Saturday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

It's not often we have sports-related posts on AMERICAblog, but this is one, kinda. Tomorrow, I'm running the Marine Corps Marathon. This is my sixth marathon and I think I'm ready. Also, I'm a little obsessed at this point, but not too bad compared to past years.

Yesterday, the NY Times had a bitchy article on marathon runners. Seems the elite, fast runners are disdainful of the slower runners. This country has a real problem with many people being overweight and out of shape. I was there myself ten years ago. If people use marathon training to get into shape, more power to them. We should celebrate and encourage that. The elite runners who don't like the slow runners need to get lives. Although, I do think that people who stop "for lunch along the course" aren't really in it for the fitness. That actually happened in our training program when I did my first race in 2002. Several people in the slowest pace group stopped for lunch on the Georgetown waterfront during one of the longer runs. Then, they were upset when that the staff had gone home by the time they got back to the starting point. It made for a few laughs.

Let's start threading...