An Interview with Josh Weekley, the co-founder of RunWV.com

I’m thrilled to have an interview with Josh Weekley of RunWV.com.

RunWV.com was founded in the fall of 1997 by Josh, his brother David, and Johnny Trent. After Trent and David left the site, Josh has maintained the site on his own for about twelve years. He has spent countless hours of his time and energy to provide results and so much more. The website is dedicated to covering cross country and track & field in West Virginia. It is West Virginia's source for running information and its mission is to provide exposure to our athletes.

Along with maintaining RunWV, Josh has a full-time job at his local bank and is an assistant cross country / track coach at Doddridge County High School. But more importantly, he is a husband and a father of two kids.

I spoke to him about his running history, website and juggling his life.

Mike McMillion – Before we talk about RunWV.com, I would like to know more about your running history. Did you run high school track or cross country, or did you get into running later?

Josh Weekley – The first memory of running dates back to 3rd grade. We had a fund raiser for St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital, and we had to get sponsors who agreed to pay us a certain amount per lap or mile. We (my parents and I) told people that I’d probably run 2 miles or so. I had never run before. I ended up running 7.5 miles. And at one point, I ran the first mile of a 10K that my brother was running, and I think I was in 3rd or 4th place when my Mom made me stop because the race was moving onto the 4-lane at that point. It was a small race…it’s not like I was a prodigy or anything, but I think those two instances probably gave the first clue that I could run distance. I guess officially it started in High School with Track my freshman year. At the time, we had no Middle School or Junior High, so the opportunity wasn’t there earlier except for a “grade school track meet” held each year. I participated in those, but there was no practice or training. I completed my first road race that summer. It’s one of my favorite stories to tell my teams. It was the Parkersburg 10K in 1987. I was coming off a freshman track season that saw season bests of 5:27 and 11:44. I ate a whole can of honey roasted peanuts the night before, and I wasn’t feeling great that morning. Still, I went through the first mile faster than I should have. I was feeling worse, and there was a teammate near me who started walking, so I walked also and spent much of the rest of the race just walking. I ended up 365th of 372 runners that day with a time something like 1:05:37. I crossed the finish line, walked over to the drink area and had a couple cups of RC cola (why they were giving out pop as a post-race drink, I don’t know), walked up into the bleachers, and threw up a can of honey roasted peanuts. I learned, though. My next 10K a month later was something like 50:28 and the next one a month after that was in something like 46:27. We didn’t have a Cross Country program my freshman year. There were enough of us that wanted to get it started my sophomore year, and it probably only happened because we had someone willing to do the coaching for free. That was John Trent. He went on to coach several State Championship teams for Doddridge, but he and we spent those first few years trying to figure things out. I never was particularly great. In Cross Country, there was just one class at the time, and I never made the State Meet. I do believe we were one of the best A-AA teams my Senior year, and perhaps my Junior year, but we had two AAA powerhouses in our Region, and that’s all that advanced. In track, Class A and AA were together then, and I never made it as an individual, but did go twice as the anchor to our 4x800 Meter Relay. My High School PR’s are pretty modest at 11:00 for the 3200m and 4:52 for the 1600m. I did manage a 2:05.7 split at the State Meet in the 4x800 my senior year. I never broke 18:00 on a legitimate distance Cross Country course. Obviously, colleges weren’t beating down my door. I went to WVU and a friend and I decided we might try to walk on. On the first day, the person in charge of practice pretty much said that if we couldn’t already run a 4:20 mile and hadn’t been doing 70 miles a week, they didn’t really want us there. So, I obliged them. I wasn’t good at “off-season” training at that point. For a couple years in High School, I’d go run a 5K or 10K road race about every weekend over the summer, but didn’t do much else. I didn’t really start what you’d call year-round training until I was 24-25 years old. I think I kept my first running log in 1998. My best times at just about every distance 5K and up came in 2004, the year I turned 32. That year I set bests at 5K (16:37), 10K (35:57), Half-Marathon (1:18:30), and Marathon (2:49:55). The 10K is the only one that I ever beat after that (35:20). The half-marathon shouldn’t really count, though since it was Decker’s Creek, which is point to point downhill. I guess my real PR there is 1:21:27. I do take some pride in the fact that at 44 years old, nearly 45, I can still run anything longer than 2 miles faster than I did in High School, and that I have a 5K under 18:00 in something like 15 or 16 straight years. It doesn’t say much about what I did then, but it does mean I’m still churning out some respectable times. I never did advance to do big mileage. I’m averaging about 36 miles per week so far this year, which is much better than the last few years. I believe in big mileage, but I have too many other things on my plate to accomplish it.

