Track and Field Blogs - Scott Bauhs

Last night I went to the showing of The Spirit of the Marathon in Chico with a bunch of the team. It was really inspiring and entertaining and it made me think about my place in running and what running means to other people.

First, it was wonderful that there was a documentary made about running distributed across the country in the way that this was. Even though virtually everyone that saw this was probably already within the running community, it was still nice for everyone to get together and appreciate what we share. Running press usually does not come in forms outside of results and interviews/gossip condensed into a select few websites and buried within newspaper sports sections.

If we want running to expand as a sport and as a business, hopefully we can get this to change. The sport of running has a huge market that seems to be relatively untapped and watching this movie proves this. 40,000 people ran the Chicago Marathon.

Imagine if 40000 people were allowed to participate in another major sporting event, for example: Wimbledon. Obviously the 40000th player would have no chance against Roger Federer but this is how the Chicago marathon is. Joe Schmoe who had bib number 34123 or whatever was probably torn apart by Felix Limo but technically they were in the same race and Joe Schmoe was given a fair chance (other than probably starting 15 minutes back) to run faster than Felix. That is what is so special about the big marathons.

The difference is, if there were anyway that Wimbledon could accommodate 40000 people, Roger Federer would have to be accompanied by a bodyguard because all of the 40000 people know who he is. In the marathon most people that were in the Chicago Marathon had probably never heard of Felix Limo before and by now they have long forgotten his name, if they ever bothered to figure out who won their race to begin with. To them he is “some Kenyan.” Even if it were Ryan Hall, most runners don’t know who he is.

If there is a way to get the casual runners to care about the elite runners then there will be a lot more opportunities for the elite runners. It’s a bummer that there is such a disconnect within the two communities. There isn’t really any other sport like it. Every Basketball player knows who Lebron James is and every football player knows who Tom Brady is but most runners out there can’t name one elite runner. I’m sure there is a way to do this and there are definitely people trying to get it done (like the makers of this movie) but hopefully we keep making progress in the right direction.

When things like this do come out, we need to embrace them. If you get the chance to see this movie make sure you do and when more things like this are available make sure to take advantage of them. Also, if you have the chance to go watch track meets and other races make sure that you do. Don’t just go to the events that you take part in.