{"id":12681,"date":"2009-04-20T18:43:57","date_gmt":"2009-04-20T18:43:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2009\/04\/20\/the-boston-marathon-and-the-return-of-boston-billy\/"},"modified":"2009-04-20T18:43:57","modified_gmt":"2009-04-20T18:43:57","slug":"the-boston-marathon-and-the-return-of-boston-billy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2009\/04\/20\/the-boston-marathon-and-the-return-of-boston-billy\/","title":{"rendered":"The Boston Marathon and the Return of “Boston Billy”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Bill<\/font><\/a> Today is Patriot's Day in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the  occasion of the 113th running of the Boston Marathon, the grandpappy of them all.  My mind drifts back to my own attempt 30 years ago in 1979.  Like Bill Rodgers in 1999, I dropped out at Heartbreak Hill, 21.3 miles into it.  I was running with a knee injury, chondromalacia patellae, having foolishly overtrained.  Not only did I mess up my knee training for Boston, I trashed my immune system: the following summer I got three infections which developed with no visible external cause.  One day, upon returning from a long hard training run, I urinated blood: a sure sign of working too hard.  Akrasia<\/em> in reverse, one might call it: I got caught up in the flush of burgeoning running prowess and I failed to discipline my discipline.  Just as it sometimes takes courage to be a 'chicken,' it sometimes takes discipline to cut yourself slack.  The spirit is famously willing where the flesh is weak.  The theory of training can be summed up in one sentence: you tear yourself down in order to build yourself back up at a slightly higher level of fitness.  But plenty of rest is essential to the equation.  A little common sense and cross-training can't hurt either.<\/font><\/p>\n

Age and prostate cancer have taken their toll on Rodgers, who is now 61.  He completed today's 26.2 mile race but <\/font>it took him 3:59.<\/font><\/a>  That averages to a bit more than 9 minutes per mile.  A far cry from the sub-5 minute miles of the glory days.  He is no longer competitive even in <\/font>his age group<\/font><\/a>.  But every finisher is a hero so long as he does his best.  And perhaps those whose pace is slower, because they suffer longer, are more heroic than the elite competitors.  As George Sheehan wrote when he was seventy-something,<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

. . . every finisher warrants applause, especially<\/em> those farthest back.  How does their 95 percent effort differ from the winners'?  It doesn't — not in pain, not in fatigue, not in shortness of breath.  In every respect, I race at the very edge of what I can handle, and<\/em> I do it longer.  Those of us who ran along with the leaders in years past and are now in the bottom third of the finishers know this firsthand . . . . When I finish, I will stand at the end of the chute and watch as those who ran behind me come through.  And I'll see that all are spent, some near collapse.  No one has done less than their best.  And their best, in a real sense, is better than everyone who finished ahead of them.  They are winners and heroes all. (On Running to Win<\/em>, Rodale 1992, p. 147.)<\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today is Patriot's Day in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the  occasion of the 113th running of the Boston Marathon, the grandpappy of them all.  My mind drifts back to my own attempt 30 years ago in 1979.  Like Bill Rodgers in 1999, I dropped out at Heartbreak Hill, 21.3 miles into it.  I was running … Continue reading “The Boston Marathon and the Return of “Boston Billy””<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[493],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-running"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12681\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}