Published on August 26, 2024 by Sonoma Sun
While most of us were swept away as the Paris Olympics played out on our television screens, John Litzenberg, head track and field coach at Sonoma Valley High School, had a uniquely personal and tangible interest in the Games.
That’s because 40 years ago, on the eve of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, John, as a 14-year-old, was privileged to carry the Olympic torch as part of the cross-country relay that brought the sacred flame to LA.
The memory is a little dated, but he believes he carried the torch about a quarter mile, partially along Seventh Street East in Sonoma. “The handle was wooden, it was pretty heavy,” he recalls, “and I kept saying to myself, ‘Don’t drop it, don’t drop it.’ I’m left-handed, I carried it in my right hand, and at some point they had to relight it. As far as I know,” he adds, “it was the torch that Rafer Johnson used to light the flame at the Los Angeles Coliseum.” Johnson was the legendary gold medalist in the decathlon at the 1960 Olympics.
How did a 14-year-old boy end up carrying the Olympic torch? John isn’t sure how he was chosen – “Maybe at school or at what was then called the Boys Club” – but he was already considered one of the Valley’s most promising young runners.
John started training when he was nine years old. “My dad always ran four miles around the Sonoma Golf Course, so I ran with him.” And the family home was just over the fence of the Altimira Middle School track, so John was soon jumping the fence and running 16 laps to get his daily four miles.
The training paid off and as an Altimira student he won nearly every race he entered, setting a seventh-grade mile record of 5:21 that stood for years. He lost only once, finishing second, and the following year he won that 1600-meter race in 4:54.
His running career blossomed at the height of the 1980s running boom, and John’s ever-evolving track skills got an Olympic adrenaline boost when mile-distance legend Steve Scott came to Sonoma Valley to support a fundraiser for a new track. Scott, a two-time Olympian who held the American mile record of 3:47.69 for 25 years, ran laps with local students, including John. “He ran four laps at sub-five-minute pace. I think I ran a 4:30 with him. He was a really great guy.”
Running with Scott fueled John’s Olympic ambitions even further. “The Olympics were my dream,” he says.
John’s outstanding running and cross country history at SVHS, his speed and his consistent victories caught the attention of Columbia University in New York, which offered him a guaranteed scholarship that covered half of his total tuition costs.
The Ivy League was good to John, and by his senior year at Columbia he was the best cross country runner on the team. At the time, John says, “I literally dreamed of coaching at Sonoma Valley High School.”
As his career progressed, John also developed into a more than respectable marathon runner. He finished the 1995 Napa Marathon in 2 hours and 39 minutes. A year later, he ran the Boston Marathon in 2:41, placing him “somewhere in the top 300 out of 38,000 runners.” John’s best marathon time was an impressive 2:37; but the gap between 2:37 and a 1995 race time – the always fast Chicago Marathon was won that year in 2:11:18 – was a gulf. The current men’s marathon world record is 2 hours and 35 secondsset by Kenyan athlete Kelvin Kiptum at the 2023 Chicago Marathon. John has also run the New York Marathon and the Avenue of the Giants Redwood course in Northern California. In addition to his other shorter races, John says he still runs at least one marathon each year.
So while it is now clear that one dream – competing in the Olympics – will not come true, another, even more meaningful dream has. After returning from Columbia, John began coaching the SVHS cross country team and earned a prestigious and secure position at his alma mater. And last year he was named head coach of the entire track and field department.
Now 54 years old, John continues to race in the Masters category, almost always winning his age group and sometimes even the overall. And he trains every day. EVERY SINGLE DAY. This needs an explanation.
Some time ago, John decided to try to run every day for a year. And he did. By the end of the year, he saw no reason to stop. So he kept running every day—winter, spring, summer, fall—rain, sun, heat, and cold. Every day. Or every night. And that was 15 years ago. That’s right. John Litzenberg has run every single day for 15 years. Now he’s in his 16th year, which began August 4, right in the middle of the Olympics. He says he averages 10 miles a day. Do the math, and you get 54,750 miles, which is two times around the Earth at the equator, followed by a quick run from Montreal to Vancouver, BC, and then a short jog from Vancouver down to Tijuana. Runners tend to be healthy and live long lives. In another 15 years, he’ll only be 70. Imagine how much farther John Litzenberg will run.
Story by David Bolling
