My first love was softball. Perhaps this was due to my great childhood crush on then-Milwaukee Brewer Paul Molitor. Perhaps, in retrospect, I’m confusing cause and effect, though. When I started high school, my school did not have a softball team. In fact, at that time, girls’ sports at my school were extremely limited. In the spring of my freshman year (1983), I joined the track team, mostly due to the fact that my older brother had competed the year before.
I quickly learned to love running. I also discovered some other things about myself. I was a somewhat natural, perhaps gifted runner. But that’s where the sport ended for me. My coach tried to talk me into hurdling. He thought with my speed and longer-than-average legs I would be a natural. I, however, knew I would not be. Growing up a lanky girl, I could run fast – in a straight line or even in a big oval. But put something in front of me, like a hurdle, and I’d show you a stutter step the likes of which you’d never seen before. The same could be said for my attempts at long and triple jumping.
So I stuck to running. I was a sprinter in high school, middle distance runner in college and now, many years later, I find my two favorite races are disparate distances: 5K and half marathon. Track is still my favorite discipline within the sport followed closely by road racing and then a far distant cross country.
I’m lucky to have been a part of the great Minnesota running community for the past 24 years. There’s an energy, spirit of competition and openness in this metro area that is second to none. And it’s my years as a runner that led me directly down a path to my years as a writer about running.
My high school running accomplishments led me to the University of Minnesota track and field and cross-country programs. After graduation, my volunteer officiating for these programs put me in close proximity to meet timer and results guru Jack Moran, who at the time was also founder and editor of the USA Track and Field-Minnesota magazine then named TAC Times. TAC, or “The Athletics Congress,” was the precursor to the present-day USATF. TAC Times eventually became Running and Track Minnesota then, Minnesota Running & Track. Throughout the years I’ve written for all three incarnations.
Moran asked me to write my first Minnesota running-based article – giving me an opportunity to write about Olympian Janis Klecker, six-time Olympic Marathon Trials qualifier Bev Docherty, and long-time running community standout Bonnie Sons. As a true running geek by that point, I thought I had died and gone to running heaven.
Then, as I became more involved with the Minnesota Distance Running Association, I began to write for what was then called Minnesota Runner. My first article for MDRA was about a local couple who built and sold snowshoes out of their south Minneapolis home. That wonderful magazine is now known as RunMinnesota.
Are you dizzy yet? Do you see why I consider my running and writing careers as roundabout? Since those first articles about women’s running and snowshoeing, I’ve written countless others about all aspects of running. And also articles about in-line skaters, bicyclists, triathletes and the wonderful events all these athletes participate in.
When Silent Sports founder Greg Marr asked me to join him and the amazing group of contributors to magazine eight years ago, I enthusiastically accepted. In my humble opinion, there was no magazine quite like Silent Sports – then or now. Marr’s vision for a magazine dedicated solely to “people-powered” sports was a remarkable one indeed. Joel Patenaude has very ably championed that cause even further throughout his six years at the helm. And I thank him for keeping me on as a columnist.
I’ve enjoyed sharing many stories of the Minnesota running community with a broader audience through this regional magazine and, more globally, through its Web site. However, I will be moving on after this column. My first “Running with Teri Dwyer” column was published here in March 2002. Moving on exactly eight years later sounds just about right to me – a perfectly round number for my favorite perfect oval-of-a-sport.
There are so many more stories to tell about this active, enthusiastic and ever-changing running community. I will continue to do that through other means and will also very much look forward to reading the musings of the next person or people to write about running in Minnesota for Silent Sports.
I would like to thank everyone who has so kindly and warmly commented on my writing over the years. And I’m grateful to have met so many interesting, lively and active people through interviews for my column and also as co-contributors and readers of this magazine.
I know I will continue to see many of you out and about at events. And you will continue to see my name atop running-related articles and perhaps, a little further down on road, in race results.
Teri J. Dwyer is a Saint Paul-based freelance writer. Dwyer wrote “Rock for Broc,” a column about the Twin Cities running community’s fundraising efforts on behalf of Cindy Brochman, in the September 2009 issue.
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3/26/10 - 12:56PM