{"id":12811,"date":"2009-02-17T07:19:46","date_gmt":"2009-02-17T07:19:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2009\/02\/17\/phantom-runners\/"},"modified":"2009-02-17T07:19:46","modified_gmt":"2009-02-17T07:19:46","slug":"phantom-runners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2009\/02\/17\/phantom-runners\/","title":{"rendered":"Phantom Runners"},"content":{"rendered":"

I took up running almost 35 years ago in the summer of 1974 in that romantic hub of running, Boston on the Charles, the Athens of America, where Hopkinton is Marathon and the road to Athens traverses Heartbreak Hill. It was a great time and place to be alive, young, studying philosophy, and running down the road. \u2018Boston Billy\u2019 Rodgers was in his prime; I lived a couple of blocks from the Boston Marathon course, and my training runs took me around the Chestnut Hill reservoir and past Rodger\u2019s running center at Cleveland Circle. I actually ran abreast of Rodgers once on Commonwealth Avenue. He was headed for the Boston College track, racing flats in his hands, to run intervals. (I\u2019ll leave it to the reader to figure out how I could possibly have been abreast of a marathoner who won Boston one year running at a blistering 4:54 min\/mile pace. No, he didn't overtake me, and of course I didn't overtake him.) <\/font><\/p>\n

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Nowadays I confine my running to two long trail runs on weekdays and a two hour road run on Sunday mornings. I \u2018compete\u2019 in a couple or three 10 K or half-marathon races per year. I no longer insist on being called a runner; you can call me a jogger or worse and get away with it.<\/font><\/p>\n

I received a race entry form in the mail the other day. There was a category for phantom runners<\/em>: people who send in $18.00 receive a T-shirt, but don\u2019t run. It disgusted me. To me, the T-shirt is a badge; you earn it by completing the race as best you can. It doesn\u2019t matter what sort of miserable plodder you are; if you do your best and complete the course, then you earn the right to wear the shirt. Thus for me it is a point of honor never to wear the shirt of a race which I have yet to complete.<\/font><\/p>\n

We are drifting toward a reality-denying egalitarian society in which everyone is equal and everyone is a winner. But when everyone is a winner, everyone is a loser. The superior lose by being denied the recognition they deserve; the inferior lose by being made to believe they are something they are not. <\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I took up running almost 35 years ago in the summer of 1974 in that romantic hub of running, Boston on the Charles, the Athens of America, where Hopkinton is Marathon and the road to Athens traverses Heartbreak Hill. It was a great time and place to be alive, young, studying philosophy, and running down … Continue reading “Phantom Runners”<\/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":[92,493],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-autobiographical","category-running"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12811","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=12811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12811\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}