Old Runner at End of Bar Ranting Again About Demise of ‘Running Times’ Magazine
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A runner described as “an old-timer” and “pretty drunk” is growing agitated at a local bar, Dumb Runner has learned, expounding on several topics, including the loss of Running Times magazine—a title that shuttered eight years ago.
“It’s all gone downhill since they shut down Running Times,” the runner, who remains unidentified, said slowly and loudly, slurring some of the words. “Now it’s all hobby joggers and iPods.”
“Goddammit,” he added.
Running Times, founded in 1977, was aimed at a very select audience of hardcore, competitive runners; as such, its circulation never came close to matching that of rival Runner’s World, which addressed runners of all abilities, including beginners.
In 2007, Rodale Inc., the owner of Runner's World, acquired Running Times. In 2016, the company announced it would stop publishing print issues of Running Times, instead folding Running Times content into Runner’s World. Over time, even that diminished, and Running Times’s decades-old run was over.
The man, who appears to be in his late sixties or seventies, is a regular fixture at the bar, sources said, and often talks about running.
“I’ve never really had a conversation with the man, but I know just from hearing him talk that he used to run a lot and was pretty serious about it,” said Beverly Johnson, a bartender who often serves the man. “He used to run, like, 100 miles a week and stuff.”
“He said once that one year he got 18th place at the Boston Marathon,” she added. “Which, you know, is cool.”
The man’s running talk usually starts midway through his second beer, Johnson said.
“By the time he’s into his third, he’s straight-up ranting,” she said. The subject of Running Times, which the man apparently read religiously for much of its existence, is a particularly intense one.
“I think that magazine represented something very special for him, something bigger than just the magazine, and now it’s gone,” Johnson said. “Or something like that.”
Reached for comment, the man at the end of the bar told Dumb Runner that carbon-plated shoes are “bullshit.”
