Growing up in New Orleans, Richard Taxman carried the ball for his high school football team. He wrestled and won a state championship, and he had great wheels as a sprinter on the track. Taxman loved to lift weights - and won a national weight lifting championship.
He was tough ... a nice person, but a rugged, bullet-proof athlete. Or he thought he was, at least until the day he attempted to chase down a couple of ornery kids in Colorado Springs.
"I was waiting to play handball at the Y, and these two kids picked up my handball gloves and ball and took off," Taxman said. "I started running after them and ran until I was so out of breath I couldn't go any farther. I told myself, 'no more handball, I'm going to start running.'"
He was 38 when the kids swiped his handball equipment, but he kept his promise to himself. Taxman started running. He didn't go far, or fast, at first, but he had plenty of encouragement. Jay Longacre, a friend and runner from the old days at the YMCA, convinced Taxman to try his first race, a 10K in downtown Colorado Springs. It was painful.
"I wasn't a distance runner," Taxman said. "I went out too fast and I almost killed myself. I didn't want to do anything like that again."
His attitude about running has changed over the years. The miles have made him healthy and fit. They've given him space to think.
"Running has helped me through a lot of stress," Taxman said. "I think it saved my life."
Taxman stacked up the age-group wins and competed in hundreds of races. He captured age-group titles in the Triple Crown and Grand Prix series.
He's 78 now, and he still gets his miles in. He recently ran in the Pikes Peak Road Runners' Nielson Challenge, and he plans to tangle with the 5K in Saturday's Take 5 in the Garden, the second event in the Grand Prix of Running.
For his persistence, Taxman has been named the Runners Roost Runner of the Month. He wins a new pair of of Mizuno shoes, and plenty of bragging rights. The Runner of the Month program is a combined effort of Runners Roost, Mizuno Shoes and PikesPeakSports.us.
Taxman said his children, daughters Bonnie Taxman Keidan and Lisa Elboggen, and son J.P. Taxman, plus five grandchildren keep him motivated.
"We're an athletic family," he said. "My daughter, Bonnie. We never used to be able to communicate, so she took up running and it gave us something. She's a great distance runner now. I'm so blessed. That's another reason I run so hard. I have to set an example for my kids."
Taxman said he'll never forget two races, the Rescue Run 10K on New Years Day in Palmer Park and the 2006 Pikes Peak Ascent.
"The Rescue Run was my first age-group win," Taxman said. "It was years ago, but it was probably the most exciting race for me. I'd never won a distance race."
The Ascent posed it's own challenge. He had little training at altitude, but still managed to finish in 4:58:54.
Taxman attended the University of Colorado on a wrestling scholarship and made a living selling women's clothes.
"I loved the ladies ready to wear business," he said. "I'd still be doing it if I was married to my first wife."
But he misses the old days of running in Colorado Springs. The city was growing, there was a special energy to the place.
"I've had a lot of fun," he said. "In the beginning, the first 15 years of my running, everybody ran out of the Y, and we were all so close. We were family. We all ran in the races. It was so much fun. Now, everybody is more serious. There isn't as much comradery."
Though there isn't a trail or street in Colorado Springs that hasn't worn his tracks, he prefers his regular run from his home to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo.
"It's just such a beautiful run," Taxman said. "One day I did that run and two mountain lions crossed my path. But I think they were hungry for something else because they just kept on moving. I guess I looked to bony.