During his heyday, Bill Rodgers emphatically stated, "No runner working 9 to 5 can beat me," attesting to the fact that training for elite distance competition had become a full-time job in itself.
Three decades later, Max King isn’t quite beating the big boys, but he’s coming pretty close, in spite of holding a demanding job as a chemical engineer at a pharmaceutical company in Bend, Oregon. Following a year-long post-collegiate running hiatus while he got his bearings in the working world, the Cornell grad realized he missed competing, and began dipping his toe back into the racing arena in triathlons and adventure races.
He then took a shot at the USATF Club Nationals that were scheduled for nearby Portland in the fall of 2004, and in spite of only doing a few hard workouts with a high school team, placed tenth. "It was kind of any eye-opener," he says. "I beat a lot of guys who had beaten me in college." Encouraged, he upped his mileage to 70 miles a week, and at the individual U.S. cross country meet in neighboring Vancouver, Washington, placed 12th in the 12K and 11th in the 4K. Wanting to resume his track steeplechase career, he qualified for nationals at the Oregon Invite, then placed fifth at the championships in 8:33.06, a seven second PR.
This spring, after a winter where he ramped up his mileage to 100 a week, King placed third in the U.S. half marathon championships in Houston, then followed that up with a breakthrough race at the U.S. cross country championships at Van Cortlandt Park in New York, where he had raced often during his collegiate career. In the 12K, which was run in frigid conditions, King stood out from his more heavily dressed competitors by racing in only a singlet and shorts. "I’m usually a wimp when it comes to the cold, but I felt comfortable on the starting line dressed that way," he recalls. "Once we got going, I noticed it a lot more."King hung right with the favorites through four laps, then passed a struggling Dathan Ritzenheim to place third.
That earned him a ticket to the World Cross meet in Japan in late March. "I’d heard that race goes out screaming fast, but actually, because of the wind, it was the opposite, and I was right near the front. As soon as we turned out of the wind, though, those guys took off and I realized ‘These are some good runners.’ "
As a result of his success, King has worked out a deal with his boss that allows him to work more flexible hours and take extra time off for competition. "They’re not happy about it, but they’re supportive," he says. "I’ll try it out for six months and see what happens." His goal this summer is to lower his PRs in several track events. "Since it’s a non-championship year, I’ll kind of play around with different races." A repeat trip to World Cross and a spot on the World Track Championship team are ‘07 goals—ones he’ll continue to fit around an almost full-time job, Bill Rodgers notwithstanding.
