ROSIE DIMANNO SPARKS A WAVE...FIRST OF INDIGNATION, AND ULTIMATELY, OF VINDICATION!             By Coach Kevin Smith, November 2004

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About a month ago, runners in the GTA and across the country opened up the Toronto Star to receive some unexpected and unwelcome news--Rosie DiManno, a sometimes controversial, though for the most part straight-shooting journalist, who's opinions I more often than not find myself agreeing with, took an incomprehensibly vicious, spiteful, reproachful, myopic, and unusually fact-flawed literary swipe at our beloved sport, pursuit and passion of long distance running.  The column is entitled "Run all you want...just do it quietly", and is, as a whole, much more derogatory and malicious than the headline itself sounds...believe me.  Here is a link to the article (postscript: link expired, unfortunately)

I was suitably incensed, in part as a runner of almost 25 years, and in part as someone who has devoted his professional life to helping runners (that "mother hen" reflex!).  So I immediately rallied the troops, sending off an email to ONLY our current Coaching Group clients of this season (about 120 people), imploring them to read the article, and to respond via letter to editor if it offended their sensibilities as a runner and/or simply as a human being, the way it had mine.

Well...in short, I was overwhelmed with the response!  Just 3 days later, I had been cc'ed by email no fewer than 66 such letters headed for The Star's editoral department (never mind those they received from others similarly displeased among the rest of the running community).  However, it wasn't just the volume of the response that was remarkable--it was as much or more the passion, the insightfulness, the personality and the perspective of each and every letter that served to reaffirm my faith in running and the character of those who run.  Just imagine if I had decided to send that same email to the thousands of you who are receiving this e-newsletter. My guess is they'd still be emptying their inboxes down at the Star, wouldn't they? Anyway, for the great majority of you who haven't seen it yet (apologies to those that have already...skip on ahead!), for what it's worth, here was the letter I wrote back to Rosie...

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Letter to the editor:  Rosie's "Race-ist" Remarks...if you can't join 'em, beat 'em...to death?"

I imagine you'll receive your share of vehement protests to Rosie DiManno's weekend "runner bashing" diatribe on the basis of its general negativity towards runners, on how it reinforces Toronto's second-rate status around the running world, and undermines the future of distance running here in our fair city...so, I'm not even going to go there.  My brethren will fittingly take umbrage by the hundreds (if not thousands), and hence do that for me.
 
Here's what I think happened, Rosie. You got stuck in a traffic jam, and you got frustrated...plain and simple.  Fine, who wouldn't?  However, in the heat of the moment, you let those negative emotions fester and form into an irrational opinion, of which distance running was to be the unfortunate scapegoat.  The result? That train-wreck of a column this past weekend.  If that's not "how it went down"--and I really hope it was--then the import of your slings and arrows is that much more sinister and reproachable.
 
So often the champion of the good and just cause, such skill at unearthing the visceral truth on so many issues, here Ms. DiManno disappointingly and disturbingly fails.  With round after round of her impressive literary artillery, she heartlessly and offensively attacks running: its purpose, its people, its personality.  Those pejorative adjectives just fly off the page, don't they? "grim", "relentless", "manic", "dreary", "quivering", righteous"--the classic bully in the playground of prose. It's commonly held that the basis for such behavior is very often ignorance, fear and jealousy...hmmm.  Here's the kicker...almost every single "fact" she offers to justify her opinions, is surprisingly unfounded!
 
I agree with Rosie's assertions that running brings satisfaction, that runners are purposeful, driven, if even "compulsive" at times, and I'll admit that many of us are not the "easy-on-the-eyes" pin-up girls and boys that she seems to intimate we should be.  Also, I resoundingly concur that there is a certain absurdity and comicality to today's Running Movement--quite honestly, that's what many of us love about distance running--its inherent potential for humour.  Far from avoiding it, we embrace it...quirkiness and idiosyncrasies and all!  But please, laugh with us, or even tactfully, playfully and non-judgementally "at" us. You've NOT done that here. You crossed a fine line...well, more like smashed through it, a la freight train through a brick wall.  Here's how:
 
