Friends in Print

My April issue of Runner’s World was waiting for me when I checked the mailbox last night. That’s not normally blog worthy news, but as I took that customary first thumb through the articles, I found a familiar face staring back at me from the inner pages.

Abigail, the woman who I ran with for the last 12 miles of the Lookout Mountain 100K back in December, is featured in a big article that is the center-piece of the magazine’s “Weight-Loss Special”. Well, she isn’t the center-piece, but the article is, and her photo spreads across 2 pages. She’d mentioned while we ran (yeah, we walked a lot, too – that is, I walked and she was kind and stayed with me), that she had some friends who were trying to hook her up with the RW folks. I guess it happened. I hope they choose to do a whole article just on her sometime. She’s got a fascinating story. Nothing that’s out-of-bounds extraordinary (like, for example, the 9/11 firefighter they profiled last month who got hit by a bus and came back to run the NYC Marathon), but really interesting, nonetheless.

She was also on the contents page of the mag with a big, fishy friend. I know she told me her e-mail address before we all drove off the night of the race. I’m going to have to see if I remember it. I was pretty exhausted at the time. (It’s great, Abi! Totally cool!)

But Abi’s not the only acquaintance I’ve found in print lately. I ran a big chunk of the first half of Lookout Mountain with Lori. She told me on the run that she’d heard her picture had turned up in the new issue of TrailRunner. My copy came in a week or two after the race and there she was on page 49, in an article on the Dick Collins Firetrails 50-Miler. She was fretting that she didn’t look very good in the photo, but Lori, if you didn’t look good, they wouldn’t want you in print in their magazine! (By the way, you look good.)

Finally – though he is officially unidentified in the magazine – I caught this action photo of my Blog/Ultra buddy, Chris at the McNaughton Park 100 in Marathon & Beyond’s Nov./Dec. 2008 issue. It was good of Chris to feign being in such a state of need so that those volunteers would look so helpful.

I guess it’s possible there have been more people who I’ve run and talked with on the trails who have been immortalized in print the same way, but I don’t get to memorize every face. After all, most of those conversations take place with your eyes on the trail in front of you. I’m glad to have recognized these, though. It’s fun to see the people you’ve known get a little moment in the sun. And well deserved on all counts!