[…] night before the race, and it was raining. It was still raining at 3:30 a.m. Not wanting to run in the rain, he checked out of his motel room and went home. Now he wanted a refund because it was raining when he left. Of course, the rain stopped at 4:30 A.M., and we had the most glorious day for running in the race’s 19-year history.

Butperhaps the complaint that really sticks with me several months after the race came from a 63-yearold male who took us to task after the awards ceremony because he hadn’t won anything. We had given awards to the top three males in the 60 to 64 age group. He had placed well behind the top three. “Maybe you can train harder between now and next year and improve your time,” I said. “No, no, you don’t get it!” he accused. “You spend too much time on and give too much attention to the people who run fast.” He creased his brow dangerously. “You’re a goddamned elitist!” Having delivered the ultimate blow to our already-bruised egos, he turned triumphantly on his heels and strode off—at roughly the same pace he had used to “run” his nearly five and a half hour marathon.

It would be easy to accept his accusation and say that there are as many reasons for running a marathon as there are marathoners, and that everybody is a winner, but that’s a copout. A marathon is still a race. Yes, there is achallenge merely to get from one end of a 26.2-mile course to the

[…] other under one’s own power. But a marathon is still a race and an opportunity—a glorious one—to see how fast arunner can get on a specific day from point A to point B 26.2 miles away.

It is a race against the course, against the weather, against the limitations of a runner’s genes, against other runners, against other runners in the same age group, and against the time constraints and the energy constraints placed on arunner’s ability to train. The marathon is an opportunity to formulate and follow a hard training regimen toward a brilliant performance.

It is curious that the runners who often or sometimes win awards at marathons don’t find themselves caught in portapotties when the start gun goes off, and they don’t complain if they had a bad day and finished out of the awards; and they don’t expect valet service on pants they discarded along the course, …and neither dothe serious marathoners whorun hard but never win an award for their efforts.

Itisn’tnecessarily bad for the sport that many new marathoners are training for and entering a race as a personal challenge to complete 26.2 miles. A fair number of these new marathoners return to subsequent marathons hoping toimprove on their early performances, and in the process to be rewarded with even more from the sport onan intellectual, emotional, and even spiritual level.

But we must remember that the marathonis still arace and that awards

EDITORIAL @ 3

aren’t handed out merely to reward the fact that someone exists. Not everyone wins a gold star. But the fact that there are gold stars to lust after often serves to make us better

marathoners …and sometimes better people. So much better, in fact, that we’ re prepared to walk, under ourown power, a full 37 yards from a portapotty to a starting line.

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4 @ MARATHON & BEYOND

On THE Road

WITH Kathrine Switzer