Episode 433: When Running Was Young with Jack D. Welch

In this episode of Running in the '70s, host Matthew Kleinosky sits down with Jack D. Welch—author of When Running Was Young and So Were We, co-founder of Running Magazine, former senior road racing editor for Track & Field News, and self-proclaimed "world's slowest professional runner". From 100-mile training weeks and grassroots newsletters to media trucks and the early days inside Nike corporate headquarters, Jack delivers an irreverent, poetic, and unfiltered inside view of the first American running boom.


  • Origins & The 100-Mile T-Shirt: How a former basketball player in Danbury, Connecticut, took to circling a gym floor for 125 laps on Groundhog's Day 1972 to earn a promotional T-shirt, discovering road running just months before Frank Shorter’s Munich gold.


  • The Birth and Evolution of Running Magazine: Starting on a mimeograph machine with Dr. E.C. "Ned" Frederick, Welch sought to create the "Esquire of running magazines" by blending sport, philosophy, and poetry. He details the transition to an IBM Selectric typewriter, early ad mockups from Wieden & Kennedy, and the subsequent buyout by Nike.


  • Inside Early Nike & Athletics West: Welch shares behind-the-scenes memories of Nike’s raw, pre-IPO days: debating whether a shoe could ever sell for an astronomical $50 to house Frank Rudy's air sole, working out of a makeshift broom closet at Athletics West alongside Bill Bowerman, and the cultural clash between freewheeling track purists and buttoned-up corporate management.


  • Running 100-Mile Weeks as a Sub-Elite: Living out of a sleeping bag on a mountaineering store floor, juggling 24 credit hours of college classes, and pounding out double days to run a 2:46 marathon while training alongside legends like Joan Benoit Samuelson, Bill Rodgers, and Mary Decker.


  • The Ghost of Pre & Alternate Histories: Arriving in Eugene just months after Steve Prefontaine's fatal car crash, Welch reflects on the raw grief that permeated Hayward Field, his friendship with Pre’s parents, and his famous speculative "what-if" about how Pre might have shaped the boom and stood up to both Phil Knight and race promoters.


  • The 1980 Boycott, Doping, and "Where's Don's Bronze?": The profound sense of grief and futility surrounding the 1980 Moscow Olympic boycott, coupled with Welch’s persistent crusade for justice regarding state-sponsored East German doping and Waldemar Cierpinski's contested marathon medals.


  • The Evolution of the Running Tribe: Contrasting the spartan, mileage-driven camaraderie of the 1970s running subculture with modern internet-driven running culture, while exploring the lifelong psychological identity of being a runner long after the legs give way to power walking and pool workouts.


"I am the slowest thing you've ever seen, but it just somehow found my core... You don't run 100 miles a week 'cause you're interested in money and sex. You're interested in some self-fulfillment." — Jack Welch

"We were all victims... Imagine getting to the Olympics and earning a medal and not getting it... That's who I write for—the people that look at that and go, 'Ouch.'" — Jack Welch



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