On I went, out of the wood, passing the man leading without knowing I was going to do so. Flip-flap, flip-flap, jog-trot, jog-trot, curnchslap-crunchslap, across the middle of a broad field again, rhythmically running in my greyhound effortless fashion, knowing I had won the race though it wasn't half over, won it if I wanted it, could go on for ten or fifteen or twenty miles if I had to and drop dead at the finish of it, which would be the same, in the end, as living an honest life like the governor wanted me to. -Alan Sillitoe, "Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner"

Friday, March 26, 2010

I'm trying not to be sarcastic or mean

Okay, I'm not trying that hard.

I was teaching my students about the Battle of Marathon the other day (I love the Persians), which of course allowed me also to talk about Pheidippides and the origins of our sport.

As a preface to it, I asked if any of my students had ever run a marathon.  Several said yes.  Of course, further investigation revealed that these students had run, you know, 5k marathons.
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