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Has this country's marathoning spirit been trampled by hordes of joggers whose only goal is to stagger across the finish line?...To schoolboys who raced three miles, the marathon was a rigorous, forbidding distance -- an extreme sport, like mountaineering.
I've never heard such truly pointless whining. As another letter writer said, it's very clear that McClelland used to feel special for being able to run a marathon, and now he doesn't feel special anymore because it turns out it's not actually that hard if you're dedicated to the training. Which is to say, he never was that special. So now he's sad, and so, so whiny.
Man, if you want to run to win, then run to win. People who win marathons run at literally twice the speed of those who "merely" finish marathons (5 minute miles vs. 10 minutes miles, give or take), which means that after 10 minutes, you will literally be beyond the horizon from the slavering hordes, and you won't have to deal with them anymore. But please never write on this subject again.
