Biographical Notes

Summary

• Roger Robinson was an elite international runner for thirty years, representing England and New Zealand , and setting Masters records at the Boston , New York , Vancouver , and other marathons. He is best known for his 2:18:44 personal best at age 41, his Boston record 2:20:15 at age 44, and his New York over-50 record of 2:28:01 at age 50.
• He is a leading author, speaker and TV commentator on running. His books on running are the classic Heroes and Sparrows, the groundbreaking Running in Literature, and the widely acclaimed 26.2 Marathon Stories (co-authored with Kathrine Switzer; published to date in eight countries, including a German translation). Senior writer for Running Times, he has published in magazines and newspapers throughout the English-speaking world. He won the George Sheehan Award for American Running Journalism in 2006.
• He was senior stadium announcer at two Commonwealth Games, New Zealand ’s official chief announcer for 25 years, finish-line announcer at many American road races, and TV commentator at Olympics, World Championships and major marathons internationally.
• As a speaker, Roger Robinson specializes in the history, literature, and significance of running, but also brings experience as top competitor, coach and commentator. Roger often speaks in tandem with his wife of 20 years, women’s running pioneer Kathrine Switzer.
• They live busily and blissfully on hills in New Paltz ( New York ) and Wellington ( New Zealand ), where Roger still teaches part-time as emeritus professor of literature.

Competitor

Roger Robinson represented England and later his adopted New Zealand in the World Cross-Country Championship, a unique double, and was a long-time elite competitor in track, road and cross-country, extending from 1963 to 1994 (2 miles track 8:36; 3 miles track 13:41; 10k road 28:50; 10 miles road 48:10; Marathon 2:18:43 at age 41; half-marathon 1:10 at age 50). Highlights of his earlier career include winning British Universities cross-country and track championships, the Eastern England cross-country, the Surrey County Cross-Country (in deep snow) and 3 miles track (with a record), the Canterbury road title after moving to Christchurch, New Zealand in 1968, and Wellington championships in track, cross-country and road after moving there in 1975. In 1979 he was voted New Zealand ’s “Harrier of the Year.”

As a master he ran his first marathon, and won the over-40 division at Boston , New York , Vancouver , Canberra , Auckland and Christchurch , all in record times ( 2:20:15 at Boston in 1984, on a day of rainy headwinds, at age 44). He won world masters championships in cross-country and road, over-40 and over-50 grades, and several medals in track. Unbeaten in more than 100 races worldwide after turning 40, he continued for eleven years as one of the leading masters in American road racing, ranked World Number 1 by Runner’s World in 1980, and Number 1 over-50 by Running Times in 1989. He regular won or placed at the Cascade Run Off, Peachtree, Boilermaker, Fairfield and Parkersburg Half-Marathons, Virginia Ten-Miler, Tulsa Run and others, despite traveling often from New Zealand .

His right knee announced its retirement from competitive racing in 1995, but at 68 he runs about an hour most days, and has sometimes raced (painfully) at about 7:30 mile speed. In 2006 he ran a 44:40 10k and won his age-group in two cross-country races in Van Cortlandt Park.

Author

Roger began writing about running as a teenager. He has always written for club magazines, and at different times contributed regular as sports reporter to the Surrey Advertiser, Cambridge News, Christchurch Star, and Wellington Evening Post, as well as more occasionally to The Dominion, New Zealand Listener, New York Times, and many more. He has published in specialist running magazines around the world, but is best known for his columns and features in New Zealand Runner from 1981 to its demise in 2005, and more recently as senior writer for Running Times. He also writes frequently for Marathon & Beyond and New York Runner. In New Zealand he contributes to each issue of VO2Max, and occasionally to Vetline and others.

Roger’s Heroes and Sparrows: a Celebration of Running (1986), a versatile collection of essays on all aspects of the sport, is included in most lists of the outstanding books on running.

Running in Literature (Breakaway Books, 2003), the first study of running as a literary subject, from Homer’s Iliad to 21 st century running books, has been called a “treasure trove” (Amby Burfoot) and “a tour de force of scholarship and creative writing” (Bernd Heinrich), and acclaimed for its “crackling wit and intelligence” (Julia Emmons).

26.2 Marathon Stories is an inspirational commentary on many aspects of the classic race, from its origins and history to its connections with health, religion, good causes, equipment, time, and language, all lavishly illustrated. Acclaimed by reviewers and runners, it was named one of the best five running books by Runner’s World.

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Running Encyclopedia (2002) credits Roger with “an enviable reputation as a skilled and sensitive writer on the subject of running.”

Acclaimed recent articles in Running Times include his runner’s reflection on 9/11 (“A Run in Central Park”), his first-person piece on returning to cross-country (“Grass Roots”), his compelling story of the first four-minute mile (“Four Minute Everest”), his travel narrative “Whazzling in the Highlands,” his challenging essays on foreign-born Americans and charity running, and his insightful history of modern running for the magazine’s 30 th anniversary, “Creative Energy: 30 Years of Creative Running.”

In Marathon & Beyond he published the series that became Running in Literature, a first-person account of revisiting Berlin for the marathon at the time of German reunification (“Outrunning the Sound of the Doodlebug”), a history of Masters in the Boston Marathon (for the magazine’s special Boston edition in 2006), and a vivid original narrative of the great Olympic marathon of 1908 and subsequent “Marathon Mania,” as a two-part series, “The Fascinating Struggle.” (Did Arthur Conan Doyle truly help Dorando Pietri across the line in 1908? Who won the fight between Irish and Italian fans at Madison Square Garden ? Read M&B March and May, 2007.)

Other significant recent topics include running-based charities, New York ’s Central Park (both in New York Runner) marathon courses (in the 2007 Boston Marathon official program), sport and the environment, the growth of multi-sports, and the historic 1967 Boston Marathon (all for New Zealand ’s VO2Max).

Roger wrote the TV dramatized documentary history of the marathon, A Hero’s Journey (Cultural Horizons, 1990), which has been screened globally, and contributed to a feature on the jubilee of the first four-minute mile on CBC ( Canada ) Radio’s “Ideas” program.

In 2006 Roger won the George Sheehan Award for Running Journalism (awarded at the National Distance Running Hall of Fame Induction), and his work has been listed in the annual “Best American Sports Writing.”

Speaker & Announcer

Known for “eloquence and wit,” Roger has been guest speaker at the Japan Marathon Association, the New Zealand Olympic Academy, the Atlanta Track Club, the Boston, Canberra, ING New York City, Napa Valley, New Jersey, Vermont City, Royal Victoria, Niagara Falls, Ottawa and Toronto marathons, and many other events, from the Peachtree Road Race on July 4 th to the Sao Paulo Race in Brazil on New Year’s Eve, from the Scottish Highlands to the Kepler Challenge in the deep south of New Zealand.

For many years one of the world’s best stadium and finish line announcers (including chief announcer at two Commonwealth Games), and an acclaimed TV commentator, Roger now rarely accepts the stresses of those roles, only at events for which he has a long-standing affection (e.g. Wellington’s Newtown Park Stadium, or the WIBX Utica Boilermaker radio commentary). Only offers that he cannot refuse will be considered.