There was an article in Saturday's New York Times about the Los Angeles Marathon. Apparently it's especially warm in LA--and though the 26.2-mile run started at 7AM, the weathertariat was predicting no cloud cover and temperatures approaching 90-degrees.
From 1981 to 1995, a younger, thinner George ran a dozen marathons. Eleven in New York and one in Philadelphia. My fastest time was 3:10:15 and my slowest was 3:57:20. I dropped out of one with severe leg cramps. During those dozen marathons, I ran through snow, torrential rain, adverse winds and an extremely humid day where the temperature and humidity in New York hit the mid-80s.
It was no picnic. Marathons never are.
This year in LA, race organizers are worried about the heat and its effect on entrants.
They're allowing runners to get a "finisher's medal" after just 18 miles. In other words, you can complete 68.702-percent of the race (in my grade-book that's a D+) and still get credit for finishing.
If I finished the whole thing, and someone else finished under 70-percent of it and got the same medal I got, I'd be pissed. I'd be equally-pissed if I were wearing the medal (you're allowed to wear it on your way home without looking like a dickweed) and someone asked me how far I ran.
Finish for the entirety of the existence of the word has meant "completion." Etymology online, above, defines the verb as to come to an end, to stop, die, a close, a conclusion, the greatest degree.
Finish, as a word is like "unique." It either is or isn't. It can't be modified. You've either finished or not. Like you're either unique or not. You can't even be very. You just are or have. It's on or off. Dead or living. Erwin Shrödinger need not apply.
There's no question in my mind why Schubert's Symphony Number 8 is called his "Unfinished Symphony." It's not finished.
What bothers me about this, of course, is that calling people who don't finish finishers is the sort of practice that has done so much to denigrate our industry and, yes, our world.
Some of the supports of the 68.702-percent-finish-standard sound like so many apologists in our business. The ones that applaud awards for ads that never ran, and clients that never paid for those ads. The ones that herald a CCO as "most awarded" though her agency's revenue, client list and number of employees has decreased by 80-percent or 90-percent.
The Times reports, that Steph Dunlap, a "pacer" said, "marathon medals represent the memories, not the distance." I suppose that would allow me, who cut myself shaving this morning, to qualify for the Purple Heart. My blood represents trauma not a war-wound.
Ms. Dunlap continued "All runners count, even if they don't complete the race. I think they should be incredibly proud of how far they've come. I mean, 18 miles is still nothing to scoff at."
Undoubtedly 18 miles is a long way to run. As stated above, it's almost 70-percent of a marathon. But the medal is question is for finishing a marathon. (Unless they're giving you 70-percent of a medal.)
When standards plummet, whether in running 18 miles of a 26.2-mile race, or praising work because it gets through the polyp-lined client and agency digestive tracts, what happens is a wholesale denigration of "good."
I've seen too much bushwa like this of late.
This is praising 18-mile marathons. As Ms. Dunlap says, "I think they should be incredibly proud of how far they've come." That's like being incredibly proud of telling jokes and getting no laughs or writing a string of words that make no sense and calling it a story. Or thinking about applying for a job and believing you would have gotten it had you applied.
Great work is what makes something great.
A Brownie troop.
A nation.
An ad agency.
Sure, effort matters.
But it's effort and results that count.
As Tennessee Williams wrote in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," (the movie)
If everything deserves applause--just because it ran, what do you do with the spots below? Why bother trying for greatness. After all, you get a medal for 68.702-percent?
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