Letters to the Editor
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In McClelland's Defense
Imagine honing a craft—say, sculpting—over the course of many years. You study history and technique. You work endless hours toiling in anonymity. You produce much junk and suffer terrible frustration before producing work of which you are genuinely proud.
Imagine then that a movement comes along claiming that anyone can be sculptor. Not only that, the movement claims that sculpture requires no particular knowledge or talent, and any object produced by anyone deserves as much praise as that produced by the so-called professionals. Finally, the movement claims that those who have dedicated their lives to sculpture miss the point entirely, are kind of kooky, and are elitist snobs to boot. And, much to your amazement, this line of thinking wins the day.
Well, if you were that sculptor, you might be a little pissed.
And this is what has happened to marathons. It’s been taken over by masses of people who have no intention of learning anything about running, no interest in furthering running as competitive sport, nor even a modest objective of improving their own abilities. Worse, more dedicated runners are mocked for wasting their time while doggedly pursuing a lifelong passion.
A marathon used to be a reward for years of hard work, steady improvement, and unwavering commitment to running. No longer. Now it’s just something people sign up for with much fanfare and no preparation. And as someone who cares about the sport of running, that makes me sad.
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The best stories are at the end of the marathon!
Mr. McClelland, this article is completely off the mark, and the basic premise, that the flood of newcomers to the sport is somehow affecting American competitive ability, is ridiculous and unfounded.
Inferring that the problem in the Chicago event was the slower participants totally ignores the poor planning and greedy over-booking of the organizers. I think it was a criminal act to take people's money for such an event without providing for their basic needs.
If the problem is that too many Americans are overweight and not oriented towards competitive sports, how does restricting amateur events to the sports elite counter that issue?
While most folks who enter marathons may not be capable of imagining a finish in the top ten, that does not mean that they don't compete.
At the age of 50, my wife decided to get up off the couch and train to walk the Portland marathon with the help of a local support group. We decided to document that effort in a movie, "Walk to Me", and got to interview a couple dozen people who participated.
The group included people who were over 70, cancer survivors, people who were more than 100 pounds overweight, and one woman who had lost half of her lung capacity from emphysema. The last one in came in at over 10 hours - and we were waiting there to celebrate her monumental accomplishment. Even if the the raw talent was lacking, I've rarely seen that kind of determination and effort on professional playing fields.
My wife is still at it three years later, and competes in several events a year now, against her personal best (she's cut a couple hours off her original time!). It's made a huge change in her life, and documenting her journey has proven to be an inspiration to many others who have taken up the sport. Though she felt funny saying it at first, she now proudly shouts the mantra of her coach, Ellie Hodder, with all the other marathon walkers in training, "I AM AN ATHLETE!"
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Seriously?
A less ridiculously patronizing article might have made the point that Oprah and her ilk have popularized an extremely difficult sport, perhaps without properly making people aware of the need for extensive training beforehand.
But that was apparently not the point of this article, which reserved most of its wandering prose for denigrating amateurs--people who push themselves just for the thrill of beating their own times or proving that they could do something they once thought was beyond their reach.
That's kind of pathetic. (What next? A expose on how people trying to learn English are spitting in the face of Byron and Keats and dragging us all down with them in the process?) The author--and the editors who gave him a venue--should be ashamed. Maybe next week a more appropriate article on how organized sporting events, in spite of their rhetoric of promoting inclusion and amateur participation, are inevitably ruined by the sort of perverse cliquishness and hypercompetitiveness they engender?
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Go for the Gold is a stupid premise
McClelland seems to think America will have more 'marathoning spirit' if we won more olympic medals and a handful of dedicated shoe store clerks/runners were the only people running marathons.
I'd say 45,000 people in the Chicago marathon is a hell of a lot of marathoning spirit. And the country will be better off, stronger, and more athletic for them -- without a single medal to show for it.
What makes you proud? A nation of people like Oprah who reach for a difficult goal and achieve it? Or a nation of couch potatos watching one American getting the gold?
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Who cares
Just reading the headline and sub-head tell me all I need to know about the fatuousness of this article.
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Much ado about nothing.
I respect your spiritual attachment to marathons. I like your determination to have people actually race.
However, I think some people just aren't that interested in racing. They simply want to test themselves. I ran the Honolulu marathon a couple of years ago and finished in the bottom 20%. But I didn't quit - I pushed on in spite of intense knee pain. I didn't mean to ruin it for anyone and frankly wasn't running for anyone for anyone's benefit but my own. I wanted to see if I could do it. I don't see what the problem is.
For what it's worth, I've also done a non-Ironman Triathalon and came in dead last. But again, I finished. Some people in the same triathalon quit. I thought I did OK considering the fact that I hadn't ridden a bike in a year and had to borrow my friends knobby-tired mountain bike for the event. I had also never swam a mile at the time, so I was quite proud of my ability to persevere.
I just don't see the problem. To each his own. I'm actually happy that more people are doing it because Americans need to exercise.