, it's, it's, it's such a

large entity now. I remember when it didn't, it's pandemic was such a rare year to be quiet again,

but we're back running full force now, and, you know, it's, it's just a last year I went out for

the whole day, just walked the streets of Boston while it was going on. It's one of our great

annual events, you know, that's our supreme level of money, and the race here, and they come from all over

the world, the Air Force, came with people, granted the national flavor, which, I mean, you need

more of her out here, and we could spare, we just saw her on her day. So, Boston has that annually,

and it's a great, great event. Man, you're going to see Boston. Well, thank you so much for joining us

on this celebration of excellence. Much of life. As we wrap up today's episode, we want to give a

heartfelt thank you to Jack's wife, Jan Ross, for organizing the 50th anniversary of the run for

the Hoses events, reaching 50 years of tradition is something truly special, and that milestone

doesn't happen without people who care deeply enough to bring everyone together. So, from all of us

here at the podcast, and from everyone who appreciates what the run for the Hoses represents,

thank you, Jan, for keeping the spirit of this event alive and stronger than ever.