If you run regularly in Austin, there are all kinds of people you come to recognize on the trail or at a race, yet you’ve never met them. They may get a nickname or you may learn their identities from race results. Some become welcome faces while others turn into arch nemeses.

If you’ve been racing here over the last 30 years, you’ve seen Dick Wilkowski. Wilkowski (68) moved from New York to Austin in 1976 to work at IBM. In 1982, Wilkowski was “a little bit sluggish and a lit...