Excitement & Ignorance

In case you hadn’t already heard, it was a big day down in the Big Apple as an American male won the New York City Marathon for the first time since 1982. Donning his country’s colors as he crossed the finish line first in 2 hours, 9 minutes and 15 seconds, Meb Keflezighi was one of six — yes, count ‘em, 6! — runners from the United States to finish in the Top-10 today, the greatest American showing in The City That Never Sleeps since well before I was born.

To simply say this was a big day for American distance running is an even bigger understatement, but since I have neither the time nor the right words to pay these performances their proper homage, I’ll just leave it at that for now.

The bottom line is I’m excited, perhaps a bit more so than the next guy because I’ve had the good fortune of interviewing some of these fast fellas — including Meb — over the past few years. I know how hard they’ve worked, how much they’ve sacrificed, how badly they’ve wanted to show the rest of the world that Americans can indeed run well on an international stage. Today, it all came together for them, and it truly was something special to see. I don’t tend to get overly emotional about races in far away places, but I had chills as I watched the live coverage online this morning. I’m excited, and proud, to be an American distance runner today.

At the same time, however, I’m more than a little pissed off. Pissed off at the peckerheads who write off guys like Meb and Abdi because they weren’t born in this country. Pissed off at these ignorant assholes who always have to find fault in a time of celebration.

Face it, he’s just another African marathon winner. When was the last time someone born in the USA won a major marathon…..

Give me a fucking break. That shit stain of a quote came straight out of the toilet known as the letsrun.com message board, a place I infrequently frequent these days because it’s more rare than an American winning a major marathon that anyone has anything good to say on there. Still, I stopped by the board this afternoon curious to see what people’s reactions were on the race, and sadly, this sort of inexcusable excrement was one of the top threads on the page. The more posts I picked through the more my blood boiled, so I called it quits rather than waste any more of my time tending to incessant ignorance.

To those people who say Meb isn’t really an American, I urge you to get your heads out of your own un-American asses and appreciate a fellow countryman’s accomplishment. He is no less American than you or any of your own ancestors, who at one time or another came to this country and gave you the opportunity to choose to be an ignorant asshole. Meb was given that same opportunity in 1987 and chose to run with it instead. Good on him, shame on you.

“U.S.A. gave me all the opportunities, education, sports, lifestyle,” Keflezighi told the New York Times after today’s race. “When you dream, you dream. You don’t give up.”