Down the Backstretch was founded by Pete Miller and me, Charlie Mahler, in January 2007 with the goal of comprehensively covering running and track in Minnesota.
In its early years, DtB made its mark providing live text coverage of the Hamline Elite Meet and MSHSL State Meet (before the era of live results), reporting on Minnesota athletes from NCAA and USATF Championships including the U.S. Olympic Trials, and by providing a daily destination for Minnesota track fans to find results and content.
The site won the Adam Jacobs Award for “excellence in track
and field blogging” from the Track and Field Writers of America in 2011.
Shortly after taking a job with Twin Cities in Motion, I
sold Down the Backstretch to longtime Minnesota-based running journalist
and frequent DtB contributor Jim Ferstle. Jim managed the site until
health problems forced him to cease publication in the fall of 2019. Jim died in 2022 after a courageous battle with Alzheimer’s disease and cancer.
I recently reacquired Down the Backstretch from Jim’s
widow Anne Kelly. While I don’t plan to
resume DtB’s daily coverage of the sport, I hope to maintain the site as
an archives of Jim’s, Pete’s, and my efforts, as well of those of other DtB
contributors and, of course, the athletes and teams whose exploits are recorded
in hundreds of Down the Backstretch posts.
If you read DtB back in its original days, thank you
for your support! It was an honor and a unique pleasure to cover the sport for
eager readers. If you're newly arrived here, I invite you to explore the site to learn more about running and track in Minnesota from 2007 - 2019.