MM - Have you had any setbacks during your running career that you had to overcome?

JW - I’ve been fortunate to have never had a serious injury. I’ve had a few nagging things here and there that cost me a month or two, but nothing truly significant. I had a herniated disc in my neck that cost me the better part of a cross country season six or seven years ago and a knee tracking issue that cost me February and March a couple years ago. But as you get older, those things take longer to bounce back from.

MM - Why do you enjoy running?

JW - There are many things, really. I love the simplicity of it. You put on your shoes and go. You don’t need to find 5 or 10 other people to do it. I also feel like it helps keep me young. I never want to be one of those older people who has trouble getting around. I want to be able to go out and run when I’m 75 years old. I want to be able to play with my grandkids when the time comes (and that’s many years down the road). Another reason is that I want to be able to eat what I want. That obviously doesn’t fit in with what we all preach to people about nutrition and their running, but the truth is, I really like pizza. And I really like ice cream. Another reason is that I like to challenge myself. I love doing the hard workouts. Sometimes I dread them, but I love the feeling of hitting or beating splits on a tempo run or 400 meter repeats and the feeling of accomplishment when you complete a tough workout. I love competing. I especially like it when there are a couple guys that are in my performance range or just a little better. I like that challenge. And I just love the running community. I don’t think I’ve ever gone to a road race and wish I hadn’t gone. The running community is so full of positive, encouraging, and motivated people. I think that goes for Track and Cross Country as well. I think you see way more “cross-school” friendships in those two sports than you do the others.

MM - Now let’s talk about RunWV.com. First, what inspired you to start your website, RunWV.com, and when did you start the website up?

JW - The site started in the fall of 1997. There were three of us at the time, and we just felt like it was next to impossible to find results to Track Meets, and even more so, Cross County meets. We loved the two sports and felt like the athletes in those sports were getting the short end of the stick when it came to coverage and exposure. We also covered Road Races in the beginning.

MM - How did you get the idea of creating an online running website?

JW - I really don’t remember. I don’t think it was my idea, but I got on board quickly. My guess is that it was probably Johnny Trent’s idea (a little background on him – his dad was the one who agreed to Coach our cross-country team for free, and he was a standout sprinter in HS and ran for a year at WVU, getting down to I think a 1:54 800m that year). He was the one with some semblance of computer skills. We initially set up on a free site called GeoCities. I think our original website address was something like www.geocities.com/colosseum/track/5193. There may have been one more /xxx in there that I’m forgetting. Regardless, it was little hard explaining things to people and trying to get them to visit the site with that address.

MM - When you started RunWV.com, what were your goals? Has the website exceeded your expectations?

JW - The goal has pretty much always been to have every result of every meet available for everyone. I don’t think that has happened yet in any season. As far as exceeding expectation, I suppose it probably has. It’s widely used, and I think most running athletes and coaches in the state would consider it their go-to location for information on the sports. Still…there are small pockets of the state that still won’t send results or schedules.

MM - Do you operate this site by yourself or does others help you? If so, whom?

JW - It started with three of us. Johnny Trent, my brother David, and myself. That lasted about a year, and then it was just my brother and me. He left the site a few years later after his second child came along or it might have been when his third came along. It’s been a solo operation since then, which would be at least the last twelve years. I’ll add that the last couple years, Mike McMillion has been providing interviews and biographies, which make a nice addition to the site, particularly in the off-season. I enjoy reading them. Hopefully others do as well.

