Inspirational Story from Billy Mills - Olympic Runner

http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/oct05/366087.asp

Billy Mills 'Takes Five'

Unlikely Olympic champ finds tranquility in running

Posted: Oct. 26, 2005

At the Tokyo Olympics in 1964, Billy Mills pulled off one of the greatest upsets in track and field history, winning the 10,000 meters (6.2 miles) over heavily favored rivals. No American had ever won the 10,000 meters, and no one expected Mills to break the winless streak, except Mills himself. He was a 26-year-old Native American Marine lieutenant. Born an Oglala Lakota, Mills had been raised on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, an orphan by age 12. As a runner, he put in 100-mile weeks and developed his own distinctive form of training: visualization. Mills, now 67 and retired from the insurance industry, lives in Fair Oaks, Calif., and works for a program called Running Strong for American Indian Youth. The program helps American Indians with survival needs, including food and shelter, and also builds self-esteem and self-sufficiency particularly among Indian youth. Mills was to deliver the keynote address at Marquette University's American Indian Celebration on Wednesday night. He spoke by phone Saturday with Journal Sentinel reporter Mark Johnson.

Q.How did you start running?

A. My dad told me, "Son, you have broken wings." He asked, "How do you feel?" I felt angry. I had lost my mom when I was 8. I felt hatred. My dad said, "You have a whole lot of self-pity. All of these things will destroy you. You have to look deeper to where dreams lie. You find the dreams below the anger." He told me that you pursue the dream through sports, drama, the arts, writing. I tried sports.

Q.How did you pick running over other sports?

A. I had tried boxing. I had six fights in the ring. I had zero wins, so I checked off boxing. Football hurt. Rodeo hurt. Basketball, I played. I got into one game at the very end. The ball bounced off an opponent and came to me. I spun around . . . and went to the wrong basket. I scored two points for the opponent. Everything that I tried I would run. A typical day of play on the reservation, I would bike 15 miles one way on a one-speed bike to a swimming hole. I'd have an inner tube with me and I'd blow the inner tube and then swim across the lake, maybe 600 yards or half a mile. Then I'd swim back across the lake and bike 15 miles back. My training was more in tune with the upbringing of a young Kenyan, except that they live at altitude. During the football season the coach said, "I need one more person to make the cross-country team." My third race I won and I was undefeated the rest of my high school career.

Q. How did you feel when you ran?

A. Running did not give me an identity. It gave me tranquility. I grew up half-Indian and half-white. In the full-blooded Indian world, they would call me a word that meant half-breed. In the white world, they called me an Indian. Neither of those cultures knew me, and when I ran I felt tranquil and in balance with Mother Earth.

Q.I heard you used to visualize winning your race as part of your training for the Olympics. What was that like?

A. I had a seven-step training program. I did sheer speed work, sheer endurance, speed and endurance. I did a little weight-lifting three times a week. I would also lie down with my eyes closed just visualizing that one moment in time, my race at the Olympics. I would visualize that I could run with anybody in the world for 6 miles of a 6.2-mile race. Then I would visualize that with two laps to go I stayed with the lead runners. I'd visualize myself to be on the shoulder of the lead man on the last turn and I'd visualize myself sprinting past him.

Q.What went through your mind as you crossed the finish line in Tokyo?

A. Just the thought, "I won. I won. I won." A Japanese man came up to me and said, "Who are you? Who are you? Who are you?" And I thought, "Oh my God, did I miscount the laps?" When I broke the tape at the Olympic Games, I realized I orchestrated this. I had the free will to do the training or not do the training. I choreographed this. But when the race was over and I'd won, I realized I did not really win the race, but that the moment was God-given. We all have at least one gift locked inside us that's given to us by the Creator, and what we do with that gift is our gift back. That was the most humbling moment in my sports career.