Fancyin' Flight

We certainly glorify combatants – I think we can all name a few generals, a wrestler or two, some famous action movie heroes – we’ve got the Fight part of Fight-or-Flight covered, but we seem to put a lot less emphasis on that second half.

Most of the runners I can think of are more about infamy than excellence: Jim Fixx, mostly remembered because of his death; Ben Johnson, infamous cheater; that poor bugger Pheidippides, of Marathon fame, keeling over at the end of his run (and do they name it the 25k Pheidippides? No.)

Even the intensely fast Jesse Owens seems to be mostly remembered for sticking it to the Nazis, not his four gold medals & race barrier breaking deal with Adidas.