I wrote last week (or was it two, or three weeks ago?) about typical conversations runners find themselves in when discussing their running to people who are, we'll say, less educated about the sport of running.  In this chapter, I'll pull out another couple of typical scenerios that many of you I'm sure have encountered.

If I encounter someone who has at least a basic familiarity with running and asks me “what distance?” (to which I respond “the mile”), I’m often taken on a trip back into the dark forgotten corners of the memory where I help with the frantic search of trying to remember “who that one guy was that broke the four minute mile back in . . .” “Roger Bannister.”  “Thank you!”  I then explain that a four minute mile among the elites is a joke and that the athletes who are winning the bigger international meets are running under 3:50. 

If the memory search serves not to find Bannister, but rather an old high school mile time run, no doubt, in high tops on the high school track in P.E. right after lunch, I call ahead to the ER to come pick up my passed out former 9:30 miler in advance of informing him what elite milers are now running.

Having utmost respect for how Bannister accomplished his goal, I yet often find myself walking on the edges of brutal honesty and patronization when explaining how badly Rog would get his ass kicked by some of our current stars, Lagat, Daniel K., Webb, and so on.  But I'm sure many of you have found yourselves answering the same exact questions.  Tell me what you've come up with, I need some new material here people!