The "sport" of distance running will never be popular (and why this is mostly a good thing), Part 1
Since you've all been refreshing this page dozens of times a day to check for a follow-up to my posts(1, 2, 3) about my experience with the ever-more-decrepit and hopefully moribund Outside Online, the only response from their end was an affirmation that no official response would be forthcoming. At least that's how I interpreted this:
Remarkably, she has managed to convince herself – or so it seems – that my posts were just out-of-the-blue random vitriol, and that the various coaches and interviewees involved in the mess at my end basically do not exist or do not have legitimate concerns, possibly because none of them happen to have ovaries.
To sum up the events:
Editor approves query and assigns article
Editor does virtually zero work on the piece for nine months while dispatching a series of e-mails intended only to placate the sender
Article progressively loses relevance thanks to shifting issues specified at various points by the writer
Writer loses patience and flips the game board
Editor sees (wholly predictable, in my view) response
Editor apparently figures with a sigh that if nothing else the angry writer has solved the problem for her, giving her license to "just sit this one out." Honestly.
More than establishing that this editor is globally useless – in fact, while she may be lazy, dishonest, and even cowardly in her official capacity, she is far from stupid and has written some solid stuff outside the running milieu, which I will leave to you to locate because I am not out to either Google-bomb or help anyone here – the way this all unfolded implies exactly the kind of passivity and torpor that writers who have flitted around this pitiful industry for a while have come to expect of the staff of any publication or website where running plays a prominent role.
The reason is simple: Very few people in America besides distance runners give a shit about distance running as a "sport," and you can safely bet your trivial and banal life that nothing will ever change this. As a consequence, those working in managerial positions (including editors) at these publications have no extrinsic impetus to display competence, let alone excellence, at their paying jobs. Many of them are busy concocting grander fitness-world plans for themselves, which is cool and all, but in most cases these ideas are pipe dreams at best.
I'm on the road now with Rosie in a banged-up car, having just driven through parts of the United States with problems that would be best solved by carefully excising these places with a trowel the size and shape of Tennessee and catapulting the whole manure- and Jesus-laden mess in the general direction of Cassiopeia; I also have my own actual work to catch up on. So the bulk of this will have to wait.
But do keep eagerly refreshing the page, hundreds of times a day, as the next installment will focus on the main reasons women's athletics are unfortunately given the shaft, a discussion of how not even the sort of tawdriness that draws a few new fans into niche sports can boost the overall profile of track and field, and a review of a few athletes who would be considered international demigods if they were major-league team players instead of highly proficient joggers. Sadly, it will even mention Dean Karnazes, who may or may not be alive and running these days.