Will he or won’t he?
Sal Vasquez hasn’t competed in the Dipsea since he won the final of his record seven Dipsea races in 1997. But, at 67 years old and free and clear of any penalty handicapped minutes docked from past champions, he’s getting the itch again to compete in the annual event. This year, he might do it for sentimental reasons.
The 97th Dipsea on Sunday will mark the 25th anniversary of Vasquez’s first Dipsea victory and the 10th anniversary of his last.
“I still have the Dipsea in me,” said Vasquez, who manages and remodels his own apartment complexes in Sacramento in retirement. “Right now, I’m chicken to do it.”
Vasquez, however, did announce his intention to return to the Dipsea in the not-so-distant future. He has his sights set on breaking Joe King’s record as the oldest runner to win the Dipsea. King won the second of his back-to-back Dipsea titles at the age of 70 in 1996, a year Vasquez took off from the race. Vasquez might then choose to wait to enter the 100th Dipsea in 2010 when he would be 71 years old and have acquired a 22-minute handicap head start.
Or, Vasquez just might show up this Sunday and surprise everyone with an 18-minute head start.
“It would energize people and it would be fun,” said three-time Dipsea champion Russ Kiernan of Mill Valley, “and he’d handle himself very well.”
It would be more fun than Vasquez’s first Dipsea in 1980. Former Dipsea champion Norman Bright suggested that Vasquez, then living in Alameda, come across the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge to run in a local trail race in Marin that Vasquez had previously never heard of. In his first Dipsea, Vasquez fell twice. One of them resulted in a branch puncturing Vasquez’s left cheek, an open wound that required a dozen stitches to close in a hospital after the race.
Vasquez’s debut in the Dipsea wasn’t delightful. It was more a holey experience than a holy one.
“The first thing I thought of was, ‘The hell with this!'” Vasquez said. “It’s ridiculous to come here.”
Frank Smith, Vasquez’s coach and training partner with the Pamakid Runners club, convinced him to come back. Vasquez began to train seriously on the 7.1-mile course.
“I started getting hooked on it,” he said.
After finishing eighth in his first Dipsea, Vasquez placed second in 1981, losing to Florianne Harp by 1 minute, 47 seconds. Vasquez saw progress.
“It gets easier,” he said.
Finally, in 1982 after two failed tries, Vasquez won his first Dipsea, outlasting Harvard-trained lawyer Joe Ryan and Eve Pell to post a 62-second victory. Vasquez just didn’t know that he had won because he hadn’t realized that he had passed all other runners in front of him in the race.
“I never thought I was first already,” Vasquez said. “I couldn’t see them ahead. If I see them, I can catch them. If I don’t see them, I don’t have the drive to go after them.”
Vasquez didn’t stop driving with one Dipsea victory. He won the next three. In ’83, he caught and passed Kiernan, edging him by 16 seconds at the tape. In ’84, Vasquez became the first three-time defending champion, knocking 84 seconds off his previous best Dipsea run to beat Patricia English and a field that included former Redwood High cross country runner turned actor/comedian Robin Williams. In ’85, Vasquez won the race and the Best Time award, the last Dipsea runner to accomplish that rare double.
“This thing is a piece of cake,” Vasquez said then. “I run it like I was laughing.”
The joking eventually stopped. In 1986, Dipsea officials started penalizing Dipsea champions by deducting a minute of their head start time. It was dubbed the “Sal Vasquez Rule” as a way to not dominate the race. And Vasquez was dominating it like no other trying to get over the trail from Mill Valley to Stinson Beach.
“Maybe they’ll put me over in Sausalito and have me start there,” Vasquez quipped.
In the next 11 years, there were eight different Dipsea winners, ranging from 9-year-old Megan McGowan to the 70-year-old King. Vasquez had more third-place finishes (three) than first-place finishes (two) in that span. He also did not compete in three of those races.
In 1997, after not racing in the Dipsea the previous year, Vasquez won his record seventh Dipsea, outlasting future champions Melody-Anne Schultz and Kiernan and 1993 winner Shirley Matson, each whom has won three Dipseas in their lifetimes. Vasquez had a 10-minute handicap head start that year, yet he has chosen for a variety of reasons (work, injuries, sub-par training, penalty minutes) not to compete in a single Dipsea since then. The theory running through the Dipsea running community is that Vasquez would never enter a Dipsea unless he thought he could win it.
“It’s just one of those things. I don’t have the drive any longer,” Vasquez said. “Right now I don’t feel like it.”
Vasquez doesn’t have enough time to train properly, but, last December, he beat Kiernan in their age group at a race in Golden Gate Park. And, in mid-May, Kiernan bumped into Vasquez running on the Dipsea trail. Vasquez went to Kiernan’s house later and picked up an extra application form for this year’s Dipsea.
“It sounds like he wanted to run then,” Kiernan said.
Now it sounds like it could be a race-day decision at best. Vasquez said he still trains on the Dipsea trail at least once a month but, in his prime, he might run the trail 10 times a month and do the out-and-back Double Dipsea twice a week. Still, he can’t deny he has an itch to run in the Dipsea again, which is why he is chicken. Vasquez has purposely avoided driving to Mill Valley on Dipsea Sunday to be a spectator because he doesn’t want to be lured into competing.
“I don’t go to the race because I’d see (friends and rivals) and I’d feel like doing it. So I don’t go to the race,” Vasquez said.
That could change on Sunday when Vasquez, if he chooses, could walk up to the registration desk in Mill Valley and enter at the last minute. He’s earned that right and privilege.
For the past 10 years, though, he’s refrained from doing that on Dipsea Sunday. He doesn’t want to take the risk of being talked into entering the race when he doesn’t feel he’s for it. But, on Friday, Vasquez has committed to attending the annual Dipsea dinner.
“Maybe that will lift up my spirits,” he said.
Maybe that will help Vasquez get up the nerve to run in the Dipsea on Sunday. Or maybe not.
Read more Dipsea stories at the IJ’s Dipsea page.
Contact Dave Albee at dalbee@marinij.com
