Nearly every one of us has a calendar hanging on a wall somewhere in our house or apartment, that’s not really how we note our passage through time.

The days and numbers on most calendars are all the same size but you and I both know that some days are bigger than others.

For example, simply typing the word ‘‘Christmas’’ under the number ‘‘25’’ on December’s calendar falls woefully short of the impact Dec. 25 has on most of our families - and our wallets.

The calendar says March 21 is the first day of spring but does March 21 really feel that much different than March 22?

Opening day of baseball season has always been the first day of spring for me.

The calendar may list Sept. 22 or 23 as the first day of autumn, but it’s the first crack of high school football helmets on a late August night that tells me we’ve officially started that long slow slide toward winter.

As far as I’m concerned, summer starts in Wheeling on the final weekend of May.

Ever since the legendary Bill Rodgers outdueled Frank Shorter and Tom Fleming in the inaugural Wheeling distance race back in 1977, the 20K run has become part of the fabric of our community.

Thousands of Ohio Valley residents have matched their wills and skills with the nation’s elite and tens of thousands more have lined the streets and sidewalks to cheer them all on.

Events tend to define our world much more than mere numbers on a sheet of paper.

They’re the chocolate chips in our cookies, the decoder ring in our breakfast cereal, the prize in our box of Cracker Jacks.

Following are some of the ‘‘tastier’’ morsels I’ve come across in more than two decades of covering Wheeling’s premier distance race.

Along with most of you, I’ll be back this weekend looking for another treat.

Boston Billy
There’s little doubt Bill Rodgers’ participation and support throughout the years played a major role in putting Wheeling on the international road racing map.

He won three of the first five overall titles from 1977-1981 and reeled off four straight masters championships from 1991-94.

Rodgers is one of only two men to have won four Boston Marathons (1975, 1978, 1979, 1980). He’s also the only man ever to win four New York City Marathons and is recognized as the face of road running on every continent from here to Antarctica.

Yet for all his success and all his travels, Rodgers has only missed two Wheeling races since winning that first one back in 1977.

It’s not easy to put Wheeling, Boston and New York City in the same paragraph but Bill Rodgers makes it possible.

Hometown Proud
Ricky Moore was born only a few weeks before ‘‘Boston Billy’’ set a course record in winning for the third time in Wheeling but he’s been making up for lost time ever since.

One of Ricky’s dreams as a young man growing up in the Friendly City was to one day compete with the international elite who came to town every May.

That inspiration and his own drive helped Ricky mature into a multiple state champion at Wheeling Park High School and an NCAA Division II All-American - indoors and outdoors - at Wheeling Jesuit.

While scheduling conflicts have often kept him off the streets of Wheeling on Memorial Day Weekend, Ricky was the first American finisher in 2000 and a close second among the Americans in 2001.

After turning pro a year ago, he’s hoping to make an even bigger impact this weekend but at worst, Ricky will get one more chance to live out his dream.

And who can ask for anything more.

Catherine the Great
Wheeling also has a pretty strong Boston Marathon connection on the women’s side.

If you were watching this year’s Beantown classic, you saw a memorable battle between two former Wheeling winners.

Catherine Ndereba joined Rodgers and 1940s Canadian runner Gerard Cote as the only people ever to win four Boston Marathon titles when she won going away.

Ndereba, who set the women’s course record of 1:09.37 when she won here in 1999, trailed Alemu by nearly 1 1/2 minutes at the halfway point last month.

Nine miles later, Ndereba pulled up to Alemu’s shoulder at the crest of Heartbreak Hill.

The gutty Ethiopian hung stride for stride with Ndereba for nearly two miles before yielding to the inevitable and following Ndereba across the finish line in Boston for the second straight year.

Alemu is no stranger to following in Catherine the Great’s footsteps.

The year after Ndereba set the course record in Wheeling, a 24-year-old Alemu broke the tape just outside the Civic Center in a time of 1:11.38.

Say What?
In 1987, Carla Beurskens became the first - and so far only - runner from The Netherlands to win here in Wheeling.

Although she was already a world-class marathoner - Beurskens won eight Honolulu Marathons from 1985-95 - Carla had spent most of her racing career in Europe before making the trek to West Virginia.

Carla and her interpreter smiled and shook hands as they were ushered into the interview area by a race committee member.

What followed was one of the most bizarre - yet oddly entertaining - interviews of my career.

You see, Carla spoke Flemish while her interpreter and traveling companion was fluent in both Flemish and French.

Unfortunately, neither one of them spoke a word of English.

Lucky for me, a member of the race committee spied a teacher from Wheeling Jesuit near the finish line and knew that she spoke French.

I wish I could remember the woman’s name but I was very grateful when she agreed to help out.

The four of us spent the next 10 minutes passing the same phrases from person to person in three different languages.

We probably looked like the worst gossips in the history of the world but I had my story.

And when the interview ended, none of us needed an interpreter for the smiles and handshakes that followed.

Hello, Country Bumpkin
Finally, one thing the international flavor of this race has taught me is that we don’t always know what we think we know.

Back in 1987, one of Beurskens’ answers made my ears perk up.

While talking about difficult racing conditions, she said - through the tag-team interpreters - that she had been pretty chilly winning a race back home a couple of months earlier.

Carla said they told the runners that the temperature at race time was just five degrees above zero.
For about an hour, I thought I had a heck of a sidebar story.

That’s how long it took me to remember that Europe was on the metric standard and the thermometers over there were calibrated to the Celsius scale instead of the Fahrenheit standard we’re accustomed to on this side of the Atlantic.

Five degrees Celsius works out to about 41 degrees Fahrenheit.

That’s still awfully cold to be running around in your shorts for an hour or so but at least you don’t have to worry about dodging polar bears.

That’s the nice thing about this race.

Every time something happens to make you think you’re smarter than you really are, something comes along to make you feel like you just fell off the turnip truck.

Don Clegg can be reached via e-mail at: clegg@news-register.net