Two things inspired Lyle Smith to launch an AIDS charity event in honor of his own wonderful self: a healthy sense of humor and an unhealthy, full-blown addiction.
“I was a world-class smoker,” said Smith, who plans to step away from the annual Lyle’s Myles AIDS fun run/walk this year — after 26 years as its organizer and automatic champion.
Before Lyle’s Myles began, Smith said, he consumed as many as three packs of cigarettes per day. When he tried to join his fit new wife on recreational runs, he could only manage about half a mile before stopping to light up. In those days, Smith said, he used to need a cigarette before his feet even hit the floor in the morning.
Smoking was something Smith learned as a 16-year-old Boy Scout at summer camp, he said. Breaking the habit was a “30-year process. I quit several times,” he said. But eventually he reached his goal, kicking that habit and building up to marathon running. He ran several in the 1980s, he said, in places as far flung as Chicago (near his home then) and Moscow, Russia (where he visited during many world travels).
If it wasn’t for cleaning out his lungs in order to run after his wife, Smith added, he doubts he’d still be alive today. Eventually the healthy couple started undertaking big charity bike rides, raising money to help people with AIDS and to speed up the hunt for a cure. That was how Smith started meeting HIV-positive people — and feeling deeply impressed by their positivity and determination, he said.
Smith doesn’t claim any originality in starting to raise money for African HIV/AIDS patients and causes, which really got started thanks to friends’ invitations to go have outdoor fun, he said. Except, he does have an early African connection that lives on inside of him to this day.
Congo and computers
When Smith was 6 years old, his parents took the family on mission to the central African nation that’s now called the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
“We had a house with a tin roof, and up on stilts to get above the termites,” he said. That made it one of the fanciest houses on mission row given that the locals mostly had mud huts with thatched roofs.
“Growing up there was a great experience,” he said. It whetted his lifelong appetite for travel. “Travel is the best way to learn about life and the world,” he said.
His parents were not fervent religious proselytizers. He remembers his mother simply saying they were going over there “to help the Africans.” They kept returning to Africa to minister and travel for much of the rest of their lives, he said.
Smith returned to the United States at age 14. He attended Hiram College in Ohio and earned a Ph.D. in computer science from Stanford University. After that, he worked for numerous universities, private corporations such as AT&T, and even the European Center for Nuclear Research, known as CERN, in Switzerland. (Translation via Smith’s sense of humor: “I couldn’t hold a job. It’s been an interesting life, and not by design.”)
Today, the former top computer scientist said he knows “nothing” about contemporary computer science. “The field has changed so much from the days of IBM punch cards,” he said.
Eternal winner
When Smith lived near Chicago and began ramping up his running, he decided to celebrate his 60th birthday by hosting his own race to raise money for Global Partners for Development, an AIDS-in-Africa-related charity. Because he despaired of ever actually winning a race, he formulated what became his trademark rule: Anyone who crosses the finish line before he does is automatically disqualified. By rule, Lyle Smith is always the winner of the fun run called Lyle’s Myles.
It’s the birthday present that has kept on giving. Smith and his wife, Diana, held the race for years in Illinois before they moved to Vancouver to be near her daughter. Restarting the race here was easy, and connecting it with the growing local LGBTQ Saturday in the Park Pride event was a natural, Smith said. The first-thing-in-the-morning Lyle’s Myles fun run/walk always kicks off Vancouver’s Saturday in the Park Pride festivities in Esther Short Park. This year, Lyle’s Myles registration opens at 8:30 a.m., and Saturday in the Park Pride begins at 10 a.m.
The race itself is a quick 3.1-mile out-and-back along the Columbia River. Even though the conclusion is foregone, serious runners still can earn racing glory: trophies for “fastest-disqualified” male and female in each age group will be awarded. And participants are encouraged to form teams and come in costume. All you’ve got to do is cross the finish line to be considered for the post-race costume contest. The more ridiculous the costume the better, according to the website.
Smith confessed that he has no idea how much money Lyle’s Myles has raised over the years for AIDS-related charities — both overseas ones as well as Martha’s Pantry, which is Clark County’s food pantry and community center for people with HIV/AIDS, and the Cascade AIDS Project, which offers HIV testing and other services from locations in Vancouver and Longview as well as Portland. It’s got to be many tens of thousands of dollars, he said.
What Smith does know is that while his sense of humor remains rich, his legs are feeling their 84 years and going on 26 annual Lyle’s Myles events — almost all of which Smith has run (and won), he said. But this year’s 26th annual Lyle’s Myles will be Smith’s last as organizer. The Vancouver Metro Sunset Rotary Club and Martha’s Pantry are stepping into the breach, he said, and plan to continue Lyle’s Myles into the future.
Smith actually planned to retire from Lyle’s Myles before last year’s event, he said, except that 25 seemed like “a nice round number” — and also, he was informed that it simply wasn’t permitted. “I’m just a figurehead, but I guess they think they need me,” he said with a chuckle.
If Smith ever dies, he kept chuckling, he’s been assured that supporters will put his ashes in a little red wagon and pull the wagon along the Lyle’s Myles race route. So Smith remains the winner — chuckling into eternity.
