A high school acquaintance of mine, Jerilyn McDermed, recently posted on Facebook her reply to a September 19, 2013 Wall Street Journal article by Kevin Helliker titled "The Slowest Generation"calling out what he refers to as today's slowest generation. I also read his article and felt moved to share my thoughts with him. I sent him the email below. It by no means sets him straight like Jer did with her powerful and inspiring personal testimony. With her permission I am sharing it with you here. I encourage you to read his article first and then read her response below.
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Kevin Helliker's "The Slowest Generation - Younger Athletes Are Racing With Less Concern About Time" Wall Street Journal article.
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Jer McDermed's response:
"Dear Mr. Helliker,
I recently had the privilege of stumbling upon your recent article titled 'The Slowest Generation' through a friend on Facebook. As I settled in to read the article, the phrase short-sighted and narrow-minded sprang to mind, perhaps with a sprinkling of the word elitist.
While I applaud your Bostonian pace and the hard work that you put in as a runner to place in your age group, rest assured that I too, will win my age group one day. Most likely when I am 85 and everybody else in my age group is sitting in the nursing home and playing bingo. You see, Mr. Helliker, I am part of this so-called 'Slowest Generation' that lacks competitive spirit. However, I am writing today to tell you that you are wrong. While it may seem that this slow generation lacks competition or doesn't want to put in the hours of training in order to run 8-9 minute miles, one must look past numbers and at the runners before making a declaration that they're just not competitive.
Case in point:
Meet Jerilyn. This is me in 2009. Every time that I wake up at 3:30 in the morning to go for a run and bust out what you may believe are mediocre miles (Usually 5 miles at about 14:50 pace; sometimes faster, sometimes slower), I am competing. Every time that I sign up for a race, I am signing up for a competition. Every time I toe up to the back of that pack, because I will never see a day where I can toe up to the blue line before the gun goes off, I'm still competing. Jerilyn? the old me? That's who I am competing with. Every minute of every day of every hour, I am competing with genetics, family history, a life long eating disorder, and her- the girl who weighed 350 pounds who couldn't so much as play with her children without getting short of breath. You know what? I'm winning.
The picture on the right is me now. That picture on the left is from November 17, 2012. It was after I had completed my very first marathon. Well, a marathon plus. I say that because I put in 28 miles after getting lost on the course. I got lost on the course because I was so incredibly slow (though meeting the required pace for the race, I was the only one doing it) that they left me and pushed me to the sidewalk. I stood at crosswalks, I waited for traffic, and I picked up an extra 1.8 miles along the way. My race bib is ripped because after they told me that my race was done at mile 14, I tried to rip the d-tag off the back of it so that my time would still reflect that I finished the race when I crossed the finish line. After using some unsavory language and continuing without the blessing of the race officials, I ended up stuffing the whole bib in my pocket until mile 18 when I discovered that there were still 50K runners behind me. For the last 8.2 miles of my marathon, I cried. I cried tears of joy, tears of disbelief. Here I was, 250+ pounds, behind every body else, and I was going to be a marathoner. I finished dead last in 7:28. If I could choose between wining the whole thing because running just comes naturally to me, or coming in dead last because every moment of it was a struggle, an internal competition with what my body thinks I should be- I would be dead last all over again. A million times over.
To date, I have completed more 5Ks than I can count, a handful of 10Ks, 2 sprint triathlons, 6 half marathons, and a full marathon. I am the president of a run club that I established during my marathon training that boasts approximately 100 active members and 475 members that follow the closed group on Facebook. I suffered a torn ACL in March and had a full ACL reconstruction done on April 9, 2013. It took me 5 weeks to get back to walking my first 5K and much to the chagrin of my doctor, I began training for a half marathon on July 8th. At a check up for my knee, my surgeon could not believe that I was only 5 months post op and his physicians assistant told me that I have done better in my recovery than most high school and college kids. I run my first half marathon next Saturday, September 28th, 5 and a half months after having my ACL repaired. If that isn't a competitive spirit, I'm not certain what that is.
I began running in 2009 and I can tell you that in 4 short years, I have gone from feeling as if I did not belong to feeling as if there's a movement towards something better. I see people that are like me. I see men, women, and children of all sizes toeing up to the back of that pack on a Saturday morning when they'd be sleeping in or consuming an unhealthy breakfast. I see them competing with those same inner demons that I do, and you know what? They are winning, Mr. Helliker.
We are a slow generation. But you know what? We have more grit, more dedication, and way more competitive spirit than the runners of the olden days have ever had. Our race is simply more important than your random Saturday morning triathlon because ours is the race of a lifetime.
With respect,
Jerilyn McDermed"
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Here is my email to the writer:
"Dear Mr. Helliker,
Here is Mr. Helliker's response to my email:
Ms. Lee,
Thanks for writing. I’d guess that when an old-timer says something about “kids these days,” the joke pretty much always is on the old timer.
Sincerely,
Kevin Helliker
God forbid we let the un-natural born athletics believe that they can brush elbows with elite runners! Soon everyone will think they can get moving and what then?! Maybe a healthier society? Oh my, the horror!
I think you've forgotten it was your generation that raised the slowest generation. Maybe your parent's generation is shaking their finger at you for creating the issues we fight? Just a thought.
Every generation thinks the next is going in the crapper. Just sounds like the same quibble of "In my day, I walked 5 miles in the snow with no shoes..." heard from our grandparents with a new spin. Agreed "fun runs" are a trend of the now, however your article sounds like a case of crotchety old man syndrome. I'd get that checked out before it colors all of your writing and makes you no longer relevant.
My Regards,
Sarah Lee of Raleigh, NC and member of Generation Slow"
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UPDATE!! Here is Mr. Helliker's response to my email:
Thanks for writing. I’d guess that when an old-timer says something about “kids these days,” the joke pretty much always is on the old timer.
Sincerely,
Kevin Helliker
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Special thanks to you Jer for allowing me to share this with my readers! You are truly a brave, strong and inspirational woman! 
