- Date Of Birth: November 17, 1950
- Date Of Death: June 3, 2022
- State: Minnesota
James Daniel Ferstle 11/17/1950-6/3/2022 Jim Ferstle, 71, of St. Paul passed away at home at 7:02 a.m. June 3 following a courageous battle with Alzheimer’s and cancer, surrounded by loved ones.
Jim is survived by his wife Anne Kelly, son Michael, brother David (wife Wendy) and nephews John and Joe, sister Mary (husband Terry Mullett). He was born in Detroit, Michigan to parents Grace (Carroll) and John Ferstle.
The family lived in Delaware, Toledo and eventually settled in Minnesota. Jim attended Bowling Green University on a partial Athletic (running) scholarship. Jim was a distance runner through and through. He won the Toledo City Championship in the 2 Mile in 1968. His Bowling Green team won the Mid America Cross Country Conference championship in 1969, and his teammate Dave Wottle went on to win the Gold Medal in the 800m at the 1972 Olympics. Jim competed at a high level throughout the years, famously winning the Hopkins Raspberry run in 1977 by a wide margin, as he was the only person to beat the train at a crossing on the course. He began running marathons as well and achieved his personal best in the Milwaukee Marathon with a time of 2:22:45. He continued to race for many years, placing 5th in Grandma’s Marathon senior division in 1983 (2:26:44). He was in the cohort of runners that included Ron Daws, Dick Beardsley, Garry Bjorklund, John Naslund, Luke Brock, Steve Plascencia, Tim Zibukowski and many other famous Minnesota runners. Jim covered running in Minnesota as the running columnist for the St Paul Pioneer Press in the late 80’s-early 90’s. He wrote a book, Contemporary Jogging. He and his wife Anne founded Meters and Miles, a small publication for women’s running in Minnesota in the late 70’s. Jim often covered women’s running as a journalist, and was an active supporter of women’s distance running. He was involved with the group that brought the first women’s-only marathon to Minnesota in 1977. He remained friends with some of those runners, such as Jacqueline Hansen and Lorraine Moeller over the years. He remained a fervent advocate for gender equality in distance running and sport in general, and was a friend and booster of Paula Radcliffe and her work to improve equality in Women’s distance running. Jim freelanced as a journalist after moving to London with his family in 1992 while his wife earned a Master’s degree at the London Business School. During this time he developed a specialty in reporting on drugs in sport. He was a prolific contributor to books, magazines, newspapers, film and TV on the subject. He worked closely with Dr. Don Catlin at UCLA’s athletic drug testing lab to deeply understand the issue of doping and how it was affecting the sports he loved. He began an email list with hundreds of subscribers on doping and drugs in sport.
He will be dearly missed by his family, the running community, and the friends (animal and human) he has left behind.
