Runners World - The worst thing for American Distance Running?

The Mothership will be here for you shortly .

The occasional RW feature by John Brandt, Kenny Moore, or Bruce Barcott are good reads. But I dropped my subscription when RT was purchased and retooled by Rodale.

I donthink so. I started as a hobby jogger running 30 min 5Ks. Then I started reading RW. It made me get stronger and faster. Earlier this year I ran in the Olympic Trials for the mens marathon. If it hadn't been for RW, I would be running 20 min 5Ks and feeling at the top of the world.

I mostly skip all of the short pieces which are entry-level oriented and read the longer articles, which aren't. The longer articles have included lots of good indepth articles about competitive runners in the last couple of years.

Anyway, RW is not the "worst thing for American Distance Running." It helps American distance running for the reasons people have said already.

The vast majority of entry level runners won't become hard core competitive runners and that has nothing to do with RW. It has alot more to do with the fact that since the 1990's, triathlon (and cycling to a lesser extent) has become the "cool" hard core sport for amateurs in place of marathoning.

Any publication that runs stories like the below is far from the worst thing about running.

re Julius Achon

http://www.runnersworld.com/article/0,7120,s6-243-560--14148-F,00.html

RW also broke the Eddy Hellebuyck doping story.

Half the articles in RW are lifted from Men's Health or vice versa (both owned by Rodale).

Then there's the headlines about non-peer reviewed outcomes of studies by scientists in Norway (its always Norway).

Some of the snippets of advice they give are often contradicted in the next edition.

I always liked it, except, I thought in the early to mid 80's, they became too political...

Although, I really respected all the staff, editors and writers and even the people that they talked about were dedicated runners, whether it be sister mary irvine or the "run for the people" races in Nicaragua and all that..but it was a certain type people who happen to be runners that they wrote about the most and gave the magazine it's direction...I happen to be of that political persuasion BUT, I couldn't help noticing that it was a magazine for runners who thought about completely different topics similarly..

rattrap wrote:

the reason why alot of people on letsrun read Runners World is because they are in fact hobby joggers. RW isn't a good magazine for anyone other than hobby joggers but that doesnt mean it is hurting the sport

Yes hobby joggers, just like 99% of the posters here.

One thing RW has over letsrun, is people over there don't lie about themselves like the "2:40 is jogging a marathon" crowd here.

Runnersworld is a excellent publication, but it is commercial and does not limit itself to 'small' diehard competitive running community. If they did that, they would go broke. But, RW does a lot of interesting interviews and coverage that's of interest to the competitive running community. With that said, I think they did do some damage to competitive distance running in the 1990s becasue you did not have a lot of options for information in those days. Nowadays, there are lots of information sources and RW has it's place as well. - RW is still the highest quality 'all around' running publication in the U.S.

Our top runners seen to be injured a lot. Just when they are about to become super elite, bingo they are hit with an injury. Webb has been running about 80% for the last 4 years.

RW lost lost its way with long distance running when they pushed editor Joe Henderson out the door in the early 2000s.

TrackCoach wrote:

Runnersworld is a excellent publication, but it is commercial and does not limit itself to 'small' diehard competitive running community. If they did that, they would go broke. But, RW does a lot of interesting interviews and coverage that's of interest to the competitive running community. With that said, I think they did do some damage to competitive distance running in the 1990s becasue you did not have a lot of options for information in those days. Nowadays, there are lots of information sources and RW has it's place as well. - RW is still the highest quality 'all around' running publication in the U.S.

I haven't read it in years.

I bet they still have an article every month titled "How to run your best 5k".

No, Sports Illustrated is worse for American distance running because of its inadequate coverage of competitive running. And Time Magazine is even worse because it almost never covers competitive distance running. The absolute worst thing for American Distance Running is Knitting Magazine which completely ignores competitive running.

Lets run forums and RW forums(esp. the Boston forum) are actually very similar in that anonymous posters claim the message boards to be intended only for people like themselves, who have met certain standards or conditions, and posters who simply want to discuss a certain topic are presented with demands for their qualifications.

For Lets Run, that would be unsubstantiated claims of elite status, degrees in exercise science. You can also get into the conversation by kissing the ring of old, cranky guys esp. one whose name begins with M.

For RW, in order to talk about hotel rooms, you must post on the 'dailies' about your personal life and just hope that some psycho is not paying close attention.

You could still go out and run every day if RW didn't exist. I've had my share of beefs with the magazine, esp. back in the '80s when it seemed to write about hot tubs and aloe vera more than about the competitive running scene, but I find it hard to imagine my running career without it, though I prefer RT. My running career began before RW, or at least before I was aware of it, and I had precious little knowledge of the running scene beyond my high school district. I had never seen a copy of TAFNEWS for sale on a newsstand. What I knew about elite runners came from the occasional feature in SI, and watching b&w TV coverage of AAU Track meets on the Wide World of Sports.

RW used to publish an annual pictorial issue focusing on elites, and an Olympic pictorial issue. I miss those.

These days Runners World has nothing to do with any influence to competitive running. But when I was a young runner in 1979 it was a source of inspiration to see a magazine devoted to running. Their were always training tips by elites like Rod Dixon and Marty Liquori and great race coverage of the road scene. Their was another similar magazine at that time with better writing, "The Runner".

Runners World realized the way to grow their business was to concentrate on the masses, not the few hundred that were really serious and focused competitively.

The shift was really noticiable when they started only featuring really nice looking women on the cover, most of who weren't even national class runners. Serious runners ignored that magazine around 1990 and that had nothing to do with the decline of American distance.

They used to always have an awesome Olympic event-by-event wrap-up but that ended in 1984.

These days magazines are pretty much obsolete. They are something to buy when you are killing time in an airport.

If RW, RT, and Trailrunner didn't exist, I would be forced to read a novel on the plane.

I can't believe no one has mentioned that fat B@st#rd "The Penguin"