How The Seed Was Planted

Some of you may be wondering how my desire to run the NYCM came to be. It was planted way back in the mid-80s when the I was buying the Runners World (RW) magazine at regular intervals - long before they became the glossy, ad-infused prints. By this I'm not saying that it's something bad. Glossy, attractive and ad-laden magazines sell to the masses. It makes the sport more accessible and appeals in drawing more beginners wanting to find out more about running. The result was that serious and advance runners need to look at other sources (such as Running Times - RT - for example) for more hardcore stuff. I can live with losing a favourite magazine if more newbies can be brought into the sport. Hey, we're runners and so we're resourceful. If it's serious juice we want, we can still lay our sweaty hands on books by Daniels, Pfitzinger and Noakes. Incidentally RW recently acquired RT but that's another story.

Back then, RW had really good stuff, from George Sheehan's columns to Bob Wischnia's quarterly shoe reviews. The editions then too contain lots of full length features and reports on key races such at the US Marathon Trials, World Championships, Olympics and the major league marathons of the world. Indeed much of my race report writing "skills" were honed from reading many of such reports. I was also interested in the careers of many elites such as Bob Kempainen, Bill Reifsnyder, Gelindo Bordin, Douglas Wakiihuri, Juma Ikangaa, Ibrahim Hussein, Doug "Mr 2:20" Kurtis and many many more. But I digress.

All the magic of the big races come alive in the pages of the old issues and it never ceases to amaze me how many runners actually run these races every year. David Bedford, David McGillivray and Fred Lebow became legends for their success in directing the London, Boston and New York Marathons. I will share with you, starting with the next posting, the articles that planted the desire in me to one day run in these big races, specifically New York. Perhaps they will also ignite the flame in you.