Saratoga News

Cover Story

Photograph by George Sakkestad

During her years as a competitive marathon runner, Etta Palmer earned more than 140 medals.

The Long Run

Etta Palmer is giving up distance running, but not exercise

By Marianne Lucchesi Hamilton

Etta Palmer says her New Year's fitness goals include a lot of swimming.
She misses those quiet hours outdoors on the Los Gatos Creek Trail, where, until 2005, she relished the changing seasons while training for several marathons each year. When her knee started giving her problems, she had to give up those moments of solitude. Taking a dip in the pool will reconnect her with fresh air and sunshine, she hopes.

These days, the Saratoga resident stays in shape with a full regimen of circuit training, spinning classes, yoga and Pilates at the Los Gatos Athletic Club. Spinning, she says, keeps her heart rate up. In the yoga and Pilates mat classes, she bends, twists and crunches her body into a variety of impossible poses to maintain core strength and flexibility.

Such dedication and fitness are admirable in anyone. For Palmer, they are nothing short of remarkable; in May, her fellow LGAC members will help her celebrate her 80th birthday.

Looking ahead to her new status as an octogenarian, Palmer is determined to stay active and healthy. The word "determined" crops up in much of her history.

Palmer grew up in tiny Farmville, N.C. Back in her teens, the downtown area was just a few blocks long. But she and her best friend visited to people-watch daily, especially on the sticky, lazy summer afternoons.

When Palmer was 16, a handsome sailor began making the rounds of the local swimming pool, movie house and church. A member of the choir, Palmer had a perfect vantage point from which to observe the young man. She liked what she saw. Determined to make his acquaintance, she made a point of being precisely where he might happen to be, at precisely the right time.

A couple of "chance" meetings turned into a budding romance. He sent telegrams each and every day; a standing order with a florist saw deliveries of bouquets to her house each week. Three years later she married the sailor, Warren Palmer; they settled in Raleigh. They've celebrated more than 60 anniversaries since then.

The new Mrs. Palmer did exactly as the norms of the day dictated: She had her first child just a year after marrying; three more followed in quick succession. She cooked, she cleaned, she kept house. In the 1930s and '40s, genteel Southern women were expected to be well dressed and coiffed at all times. Under no circumstances were they to be found sweating--and certainly not running. Thus, Etta's exercise regimen mostly consisted of chasing after the kids.

But in time, the kids were grown and out of the house. Warren, who had graduated from North Carolina State with a degree in nuclear engineering, was offered a transfer to California to work for FMC. In between changing diapers and fixing dinner, Etta had earned a degree in home economics and social sciences, and was contemplating a career of her own. But she dutifully packed up the household and headed west.

Warren was busy with his new job, so Etta enrolled at West Valley College, aiming to become a medical assistant. By the time she took a position at Kaiser, all was not perfect on the home front. A temporary separation followed.

She worked hard, throwing all of her energies into her job and making new friends. Among them was a neighbor, a pilot for PanAm who liked to run. "His wife thought he was completely crazy; we all did," Etta recalls. "But he got me interested in running, even though I couldn't even make it around the block."

It didn't help that Palmer lacked the requisite athletic wardrobe. Her first running shorts (purchased at Kmart) were intended more for gardening than sports. But she persevered; soon she could cover several miles at a time.

In the mid-1960s, former Saratoga mayor Bill Glennon announced the inaugural Paul Masson Marathon. Since the concept of running 26.2 miles was mostly foreign to the local community, Glennon borrowed the training schedule from the Honolulu Marathon, launched the Saratoga Marathon Clinic and invited residents to take part. Palmer, by then in her 50s, eagerly signed up.

"We followed that routine, running about five miles each day, and building up to the longer miles on Sundays," says Palmer. "One of the women's husbands had a Rolls-Royce, and he'd meet us with an 'aid station' in the back. Mind you, I did this while working full-time and taking classes--I'd get up early in the morning and run the trails alone." Was she ever afraid to be out in the dark by herself? "Never," she asserts firmly.

Though the race was scheduled for January, Palmer had an unintentional start to her marathoning career a month earlier. A member of her training group was scheduled to do the Livermore Marathon; his wife asked Palmer to accompany her to the race. The women decided to run half of the distance, then meet the friend's husband at the finish line. But half-marathons weren't in vogue yet, and race officials demanded that Palmer and her friend pay full price, no matter how far they ran.

"I wanted my money's worth!" Palmer notes. "So that's how I ran my first marathon. The wind was blowing, the weather was horrible, and we were the last ones to finish--but we did it. I've been hooked ever since."

