back to Dougs Column 30 Years of Creative Writing 2006
By Doug Kurtis
Free Press Columnist
12/02/2006
Running Times magazine is celebrating 30 years of publishing and presenting running as a serious sport. Its newest issue captures the essence of running, some key moments and movements through the reflections of senior writer Roger Robinson.
In his “30 years of Creative Running”, the sport is thoughtfully described. “The running boom did not just happen. Its new races, equipment and publications were made reality by the innovative energy and sustained work of people who were already giving several hours a day to their own running.”
This would pertain to Robinson himself. He had several record breaking masters’ wins at the Boston and New York Marathons. His books include Running in Literature and the recently completed 26.2 stories of the marathon which he wrote with his wife, famous marathoner Katherine Switzer. With a PhD from Cambridge England, Dr. Robinson is an Emeritus Professor at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.
Robinson has found pleasure in writing for a magazine like Running Times because it’s produced by people who really love running, and care more about sharing that enthusiasm than making big bucks. (Their readership has grown to over 400,000)
In an email Robinson commented “That Running Times attitude has enabled me to write really good pieces. I write elsewhere about much more than running, but regard running as meriting and needing good writing. So my mission perhaps is to articulate why this strange and apparently pointless pastime attracts so many millions that it has become a social and cultural phenomenon. Running Times gives me space and encouragement to do that.”
In his RT story, Robinson adeptly describes running’s interesting changes, challenges and chagrins, such as the Rosie Ruiz debacle. “With the hindsight of history, the delusional Ruiz looks now no more than a small sad particle of proof of how glamorous success as a runner must have appeared in 1980 to someone with no such image of aspiration and attainment in her life.”
Robinson illustrates the reform of an old sport through the formation of running clubs that will be also reaching milestone anniversaries in the coming years. This holds true for Michigan’s local clubs too. “Our clubs are volunteer organizations that provide support, affirmation, education, events, the sense that every runner’s results are significant, and much else.”
Like Robinson, my club the Redford Roadrunners enabled me to obtain my start as a writer and marathon maven as editor of their monthly newsletter. The high quality of writing among clubs in the U.S. is recognized every year at the Road Runners Club of America convention. As one of its judges, Robinson can vouch for the value of these publications. “They chronicle and nurture the sport’s grass roots.”
Courageous club efforts Robinson champions, “Many other roles in our clubs require the same mix of skill, drudgery and devotion. Putting on local races, the clubs’ most public contribution to running life of their area, demands a complex of operational competence at a high level of perfection.”
Robinson adeptly adds more significant contributions: “Other optimists of the burgeoning 70’s were the opening of the first running stores, which quickly took a key place as social centers and hubs of information for anyone with an interest.”
“The prevailing philosophy, the center of gravity of running, shifted during the late 1980’s and 90’s from competition to completion.”
Conclusions he feels are important; “Despite the short supply of American heroes, and the dismal failure of television to understand how significant running is, public interest stays high. It has become more of a culture than a sport.”
“People in their millions turn out to stand for hours in the curb, with absolutely no comfort, facilities, team interest, or even information, to cheer a multitude of strangers on their downtown streets. It’s extraordinary.”
Personal Bests:
26.2m - 2:13:34, 25km - 1:17:58, 13.1m - 1:04:51, 20km- 1:02:37,
10m - 48:33, 15km - 46:01, 10km - 29:44, 8km - 23:25
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