MM - Your site is clean while others can get too cluttered. Was it difficult to get the site started?

JW - I don’t know that I’d call it completely clean. I try to keep it relatively organized, but some people still can’t seem to find things. As far as difficulty getting it started, I guess not too difficult. The original programming was done by Johnny Trent, and that’s still pretty much what is used. So, he gets all the credit for the look of the site if you like it. If you don’t like the look, then the blame goes to me since I haven’t really changed it. It’s one of those things that I know probably needs an update or complete overhaul, but I just don’t have the time to pursue that. Getting it started wasn’t hard I guess, but getting people (coaches) on board was a little more difficult, particularly with that GeoCities address the first year.

MM - You must have to work on it often because the site has countless tools to help runners and coaches. On the Cross-Country Page, there is News and Notes, Event Schedules, Team Schedules, CC Runner Rankings, RunWV Power Rankings, State Meet, State Meet Predictions, Regionals, Regular Season Results, Interview/Bio Series, Past State Champions, Coaches Information. On the Track Page, there is Contacting Us, News and Notes, Best Performances, Power Rankings, Small Meets, Invitationals, Conferences, Regionals, State Meet, Middle School Meets, Team Schedules, Major Event List, Records, Past State Meets, State Meet All Time Lists, Interview/Biography Series, Coaches' Information. And RunWV has so much more. Do you ever get overwhelmed with all the things your site can do?

JW - In a word, yes. Track season is difficult. Cross Country season is hard, but track is much more difficult. Usually in track season, I work on the site from about 8:30 PM to after midnight during the week and from 9:30 PM to close to 2:00 AM on Friday night and Saturday night. It takes a toll. I’m usually not entirely healthy by the end of track season. I didn’t chaperone my son’s class trip this year because I didn’t feel like it was safe for me to drive three hours because I was too tired. I keep telling myself that I won’t go past 11:00 PM during the week or past 12:00 AM on the weekend, but it ends up happening anyway. I’ve tried to drop certain things from the site before to save a little time, but I keep putting them back. It’s usually just small things like Meet Announcements. I tried to drop that one time, but I spent more time replying to e-mails explaining that I wasn’t going to post announcements, just full meet info, than it would have taken me to just post the announcement. This year, I did drop the Individual Runner Power Ranking during the season and just compiled that after the State Meet, and I stopped posting Cross Country photos several years ago. I’ve not dropped much else, though.

MM - Mainly, RunWV.com focuses on West Virginia High School Cross Country and Track & Field. Has this always been the focus?

JW - That was always the focus, but it hasn’t always been all that was done. We covered Road Racing as well for 3 or 4 years. That was also about the same time the WVOutside.com (now iPlayOutside.com) got started as well, and we kind of competed in the Road Race arena. We decided they were doing a better job with road racing and getting it the coverage it needed, so we just dropped it. And for a couple years, it might have been just one, we covered Football and Basketball as well. Based on the already voluminous coverage for those two sports and that lack of visits to that section of the site, it didn’t take too long to let that go. I also had a college results section for a few years. The college coaches weren’t very good about submitting results, and I really didn’t have the time to go look for them, so I dropped that. There was a pipe dream once of covering every High School sport, but that would certainly require the site to be my only job.

MM - What changes have you made to RunWV.com over the years? How has it evolved?

JW - I guess most of the changes have just been adding features and tweaking features to make them more useful. Several changes have been made to the Cross-Country Runner Ranking compilations over the years. I get a lot more “news” items than I used to. The much broader adoption of Hy-Tek and other meet manager software has been a lifesaver. In the early years, when a lot of meets were still done by hand with the old scorebooks, I had to type up most sets of results. My brother worked in Clarksburg and Morgantown during that time and would stop at their public libraries and scour the newspapers for any results he could find, and then I’d type them up for posting. Mercifully, that has ended. Most meet hosts have a method of sending results to me electronically. I don’t know that I’d say there has really been any kind of evolution, though. The goal and point of the site remains the same.

