Bob Radliff

Age: 57
Family: Alison, wife; Abigail, 27, daughter; Schuyler, 24, son
Residence: Stillwater
Occupation: Executive Director, Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor 

By Tom O’Grady

Bob Radliff is an active and passionate master’s ace who recently achieved a running goal that was 30 years in the making when he crossed the finish line of the 125th Boston Marathon on October 11 in 3:08:25. His enthusiasm in how he approaches running is evident in all aspects of his life. Bob does an exemplary job of balancing family life and career, while staying active and healthy. 

It must be contagious as each member of the Radliff family has active pursuits. Bob’s wife Alison, who is a second-grade teacher, is working on her Adirondack 46 High Peaks. His daughter Abigail, who was born with cerebral palsy, is an accomplished bicyclist, skier and sled hockey player who was an Adirondack Sports Athlete Profile in December 2015. His son, Schuyler, graduated from the Rochester Institute of Technology in 2020 with an engineering degree and became a commissioned officer in the U.S. Army, where he’s training to become a helicopter pilot. Schuyler has a current 420-day streak of lunging 800 meters per day.

Bob is the executive director of Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor, a role that utilizes his educational background in environmental sciences, and business acumen he gained from completing an MBA. He has 30 years of nonprofit leadership and management experience including having run a community land trust for five years, a community loan fund for 17 years, and a national heritage area for the last eight years. 

A lifelong Saratoga County resident, Bob didn’t play school sports and started running after college in 1987. He soon found that he enjoyed participating in the half marathon distance. He saw improvements for many years but didn’t set his lifetime best for the half marathon until 2014 when he ran a 1:23:04 at the Mohawk Hudson River Half Marathon at age 50. He enjoys running half marathons because they’re notably easier to train for and recover from than full marathons. Perhaps a key piece to his running longevity and continued improvement into his 50s is that for the past 10 years he’s been practicing chi running, or the art of mindful running. This involves constant body sensing to create the conditions for energy to flow. Using tai chi principles, he tries to envision his form and posture as if he were a forward leaning “needle in cotton.”

Bob is an all-around active person. For many years, he played a lot of basketball that not only helped with endurance but improved his speedwork. He’s a cyclist who enjoys the area’s many bike trails. He has cycled the 400-mile Erie Canal several times, including twice with his daughter, which has given him an up-close perspective of the Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor that he manages. He enjoys canoeing and has paddled many of New York’s waterways. He also enjoys camping, hiking and live music with his family and friends in the Adirondacks and New England.

In addition to half marathons, Bob also competes in the marathon distance. Completing the Boston Marathon first became a goal in 1990. Since that time, he’s run several fast marathons which again saw him achieving personal bests after the age of 50. Highlights include the 2014 New York City Marathon in 2:58:39 and the Mohawk Hudson River Marathon in 2:56:57 (2015) and 2:58:17 (2019). Although he qualified and registered for the Boston Marathon several times, injuries kept the goal elusive. 

After several attempts at running the Boston Marathon, Bob reached out to me in 2019 for coaching. We got to work with the long-term goal of preparing him for the 2020 Boston Marathon. As an athlete, he’s very no nonsense in his approach to the sport. In fact, most people may consider his approach to training prior to 2019 to be quite old school. For instance, he spent many years running without utilizing a watch (and certainly doesn’t wear headphones). He doesn’t utilize social media to share details about his training or racing with the world. Nor did Bob traditionally keep a detailed running log where he would analyze paces or workouts. 

While these aspects of such an accomplished runner may sound a bit unusual given the world that we live in today it makes sense when you consider his personality. Each of these aspects helped him utilize running to stay focused and reflective as he channeled his chi energy during runs. While the approach was great for both his physical and mental health, the lack of a more structured program may have been hampering his ability to successfully complete the Boston Marathon. Not wanting to use age as an excuse, he sought to make appropriate changes to reach his running goals. 

If it is not apparent from his running and professional accomplishments, Bob has an incredible work ethic. While he continued to improve throughout the course of 2019 by running one of his fastest marathons (2:58:17) at the 2019 Mohawk Hudson River Marathon, he began to focus his attention on the Boston Marathon that – as with most driven individuals – he can be his own worst enemy. He began to focus on proper nutrition and remedying minor aches and pains to complement his training. Things were going very smoothly throughout the beginning of 2020, and it appeared that April would be when he’d finally accomplish the long-term goal of completing the Boston Marathon. 

Unfortunately, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the opportunity to run the Boston Marathon was once again elusive. This time it was completely due to forces outside of his control. The quote “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry” comes to mind when thinking about all the obstacles that had arisen over the 30 years since first setting the goal of running Boston in 1990. After briefly working through the disappointment when the Boston Athletic Association announced a virtual version of the race for September 2020, he got to work preparing and had a fantastic 3:01:24. He was satisfied with his solo time in the virtual marathon and found participating in the Boston Marathon through the virtual version of the event brought him much closer to the ultimate goal of an in-person finish. He could now taste it. 

Although the in-person event was again postponed in spring 2021, hope began to emerge as the full vaccine rollouts started in April. Once a date was set for an in-person version in October 2021, he quickly registered and started preparing. In consultation with his coach, he took a more conservative approach to training with the primary goal of making it to race day healthy and prepared to cross the finish line. Like some long-distance runners, he began doing more training miles than planned, and ended up having a hamstring scare. About two weeks out from Boston, he was somewhat deflated and once again questioned whether he would be able to complete the marathon. His wife, Alison, stepped in and told him: “I don’t care about your injury, you are running this (expletive) race!” 

With that blatant reality check, he essentially shut all running down for two weeks before the race. On October 11, he took a “right on Hereford, left on Boylston” and crossed the finish line of the Boston Marathon in 3:08:25 – an accomplishment 31 years in the making! Although very pleased to have met the goal, Bob admits that in the excitement of the race, he was lulled into a false sense of the true difficulty of the notorious course like so many others who have run Boston. The rising temperatures and unforgiving Newton Hills that run from 15-21 miles reminded him why this section of the course is steeped in so much history. 

Bob has a great attitude towards life and running. His appreciation of the entire journey makes it clear that he’s caught the Boston Marathon bug. After a virtual finish, and now a fall finish, he believes that a true spring finish is in order. Bob is eternally grateful to be active and able to run on a regular basis. The circumstances of his family life allow him to see first-hand how hard his daughter Abigail struggles to overcome her daily challenges and how inspirationally she does so. This gives him perspective that many others don’t have, and has taught him to be grateful for everything he’s capable of, whenever he is faced with life’s setbacks.

Thomas J. O’Grady, PhD, MPH, CPT-NASM (ogrady.strategies@gmail.com) of Slingerlands is an avid runner, hiker, and lover of the outdoors. For more info, visit O’Grady Coaching Strategies: ogradystrategies.com.