"Plodders Have a Place but is it in a Marathon?"-NYTimes

A provocative article in the NYTimes about slow marathoners. I believe that with training most people who do not an obvious handicap or are advanced in age, can Run a marathon in under 5 hours. It is great that the participation is 3X since 1980 ... while average times are getting slower, 40 plus minutes slower. While slow is fine, I do question if it is really wise or healthy for some to marathon when they haven't done the preparation. Any pace puts a tremendous stress on the body. Many of the plodders are in this category. I saw crowds of them at St. George recently. As far as running and finishing vs. actually racing hard the barometer remains as always a Boston Marathon qualifying time, graded for age and this is what many shoot for. Yet while even Boston qualifying times have loosened in the last 30 years shooting for this goal creates a natural separation between runners and finishers.