Nearly 45 years ago, ten men met at the Paramount Hotel in New York City and formed an organization that would challenge not only the "Establishment," but the very future of sport – the Road Runners Club of America. One of the prime movers that day was the late H. Browning Ross, a former Olympic steeplechaser.

Ross, who passed away in 1998, was an outstanding distance runner, earning eight AAU cross-country championships, a berth on the 1948 U.S. Olympic team and a gold medal in the 1951 Pan American Games for the 1,500 meters. But it was his exploits off the track that contributed so much to the sport. In addition to forming and taking on the first presidency of the Road Runners Club – which today has more than 200,000 members – he also single-handedly produced the "Long Distance Log," the first publication in the United States devoted to distance running.

From its humble, 1956 beginnings as a few mimeographed pages that gave race results and told runners about upcoming races, the publication eventually evolved into Runner’s World magazine. Ross used the pages of LDL to lay out the plan for a nationwide running club that would be broken out into various geographic districts. He started with Philadelphia, added New England and then opened a New York chapter. It was the latter that openly confronted the Amateur Athletic Union and paved the way for women to participate and for the sport to eventually be accepted at all levels.

With many special prizes and age-group awards, the RRCA competitions gave runners at every level a sense of accomplishment. Distance running became more and more acceptable in the United States, and great runners became more and more appreciated. Browning Ross and the Road Runners Club of America taught so many to not only understand the sport, but also how to enjoy it.