The Logic of Long Distance

A friend of mine just sent me the following email, asking a couple of important questions: Are people extremely sympathetic about Sammy Wanjiru's death simply because he was an amazing runner, one of the best runners ever? You are such a voice of reason and I respect what you have to say. That's why I read your blog. Where is the sympathy for someone who likely was abused? Nobody has mentioned that he may have been an abuser and may have been trying, yet again, to hurt his wife, maybe even kill her. If his wife had been beaten in the past, and if he was about to go for another round of beating, isn't she a little better off right now? My last post was a tribute to Wanjiru , and in that post, I wrapped the violence of his life up with his greatness, preferring to see them together rather than apart. While I mentioned that such a move was dangerous, perhaps glossing over unconscionable acts of spousal abuse and violence , the primary purpose of the post was to lion...

"You must have chaos within to give birth to a dancing star." -- F. Nietzsche "Looking back now, I think I had a lot on my mind and was pretty nervous, but as soon as I started I forgot about it all. The only thing I thought was, 'Who cares, let's go!' I'm not the type of guy who runs behind someone else. I was going to run up front no matter what the pace was." --Wanjiru on his Olympic record gold medal run in Beijing, fall, 2008 (from Japan Running News ) The running community has been shocked by the death of Sammy Wanjiru. You can read about Wanjiru's accomplishments in this Letsrun obituary ; it calls him the greatest marathon ever to live. He was 24 years old, just about to enter his running prime. The details of his death are still emerging, but Wanjiru had been hanging out with a tough crowd and had recently been arrested and not charged for a domestic disturbance. He was a troubled soul, and his death is sad. Our sport has an i...