PROFILE--Norman Solomon has been running for 43 years

Norm Solomon

(8-18) Norm Solomon, former Dean of Fairfield University's Dolan School of Business, started running at 24. He has run 21 marathons since 2007 and is a big fan of New York Road Runner (NYRR) races where he has been a marathon charity runner with Team for Kids. His favorite marathons are New York City and Ottawa, Canada.

Started Running: 1975 at age 24 (I’m 66. B-day Oct 1951)

Why did you start running? I started running when I was in graduate school to relieve stress. I went to school in Wisconsin so running through those frigid winters really toughened me up (and gave me ice whiskers on some days!) After graduate school I stuck

PROFILE--Brian Salzberg has finished every Falmouth Road Race (45 in a row)

Brian Salzberg, mid-race

(8-18) Brian Salzberg is one tough runner dude--tough enough to have completed every Falmouth Road Race despite an agonizing list of injuries and surgeries (see below). A neuroscience professor at the University of Philadelphia, Salzberg, 76 next month, has lived in Philadelphia for 43 years.

Please tell us briefly about your career/profession. I did a Ph.D. in high energy Physics at Harvard, but, as soon as I finished, I did a Postdoctoral Fellowship in Physiology at Yale Medical School. (Physiology WAS the next page after Physics, in the Harvard Course Catalogue ! Just kidding.) After four years as a postdoc in the Medical School at Yale, I found my first, last, and only job at the University of Pennsylvania in 1975, where I have been Professor of Neuroscience and Physiology for many years. My career has mainly been in Biophysics, where I study optical phenomena in mammalian nerve terminals and other neural systems.

When did you start running and WHY? I began running in June of 1968, after reading Ken Cooper’s newly published Aerobics. My first run was a mile around the streets of Cambridge, Massachusetts. I was mainly motivated by a

ESSAY--Sometimes A Run Traps You ... Sometimes It Liberates

"Horizontal beams ... into an October cornfield."

(8-18) Sometimes a run traps you in the moment. Other times, it liberates you, transporting you far away. This is one of those times. 

After a long layoff from injury, the joy of today’s trail run is overwhelming. I feel an anticipation akin to what I used to feel when returning to college in the fall, or visiting my college boyfriend in the summer: excitement mixed with a “hurry-up-and-get-there” impatience.

I look at my watch; I am 5.5 miles into a 10k training run and realize I am going to best my