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Rarely have I read anything in Salon that was so far off the mark.
Here's what's really bugging the author: completing a marathon no longer makes you part of the running elite. People don't regard you as a different and superior species just because you have the t-shirt. The snob appeal is gone. Get over it.
As for the ludicrous implication that the slower runners aren't putting their full effort into the race: I once heard Bingham at a lecture, recounting a post-marathon dinner he had had with one of The Elite Kenyans. He told it like this:
"He asked me what my time was. I said, 'five and a half hours.' He looked at me and said, 'My God! How can you run for so long?'"