First, and most important...RUNNERS DO ENJOY RUNNING!  As hard as it may be for this idea to lance through the thick haze of self-admitted indolence permeating the rarified air on high, from whence Ms DiManno casts down her judgment upon us...it's true. Running can and does feel good!  The endorphin and adrenaline rush it creates provides "in-the-moment-non-deferred-gratification" pleasure, when done right.  We are not "laboring", "pushing ourselves through the pain barrier,” and "punishing" our bodies in a fervent Calvinistic desire to "achieve a state of nirvana".  It's not a means to an end, but an end unto itself (though we do appreciate the host of positive side effects that accrue).  We aren't running to "out-pace time and avert aging"--though the physiological evidence is irrefutable that indeed that does happen--but to put more into and get more out of every moment of the life we're living right now.  Why is this so hard to accept?  We're not saying running is better than sex either, Rosie...great sex, at least!  (though the partner of any active runner will confirm that running makes for better sex!).  It's about doing, not watching.  It's active and personal, not passive or vicarious...so unlike most of North American sport culture!  It's social too--we run the way you say you walk  "conversing, flirting, just generally enjoying ourselves".
 
Second, it's not about vanity or looking like a professional athlete at all--though it can often be about self-image, self-improvement, and creating change in one's body, mind and soul.   I started running myself as a child within a couple of years after my mother's suicide, which occurred shortly after my father had left our family.  For me, running provided a dependable security and constancy, amidst the flurry of new places, situations, emotions and family turmoil of my childhood.  Running had such a profound effect on me, that years later I went on to create a company that helps others with their running through clinics, coaching, training plans and seminars.  In my capacity as a "running professional", I've encountered women who started running to reestablish their lives following physical and/or sexual abuse, people who started running to overcome, replace or control addictive behaviors, those who've lost 50, 60 or 70 pounds to "rediscover" pride and functionality of their own bodies, and many, many more extremely powerful and motivating stories of how running has helped people. Still think its about vanity, spandex, stopwatches and "poseur stretching"?  Believe me, any self-respecting runner is disabused of the notion that people are watching him/her very quickly!
 
Thirdly, as for Rosie's assertion that "just about every weekend in T.O" there are massive running events holding up traffic "interminably"...I just checked the Ontario Roadrunners Association 2003 listing. There are currently 11 running events requiring road closures of any kind here in the city of Toronto...ALL YEAR!  Furthermore, most of those closures occur at 'non-major' locales, with only five affecting the downtown core.  Essentially once every couple of months, traffic is held up on a couple of major streets for a few Sunday morning hours, at most.  In part, these events raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for charities in dire and desperate need.  If that means you're left idling your SUV at an intersection a few more minutes, or have to "go the long way" to get on with your important Sunday morning tasks, we are sincerely sorry.  What would you have us do? Eliminate all such "road-closing, traffic-snarling" events? (ie. Taste of the Danforth, Word on the Street, Santa Claus Parade).  Hey, while were at it, since this untenable plight must have befallen everyone, everywhere, we best shut down the New York City Marathon (and the hundreds more held around the world), and that Tour de France thing must go too--after all, Italians don't have any interest in events like that anyway, right Rosie?  
 
Finally...news flash--Italians do run...and damn well!  Throughout her column, Ms. DiManno pines and whines about her Italian homeland, proclaiming that she--sports columnist par excellence--knows not of any Italian in his/her right mind who actually distance runs.  Type the following names into any half-decent internet search engine and see what you come up with (and no, I didn't have to do that to get these names...they're off the top of my head!):  Orlando Pizzolato, Gelindo Bordin, Gianni Poli, Franca Fianconni...the Italians have, at times, owned distance running.  But then again, one wouldn't know that if one were mired amidst the daily escapades of sports like hockey, football, baseball.  Afterall, Track & Field has only flitted amongst the top three most popular sports worldwide for the past 20-25 years (as opposed the comparatively low ranking of those "big" North American sports)
 
We of the gentle, compassionate and understanding running community have a saying:

"Before you criticize someone, run a mile in their shoes--that way, when you do, you'll be a mile away, and you'll have their shoes!"
 
...but even by spotting her that much of a lead, barefooted no less, with what I'm assuming will be the wrath and rapidity of reaction to Rosie's remarks, anyone doubt we'd catch her?

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