Understanding the Legacy

BY ROB ROSE

The February issue of RG had an article on the Ashenfelter 8K, a race that was held in Glen Ridge, NJ, last fall. The race is named in honor of Horace Ashenfelter, who won the gold medal at the 1952 Olympic Games in the 3000-meter steeplechase. At the Games, he vanquished a world record while holding off a Russian rival. The article rekindled some fond and vivid memories of my link with the Olympian.

When I lived in Norristown, PA, I would take long runs into the hinterlands of an area called Arcola in Upper Providence, PA. It was about five miles from the house and it was a beautiful sylvan course with farmhouses dotted along unspoiled roads. I would sometimes take a turn off of Black Rock Road onto a road that climbed to a peak where you would get a superb panoramic view of the northwest. There was a farmhouse on the right that looked as if had stepped out of a time portal from the 19th century. There were fields to the right, an orchard to the left, and a serene calm. That scene was always a reward for the arduous effort that you had to make to reach the summit. I can still picture it now, living so many miles away here in Massachusetts. It remains to this day one of my favorite areas to run.

Of course, that was Ashenfelter Road. Back in those days, the early eighties, the name had no significance for me. The road, I assumed, probably received its name because of the Ashenfelter farm on Black Rock Road. However, there was one road that was also off of Black Rock Road, a few yards down from Ashenfelter Road, the name of which always proved to be a great mystery for me: Olympic Road.

In the mid-eighties, we moved to Virginia, then returned to Pennsylvania in '87. We landed in Collegeville, just a mile or so from Ashenfelter Road, but there had been a change. The Route 422 bypass had come through, connecting King of Prussia with Reading and it altered the Arcola landscape drastically. Ashenfelter was untouched, but Olympic was totally revamped. The road used to run from Black Rock Road then descend a precipitous hill, which I used to call the "death spiral" in icy weather, to the Arcola Road bridge that spanned the Perkiomen Creek. The highway project cut Olympic in half with the section containing the steep hill renamed Cider Mill. All that remained of Olympic was a section that branched off Black Rock and dead-ended into Route 422. It was less than a quarter-mile long. At this point, it still was a road with a mysterious name. Enlightenment didn't come until 1992.

July 1992, to be exact. That was when the Philadelphia Inquirer published a story on the 40th anniversary of Horace Ashenfelter's Olympic triumph in Stockholm. It was then that I learned that the Upper Providence farm was Horace Ashenfelter's homestead and had been settled by his ancestors in 1828. In 1952, on his return home from the Olympics, the locals held a ceremony for him including a parade. One of the official town acts was to rename a nearby street to…Olympic Road.

From that point, my treks on those roads had a special significance. Although Olympic now is only one way, I found myself running the short distance up to the highway barrier and back. It was my little way of paying homage to an American Olympic champion.

I haven't been back to run that area since 2001; I've been living in Massachusetts since 1995. Once a year I try to return in August to run Ray's Run. Ray's is an informal gathering of local runners that is held the Sunday before Labor Day. The 17-mile run starts in Collegeville and works its way through Eagleville, Audubon, and Montclair before it finishes back in the Collegeville development that my friend Ray Bauer lives in. It's a difficult course in summer heat with numerous major hills. The one that seems to sap many runners' strength in the later stages is at fifteen miles¾Ashenfelter.

Horace Ashenfelter has lived in New Jersey for many years and perhaps his legacy among Collegeville area runners has faded. But there's one out there who knows of the heritage, the Olympic accomplishment and American pride, when on those rare occasions he gets to traverse Ashenfelter, Troutman, and Olympic. Tell Horace Ashenfelter…I remember.