Dear editor, I am broke again. Don’t think I ever wrote those exact words, but the message was clear. Came across this actual letter to a now tragically defunct running magazine. Seems like I sold a couple ideas.
November 16, 1995
Greetings. Hoping to slow down for the winter. Dad’s failing and Mom’s ailing, so I will be wintering in Venice, Florida, Shark Tooth Capitol Of The World. Please make a note of it. I can be reached at a bunch of numbers. I have enclosed a change of address form. The last issue was damn good.
You may recall I will be attending the Waikiki Mile (12/9) and the Honolulu Marathon (12/10) again this year. I would enjoy covering both of these events for RT. Please advise me of the issue deadline. I can write a feature or merely a race report, your choice.
I can probably get to the Disney World Marathon if it matters. Depends on how Mom’s spinal fusion is coming along. Also, I plan to attend the River Run 15K (Jacksonville) and Gasparilla 15K (Tampa) this winter. Likely, too, I will be at the Olympic Marathon Trials in February. Honored I’d be to cover these events for Running Times. Let me know what I can do for you. Events you and/or Mr. Parker may doubtlessly want to cover yourselves, but what the hell, nothing was happening in the Pacific Northwest.
When last we spoke – you never call, you never write – you wanted to know what “angle” I proposed for Honolulu.
Golly. It’s bigger than NYC, with twice as many foreign runners. Heck, it’s the largest Japanese race in the world. It’s famed as the Kenyans’ debutante ball. “A good place to start a career. If I am to do only one marathon each year,” Mbarak Hussein, who does only one, said, “I do Honolulu.” Unconfirmed rumors have Delillah Asiago running. (Trying to confirm this nearly impossible. Believe me, I’ve tried.) Carla Beurskens going for her umpteenth consecutive crown. Likely both won’t happen. The inaugural Waikiki Mile was Marc Davis’ best race of the year. Mrs. Slaney rumored to be running this year. Angle? Trust me, I’m a writer.
And of course there’s the matter of future features. I can’t seem to find my list of great ideas previously ignored or rejected. Your silence makes it difficult to know which. I guess if they really were great, I’d have heard. So….
CALF “HEART” ATTACKS. After 20 years or more of running, you’re headed down the road and suddenly, for no reason at all, feels like somebody is doing a muscle biopsy on your leg. Stopped like a shot. Not an isolated phenomenon, which we will see more of as the running boomers’ careers close out their second decade. Causes. Solutions. Anecdotal commentary. Self-prevention.
CHRIS FOX. He’s 37. He ran 27:53 this past summer. As old as Lopes, as fast as Shorter, he’s pointed at Charlotte.
THE COACHES. Dawns on me the media focuses almost entirely on the performers, not the teachers. I’ve spent quite a bit of time talking to Greg Shank, Fox’s coach. He’s a quote machine. The coach often knows better than the athlete what the athlete is up to. The coach sees it first. There’s any number of personable coaches who are little known but have much to offer your readers. Bob Sevene. Ron Warhurst. Jack Daniels. Brainstorming here: instead of a story on Olympic contenders, a piece on contenders’ coaches. Who was the last self-coached medal winner?
QUIT FOR GOOD. According to Ken Hutchins, creator of Super Slow, if all Americans stopped exercising the way they do now, running and jogging, for example, their overall health would improve, thanks to a reduction in bone fractures, back problems, knee strains, ligament tears and other repetitive-impact injuries. (ref The Anti-Aerobicists by Don Steinberg GQ, Nov.’95 p.126 et seq)
Hutchins home base in Orlando. Super Slow Exercise Guild. Publishes The Exercise Standard.
We only write about successes. Who’s hot. What has he or she won lately. Who is running fastest. Sports Illustrated, to name the best example, often writes about the losers and their losses, the strugglers and their struggles. There is much to be learned from them who don’t win, those who don’t qualify for the team. Just trying to make the qualifying times for, say, the World Championships is an odyssey. In pursuit of the holy grail.
Thanks for putting Cal Ripken’s achievement in perspective, not to mention the millions of dollars he gets paid. How many single mothers show up every day?
Still suffering from jet-lag and I drove here. Hope to hear from you soonest.
Jack D. Welch
Back when there was still a VIP party at the Honolulu Country Club, back when I was still invited to it. With Gerry Lindgren and Jim Moberly.