MM - One of the things that many people have noticed about your website is that you only have results for the internet era. Do you ever foresee having pre-internet era results added for the state meet? Or would that be too costly or too much of a task to take on?

JW - Jesse Skiles did a lot of work and a lot of research to put together his track history book that compiled results of the State Track Meets from the beginning of time. I have that book, so the potential is there to add those State Meet results, but he put so much work into that, I’d feel like I was somewhat stealing from him to just type them up and post them. I don’t know how many of those books he sold, but the State Meet All-Time lists would not exist without those books or Coach Skiles’ work. I’d certainly need to be sure that Coach Skiles approved any posting of his work because it would probably negate any potential future sale of his books.

MM - I have noticed in the last ten years, that times have dropped considerably on the high school, collegiate, and national level. Do you think that runners are training smarter because better training information is shared on the internet?

JW - I don’t really attribute it to that. Times may have dropped significantly in the last 10 years, but for the most part, they aren’t significantly better than they were in the late 70’s or early 80’s, at least on the male side of things. I think we just have more people out there who are willing to do the work to achieve those times. The internet information may well play a role, but I think most if it is simply the willingness of the athletes to work consistently over a period of years. One or two do it, and then suddenly, if you want to compete for the win, you must do it, too. The resurgence in distance times in WV started with Ben Lukowski. He won the AAA 3200m as a sophomore with a time of, I believe, 9:54. The next year, he was a 9:20 guy. People saw him start running those times and realized that if they were going to compete to win, they would need to run those times as well. And they did. He got upset at the State Meet by Zach Sabatino. It happened again the next year, Lukowski dropped to around 9:14 during the season, but got upset at the State Meet again, this time by Chris Walsh. It was around this time that Justin Simpson, and then Josh Simpson, were starting to really excel as well. Lukowski was 1st, and they took it a step further, and we’ve had some strong performances ever since. But I don’t think any of that was because they saw a training program on the internet. On the girls’ side, I think it started with Jessica Taylor. She was the first girl to go under 11:00 and won the 800m, 1600m, 3200m, and State Cross Country Meet all four years. Her training was led by her dad, who was one of those early 80’s era St. Marys runners. I don’t think her training came from an internet program either. I could be wrong. I do think the sharing of training information is beneficial. I don’t want to belittle that at all. You can pick up a lot by learning what others are having success with. I just think it falls more on the backs of the athletes and how much they’re willing to work, hurt, and sacrifice to accomplish their goals.

MM - Since you’ve started this website, which male and female athletes stick out most? Why?

JW - Wow…that’s tough. Obviously, Jacob Burcham flirting with the 4:00 mile (and going under 9:00 in the 3200) was big. Millie Paladino almost breaking 10:00 in the 3200 is massively impressive. I’m a distance guy, so those are going to be the ones that I gravitate to. McKenna Smith has been amazing…best time ever in any meet in any division in four individual events. Eric Ryan splitting a 1:51 in the 4x800 was certainly memorable. The athletes that display great range impress me. Jennifer Povick won the 100m, 200m, and 400m one year and the 800m, 1600m, and 3200m in another year. Nathan Fields going 7’3” in the High Jump. Never before or after have I seen a crowd at the State Meet so engaged in a field event. Christian Buckley in the throws topping 61’0 and 186’0. The Hurricane Girls Shuttle team going under 1:01 was a truly impressive thing for me. Tristan Slater going over 17’0” in the Pole Vault. There are a lot that are very memorable.

MM - I am continually amazed that your site is totally free. What motivates you to keep it this way, and how can you operate this site without ads, or membership fees?

