The New York City Marathon is this weekend. Here’s a tale you’ll not hear anywhere else.
Flashback to the first week in December, 2008. Reno, Nevada hosted the USATF annual meetings. Dirty stinking town, the week long event was held at the Silver Legacy Resort, a casino of course. That allowed smoking, everywhere. Whoever approved Reno’s bid to host must have gotten something very nice for Christmas.
But what, may you ask, does Reno have to do with New York City? Just this.
During my tenure as the WLDR National Championships Chair I solicited, entertained, and awarded bids for our champs program. That is one of the ways I built relationships with almost every race director of note in the country. One of my strongest doctrines was loyalty to events that historically supported our women.
In Reno I had received bids from both the Twin Cities Marathon and the New York City Marathon for the 2010 National Champs designation. Twin Cities had hosted our champs for many consecutive years. They came in with their usual solid bid, ~$125,000 in prize purse. Important to note that Twin Cities Executive Director Virginia Brophy-Achman was the Women’s LDR Chair at the time, I reported directly to her.
Mary Wittenberg is the President and CEO of the New York Road Runners and Race Director for the NYC Marathon. She has a lot of resources ($$) and a lot of clout with athletes. Her bid for the champs came in at a sweet $250,000. Double that of Twin Cities. And that put me in a pickle. NYC also wanted to host the Men’s Marathon National Champs in 2010, but offered a prize purse similar to TCM. Why? Because NYC wanted to host the USA Women’s Olympic Trials Marathon in 2012 (which we eventually awarded to Houston.)
So while negotiating a slippery tightrope between Minneapolis and New York City I wrangled a deal that worked for everyone. A personal pinnacle of achievement if you will. In 2009 the Women would contest Twin Cities, the Men would race NYC. The 2010 Women’s Champs would go to NYC and the Men would be competing at Twin Cities. Everybody gets paid and large!
Sitting in those closed door meetings, going toe to toe with the most powerful people in our sport in the country, maybe the world. Bending them to my will for the benefit of our athletes. Heady times to be sure.
And you wonder where my swagger comes from?
In October of 2008 I had the privilege of getting to know Allan Steinfeld very well (4th from left.) National Distance Running Hall of Fame member, former NYRR President and Race Director for NYC Marathon. We were USA Team Leaders for the World Champs Half Marathon in Rio de Jaineiro. We are pictured here about half way up Parque Nacional da Tijuca, en route to the famed Cristo Redentor. Swagger? You bet!
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