Norm SpitzigMount Dora, Florida
DOB: January, 1950
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On March 27th , 2019, I “officially” reached 100,000 running miles. Woohoo! Actually, I almost surely surpassed this lofty number a couple of years ago due to my longtime conservative
mileage-recording practice of “rounding down to whole numbers” when logging my miles. For example, a 9.3-mile run is counted as simply 9 miles. (Hey, that’s just who I am!)
It is my special honor to now become part of such an accomplished group of laser-focused high achievers, given that, by comparison, I am a relative slow-poke. My best time in the marathon is 2:51:30, recorded at the 1982 America’s Marathon in Chicago. Other notable” personal bests (at least from my perspective!) are:
* my 1982 Fort Wayne 50-mile run in 6:49:04,
* my 35:50 in the 1982 Cincinnati Home Loan 10K,
* my fifty-five minutes flat in the 1981 Cincinnati “Mini-Marathon” (15 kilometers), and
* my 1:21:02 in the 1981 Covington (Kentucky) Wade YMCA Half Marathon.
Truth be told, I remember my 1:56.43 in the 2018 Mount Dora (Florida) Half Marathon as one of my tougher races, even if was a full 35:41 slower than what I ran over the same distance in Kentucky all those years ago. Alas, tempus fugit. My highest weekly mileage is right at 100 miles, a feat that I accomplished exactly once. (And that was enough!)
I am also a dedicated “streak runner”, but not the kind that most people conjure up when they first hear this term. (And no, Ray Stevens, I’ve never run in the nude–at least as an adult!) My particular idea of streak running is to reach at least 2,000 miles in any given calendar year, something that I have accomplished 46 times during my time on earth. This particular approach to streak running allows me to have a “bad” week, or even a “bad” month and still attain my annual goal. (Plus, this approach has kept me relatively injury free for over five decades of running by allowing me to rest my weary body when and as needed!) My 2,000-miles-in-a-year streak was last broken in 1996, when I “only” ran 1,927 miles, but I haven’t missed attaining this magical number since that time. We’ll learn soon enough how many more years I can keep this current streak alive.
On a personal note, my wonderful wife Cody Pollock Spitzig and I have been married for thirty-seven awesome years. We have three marvelous adult children (none of whom resides in our basement and all of whom have grown up to become caring, responsible and, perhaps most importantly, genuinely likable adults with razor-sharp senses of humor). We are currently doing our best to thoroughly spoil our four super-huggable grandchildren, all with an uncanny physical and intellectual resemblance to Grampa Norm. I spent my professional life working in the world of private clubs, early on as a general manager and, for the past two decades, as Principal and
Senior Partner in Master Club Advisors, where I continue to focus my efforts on executive search, leadership workshops for boards of directors, strategic planning facilitation, and speaking to assorted club associations and groups literally around the world. All four of my private-club-centered novels (Private Clubs in America and around the World; Murder and Mayhem at Old Bunbury; How Now, Norm’s Tao;, and Soul on Nice) continue to sell reasonably well because, well, most everyone agrees that they are pretty darn funny. (Book details are available at ww.CliveEndiveOgiveIV.com and www.NormSpitzig.com)