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On June 30, 2019, local running legend Nat White introduced Flagstaff’s first running club to High Country Running readers. He wrote how the Sisu Striders, founded in 1974, had organized the town’s first formal foot races.

Four years later, in 2023, Soulstice Publishing’s remarkable book "Running Up the Mountain" by Ron Mann and Matt Baxter documented how the Sisu Striders were formed by Scott Baxter, Ned Frederick and Jack Welch. I was a bit confused since I associated Jack Welch as Flagstaff’s beloved walking guru who passed away in 2023. I was curious to learn more about this other influential guy with the same name.

Searching the internet I struck gold finding , an entertaining collection of mostly running related essays. The first column I read was posted on January 14, 2024, titled “Running Up the Mountain Still.� Jack’s story expressed his surprise that Mann and Baxter noted his place in Flagstaff’s running lore.

At the bottom of the page, a lone commenter’s note read: “I remember training for a day or two in Flagstaff with George Young, Billy Mills and Jim Ryun. They were getting ready for the 1968 Olympics. I was writing an article on Jim for World Book Yearbook.� The commenter was Hal Higdon, world renown Runner’s World writer, coach and author of the best-selling running manual, Marathon: The Ultimate Training Guide.

Starstruck, I left Jack a comment asking him to connect with me. A day later, on March 23, Jack pinged me on Facebook from his home in Florida. In our almost daily correspondence since, I have learned that, in addition to Sisu Runners, Jack and his fellow NAU pal Ned Frederick started “Running � The Journal of The Scientific Study of Distance Running,� a perk included with Sisu club’s $10 annual fee. In 2014 Jack also wrote a book, "When Running Was Young, and So Were We" -- a book which his pal Billy (aka the famous Bill Rodgers) listed on “Billy’s Bookshelf, Recommended Reading for Every Runner.�

In searching the Arizona Daily Sun archives, I discovered a June 27, 1974, article titled “Sisu Striders Plan Sunday Fun Run.� The story described that the founders established the club to promote both running in general and running in northern Arizona. Sound familiar? Add the word “trail� after running and you have Northern Arizona Trail Runners Association’s 2001 founding mission!

For weeks Jack and I shared stories and continued to find parallels in our histories. We oddly discovered that in the early '70s we both lived a short drive away from one another on New York’s Taconic State Parkway (think Seinfeld’s “Bubble Boy� episode), with Jack growing up in Carmel and me in Elmsford. While our ages are almost two decades apart, when Jack wrote to me that he felt like he “has a new old friend� -- I could not have agreed more. While much has changed in Flagstaff since Jack Dog Welch left town in 1975, the Flagstaff running community is thriving just as it did when Jack and company planted its seeds more than a half century ago.