In the intervening 30 years, Palmer has earned a collection of medallions that would make most Olympians envious. She has completed more than 130 marathons, and several "ultras" (races of 50 miles or more), including a complete (72-mile) circuit of Lake Tahoe. In what she terms her busiest year, she did the grueling Pikes Peak Ascent (13 miles, nearly 8,000 feet of vertical gain) and the Pikes Peak Marathon--both in the same weekend.

During that event, she received a phone call from the San Jose Mercury News. On her way home, would she mind stopping by their offices for a quick photo shoot? "I'd been chosen one of the Bay Area's 10 most fit people who were not professional athletes," Palmer says, her lively eyes sparkling. It's just one of many honors (official and otherwise) she's received in the past three decades.

She counts the Napa Valley Marathon and the Big Sur Marathon as her favorite races. By the time she'd crossed the finish line in Napa 20 times (typically in under four hours), race officials no longer required she pay an entry fee. "They've been so wonderful to me," she muses. "Even in the last few years, when it took me longer to finish than I would have liked, they always mailed me a sweatshirt afterward that said 'Best in Her Class.' "

Race officials in Big Sur also have made sure that Palmer has a suitable wardrobe. She's the proud owner of a vest inscribed with their prestigious "Grizzled Veteran" logo, signifying that she has completed 20 of the scenic but very challenging marathons (she's one of just eight women to achieve that status).

Her fellow runners and fans on the sidelines, sensing the special energy that seems to ooze out of Palmer's every pore, have bestowed their accolades as well. When she did what was to be her final Big Sur race in 2004, the dwindling cartilage in her knee made the run extremely painful. Midway through the race, not sure she could finish, she heard drumming, saw a woman dancing ecstatically and glimpsed smoke. Initially nonplussed at this affront to her oxygen supply, she realized that a team of Native American performers was sending a special blessing to the slower runners at the back of the pack--where she most definitely was.

Palmer chatted with them and thanked them for their support, assuming they wouldn't be around by the time she finished. But the performer dispensing the incense told her "the race is not over until the last one is home." Through her grateful tears, she waved good-bye and pushed on.

Says Palmer, "They followed me for the rest of the race, playing and chanting and drumming for me. About two miles from the end, I figured I wouldn't see them again, because the clock had come down over an hour before ... but as I turned the last corner, there they were, drumming me across the finish line. The guy with the incense came and hugged me--and he smelled so good!"

Moments later, a smiling athlete presented Palmer with a bottle of wine. Turns out he'd won the race (and the wine), and had waited several hours to give the last participant a special greeting. And though Palmer finished too late to receive the traditional medallion, a race official removed the one from around his neck and respectfully draped it around hers.

In the last few years before her knee made running impossible, Palmer was a favorite fixture on the Los Gatos Creek Trail, jogging along (even on the most frigid mornings) in nylon shorts, with plastic baggies on each hand for warmth. She mostly opted for the long-distance races, but also loved to take part in the Great Race from Saratoga to Los Gatos and tackle the hills around Lexington in the Dammit Run.

Once, while training for the latter, she was accompanied by real estate maven Diane Ogilvie, also quite a speed-demon. Cresting a hill on Jones Trail, Ogilvie took the lead; Palmer struggled to keep up. "Go ahead," she called to Ogilvie, who turned and gave her a withering look. "Turns out she thought I said, 'Drop dead!' " Palmer says delightedly. "When we got that sorted out, we laughed ourselves silly for weeks. Diane still loves to tell that story."

Now that her running career has come to an end, Palmer depends on her gym workouts to keep her alert, fit and grounded. The occasional hike helps, too; she has completed (on her own) three treks in Nepal, once making it up to the base camp at Mount Everest, and also exploring the Annapurna Mountains. In 2005, she joined Saratoga's "Sister City" program, traveling to Vietnam.

Most mornings Palmer can be found at the Los Gatos Athletic Club, clad in spandex shorts and a T-shirt, a colorful bandana tied around her neck. In her Pilates and yoga classes (bare feet being de rigeur), she sports a dainty silver band on one of her toes, all of which are painted a bright, frosty turquoise. Clearly, she doesn't plan to grab the remote control and settle into the Barcalounger after blowing out the 80 candles on her cake.

"Down the road, I hope to continue what I'm doing," Palmer says. "Every year it gets more difficult. But I want to maintain the health and fitness I have, so I'll keep right on exercising and doing whatever I can."

Now, that's determination.