Are Slow Runners a Waste of Track Space?
Slow running isn’t just being lazy. It’s a bona fide trend. Hey, I read it in the Times, so it must be so, right? Or was that the Sun? Anyhoo, the movement made up of people moving slow is becoming mainstream. But that’s not the same thing as acceptable. Take John Schwartz’s essay in the Times: “Friends have urged me to try for a marathon. But no, I’m not going to try to prove anything when I run. I’m just running, and I want to keep doing it. Besides, at my pace, a marathon would take me nearly seven hours. So if I have to prove something to myself, I’ll do it at work by writing better articles.” Like Schwartz, I’m a writer not a runner. I will spend 20 minutes running in place in front of my TV to make up for all the time spent sitting in my day job. I like to run laps around my kitchen and living room on commercial breaks — an attempt to work off the weight gained from said day job. I wouldn’t call myself a runner. I tried “real” running for a period in high school that coincided w
