I'm No Longer Mainstream

For years, I've been a subscriber to a certain national running magazine.  It was directly from this magazine that I learned about Mamo Wolde and the plight of his fatherless children. Who are here now; playing soccer [Tabor], enjoying chemo-free living [Addis], and trying to find a job [Aberash].  By the way, Mamo will be briefly appearing (.8 seconds) in a Coca Cola commercial created for the Olympics.  So, it would not be an understatement to say that this magazine has changed our lives.

Nevertheless, I am finding fewer and fewer articles that appeal to me.  Sure, it gives advice on how to run your first marathon, your first 5K, and the best running foods. But it does so in every issue.  I know, first time readers and all that.  But more importantly, it speaks to a type of running that I'm not interested in anymore; intense, career altering, all-out-sprint-to-the-end, put-your-best-face-forward type of running.  The monthly covers are a poignant testimony to this world/running-view.  Take a look:

Besides the airbrushed foregrounds and the photoshopped backgrounds, we often have to cover these covers so the little boys in the house don't see them. I don't want that in a running magazine. Some of these people don't even look healthy.

Here's what I like to see on a cover; real people.

So, I'm leaving mainstream running this month and not renewing my subscription to this national magazine. I'm not protesting. I'm not even asking them to change. I just like it when my children see a magazine filled with other runners who look like their parents rather than like starving, sweat-glistening actors.