Before he discovered running, David Lin had in no way tapped into his inner athlete.  For most of his life, he dwelled in the considerable shadow of jockdom cast by an older brother who was on the high school football, lacrosse and wrestling teams and who later played rugby at Dartmouth.  By contrast, eight years of tennis camp had scarcely enabled Lin to hit the ball, so he opted for choir and orchestra as his chosen extracurricular activities.  Big brother even beat him to the marathon punch.  “When I started running in 2006, I wore his hand-me-downs,” explains Lin.  “Now my PR is faster than his.”  

In fairness, Lin's PR bests that of many an accomplished runner.  His 3:22:01 in the New York City marathon this November secured him a place in the top 10 percent of the field and the 15 th spot among the 66 Front Runner finishers (a much more competitive subset, to be sure).  Not bad for a guy who clocked a 10:04 mile in gym class his junior year of high school.  “If you had known me even a few years ago,” he admits, “you never would have guessed that I'd become a runner someday, let alone a marathon runner.”  Since joining Front Runners in January 2006, Lin has stealthily emerged from behind the scenes, chipping away at his races times and taking on the look, focus and attitude of a serious athlete.

For a good part of Lin's history, other life pursuits took the front seat to exercise.  “In high school, I gave up athletics completely and was a big drama queen,” he says.  (His theatrical debut as the captain in Anything Goes may have only involved three lines of dialogue but Lin relished all the tap dancing.)  While at Oberlin College, Lin played the role of the typical liberal arts student.   Some nights he would cook for the vegetarian hippies, and on others he ended up drunk at the local K-Mart. 

After college Lin took a very intense job as a paralegal at Cravath, a white-shoe law firm in midtown that required crazy hours but allowed him to soak up the city's energy.  “I was living in the middle of Chelsea in an apartment right above the Barracuda bar,” he says.  “The drag shows every night would shake my room.”  Fearing he would never be able to study with all the distractions in New York City, Lin headed south to George Washington Law School in Washington, D.C., for his JD. 

The peace and quiet worked out well for Lin.  His stellar academic efforts landed him an appellate clerkship in Santa Fe, New Mexico, a prestigious post that he couldn't turn down even though it meant delaying his long-awaited return to Manhattan by one year.  “I totally lucked out,” he says of taking the job, “my judge was super cool … Santa Fe was awesome.”  The experience introduced Lin to some aerobic activity for the first time in a long while, as the beauty of the physical surroundings lured him to hike, ski and golf regularly.  The love affair with the great outdoors proved all too brief when an accident while skiing Wolf Creek put Lin out of commission with a broken leg.  The four months of channel surfing and chicken enchiladas that ensued had wreaked havoc on Lin's waistline—until one day he decided he had to take action.

“When I came back to New York (to start working as a litigator at Paul, Weiss), I was huge,” says Lin.  He joined New York Sports Club and became an avid fan of the gym's step classes—aided no doubt by the “cute, fun, gay” teacher whose blog Lin was addicted to.  It was at this point that the running bug first bit him.  A woman in class had run the 2005 New York City marathon, inspiring Lin to make the only New Year's Resolution that he has ever kept—to become a runner.

So great was his resolve that he toed the line of his first NYRR race exactly one week later, finishing the 2006 Fred Lebow 5-miler in a time of 44:24 (8:52 pace).  Joining Front Runners, an organization he stumbled across while trolling the Internet for gay sports clubs one slow work day, soon helped Lin complete his first full 6-mile loop of the park at a challenging clip.  “It was the longest—and definitely the most intense—run of my life,” he says.  “But after that first run, I knew I could do it, and became determined to do it better and faster.”       

After running steadily at 7:30-8:30 pace throughout 2006 and the early part of 2007, Lin had his first breakthrough race in April 2007 at the Scotland 10K, where he ran 44:26 (7:10 pace to break 60% on the age-graded scale for the first time).  “Then I did something drastic,” says Lin.  “I quit smoking.” He had considered himself a “closeted smoking Front Runner” for his first year-and-a-half with the club.  Lin also began to use his runs with the club to test his physical stamina and psychological mettle, choosing to pace off slightly faster runners who pushed him beyond his comfort zone.  

The results flew in fast and furious.  At the Run as One TGL Classic 4-miler just four weeks after the Scotland 10K, Lin reached another milestone—breaking 7-minute pace for the first time (lopping almost a minute off his previous PR to finish in 27:40, 6:55 pace).  A five-mile PR followed in short order with Lin breaking 7-minute pace again at the Pride Run this June, crossing the line in 34:32 (6:54 pace).

By the time marathon training approached in mid-summer, Lin was at the front of the pack for training runs and had every reason to adjust his expectations for November 4th.  With a PR of 3:55 from Paris in April 2007, Lin had set an initial goal of 3:45, but he had transformed himself into a completely different runner in the few months after that race.  Fellow Front Runners then encouraged Lin that he could secure a substantial PR.  “At one of the long runs, Peter McGrane told me he thought I could get a PR by 20-30 minutes,” says Lin.  “That really inspired me to break 3:30.”  Team coach Kelsey Louie advised Lin to pick three goal times – one he would be happy with, one that would make him happier but that would not disappoint him if he didn't make and a “dream” goal.  Lin wore a 3:25 bracelet the day of the marathon with the thought that he would be okay with a 3:30 and ecstatic with a 3:22:30.  

Well, we know how that all turned out.  But Lin has not stopped at ecstasy.  Just two weeks after the marathon, he knocked more than two minutes off his 4-mile PR with a 25:31 (6:22 pace) at the Race to Deliver.  Oh, and he happened to have raced the Front Runners Cross-Country Meet the day before.  This winter Lin will look to shave even more time off his PRs with a little help from track workouts with the team at The Armory.

It may seem as though Lin has become addicted to running, but he isn't concerned about overdosing.  “This is the one habit,” he says, “that has made me stronger, healthier, happier and prouder.  I've seen so many aspects of my life improve since I started running.”  Now that sounds even better than a PR.   

Random Data

Provenance – Nashua, New Hampshire (grew up in Lexington, Mass.)

Best Part-Time Job – Tour Guide in Historic Lexington (Think Midnight Ride of Paul Revere and tricorn hats) 

Club Endorsement – “I've found that there's just something about the type of people who join FRNY; it's not like people you meet at bars.  It's like a family.  People look out after you.”

Reality TV Show Turn – “Iron Chef.  Definitely.  And I'd like to go against Chen Kenichi, the king of Sichuan cuisine.”

Desert Island Soundtrack – Justin Timberlake's FutureSex/LoveSounds, some Madonna and an Anderson Cooper podcast.

FRNY Suggestion Box – How about a Wednesday dinner somewhere other than Café Viand?