GREENWOOD VILLAGE — Michael Aish concedes his job selling shoes and dispensing advice at the Boulder Running Company might put him at a disadvantage when he lines up at the marathon Olympic Trials in Houston next January.
And when he says he hasn’t been getting in a lot of mileage, he means he has been running only 100 to 110 miles a week.
“Occasionally you’ll see me out, I’ll be doing my second run (of the day) at half past 8, I’ll be running around these streets,” Aish said recently at the BRC store on Arapahoe Road. “Some nights I don’t get to eat dinner until 9:30, 10 o’clock.”
But he’s happy. He has a regular job and doesn’t have to rely on race winnings to pay the bills.
“This is a huge blessing in disguise,” Aish said. “I might be on my feet for a lot of extra hours, but I get paid twice a month, so I’m pretty happy about that.”
A two-time Olympian for his native New Zealand and a two-time NCAA Division II cross country champion for Western State, Aish became an American citizen last summer and hopes to represent the U.S. in the marathon at the 2012 London Olympics.
The store is willing to give him time off when he needs it. Aish left Monday for London, where he will spend five weeks bunking at his agent’s home and getting in quality training for the London Marathon on April 17.
But Aish, who won the Denver Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon last October in 2 hours, 29 minutes, 46 seconds, has learned there are fringe benefits to working at a running store. As I have noted often, in our sport elite athletes get inspiration from the masses, even as they give inspiration to them.
“I never thought I could do retail,” Aish said. “But before the Denver Marathon, I ran into like a million people training for their first marathon. You can relate to them, and you actually get a huge respect for them. I wouldn’t want to be out there for six hours. That takes a lot of determination. You talk to them, you encourage them, they come back after the race all pumped up. You really feel like you were part of helping them keep going. It’s one of the neatest things.”
Through the store, Aish has created the Mile High Track Club to help runners train together and benefit from his knowledge.
“We’re calling it a track club just because it’s a catchy name, but basically it’s aimed at the beginner runner, the runner that’s maybe a little bit intimidated by joining a structured group,” Aish said. “The cool thing about it is, we’ve got a lot of ladies, we’ve got a lot of guys that have just started running, and it’s a fun group. There’s really no pressure.”
Aish spends a lot of time in the store, but he still gets to see a lot of his wife, Nicole, because she works there too. Nicole ran for Arvada West High School (Class of 1994) and Western State. She, too, hopes to make the 2012 Olympic team.
“The first month I worked there, my legs were tired every day,” Nicole said. “You’re still trying to run at a high level, but then you’re standing the majority of the day. By the end of the day, you’re a little bit drained because you put a lot of energy into it.”
Nicole went through several years of injury problems and complications of hypothyroidism, but now things are looking better.
“I think a lot of runners in my situation would have packed it in,” Nicole said. “I think I told Michael about six times, 10 times a week, that I was quitting.”
He thought a lot about quitting for financial reasons, too, but entering the Denver Marathon on a whim last October and winning convinced him to keep pursuing his dreams.
“I’m so much more relaxed now,” Aish said. “I can’t train exactly how I want, but I’m doing a pretty good job. Having no sponsor is not as bad as it sounds. I get a good amount of equipment from the reps — I’ve got a different favorite shoe every week. And I get a paycheck every two weeks. It’s amazing. I’ve never had that.”
