I’m actually no longer a contributor to Running Shorts, but I had to log back in to respond to this one.

You are certainly entitled to your opinion about the book and whether I overstated its motivational value. But the thing about not running the marathon hard enough…

Finishing that marathon in 3:09:59 and qualifying for Boston by one minute was the proudest moment of my running life. I had worked at that goal for 7 years and on that day I ran the hardest, smartest marathon I could imagine running. My splits were almost exactly even and the final hour of running was most trying I’ve ever been through, requiring me to dig deeper than I ever had in my life.

You could argue that it was the excitement of that achievement, rather than the book, that made me so eager to get out there and run hard so soon after the race. But your diagnosis of how I ran that marathon, based on so little information, could not be more wrong.

It’s a good book with some interesting ideas, but I think this is overstating it just a tad. All due respect, I think running a cut-down three miler like that five days out from a marathon means you didn’t run the marathon hard/smart enough.

I hope you’re right on the coach-potatoes-to-runners thing, though!

One of the early members, Sally Byram 73, still has a can of beer after her morning long runs. Sally ran her 68th marathon on her 68th birthday 5 years ago. After her daugther saw her mom finish the Iron Man in Kona, Theresa decided that she could do it and the next year both did the Iron Man.

I think the interesting fact as far as I know, as I have read the book…yet, was that the team flips a wooden ball, about the size of a baseball,as part of the contest. A friend of mine, back in the late 70’s brought back to me one of the carved balls from Copper Canyon that was carved, and from the looks of it never used in a race.

You can check out some of my running stuff at http://mindfulness.com/category/mindful-running

Ozzie Gontang

-KZ.