JW - The whole point was to have access to the results for every meet for everyone. I don’t ever want to restrict that by charging for it. I did toy with the idea of making some parts membership based, like the Best Performance and Runner Rankings, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I just want everyone to be able to see everything. I don’t think you can really call the site ad free, though. Several years ago, I started putting the Google ads on the site. I try to do it in a way that’s not invasive, but they were needed. Once I had kids (I have one that is 9 and one that is 6), I really needed to be able to justify the amount of time I put into the site, and the Google ads do bring in some revenue. Not a ton, but enough to cover site expenses and to have a little left over. And I do get some sporadic donations, though it’s often from the same people year after year. Doddridge, Parkersburg, Ritchie, and St. Marys have been very generous to me over the years, whether it’s through the school’s themselves, booster groups, or just affiliated parents that appreciate what I do. There are others that are consistent in donating, but those four have topped $1,000 over the years. It really does help. I’m not always timely about getting out a thank you note, and I’m sure I’ve missed some entirely, but I do appreciate them all. The Chick-Fil-A Invitational has been a consistent ad buyer over the years, first through Dorsey Cheuvront at On the Run in Parkersburg, and they’ve continued buying the ad to support the site after he turned over the reins of the meet.

MM - How hard is it for you to operate your website without support?

JW - As noted above, I’m not entirely without support, but there’s no guarantee. Honestly, without that support, I don’t think I could do it anymore. I’d hate to let it go, but it is way too much time to put in without getting something back. That may sound kind of selfish, but that’s time that I could be spending with my family, so for me to keep doing it, they need to get something out of it.

MM - Will you continue to keep RunWV.com going for a long time?

JW - Hopefully. I think it still fills a need, and despite the time it takes and the exhaustion six months out of the year, I do enjoy doing it. I’ll face another trial soon if my children start getting involved in athletics or other extracurricular activities.

MM - I like how your site predicts the results of the state meet, and then analyzes your picks after the event is completed. Also, you don’t sugarcoat a failure that a runner might have. Does this approach ever bother people in the running community?

JW - I really try not to single out anyone for a bad performance. I think I’m usually successful, though sometimes, the way I word things may come across as highlighting a failure. I’m more apt, for example, to just say that one of my predicted placers didn’t make the final, than to give the name. We’re dealing with kids. They already know it didn’t go well. But at the same time, when recapping a distance race, if someone faded from 2nd to 6th, that’s just what happened, there isn’t really a way to say it other than to say that they were 2nd and now they’re not. I do get complaints now and then about the predictions, usually from someone who is upset they (or their kid) didn’t get picked higher. I do recall one scathing e-mail I received about a recap I did. This coach ripped me up one side and down the other because she didn’t think I gave her team enough credit in the recap. But I don’t think I’ve ever had anyone complain about anything I said in a recap (other than correcting a mistake) about a specific athlete, but again, I do try not to single out a kid for a bad performance.

MM - I see where you have runner rankings on your website and that you thoroughly explain how the ranking system works. Do you receive a lot e-mails and complaints that you ranked a runner too low or high?

JW - I wouldn’t say I get a lot of them. I do get some. It happens more early in the season when things are still sorting out and it’s becoming clear who put in the work over the summer and who didn’t. It sometimes takes the rankings a few weeks to reflect that improvement. Sometimes the complaints have some validity, and there have been occasions that tweaks to the ranking system have been made to address those issues. The Sullivan rule was created from a complaint. There was a runner (Jamie Sullivan – Huntington I believe) who was improving and increased her score in a meet, but when the new rankings came out, a runner that hadn’t been ranked previously but that she beat in that meet came in ranked ahead of her. That certainly wasn’t right, and a rule was put in place to keep that from happening again. It sometimes results in people entering the rankings lower than they should, but it prevents you from entering the rankings for the first time higher than someone who just beat you. Normally, though, the complaint will be along the lines of “I beat Fred in each of the last three meets that I ran against him, but Fred is still ranked ahead of me.” Usually it’s because Fred did something good in another meet that boosted his ranking. It’s not all about head-to-head, although that will carry a lot of weight when it comes time for predictions.

MM - Now the website you have created is phenomenal. Are you proud of your site right now?

JW - I am mostly proud of it. I’m proud of the volume of data and the relative completeness of the data and how much it is used by those within the state. I think I provide some things that nothing else does. It could stand to be updated to be more mobile friendly and more visually appealing.

MM - What part of RunWV are you most proud of?

