What Happens When Errors and Values Collide?
That Herbert Krabel, oh, he got himself caught in a sling yesterday.
Herbert is the editor-in-chief here at Slowtwitch. I am its owner and publisher. Herbert is our workhorse. He's the one who rides herd on the crew, making sure that if a race ends in the middle of the night, U.S. time, the results are up on Slowtwitch at middle-of-night + 10 minutes. He also conducts a lot of athlete interviews. Probably close to a thousand of them in the last 5 years. Too many for me to count.
I am of the opinion that the person with whom you will have more disagreements and arguments is your spouse. It's not because marriages are contentious. It's just a numbers game. The more interaction you have, the more chance an ill-considered word is said, or a thought badly phrased.
Slowtwitch is also a numbers game. The more you write, the more you risk – no, the more you ensure – that you will write something you wish you could reach out, grab, and take back. Herbert wrote something like that.
Herbert interviewed an articulate, talented female pro, Beth Gerdes, and he asked her during the course of the interview whether she and her husband considered the question of whether to continue a pregnancy (the very charged, and very private and personal clash of values and ambitions). Beth had the grace to gloss over the question.
As to that question: A high-level female endurance athlete deals with issues that a male cannot even conceive of. I don't mean that it's just harder for a woman, because of decades of a lack of access. I mean, quite literally, if a male pro was appraised of the physical and physiological issues with which women must contend, he'd probably be naïve to them. I know this from up-close-and-personal experience.
There are questions we cannot or could not or should not ask except with great care and at the right time and in the proper context. Herbert's was one of those questions.
Herbert Krabel is intellectually curious, he is eager, he is a fan of the sport and its athletes, and he will just ask the question. Because, I think, it's hard for a person foreign-born to ever entirely understand the deep intricacies of an adopted nation and culture, in the sheer volume of interviews he's going to occasionally fall afoul of a deep, cultural standard.
When you're the editor-in-chief of Slowtwitch you aren't going to make that mistake in private. This happened to me a year or two ago, on our reader forum, when I referred to an Islamic person on our reader forum as Moslem when the proper term, at least today, is Muslim. Who knew? I certainly know now. And Herbert knows now that some questions, at least in this country and culture, are better left unasked.
For those who don't know – and most of you don't know – Herbert spends his day writing and researching for Slowtwitch while raising pre-adolescent twin boys, one of whom has a harder time than the other. Herbert loves these boys with every fiber of a caring and doting father. This is one reason I have so much respect for this man. Were I asked to define and describe the prototype father and husband, the figure of Herbert Krabel would be a fit model.
I don't want to gloss over this. To Beth Gerdes and to all Slowtwitch readers – whether you were offended or not – I apologize for a question asked on my watch. Not only can I not say this will not happen again, I promise you it will happen again. Hopefully not this question, but something. We'll write something – I'll write something – for which an apology will be necessary. And we'll apologize. I will apologize. And I will mean it.
Please, if you think Herbert's question was not inappropriate, I hope you will not take to social media (including Facebook comments appending to this article) and defend the question. It was an innocent question, but it was not an appropriate question (at least, not in the U.S., where most Slowtwitchers come from). If you feel you want to defend Herbert, well, that's what I'm doing here. I'm defending Herbert, his work, his passion, and his net good for the sport we all enjoy. But I'm not defending the question.
Just, to those who wonder what comes next, I have a luxury. I have no shareholders. No partners. I am not immune to criticism, but I am immune to pressure. The charge, as one ages, is to remain eager to learn and to admit a mistake, while not wavering on core values. As to whom and what I value, it's family, my sport to which I have devoted my working life, and the people around me who have shown great character.
Herbert Krabel is a man who occasionally makes technical mistakes, like the question he asked Beth Gerdes. He also uses too many adverbs when he writes. But he is a man of great character, honor, attention to detail and industry. I have the luxury of being able to stand behind those whom I believe in, and I have the ballast to do that without regret.
