3:58.3
May 26, 1962, Modesto, California
On the race: Forman said he “didn’t expect to win that day or to run very fast,” but he did just that. “I didn’t feel tired in that race until maybe 10 yards to the finish line,” Forman said with a laugh. Bowerman had told Forman to stay with the pack until the last lap then to kick, and remembers hearing 3:02 at the third-lap mark. “I could tell that if I ran that last lap fast enough,” Forman said, “it was going to be a sub-4 mile.”
Rounding the first corner on the last lap, Forman looked backed over his shoulder to see how he was faring. “I felt so good going down the back stretch that I started to kick a little early, which sometimes can be a mistake,” Forman said. “But in this case, it wasn’t.”
On Bowerman: Forman referenced Kenny Moore’s book Bowerman and the Men of Oregon as one the most accurate representations of what it was like to run for Bowerman. Forman joked at a line he often hears from other runners who say “if it wasn’t for Bowerman, I wouldn’t have run fast,’ but if it wasn’t for Bowerman, I probably wouldn’t have run at all. I really don’t believe that had I gone to school somewhere else and been under a different coach that I ever would have been as successful as I was with him.”
On his life now: Forman says his running days are “long gone,” but he walks. His wife still works as a physician, so he considers himself a “house husband.” But Forman’s main hobby is fly fishing. He practices casting daily, and he goes on a monthly fishing trip. “I actually learned when I was in college,” Forman said. “There was a trail out near Bowerman’s house that led to the McKenzie River, and it was his son actually, Jay Bowerman, kind of got me into fly fishing way back when — right in front of Bowerman’s house.”
