Remembering Mike Slinskey

Hudson Valley mourns loss of legendary icon, coach, friend

I can’t believe he’s gone.

We can’t believe he’s gone.

We, the running community of the Hudson Valley and the Catskills, are in deep mourning with the loss of our good friend, our icon, our fearless leader.

Mike Slinskey, gone on Friday night, at the way-too-young age of 56 years.

Collectively, we are in shock. That statement might seem overly dramatic. Based on the emotional texts, calls, emails, etc., that have been received over the past few weeks, I do not think it is an overstatement. We are struggling to process the news of Mike’s passing, especially given how astonishingly quick his illness accelerated over the past month.

Quite simply, Mike was the best of all of us.

Oh sure, when I say “best” you can take that literally: He won hundreds of races locally and regionally. With his startling shock of blonde hair, the big and bold sunglasses, he was an absolute PRESENCE that won’t soon be forgotten and who’s absence will be palpable at the next local running event, and at races for many, many years after that.

Mike was more than fast. He was more than tough. He was more than strong – the strongest runner we’ve ever been around. His well-honed physique belied the stereotype of the “skinny, lean distance runner.” Every ounce of muscle was sculpted through thousands of pushups, crunches, workouts … and mile after mile after punishing mile -- tens of thousands of miles.

An entirely new generation of local runners got to know the other side of Mike that the rest of us, the older women and men who have been around him since the late 1980s, were so aware of as well. The kind, humble and gentle man. The guy who looked up to the late Pete Sanfilippo as a father figure, and the guy who Pete treated like a son. The one who stayed to cheer on the last of the back-of-the-pack slowpokes at every local race.

I can’t believe I won’t be seeing Mike out at Vassar Farm, our respective cross country practices intersecting in the late summer and early fall, each of us putting out cones for our teams – waving at each other, texting each other. We’d always find each other, share a handshake or a hug, and he’d say in that unmistakable voice of his: “Hey bud. How ya feelin’?’’

Anyway, back to that “new generation” of Mike admirers: There are many of you. Hundreds of you. During the past few weeks, as his health unraveled in a shockingly rapid succession of head-spinning medical updates, I have come to realize the huge impact Mike has made.

As an ever-present, caring and nurturing coach of the Our Lady of Lourdes High School cross country and track teams.

As an ever-present, caring and nurturing coach of Grassroots Running, the club he founded.

Even after his illness, the athletes on his high school team had incredible success at regional and state competitions. Their coach had prepared them very well.

All of you athletes – you Warriors at Lourdes, you post-graduates and adults in Grassroots – you knew what a great guy Mike was for you all. How he motivated you. How he inspired you. How he cared about each and every one of you, no matter your training paces and your race times. How he led with his words, and how he lived what he preached. Mile after mile after mile.

Let me tell you some older stories about Mike, the pre-coach Mike, the badass runner Mike and the downright goofy and caring friend Mike.

--The guy who used to bang out 120- to 130-mile training weeks on “undulating” courses in southern Dutchess and Putnam counties, runs that were way more mountainous than rolling. Oh man, if Strava existed back then? Some of those runs and some of those weeks would have made him an absolute Strava superstar.

--The guy who’d go run two, sometimes three, road races … in a weekend! He loved some of those early evening Connecticut races, because he could run a local race around here in the morning, and then another later in the afternoon … on the same DAY.

--The guy who, at our wedding 30 years ago, strutted around the dance floor looking absolutely and awesomely ridiculous -- doing the chicken dance with his pant legs rolled up to his knees to reveal outrageous cowboy boots, while he was generally having an almost unimaginable amount of fun!

--The guy who, quietly before and after races in which he would beat us all by so many minutes, would help out Pete Sanfilippo or other race directors, doing whatever was needed.

I mentioned in a previous post about when, a decade ago, he and his dear friend Marisa came over to check on me after my physically and emotionally painful hip surgery. Thus, the quiet, hey bud, how ya feelin’ every time I would see him. Every time.

His recent illness and sudden demise have had the effect of something like mourning a car crash in slow motion. So many of us are trying to process this. This post has been my attempt. I’ll leave you with the words of others, a sampling of recent texts received that try to grapple with these difficult emotions.

--I’m really struggling with this one. And it’s all just so sudden and severe. Further proof that life can change in an instant, I suppose.

--The fragility of life is probably the most underappreciated things for mankind. What can I say, we're all day to day and need to be cognizant enough to treat it as such.

--He set the bar for every local runner and it’s way too soon to lose him.

--I haven’t done many track workouts in the last 5-6 years without Mike. And this morning I pull in at 4:40 and I’m just sitting there drinking my coffee like he’s going to pull into the lot to run. Sucks.

--To understand and to be understood, that’s what it was like to be with Mike. He was my brother, my friend, my confidante. We laughed over silly things. His passion for running unmatched. He never gave up, he was a fighter. He had a life well-lived, however short.

And finally, from 2 Timothy 4:7:

"I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith."

(photos below provided by Bob Kopac)