Gordon Josey and Francine Della Badia
You”™d think the loneliness of the long-distance runner would fall victim to his ”™n”™ hers runners”™ highs in a marriage where both he and she run all the time.
Not so in the New Rochelle home of Gordon Josey and Francine Della Badia.
She runs for the usual executive-based reasons: mental and physical health; “a chance to recharge.”
He runs tough, or as he frames it with his sturdy Scottish accent, “not for all those good-karma reasons.”
She does not compete.
He ran competitively in college, has run the Edinburgh, Scotland, 26.2-miler in 3:12 after a night of pub crawling, always has another race on his calendar and trains on the watch.
In something of a “Green Acres” arrangement, she is senior vice president with Coach in New York City, managing products and investments for all of Coach”™s 450 stores in the U.S. and Canada from Coach”™s West 34th Street office. His background is in phys ed, camping and youth programs, which he studied at Telford College in Scotland. He prefers the outdoors and spends his summers in the woods of West Virginia.
They own two summer camps, one in New York City with a fashion bent that taps into her professional world ”“ Fashion Camp NYC ”“ and the other in West Virginia with a more-traditional camper experience of woods, crafts, horses and water skiing ”“ Camp Twin Creeks.
Both husband and wife possess the sculpted athleticism on display at top-tier track meets. Each runs multiple times per week. But as Fran said a recent morning off Wilmot Road in New Rochelle, “We never run together. He”™s too fast and too competitive.”
Gordon protests, but his wife will not be swayed. His argument rings hollow amid plans to break 90 minutes for a half marathon, or 6:53 per mile, this year. (Fran runs at 8:30- to 9-minute-mile pace.) At 3:10 every afternoon during Camp Twin Creeks”™ four, two-week summer sessions, he leads a running class.
Gordon, 43, ran the 800 meters at college in Scotland ”“ a best time of 1:58 ”“ and confesses to flashbacks of competition and goose bumps when he steps on a track. The 800, for the uninitiated, is among the more brutal endeavors in all athletics. “After 650 meters, you”™re just holding on, head down, dealing with oxygen debt,” he said. His times were good enough to win in Scotland, but when the Telford harriers traveled to London, “there the times were five or six seconds faster.” He has returned to Scotland twice ”“ and will do so this year ”“ to compete in a 120-mile bike-and-run relay with three friends. “I do the hardest run ”“ 16 miles ”“ and the easiest cycle, 10 miles. They”™re called ”˜adventure races”™ and this particular one at Loch Ness is called ”˜the Monster Challenge.”™”
Della Badia, 40, and the mother of 4-year-old Alexander, runs alone by choice: “Just for myself. It helps keep life in balance.” At The Ursuline School in New Rochelle, she ran for a year, swam and competed in gymnastics. When she graduated from Lafayette College in Pennsylvania, where she rowed competitively, she competed in triathlons. “I don”™t compete anymore,” she said, offering the once-a-year asterisk of lining up for the Coach team in the Chase Corporate Challenge each summer in Manhattan.
Gordon, though looking for a personal best in the Westchester Running Festival Half Marathon Oct. 10, admits, “I”™ve slowed down. But I enjoy it more now. Today, it”™s about the joy of running out on the trails, as opposed to track running, which is all about managing pain. Oxygen debt is not fun, but a person is 17 and doesn”™t know any better; you think that”™s how life is supposed to be.” Yet, like others who have cramped up and collapsed at the side of the track, he identifies running as a major factor in his life and a peerless teaching tool. “There is so much you get from running in the form of life skills,” he said. “Running is difficult. It requires perseverance. Nothing comes easy. You put your head down and it comes down to mental toughness.”
At Camp Twin Creeks in Marlinton, W. Va., Gordon conducts a running class every day at 3:10 p.m. The camp”™s 140 acres abut the Monongahela National Forest and runs spill from one into the other. “We have a great trail network,” Fran said.
At Fashion Camp NYC, 150 students will fill three two-week sessions held at the Laboratory Institute of Merchandising on 53rd Street in Manhattan. Said Fran: “I was motivated to do this” ”“ year number four is about to begin ”“ “by being at the point in my career where I wanted to give back to young people ”“ to give young girls exposure to people in the industry that they would never have the opportunity to experience.” The majority of fashion campers are young women, ages 12-19, “but we”™re not exclusively girls; boys are welcome.” Fashion Camp NYC participants learn under the wing of program director Debbie Forstenzer; Gordon is on site only to begin each session, then it”™s back to West Virginia and Camp Twin Creeks.
Fashion campers have continued their studies at schools that include Fashion Institute of Technology, Parsons (now the design college of The New School) and Syracuse University”™s fashion merchandising program. The cost is $1,295 per fashion camper per session. The fashion venture draws 50 campers per session from throughout the tri-state area; there are three sessions per summer. (Camp Twin Creeks is $2,295 per session.)