So victory, always, would be flat. You must mix it with defeat to gain the flavor. This book is a history of the men and women who tried time and again to win the Boston Marathon. The marathon itself is a recent event in human history. Only in the closing years of the 19th century had conditions in America and the world ripened so luxuries like marathons could appear.
Marathon running is a luxury like the pursuit of things unnecessary to sustenance like art.
No longer did men farm for subsistence with occasional barter supplying the only commerce. No longer did nearly all men bend over hoes in their isolated fields and women toil by the hearth. No longer did each village face starvation alone. No longer did the only power come from animal and human muscle. With prosperity came the luxury of a noble pursuit of art and of seeing how far and how fast a person could run.