After Being Elected President:

Past History with CWRRC & Future CRWC Goals

by Richard Oldrieve, January 15, 2023

On December 7, 2022 I was elected to be the next president of the Cleveland West Road Running Club .On January 4th club officers and meeting attendees voted to rename the club the Cleveland Running & Walking Club. Part of the reason was that Jay O’Toole wants the name to reflect a broader geographic span than the Cuyahoga River east/west divide that existed when the club was founded in 1977. While I wanted to reflect the current reality that on Saturday and Sunday morning runs, somewhere around 50 percent of our gathered club members & visitors go out walking. Finally, my wife Susan suggested that “rebranding” to include walkers could entice her to show up on Saturday mornings

Oldrieve History with the CWRRC

Back in 1975, I was running for the Bay High School cross country and track teams. In the rock paper, scissors world of running I was a strong varsity runner on a cross team that finished 5th, 3rd, and then 1st in Ohio’s large school state CC championship race. Then at Cornell University, I made varsity as a sophomore and was voted captain for my senior season. Nonetheless, I never did win a varsity cross country race in either high school or college. In contrast, during indoor track, I won 10 to 25% of the varsity races I competed in by perfecting NASCAR techniques on the turns. I finished in the top six, in both the two-mile at Ohio’s unofficial indoor state high school meet and in the 5,000 meters at our conference championship that combined Army, Navy, and the Ivy League. In outdoor track, I was better at running quality times in big races. For example, at Bay High School, I broke Steve Babson’s school record by 8 seconds in the two-mile when I ran a 9:21 to finish third at the Bellaire Rely. Alas, a few weeks later my teammate Mike Schinski broke the record with a 9:19, and one year later our former Chris Koehler set the record that stood for over 20 years a 9:18. Ironically, it would take 3 decades before Coach Steve Babson’s best 3200 meter runner set a new record time that still stands. At Cornell, my best indoor 3,000 meter time was 8:31 while my best indoor 5,000 was 14:54 to finish sixth in the Heps. My best outdoor 5,000 was 14:52 and during my best 3 years at Cornell and as a graduate student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, I ran nine 10,000 meter times that ranged from 30:27 to 30:56.

Demonstrating that I was better at track than cross country, my best track 10,000 meter time was 3:04 seconds slower then Henry Rono’s world record, while my best cross country time was 3:44 seconds slower than Rono’s still standing CC world record on the exact same Lehigh Course that I had run on 3-weeks earlier.
Which brings me to my connection to the CWRRC. At Bay High, our cross-country coach was Richard Scott. He ran in high school but was a much better basketball player in both high school and college. We didn’t know why at the time, but Coach Scott invited CWRRC stalwarts such as Steve Gladys to run with us on our morning runs, while Jess Bell not only convinced Olympic Marathon winner Frank Shorter to run the inaugural “Bonne Bell Run-in,” Jess convinced him to run with us (as opposed to the Rocky River team) the night before the 7 mile race from Bonne Bell’s Rocky River headquarters to the new one in Westlake.
During the summers, we also ran with the CWRRC on long runs. My teammates and I would be your typical brash teenagers hoping to embarrass the “Old Fogies,” but instead of darting out to the front and trying “win” the first 3 miles of a 15-mile run, we would lay back and then zoom them on the return to Scenic Park. We assumed Coach Scott just wanted us to get in better shape until the one-time star point guard for Baldwin Wallace came to our Tuesday workout and announced he had run a 3:09:18 in the 1976 Boston Marathon.
Though I ran the first Bay Days and did well through my twenties most every July 4th, it wasn’t until I was an Old Fogie myself (for you pre-Boomers, listen to The Rolling Stones and The Who for their rolling their eyes take on people over 30), that I returned to Scenic Park to run with the Club. One of my closest friends on long runs became Kevin O’Toole—because he like me and my Bay teammates—tended to lay back for the first half of long runs and then speed up the last few.

After running for Congress in 1994 and finishing last in a 6-person primary, WCLV radio newscaster Hugh Danaceau asked me to become the start and finish line judge of the Club’s Mohican 100-miler. For over ten years, I served like an attendant in the waiting room of birthing wing of a hospital, as families would huddle around and ask me twenty times over the course of an hour, “How long do you think it will take our loved one to cross the final hill?”

Then after a disastrous shouting match at the 2005 New Year’s morning “Hangover Run” caused the newly chosen race director of the Bay Days 5-Mile to quit, President Lou Karl asked me to take over and I foolishly accepted. After Covid-19 hit, the 2020 race was cancelled, 2021 was toned down, and the club decided to hire Kevin O’Toole’s son Jay to take over as race director for all three 2022 races, I figured I should spend my newly freed up time to run for club President. Thank you to all of you who honoring me with your trust and vote.

Goals for the Cleveland Running & Walking Club

CRWC officers should find someone—preferably from other running and walking clubs—who could replace them as an officer.
CRWC officers and members should try to invite guests to our social events, walks, & runs.
Our Annual Holiday Party has been set for 6:00 pm, Saturday, January 28th at Forest City Brewery all members should try to invite a friend / prospective member to attend.
- $20 per person for CRWC Holiday Party on Saturday, January 29 at 6 pm. Email Treasurer Mike Fry at Frybo52@gmail.com or me (Rich) @ oldrievebiz@gmail.com or
Remember that there are advantages to having a club with a big treasury:
- Can host breakfasts after group runs.
- Can serve pizza and salad at monthly club meetings.
- Can subsidize a holiday party
- Can donate over $15,000 to charity per year.