The Logic of Long Distance

Runners are more than familiar with pain. It's our bread and butter. We love to hurt. We believe in endurance, in suffering, in brutal and soul-withering work. But ours is not a violent sport. See, there's a difference between pain and violence. Violence violates. You see it so clearly in what happened today. The morning showed pain as triumph and pain as failure. The suffering carved out on the face of Dulce Felix (what a sweet name) as her legs no longer worked, as her glory faded into defeat, as the marathon gods smote her for believing too much, for wanting too much, was noble suffering. The suffering of loss, but sensible loss, human loss. This sort of loss was not a violation because all it risked was victory -- such a small thing in the grand scheme. Sweet happiness led the race, and then faded. Such is life. It requires endurance. With Jeptoo we saw strength overcoming pain. We saw her, after 24 miles of hard running, run harder. We saw the glory of a healthy body...

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...