Alex Hutchinson is leaving Runner's World, last column released today

Dane Rauschenberg@SeeDaneRun wrote:

bbk wrote:

Crooked Yasso is still part of RW, even after he refused to DQ Mike Rossi in his Via marathon!

Bart has actually retired from RW and his wife divorced him.

You sir get bonus points because of your handle. Let nobody forget, before Mike there was Dane (and a van).

Obese America wrote:

I always looked forward to his columns. He's moving on to a new venture.

I get the impression RW won't be around much longer. Everyone is bailing.

https://www.runnersworld.com/sweat-science/the-seven-pillars-of-running-wisdom

don't think i will ever visit the site again..only reason i went was for the Boston Marathon forum and for Hutchinson's articles - he has a great approach to the running research, from both the scientific view and the layman's perspective

Agreed, to a point. I'm not sure that open-mindedness and intellectual curiosity are the primary requisites to sort through the articles to find those of value, though. Persistence and an abundance of free time are just as, of not more, essential.People have been complaining about Runner's World's decline since at least the late 70s. There was a brief period when I first read it, just after the Montreal Olympics, that it provided valuable information for new runners and included topical information and race results you simply couldn't get anywhere else in a mass-distribution periodical. Track and Field news was always about elite performers and didn't cover the road racing circuit in as great detail.But RW and Rodale saw in the running boom a seemingly endless supply of new subscribers and the magazine quickly transformed into what most here would call a hobby jogger how-to manual. So those couch to 5k articles or getting under 5 hours for the marathon articles proliferated. Even worse, it spent decades seemingly contradicting itself. For every dozen or two articles on the latest fad approach to running faster it would publish one piece essentially admitting that what you really should be doing is:some light stretchingtake it easy when you're increasing intensity of mileslisten to your body and back off when you're showing fatigue or straineat right and cut back on empty calories if you're too heavyWhat we do isn't that complicated, and the magazine repeated the same advice in slightly different form over and over and over.To their credit, they helped to increase interest in running. That can't be a bad thing. And as people say of threads here they dislike or disapprove of--if you don't like it, don't read it.

Obese America wrote:

Not accurate. They wrote for a broad audience. Not every article will appeal to everyone. You have to be open-minded and intellectually curious to sift through the good and bad.

I had no idea ahutch was writing for that rag... I guess you got to go where the work is. Or was. Dude is pretty smart (evidenced by the PhD, which is not always a guarantee of smarts), and also an excellent musician, on top of being (at one time) a pretty solid (for Canada, anyway...) 1500 runner. He's too good for RW for sure.

Rodale, owner of Runner's World, was small publisher neither smart enough or deep pockets enough to withstand downward spiral of all print publications. Hence, Rodale about to be sold to Hearst, a serious player in the magazine world. Will be interesting to see how/if that changes RW much.

http://adage.com/article/media/a-hearst-acquistion-rodale-magazineland/310643/

Persistence might be the better word. But with Alex Hutchinson, his columns would often entice me to learn more about a certain topic or to read the actual study. There is a lot of value there.

There are nuggets of information I've collected over the years from RW (and RT) that have made me a faster runner. I can't dismiss RW wholesale because of some of the repetition. Also, Alex was definitely one of the reasons I'm a subscriber. I had no problem paying a few dollars a month to read his work.

Right. Alex was one of the bright spots. every month there was at least one page I'd want to read, it was worth my buck a month for delivery. Mass exodus there lately. The shoe guy quit last month. Will they even test shoes now?

So how the heck am I supposed to develop shredded abs now?

That Flagstaff article was a gem! I still return to it from time to time and google the protagonists to see how they're doing.That was really the last good piece in RW though.RW UK is owned by Hearst magazines and apparently Hearst put in the winning bid for RW america. We'll see how that goes.

Obese America wrote:

Jekdsk wrote:

RW is good for beginning runners looking to break 5 hours for a marathon after only racing a few 5ks

For Everyone else it is pretty much complete trash

Not accurate. They wrote for a broad audience. Not every article will appeal to everyone. You have to be open-minded and intellectually curious to sift through the good and bad. One of their best below.

https://www.runnersworld.com/elite-runners/they-might-be-ryans-talented-young-runners-look-to-prove-themselves

Obese America wrote:

I always looked forward to his columns. He's moving on to a new venture.

I get the impression RW won't be around much longer. Everyone is bailing.

https://www.runnersworld.com/sweat-science/the-seven-pillars-of-running-wisdom

Who cares? Citius and Meter are actual writing. RW could be written by an undegrad.

Years ago I began running. I liked it and wanted to perform a bit better. With Hal Higdon and a Runners World plan and some online forums, I then trained for a marathon.

Been hooked ever since. The magazine had a few good pieces and features since. Essentially the training tips are a starter course. Running 101 with a few higher level tidbits sprinkled in. That's ok. I'm well past reading that.

u mean citius? lol

The expose's they didn't do on Mike Rossi and Rob Young are the stuff of Pulitzers.

his column and Amby are what kept me a RW subscriber, for the most part. I'll miss the forums too, do not want to extend Facebook's evil empire by further participation.

not sure if I will keep up subscription of RW now it is becoming a Hearst property.

This is too bad. His articles were the only thing I read on the RW site. Hopefully he ends up doing something similar on another platform as I really enjoy what he writes about.