My Super Bowls: Boston Marathon and Pulitzer Prizes for Journalism. Maybe one day I’ll get in the game
Posted Apr 19 2011 11:40am
Monday was sort of the Super Bowl of my existence.
They ran the Boston Marathon, and the winner set a world record that wasn’t really a world record. (How can you do that? Read the good people over at The Science of Sport for the best explanation ). As any runner knows, the Boston Marathon is the Super Bowl of running. Yeah, lots of people run Chicago (I did), or Austin (I did), or any other marathon.
But when somebody tells you they ran Boston, man, that’s totally different. You see them in their Boston Athletic Association-issued blue and yellow jackets and its like watching the varsity come out of the locker room. Every marathon I’ve run since 2009 I’ve believed I was fast enough to qualify for Boston. But by now, you know me and marathons . So, I’m still on the outside looking in.
Also, Monday, they announced the 2011 winners of the Pulitzer Prizes for journalism . A bunch of high brow, big-thinkers sit in a room and pour over thousands of entries and name the best stories of the year in categories like investigative journalism, feature writing, editorials, breaking news, and photography. There is not a bigger award you can win as a writer.
I was a newspaper reporter for 18 years (San Antonio Light, Hartford Courant, Washington Times, Fort Worth Star-Telegram) and wrote a lot of stories, a lot of good stories. But I’ve never even come close to winning a Pulitzer. But its always fun to see who does, and what the winning entry was.
I know tons of people who ran Boston Monday. And though I didn’t know any of the Pulitzer Prize winners, I do work with a former Pulitzer Prize winner in my current job.
Congratulations to you all.
And perhaps one day, I’ll join you in the winning circle.
They ran the Boston Marathon, and the winner set a world record that wasn’t really a world record. (How can you do that? Read the good people over at The Science of Sport for the best explanation ). As any runner knows, the Boston Marathon is the Super Bowl of running. Yeah, lots of people run Chicago (I did), or Austin (I did), or any other marathon.
But when somebody tells you they ran Boston, man, that’s totally different. You see them in their Boston Athletic Association-issued blue and yellow jackets and its like watching the varsity come out of the locker room. Every marathon I’ve run since 2009 I’ve believed I was fast enough to qualify for Boston. But by now, you know me and marathons . So, I’m still on the outside looking in.
Also, Monday, they announced the 2011 winners of the Pulitzer Prizes for journalism . A bunch of high brow, big-thinkers sit in a room and pour over thousands of entries and name the best stories of the year in categories like investigative journalism, feature writing, editorials, breaking news, and photography. There is not a bigger award you can win as a writer.
I was a newspaper reporter for 18 years (San Antonio Light, Hartford Courant, Washington Times, Fort Worth Star-Telegram) and wrote a lot of stories, a lot of good stories. But I’ve never even come close to winning a Pulitzer. But its always fun to see who does, and what the winning entry was.
I know tons of people who ran Boston Monday. And though I didn’t know any of the Pulitzer Prize winners, I do work with a former Pulitzer Prize winner in my current job.
Congratulations to you all.
And perhaps one day, I’ll join you in the winning circle.