Senior Striders-An Introduction
Both this essay, and this new column, have been long overdue. This will be an initial introduction to some,
and a reintroduction to others, but hopefully now that I have gained traction
as a runner again, I can also gain some traction as a writer.
My name is Michael Selman, and I wrote a column for many
years in the mid to late 1990’s and early 2000’s called Thoughts of a Roads Scholar. I appeared in a local Georgia
monthly print publication called “Run
and See Georgia” magazine starting in early 1996. In 1998, the magazine changed its name to “Georgia Runner” but the format remained
the same. It was mostly a summery of
race results from the previous month, applications for future races, and the
publication had a few guest writers who wrote monthly articles to fill in a few
extra pages each month.
I started running and racing in earnest in the spring of 1982,
and from that point forward, even to today, running has touched and in some way
molded every other aspect of my life in an abundantly positive way. For
years, I kept all these thoughts and observations solidly between my ears, but
a single run in January, 1996 (Link can be found below) prompted me to start
sharing my thoughts in a public way, so I wrote to the editor of the magazine,
Gary Jenkins, and pitched the thought and sent him a couple of articles I had
hastily put together. My column debuted
in the March 1996 issue of the magazine, and suddenly, I was a local running
celebrity, at least in my own mind.
My column ran the gamut of topics that tried to capture the
thoughts of a common runner and expressing it in uncommon ways. Some months, I attempted humor, and other
months, I took a more serious tone. Occasionally, I wrote poetry, but I always
felt that my own personal favorites were the creative pieces that took a more philosophical
angle. But the one commonality of
everything I wrote was in one way or another, to address the burning question
of why we run.
As the column grew in popularity, I felt compelled to try
and reach a wider audience. The Internet
was still in its infancy, and the word “blogger” had not even been invented yet
in the mid 90s. But I blogged, and
wanted a vehicle to get my ramblings out there, so I knocked on as many electronic
doors as I could find. There were a few
web sites that catered to runners, so I reached out to them with some of my essays
to see if they had an interest in publishing my stuff. Much to my pleasure, I had many who accepted
the offer. Very few archives remain
today, but one notable web site that still has a lot of my older stuff is Ken
Parker’s Runner’s Web. My archives still
live on this site.
I am thankful the this archive is still up, as I have lost much of what I have written through the years, and am scrambling to recover some of my older ramblings.
One of the people I reached out with my essays was Amby
Burfoot, who, at the time was the executive editor of Runner’s World magazine. Another was Rich Benyo, a former Runners
World executive editor who left to become the editor of another wonderful
publication, Marathon and Beyond magazine, published by Jan Sealy. As a result of these contacts, I was finally
published nationally in both magazines around the turn of the century (Boy,
that term just made me feel really old. I
remember when that term meant going from the 1800s to the 1900s.)
In the early 2000s, I started writing for a local running
club, The Chattahoochee Road Runners Club ( www.crrclub.com
) and soon after took over as both president and newsletter editor of the
club. This move got me engaged with the
Road Runners Club of America, which at the time had over 600 affiliated clubs
as members, and represented another avenue for my writing. The RRCA had an annual convention where club
members would gather to celebrate running along with taking care of typical political
club business. But they also hosted an
annual awards ceremony, which included Club Newsletter of the year in three
different categories (Small, Medium, and Large club) and the coveted Outstanding
Club Writer Award, both of which I desperately wanted.
After winning the Regional Club Writer award in 2001, I made
it to the big time in 2003, winning the national award. The night I received that award was one of
the highlights of my running and writing career. Lucky for me, I won the award the same year
that Joe Henderson received the award for his journalistic excellence, and we sat at the
same table that night. Though I have
only seen him once since then, a friendship and kinship through our passion for
running and writing was born that remains to this day. Any future stops through Eugene, Oregon would
not be complete without a stop to see him.
Also at the table was the aforementioned Rich Benyo. For me it was like a scene from Field of
Dreams, only with living runners instead of dead baseball players.
In 2004, I managed to earn the Club Newsletter of the Year
award for my club as their editor. At
this point, all my goals as a writer had been achieved. And just like Forrest Gump suddenly stopped
running because he had run enough, I just stopped writing. I felt as if I had no more to contribute, and
there were others who had more to say than I did. I did make a few failed attempts to jumpstart
my writing, but passion is something that is not easily faked, so it ended up
being more like jumping off a cliff time and time again. My writing career was dead.
Until now.
There are several factors which are inspiring me to start
writing again, and just like way back in 1996 when I wrote my first essay, I am
again fresh with new thoughts, in some ways much different than in my former life,
but in other ways, really not that much different. I will be writing to the same audience, but
like myself, one that falls into a different demographic category. Senior Strides will focus on Runners over 60,
as I see things today from a completely different point of view than I did when
I ran my first race in 1982, or when I wrote my first essay in January 1996.
Over the next few weeks and months, you’ll get one runners
point of view on what continues to inspire me as both a runner and a writer,
and more importantly, how to keep your running focused on the future rather
than dwelling on the past.
For anyone who finds this blog, regardless of where you
enter, I hope you will start here, with this introduction, and work your way
down from here. My vision is that this
blog will grow, and tell a special story over the months ahead that will touch
your emotions and inspire you in ways that will surprise And I hope you share
your thoughts too as we go, as everyone is a unique experiment of one. I hope you enjoy the trip and participate along
the way.
Next Up: From zero to sixty.
Gone in a Flash.
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