In what is believed to be an exclusive running accomplishment, two former BU track athletes were recently identified as the only two competitors from the same university to have won the New York City Backwards Mile.

This unique New York Roadrunners Club event has been held annually on April 1 since 1987. As indicated, it requires runners to traverse the distance while running backwards. While Alice Willis '85, a five-time Binghamton All-America runner during her 1982-85 cross-country/track career, won the event in 1987, 1988 and 1989, it is Nadine Steinberger '91 who has made national news in the event. The former four-year BU soccer letter-winner won her eighth consecutive race in 2002.

Nadine Steinberger '91

"I can't say that my 8:03-minute time is the best for the event, since its location has been moved around a bit from year to year," she related from her office at Cap Gemini Ernst & Young in Manhattan, where she is a manager. "But they tell me having eight titles is a record, and this year a Sports Illustrated reporter called and wanted to do a story on my winning it again."

Steinberger has been a runner since the time at Washingtonville High School when her then-boyfriend encouraged the habit as a means of staying in shape for her true love: soccer.

While she tried one year of competitive track in high school, it wasn't until her senior year at Binghamton that she tried competitive running again. "I remember this car pulling up alongside me as I was running one day following the end of my last soccer season," she recalled. "It was track coach Gary Truce, and he asked if I would like to be on the track team."

Truce remembers the incident, too: While driving to the University one morning, he saw Nadine heading in the opposite direction on the Johnson City Route 201 bridge. "I could see that she had great running form. So I turned around and caught up with her on Riverside Drive," he recalled.

Steinberger ran both indoor and outdoor track in the spring of 1991, culminating her short but productive BU athletic career with a first-place finish in the 10,000-meter run at the New York State Women's Collegiate Athletic Association's outdoor championships in Rochester.

A rhetoric and literature major at Binghamton, the energetic Steinberger earned her master's in health administration at Cornell in 1994 and moved to New York City that same year. There, she has continued to train five days a week, generally afternoons, and has run 25 marathon races in New York City, Boston, Long Island, Hartford, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and San Diego.

Steinberger first entered the New York City Marathon in conjunction with a runner from the Achilles Track Club. That organization is dedicated to helping blind runners compete with the aid of another tethered competitor. "I wanted to run in the New York Marathon," said Steinberger, "but there weren't any entries available until I heard about the opportunity to accompany someone from the Achilles Track Club."

For seven years Steinberger trained twice weekly with a blind runner, Gladstone Adams, and competed in the Gotham event with him. Tragically, while training one day in Central Park in 2002, Adams died of a massive heart attack. While Steinberger continues to run races with the Achilles runners, her weekly training with them has tapered off a bit.

Steinberger running backwards near Washington Square Park during the 2002 New York City Backwards Mile race

On a lark of sorts, Steinberger entered her first Backwards Mile event in 1995 and has finished in first place every year since. "I really like the event," she said. "It's fun, but the winner also gets a year's membership at the New York Health and Racquet Club!"

In terms of any special aptitude that is required, the 32-year-old feels that perhaps her defender's role while playing soccer might have had something to do with her ability to excel in the event. "In soccer, when I was tracking someone, I got used to moving backwards and sideways as well as forward," she said. "So the backwards movement is something I was familiar with."

The Backwards Mile attracts 150 or so runners every year; in 2002, it was conducted at Washington Square Park. It requires moving around a circular course four times rather than a "straight line" run.

"It's funny, but it is now attracting some serious runners," Steinberger said. "In 2001, this woman showed up from a New York competitive track club. She stood at the starting line, in 40-degree weather, in her running shorts and singlet. Somebody said she was a five-minute miler, and I could tell by her expression that she was out to Ôkick my butt.' But I managed to beat her by about 45 seconds." Steinberger's major competitor this year turned out to be a 16-year-old high school basketball player: "I kept thinking, ÔShe'll fade,' but she never did, and I beat her by only about 10 seconds."

For those wondering about the effects of running backwards, Steinberger said that it is a much healthier form of movement than the favored forward motion. A very popular form of exercise (and competition) in Europe, backwards running dissipates the shock of running to the musculature (calves and hamstrings, primarily) areas of the legs, as opposed to the heel-and-toe impact of forward running, which spreads the impact to the bony parts of the body, primarily through the legs and spine.

While Steinberger graduated a few years later than Willis, she was interested in the fact that a fellow graduate of Binghamton's track program had also raced and won the Backwards Mile. "I was told that I ought to alert The Guinness Book of Records of my accomplishment in the event. Perhaps I will also let them know that together Alice and I have shared 11 titles," she said.

-- Tim Schum

Tim Schum, associate director for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Athletics at Binghamton University, is finishing his research for a book on the history of Binghamton athletics, with a 2003 projected publication date.