It's possible that an injured hamstring would trip up a long-distance runner like Robert Gralley. It's possible that a runner like Gralley might skip this weekend's Baltimore Marathon, particularly when he's trying to heal within two weeks, and especially because he's 76.
But Gralley, who has lived at the Oak Crest Village retirement community in Parkville for the past year after coming from Connecticut, is a good bet to show up and finish the race. After all, he has done 37 races of that distance, including 14 New York City marathons, as well as eight JFK 50 ultra-marathons.
So he has been trekking to Union Memorial Hospital from Parkville for daily therapy sessions, stretching, icing and heating that hammy so he can make it 38.
"By the 19th, I believe I should be fine," said Gralley, who will run with one of his sons, Craig. It will be the 15th time father and son have run a marathon together. "He hangs with me. He wants to make sure I finish."
Gralley has been running for 31 years. He keeps a history of his running in a den at the apartment that he shares with his wife of 53 years, Betty. In the den - which Betty Gralley calls "the vanity room" - a dozen plaques hang on the wall, as well as a series of photos within a large frame.
He shows the binders that contain the running diary he has kept from the first day he started running in 1971. Inside are neatly detailed charts.
"It's been my way of motivating myself - by the week, the month and even the year," said Gralley, who has surpassed 43,000 miles. "It only dawns on me now. As the years go on, I say, `I've put on a few miles.' But that gives you incentive to do more."
The Round Bay native was an active youth, playing badminton and basketball while he also attended the University of Maryland, where he met his wife. The couple moved to the New York City area, where he worked for Mutual New York, before he joined the Navy toward the end of World War II.
He and Betty eventually settled in Westport, Conn., and as middle-age approached, Gralley realized that he was starting to get a bit out of shape.
"He wasn't doing much of anything - he was doing a 90-minute commute," Betty said.
When Gralley started running, it came just before the sport's brief boom of the early 1970s.
"When you went out in shorts, people thought, `Who is that crazy guy' " he remembered. Yet, he went from running with only one or two people during workouts to a group of 25 or 30 who showed up at the house every Saturday at 7 to begin and stayed through the afternoon to enjoy iced tea.
