Runner and Writer George Sheehan

It's the birthday of runner and writer George Sheehan (books by this author), born in Brooklyn, New York (1918). He was raised in a Catholic family, the oldest of 14 children. He went to Manhattan College, where he was a track star. In those days, no one ran for recreation, so it was expected that he would quit as soon as college was over. He did, and for many years focused on his medical career. But then he hit a midlife slump. He was a successful, well-known doctor, but even though his family lived in a mansion and appeared happy and prosperous, Sheehan was constantly anxious about his ability to support his wife and 12 children. He started drinking. He said: "I was in middle-age melancholia. I had to pull the emergency cord and get off the train. Before I ran, I was getting bombed every weekend. I didn't smoke because I was too cheap."

One night, he got a middle-of-the-night call from a patient who wanted Sheehan to come over right away. Sheehan thought his patient was being overly dramatic, and he was so frustrated that he punched a hole in the wall and broke his hand. After that, he realized that something had to change in his life. He started reading all the great philosophers, and he was particularly inspired by Irenaeus, who said that the glory of God was man fully alive. Sheehan decided that he would go back to running.

Since no one ran in public, Sheehan started out running in circles around his backyard — it took 26 trips around the yard to go one mile. Finally, he started running on the roads, in a ski mask and long johns. When Sheehan started running again, he was 45 years old. Five years later, he set a world record for his age group with a mile of 4 minutes and 47 seconds. He ran 50 marathons, including 21 consecutive Boston Marathons. His local newspaper, the Red Bank Register, offered to send Sheehan to the Olympics in Mexico City so that he could report on it. They liked his piece, and asked if he would write a weekly column about running. He said yes, and it was picked up by Runner's World magazine, and he continued the column for 25 years.

When Sheehan started running again in the mid-1960s, amateur running was pretty much unheard of. By the late 1970s, 30 million Americans were running for recreation.

Sheehan wrote many books, including Dr. Sheehan on Running (1975), Running and Being (1978), and Personal Best (1989). Sheehan struggled with cancer in the final years of his life, and his final book, Going the Distance (1996), was about the experience of dying and was published after his death.
-Writer's Almanac