3:59.9
April 28, 1962, Walnut, California
On the race: At the time of the race, Grelle was living in Los Angeles, running for the L.A. Track Club under the famous Hungarian track coach Mihály Iglói. He moved to L.A. for four years after graduating from Oregon. “With the warm rain in L.A.,” Grelle said, contrasting it to Eugene, “you didn’t mind getting wet.” Grelle doesn’t remember much about the actual race, but he does remember his response to learning he ran a sub-four: “I think I can go faster.” And in 1965, he did, setting the U.S. record in the mile: 3:55.40. It stood for just nine days.
On Bowerman: Though Grelle didn’t run his 4-minute mile under Bowerman, he still remembers him as “ a very good coach. [He] knew when to have people in the best shape. He didn’t worry about races you won or lost in March,” Grelle said. “All my best races, the whole four years of college, were at the national championships.”
Part of practices at Oregon consisted of the team making the trip to the Florence to run on the sand dunes. “We learned that from the Australians,” Grelle said. “The best runner in the world was from Australia and he used to run the sand dunes, and that’s probably why we were doing it.”
On his life now: Two years ago, Grelle moved back to his native Portland to be closer to good hospitals and near friends. His daily routine includes a walk and playing Wii Fit, and he’s part of a weekly tennis group. One of Grelle’s favorite weekly routines is meeting with a group of former runners and coaches “about my age and a little bit younger” for coffee. The group meets on Saturday mornings and conversation generally revolves around track and running. Grelle’s go-to drink is a latte.
