Jeff Galloway, Class Act

Over at his blog, onetime Olympic runner Jeff Galloway comes out in defense of the “Peters” of the world — those of us who run the good race (in this case, marathons) albeit at the back of the pack. His post comes in response to an earlier New York Times article, Plodders Have a Place, but Is It in a Marathon?, which includes the following quote from Adrienne Wald, the women’s cross-country coach at the College of New Rochelle:

It’s a joke to run a marathon by walking every other mile or by finishing in six, seven, eight hours. … It used to be that running a marathon was worth something — there used to be a pride saying that you ran a marathon, but not anymore. Now it’s, ‘How low is the bar?’

Now, as someone who ran his first marathon last spring at a less-than-blazing 4:48, I could protest. I could mount some of the lame defenses put forth by others in the New York Times article: that merely achieving a feat that less than 1 percent of the population accomplishes is significant, that my race fee helps subsidize the sport for the elites, that anything that gets our overweight country exercising is a good thing. I could, but I won’t, because it wouldn’t mean much. Of course I’d say that.

So it’s nice when a Real Runner like Jeff Galloway comes to our aid. He could look down on the 99 percent of runners who, like me, are unfit to loosen his shoe laces, but instead, he sees our feeble imitation as the sincerest form of flattery. He appreciates the gifts he’s been given, without being so prideful as to disdain those whose gifts lie elsewhere:

We need to salute the efforts of those at the back who did not inherit the genetic material to run on a collegiate cross country team, but who inserted training into busy career and family schedules, improved their health and inspire others.

In short, a class act. God bless you, Jeff!

And lest any of those super-speedy runners get too haughty, remember this.