Has "Taking it Easy" Become the Hallmark of Modern Running?

Though marathon running is at an all-time high in terms of popularity, the author argues that these events are being sanitized and slowed down by runners who just want to take it easy and avoid pain.

"There has been a precipitous decline in the standards of British elite and club runners since the 1980s. One cause of the decline is that distance running--an activity which involves endurance, struggle and pain--rests at odds with the current popular discourse of the attenuated self: the vulnerable individual who needs to be protected by an overbearing state. The second cause is that running is being choked by charity raising and the anti-competitive ethos that goes with it."