JW - If I had to pick one, it would be the Cross-Country Runner Rankings. I think the ranking system does a really nice job of evaluating the season and accounting for the improvement or collapse of a runner to move them up and down the rankings. There are flaws, but I’d stack it up against anything else out there.

MM - Do you plan to make any changes to your site in the future?

JW - I don’t think so. I’ve had requests to add this feature or that feature, but I really don’t have time to add anything else (so…no Middle School Best Performances or Middle School Runner Rankings). There are site-related things that I’ve considered but not pulled the trigger on, but they wouldn’t impact the site itself.

MM - Now, no one recommended this site to me, but now I am a faithful user. Do most RunWV users find it on an internet search like me, or more by word of mouth?

JW - I’d say word of mouth. I imagine that most people who run track and cross country in the state know about the site, and they tell anyone new coming in. Some meets go out of their way to announce that results will be found on the site.

MM - Do you work full time, part time, or is your job specifically working on RunWV? Please explain?

JW - LOL. If only. I have a full-time job as the CFO of my local bank. And I coach Cross Country and Track as my “2nd job,” which makes the site my “3rd job.” The order of those two is up for debate. My typical day during the season goes like this. Up at 6:30 AM, get ready for work, drop the kids off at school, and go to work. Leave work at 3:45 PM to go to practice. Leave practice at 5:50 PM to get home by 6:00 PM. Eat dinner. 7:00 PM, kids start baths. 8:00 PM start kids’ bedtime routine. 9:15 PM - 9:30 PM head downstairs to do site work. That usually lasts until 12:00 AM - 12:30 AM, sometimes later.

MM - How do you juggle your family, work, the website, running, and coaching?

JW - Not always well. Obviously, at work, I need to be working. I’m fortunate that my employer allows me to work through lunch and leave an hour early to go to practice. I get my running in during practice. I try to be fully engaged with my family when I’m not working and doing site work. I’m not always successful. That in-season exhaustion that I’ve mentioned can result in my falling asleep on the couch, or even while reading to my kids. Yes, while reading. Mid-sentence. I’m fortunate that my wife and kids let me sleep in on the days in which that’s an option. Truthfully, everything else suffers a little due to the site. I’d be better at everything else if I wasn’t spending the time working on RunWV. I’m one of those people who thinks he can do it all, and I try to, but sometimes I fail.

MM - And finally, what are your favorite and least favorite parts about managing your website?

JW - I guess I have a couple favorite parts. I enjoy that fact that others truly appreciate the site and what I do with it. I feel like the site filled a hole in the two sports. I also really like having all that information about the athletes at my fingertips. When it comes time for State Track Meet predictions, I like that I know the five best performances of the top dogs and who is just outside the top 10 and who has been improving late in the season. The least favorite part is the amount of time it takes away from my family and the constant tiredness during the season. It’s probably not healthy.

MM - Once again, I thank you so much for this interview, and even more so for creating such a dynamic running web site. Congratulations on twenty years of Run WV! Thank you for your time and all that contribute to West Virginia running.

Below is why and how you can contribute to RunWV.com:

RunWV Wall of Support - Why Contribute

The Wall of Support is a way for you to show support for our efforts at RunWV.com. We strive to provide the most thorough coverage available to the sports of Cross Country and Track & Field. If you like what we do, then a contribution would be appreciated. Regardless, we have no intention of ever charging for "Premium" content as many other sports sites do. Our goal is to provide exposure to the sports and to the athletes.

Most of the funds will be used to pay the continuing costs of the site that include:

· Web Hosting

· Internet Connections

· Fax Service

· Office Supplies

· Other Site Related Expenses

RunWV Wall of Support - How to Contribute

Contributing to the RunWV Wall of Support is easy; simply send us the following information:

· Name (Please indicate if you wish the contribution to be made anonymously)

· Name of the School you want associated with your contribution

· Your Contribution

Send the above items to:

RunWV

1925 WV Route 18

West Union, WV 26456

That's all there is to it, so be a site supporter today!

If you have any questions, you may e-mail Josh Weekley at runwv@runwv.com

Submitted by Mike McMillion (07/02/17)