Can RW turn it around? I wish their new editor good luck.

You can only go to the running nutrition and training well so many times but personally I like a magazine to have tidbits of everything. I didnt personally care for the latest one of nothing but stories.

I could care less about peoples stories I'm trying to create my own. Its like pro sports I don't watch someone else play a game when I can be out getting myself better.

I ended up with a year of RW after Running Times went away and didn't renew for a long time. A family friend started writing for them a few months ago so I went ahead and signed up for a year and it's been a mixed bag with the new direction. I did like the Barkley's article in the last issue I read; I would never do anything like that but I appreciated that they treated it as a sporting event and not as a freakshow. Semi-related: they have some genuinely interesting articles on the webpage that don't get into the print version, moving some of that stuff would be an improvement.

Putting an OCR athlete on the cover was a really bad move. I didn’t care to even look at it after that. I wanna see other real runners on the cover beyond the Kara’s and Shalane’s of the world. Put the blue collar runners who made it to the top on the cover. Or put every day people on the cover with remarkable stories.

Saywhat2 wrote:

I could care less about peoples stories I'm trying to create my own. Its like pro sports I don't watch someone else play a game when I can be out getting myself better.

ohhhhh soo hardcore

Ewwww. How impressive. Of course, a readership of you and every single other person like you would get RW about, say, 1000 readers. So maybe let it slide that they're going in a slightly different direction...

Wonderin' wrote:

Ewwww. How impressive. Of course, a readership of you and every single other person like you would get RW about, say, 1000 readers. So maybe let it slide that they're going in a slightly different direction...

Ill renew regardless to support the running community. RW provides $$$ for some local races for good causes and $10 per year isn't going to break me. Just dont care for so much stories..But it is running and only can talkabout tempos and intervals so much.

real people real stories wrote:

Putting an OCR athlete on the cover was a really bad move. I didn’t care to even look at it after that. I wanna see other real runners on the cover beyond the Kara’s and Shalane’s of the world. Put the blue collar runners who made it to the top on the cover. Or put every day people on the cover with remarkable stories.

BEN MF BARROWS FOR COVER OF RW!

I'd tell the new editor to hire Jonathon Beverly, tell him to do what he was doing at RT.

Did you even read that article? NOTHING to do with her being an OCR athlete, everything to do with struggling through injury and relationship with running and racing.

yawn wrote:

Did you even read that article? NOTHING to do with her being an OCR athlete, everything to do with struggling through injury and relationship with running and racing.

No, I didn't, because she gets wayyy too much attention for someone who's really not that good. Plenty of legit runners have overcome serious injuries to crush the world. I don't want to read about an attention-seeking, privileged OCR athlete. Give me blue collar runners and every day people.

Every cover should be Maria Sharapova out enjoying life.

http://www.funrahi.com/photos/h/maria-sharapova-at-sugarpova-candy-collection-launch-in-paris-on-may-22-2013/132261.html

Talk about overrated. Sharapova is longlegged but not really exceptional in the looks department. Sloane Stephens is far better-looking.

For those of you who stopped reading RW and thought had been going downhill for years, it went off a cliff sometime last year and became little more than a women's fitness magazine. This happened right after Rodale replaced David Willey with Betty Wong Ortiz - who In I understand was formerly an editor or writer for a womaen's fitness magazine. Hearst bought RW from Rodale earlier this year. Wong Ortiz is gone. Jeff Dengate (who I believe was RW's shoe/equipment reviewer for some time) is the new editor. In the July 2018 issue he explains the changes to the magazine. A lot of the fluff is gone. The format appears to a pictorial essay, a couple of more serious articles, and then shoe/equipment reviews. Jon Beverly is still on staff (I don't think he ever left). So are Amby Burfoot, Scott Douglas, John Brant and Mark Remy.

BringBackRunningTimes wrote:

I'd tell the new editor to hire Jonathon Beverly, tell him to do what he was doing at RT.

The whole idea of needing a monthly magazine for "running" is so stupid. In fact, pretty much every monthly magazine has no real place. They are nothing more than recycled content so you keep looking at advertisements.

Hopefully the trend from this last issue continues. I was so happy to flip through it and not see any food articles, recipes, etc. It is not a food magazine and am glad they are now saying that they will stick to running stories and gear reviews.

RW still publishes a printed magazine? I honestly had no idea. Hadn't thought of them in years.

In the day of instant online everything, I'm surprised any printed magazine still exists. Literally the second it gets to your hands, it is out of date.

Oh Please wrote:

The whole idea of needing a monthly magazine for "running" is so stupid. In fact, pretty much every monthly magazine has no real place. They are nothing more than recycled content so you keep looking at advertisements.

Magazines are obsolete. You can see plenty of recycled content on the internet and look at their advertisements, and you don't have the stack of old copies of the mag lying around.

There are times where (gasp!) you might be somewhere that does not WiFi or an internet connection. I know I know this is hard for you to take, but these places actually do exist.

In the event that you find yourself in one of these places it's nice to have a magazine to flip through to kill some time.

Agree with you that RW completely fell off the rails last year when BWO took over editor role, although the magazine had been shifting towards general and women's fitness for awhile before that. Personally, I hate the format under Jeff Dengate and am inclined to cancel my subscription. I just don't care for a running magazine filled with 4-5 page human interest stories.

Anyone who thinks a Running Times style magazine is coming back is delusional. It would be business suicide. How many runners can actually break 3 hours in a marathon or 18 minutes in a 5k? Several thousand? There just isn't a market large enough to tailor a national publication to the upper echelon recreational runner. Personally I was fine with the magazine at the end of the Dave Willey era. Combination of newbie runner articles, serious training advice, nutrition, gear review, and fluff pieces. Maybe I'm in the minority. But I find the new format unreadable and useless to me as someone looking for serious running advice from time to time.