Michelle said:In article <[email hidden]>,
Al Bundy said:Doesn't change a GD thing. If a person has to walk, OK. Then at that
point it becomes a walking program. That's fairly obvious. When you
walk, that's a walking program,
If all you do is walk, it's a walking program.
If I run one mile, walk one minute, and repeat that five times, I have
run five miles, and walked about a fifth of a mile. If I repeat it 13
times, I will have run almost a complete half marathon.
What makes two runners equal, or not, is not how fast they finish, or
by what means of locomotion. It's mental toughness: the willingness to
push it a little, to take a risk, to discover where the boundaries of
the body and mind lie. Maybe not every time but at least sometimes.
Certainly, nobody who considers himself or herself a runner will go
through an entire training program deliberately planning to do less
than best, come race day. Not doing your best is not planned, it's
just something unfortunate that can happen.
You could say that you have all that inner power inside you, and that
your walk-run approach is how you claim the best possible place for
yourself among the athletes. However, you can't make any rational
argument to convince others. And by trying to convince others, you
only make it seem as if you yourself are not convinced. If you were
sure that you posess some virtue, you would remain silent, and not
look for the approval of others by making it the subject of debate.
The reason you can't make a rational argument to convince others is
that the carefully measured walk-run approach cannot possibly be how
someone runs his or her best possible race (in the inner sense, I do
not mean by time). You do it in order that you have some certainty
that you will complete the distance, something that you believe you
cannot do by straight running. However, it's unlikely that the
particular pattern of walk breaks you are following is the only
possible way you could coax your body into completing that distance,
that it's the toughest effort you can muster. You have no way of
knowing, because those breaks are artificially timed. When you do
finish, you will never know if you could have done it with fewer
breaks. Or with shorter breaks. Or perhaps even no breaks at all. When
you take that measured break, you know that you aren't switching to
walking because you can no longer run. You're taking that preemptive
break because you're too scared that a walk break--or worse, a full
stop, or even an injury---will force itself upon you if you do keep
running. You have two able legs which /can/ run, and which /can/ go
the distance, but you aren't about to try. You are not rising to the
challenge, but sparing yourself like a coward. Moreover, all training
season, you planned it that way. And all of that makes you not equal
to even the last person who completes the whole thing knowing that he
or she gave it approximately everything, regardless of whether that
person ran the whole way, limped, or crawled on his or her hands and
knees to the finish.
All the same, allow me to express gratitude for your financial
contribution, which makes well-organized and electronically timed
races possible.
