Whether you are a regular subscriber to a running magazine, occasionally “borrow” one from your gym’s magazine rack, or find yourself picking one up at the airport gift shop, this piece is for you.
Even in the internet age, running magazine titles (none of which I will expressly mention here) have proliferated. There are magazines covering the local, national and global running scenes. There are magazines for road runners, trail runners, ultra runners, women runners, and mountain runners. What next? Magazines for vegan runners? For hashers? (I’m sure someone will inform me that such publications already exist.) The ways of splitting the running population up into smaller and more specific groups could continue ad nauseum.
For my part, I’ve always taken interest in what unifies runners: putting one foot in front of the other and reaching, conjuring up the inner child who always wants to get “there” a little quicker. This unity is obvious, simple and beautiful. But as it is in the nature of the zygote to divide itself, it is in the nature of all living things (groups of people included) to split from within. And from there, it’ll get snarky. Count on it.
Having been an off-again, on-again consumer of running magazines over the years, I have identified a fundamental division in the readership. This rift mirrors a schism in the view we runners take of ourselves: “I’m a tortoise” or “I’m a hare.” “I’m a recreational runner,” or “I’m an elite runner (or will be when I reach my goal).” Sure some of us may claim the middle ground (the author included), but we still can’t help but lean to one side or the other, and when pressed will expose our allegiance. When discussing magazines, this allegiance sometimes erupts into open warfare. I have heard more than one zealous reader extol and defend his or her choice of magazine with a passion usually reserved for patriotism or politics. Read between the lines: he or she is actually defending his or her level of commitment to the sport. I have heard haters of a populist running magazine refer to said publication as “Joggers World.” Oh how we runners hate the J word, however slowly we may do that thing we do. I have heard readers of the “low brow” magazine scoff at the elitist publication: “That’s for people who don’t have jobs and kids, who don’t have real lives.”
True, each type of periodical provides plenty of fodder for its detractor. The populist magazine regularly features runners who, with self-effacing humor, expose their rookie mistakes in all their embarrassing glory, document how slowly they, um, run, exhibit how ungainly their form is, lament how badly they struggle with motivation, weight, keeping their shoes tied, etc. This kind of magazine features the running bios and anecdotes of celebrities, actors, politicians and rock stars who’d be unwise to give up their day jobs for a running career. Sometimes things can get really goofy between this periodical’s covers, even carnival at times. This magazine regales us with color and thematic graphics that look like they were stolen from a page of People magazine. If it had a representative font, it might be Comic Sans. This magazine is our good-natured friend; it always laughs with us, not at us. But for those who go looking between its covers, there’s always, I contend, some useful tidbit of serious coaching aimed at the mortal runner among us.
The elite magazine, on the other hand doesn’t laugh at all. It is, like an elite runner at the Olympic trials, all hardnosed business from start to finish. Its representative font would be Times Roman (maybe even Franklin Gothic). Running is hard. Reading about running should be hard. It says, “You want clowns, go to the circus.” We are Spartans! This magazine does not deign to give instruction to the mediocre among us. This magazine toes the line in racing flats. A magazine catering to the elite runner recently ran an article ambitiously titled, “How to Run a 2:03 Marathon.” (No pen names involving animals that waddle here.) Taken as a coaching piece, the target audience for such an article would consist of—optimistically—about a dozen men on the entire planet. Talk about exclusivist! Out of editorial interest only, I read the article. Of course it turned out to be a “how they did it,” article,they being the handful of Kenyan runners who actually have run a marathon in less than 124 minutes (about the average length of most films not based on a Jane Austen novel).
So what makes a tortoise and what makes a hare, anyway? It is a matter of self-identification mostly. Ambition, wishful thinking, pride, humility, the ability to laugh at one’s self, whether one’s personality is Type A or Type B, whether the sun is rising or setting on one’s running career, all play a part in the camp with which a runner self-identifies. I think the editors of both types of publication are onto something. Regardless of a runner’s true ability, he or she may respond positively to the inviting atmosphere of a come-one-come-all magazine, the “I’ve got friends in low places” camaraderie of a magazine that doesn’t put on airs. And other runners–irrespective of true ability–respond positively to the set-the-bar-high approach of the elite magazine. These are the folks who reach for the moon, believing that even if they miss they’ll be among the stars.
Snarkiness aside, there’s a little something to help all of us to get “there” a little quicker. And the best news is, that little something is cheap and on sale now at your local newsstand.
runthink.org 