TRENGOVE MADE HIS COMEBACK Although Bill Trengove, 53, of Wharton received the Comeback Award recently from the Morris County Striders, he might have also qualified for the "late bloomer" award, if it were given. Trengove was only a casual fitness jogger in his 20's and 30's. At a friends fortieth birthday party the talk came around to running in a road race, which has almost completely foreign to Trengove. "Of course you hear about the New York City Marathon," said Trengove. The race being promoted was the 1994 Wharton Business Association 5K that started only a couple of blocks from Trengove's home. His first race experience was not the best. "It was hot and I felt hot. It was a lot of work to be in the race," said Trengove. "I remember a policeman pointing at me as though he thought I might be in trouble. I probably looked bad." |
Racing can be addictive and Trengove was soon entering races that weren't just a jog away from home. He began to drop from the 23 minutes he had posted at his first race. In 1996 he went under twenty minutes at the Riveredge 5K and his times kept dropping, and dropping. In the fall of 1997 at the Carlos Negron 5K at Liberty State Park he set his all time pr of 18:33. The following May he proved it wasn't a fluke when he hit the same time at the Morristown Healthy Heart.
As all runners can attest, the pr's have to stop, and Trengove was no exception. A hernia operation took him out for a few weeks in 1998 but he came back fairly quickly from that. In 2001 he was inexplicably beset with sore, achy legs. By October of 2002 Trengove had to take a complete break.
"I had a lot of down time there," he said. "Eventually I reached a point where I just shut down. I was just very sore - incredibly sore deep inside the muscles."
But the layoff made no difference. Help came in a most unusual way. Trengove developed a stomach ulcer, and with it an infection that cured his soreness.
"The white blood cells wiped out the soreness in my muscles," said Trengove. "I call it the ulcer cure. I was able to run after that."
It seems that the high white blood cell count that the body used to fight the stomach infection served to destroy whatever was causing the pain in his legs. By June of 2003 he was running again.
In 2004, Trengove, now in the M50 division, had his best season, tackling trail races and longer distances. At the hot and humid Manhattan Half Marathon he took second in his age group with a 1:31, and then bettered that at the Liberty Waterfront Half Marathon when he won his age group with a 1:26:02.
At the Cranford Fall Classic Trengove went under 31 minutes and finished the Long Beach Island 18 miler in 2:04:13. He was back setting pr's, like at the Paramus 10K where he did 38:20 and won his age group.
Trengove trains like a marathoner, getting in twenty milers every other week or so. His log book shows a 50 mile per week average, although it may sometimes be as high as 60 or 70 miles. He does that by running twice a day a couple of times a week and taking very few days off.
"I run better running one long run," said Trengove. "I'm still an experimenter. I like running every day, although I took a day off this week and one off about three weeks before. When I'm doing higher mileage I will take a day off."
Trengove has his own business repairing office equipment so can schedule his workouts around service calls. He recently was able to run on the Paulinskill trail in Sussex County after a service call in Sparta. Other times he will stay close to home and run multiple loops around the ball fields at Wharton Park. He loves running on grass but won't quite admit a fondness for cross country although he likes it more now that he has run more of them.
Trengove has plenty of company at the top ranks of his age group. In 2004 he placed third to Bill Bosmann of Sparta and Bruce Langenkamp of Wharton. He had an off year in 2005 but was back battling for the top spot in 2006. But it never gets easy and he placed third again, this time to Dave Hoch of East Brunswick and Charlie Slaughter of Parsippany.
Currently Will DeRoberts of Boonton, who entered the age group this year, is in the lead and a shoe-in now to win the M50 division. But Trengove is confident that he will place second, with rival Slaughter taking third.
Trengove is proud of his 2006 Liberty Half Marathon. He went out quite aggressively and forced rivals Dan Murphy of Glen Rock and Hoch to run him down. A miscalculation as to the finish line location may have cost him age division victory when he sprinted too soon.
"I got confused at the end and had nothing," said Trengove. "Even after all that with the short course, it was probably my best race."
But his best may really have come two weeks later when Trengove finished the East Brunswick 5K in 18:35, two seconds off his 18:33 5K pr that had been set eight years before. Eight months older, in June of 2007 he hit 18:35 again at the Pine Beach 5K. Just three seconds between him and another pr. You never know.
Originally published by the DAILY RECORD of Morris County, New Jersey on Sunday, November 11, 2007
Copyright, Madeline Bost, 2007
