Category Archives: competition

50 Years of Running: They called me Coach too

Posted on March 10, 2023 by Christopher Cudworth

Following years of coaching my son’s youth soccer teams, I started coaching the girl’s teams with my daughter Emily. She liked the concept of playing soccer, but not so much the running and such. So it was a constant issue … Continue reading →

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50 Years of Running: Circling back

Posted on March 2, 2023 by Christopher Cudworth

Back when I lived in Paoli, Pennsylvania (182-83) during a short stint with the marketing department at Van Kampen Merritt in Philadelphia, I joined a great group of runners through the Runner’s Edge running store. Most of those guys, the … Continue reading →

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50 Years of Running: Condescension and karma

Posted on February 28, 2023 by Christopher Cudworth

Karma: The sum of a person’s actions in this and previous states of existence, viewed as deciding their fate in future As my relative successes at Aspen Marketing piled up in 1997 and ’98, I allowed a bit of self-confidence … Continue reading →

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50 Years of Running: In the land of Mr. Big

Posted on January 23, 2023 by Christopher Cudworth

Coming off a year of running my own business and a debacle job in which Paladin Interim Staffing hired me to open a suburban Chicago office but never followed through on their promises, I floated into the spring season looking … Continue reading →

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50 Years of Running: Of Stinky Feet and Blinding Stress

Posted on January 18, 2023 by Christopher Cudworth

In 1995 I was thirty-eight years old with a wife and two kids, and suddenly, out of work. The ENVIRONS business I’d cobbled together with a spate of contracts fizzled out with the failure of the development company to land … Continue reading →

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50 Years of Running: Religiously (and otherwise) Conflicted

Posted on January 17, 2023 by Christopher Cudworth

Toward the end of my full-time employment with the Kane County Chronicle, the Publisher got frustrated with something within the organization and sent out a company memo that read, “The Truth, The Way, and the Light, The Chronicle Way.” The … Continue reading →

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50 Years of Running: Emotional Intelligence in the Face of Corporate and Community Politics

Posted on January 9, 2023 by Christopher Cudworth

At about the same time that I won the position of Promotions and Creative Services Manager for the Kane County Chronicle in 1990, my activity in the city of Batavia led to a rise in responsibilities in the local Chamber … Continue reading →

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50 Years of Running: Transfer of Excellence

Posted on December 1, 2022 by Christopher Cudworth

During my early thirties, I came up with a personal motivational concept called “transfer of excellence.” The idea centered around taking the best things you’ve learned from doing one thing and applying it to another. I wanted to carry over … Continue reading →

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50 Years of Running: Our own little Field of Dreams

Posted on November 16, 2022 by Christopher Cudworth

At some point either when I worked at the Chronicle or not long after that, the editor Dave Heun recruited a bunch of his buddies to form a softball team and join the Leisure League in St. Charles. Dave wasn’t … Continue reading →

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50 Years of Running: Lessons learned

Posted on November 15, 2022 by Christopher Cudworth

I can think of several big mistakes that I made during my competitive running career. The biggest blunder of all was running a 20-mile final training run the week before I was scheduled to compete in the Twin Cities Marathon. … Continue reading →

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