Merry Cushing of Amherst insists she was never a fast runner. Many of the women she beat in races would argue that point, but as a runner Merry was definitely more serious. If, like Merry, you could break three hours for a marathon and you placed first in the masters (over 40) division of road races, and if shoe companies sent you free samples so you’d wear their brand, you were a serious runner, no matter how fast you say you weren’t.
Merry’s athletic career began at UMass — as a member of the synchronized swimming team. She started running after she discovered cross-country skiing and quickly figured she needed to run in order to be in shape when the snow fell.
In shape? She ran the Boston Marathon four times, finishing fifth in the women’s field in 1975, in a time of 2 hours 56 minutes 57 seconds. Not fast? I know a large number of serious marathoners who wish they could run a 2:56:57.
“I wasn’t fast,” she claimed this week, “but I was a pioneer.” She ran 10 miles a day five days a week, then 15 or 20 on Saturdays and Sundays. As one of the first members of the Sugarloaf Mt. Athletic Club, she was in the vanguard of the movement into women’s full-out hardcore competition.
A “Chronicles” profile of Merry last spring on Boston’s Channel 5 showed Merry hiking through the woods on the Holyoke Range. She would probably still be running, except that in her 40s she developed a carotid artery dissection and her doctor recommended no more running. So she walks, briskly and happily. Her exercise advice to others: “Do something you enjoy doing.”
Now 87 and retired from many years from the UMass Office of Information Technology, Merry is one of eight people who’ll be inducted to the Western Massachusetts Runners Hall of Fame on Friday, March 6th at a celebratory dinner in Holyoke. And you’re invited.
Another inductee is Peter Gagarin of Sunderland, the only person I know whose picture has been on Wheaties boxes. In 1983 Wheaties recognized Peter for his successes in orienteering, the sport where you run with a map and compass through woods, mountains, mud, etc. to find a series of checkpoints. Peter won the U.S. national championship five times, and he once won the masters world championship — in Europe, where the sport is much more developed.
He also finished fourth in the Leadville (Colorado) 100-mile trail race. I’ve run in Leadville, sort of. I can jog there for one mile, then rest and try to breathe, then jog another mile, maybe a third, and that’s enough. Once he finished second in the Barkleys Marathons, an absurdly long and difficult race through near-wilderness in East Tennessee.
As for the Wheaties boxes, Peter was selected by the cereal company for a series on champions in unusual sports. At the photo-shoot in Los Angeles he had dinner with some well-known athletes who had served as judges, including Henry Aaron, Roy Campanella, Sam Snead, Mary Lou Retton and Olympic pole vault gold medalist Bob Richards. Peter recalls that Richards said to him, “I know what orienteering is. It’s where you run across mountains and eat lizards.”
The other new members of the Western Mass. Running Hall of Fame are former Granby High School and UMass track star Paul Beaulieu, who set a UMass record for the mile (4:04) and won three Yankee Conference titles for the indoor mile and for 1500 meters outdoors; veteran coaches Daniel “Rudy” Lengieza (Holyoke Catholic) and Paul Whitlock (Classical High School); Cindy Sturm Menard, a western Mass. high school track and cross-country champion and, at Westfield State, winner of the 1982 Division III national cross-country and 3000-meter championships; Kent Lemme, who has won the Mohawk-Hudson Marathon (in 2:32:15), the masters indoor mile at the New Balance Grand Prix meet (4:25), and, seven times, the ironman division of the Josh Billings Triathlon; and Nat Larson of Amherst, whose resume includes a spectacular list of American records for men over 60 at distances from 3000 meters to the half-marathon.
They’ll be inducted into the Hall of Fame at the Elks Club, 250 Whitney Avenue in Holyoke. The $30 ticket price for the dinner and entertaining speeches is well worth it (and cheaper than entry fees at a lot of races these days). Bill Wells, former sportswriter for The Springfield Republican and longtime supporter of running in Western Massachusetts, is the guest speaker. Information: WesternMassRunnersHallofFame.com. Tickets: https://www.runreg.com/13287.