The Chicago READER had a cover story this week on John Bingham who is known in running circles as "The Penguin". He lives in Chicago and has written the books No Need for Speed: A Beginner's Guide to the Joy of Running and Marathoning for Mortals. Apparently he conducts running groups which emphasize a slow pace, lots of walking (his own gait inspired the "Penguin" nickname)

Interestingly, I am a new convert to going slow with lots of walking. A friend of mine is training for a marathon and she runs 3 minutes, walks 2, runs 3, walks 2. She can go for 20 miles like this. So I tried it using my mp3 player...run a song, walk a song, run a song. And I can go for 60 minutes.

I'm down with the penguin approach, obviously, but what interested me about the article was the number of runners who are really angry about it. The gist of it is that the penguin and people like him are ruining running, marathons, the whole thing.

Which is weird for a few reasons...I mean, if someone wants to run a marathon in 4 hours, how the hell can you NOT praise them for continuing to do something for 4 hours, but secondly, aren't there still people finishing quickly? How does it ruin it for THEM? If there are people who are walking or crawling or whatever it doesn't slow down the winner, does it? Even if the overall average finishing time for marathons has gotten slower (as the article states) how is that bad for the speedy people? Hell, doesn't it make them seem even more speedy?

I was at a dinner party a few years ago and I got stuck across the table with a guy who was getting his PhD in something poetry related at the University of Chicago. I was struggling to come up with poetry-related conversation and at one point he mentioned that he hated that there are so many amateur poets out there.

I suggested that everyone should write poetry, they would probably benefit from the experience, but that I didn't necessarily want to read everyone's poetry. But hey, why shouldn't they write it? He wasn't buying my argument and we changed the subject. But really...if I write something lame about a sunset did I screw something up for Emily Dickinson?

Having lots of mediocre practitioners of something doesn't diminish the achievements of those who are skilled practitioners. It's interesting to think that something could be so fragile...running, poetry, that it could be ruined by people who merely enjoy rather than excel.

I have two thoughts about this...one is that I wonder if you have to feel somewhat marginalized in order to worry about the mediocre folks. Running and poetry are somewhat fringey as it is. Do baseball fans feel like intramural leagues (or worse softball) ruin baseball? It's doubtful.

The second thought is this whole notion that if I say I'm a marathoner because I run a course in two hours or whatever a "good" marathon time is, you say you're a marathoner even though you run it in four hours...does the word "marathoner" become less meaningful?

I don't think so. But clearly some people do. And, weirdly, I feel like I got a bit of insight into the anti-gay marriage opinion.

If a male couple or a female couple can call themselves "married" then what does that mean about a heterosexual couple's marriage?

I would argue "not a thing" but then again I think that people should be encouraged to write poetry and to run, even if they suck at it, because it might make them happy.