Keep Your Own Pace

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

Henry David Thoreau

According to Time-To-Run , “history records that in 490 B.C., the soldier Pheidippides, covered the distance from a battlefield near Marathon, Greece, to Athens in order to bring the news of a Greek victory over the Persians.” He died from that run. Today, the typical marathon is 26.2 miles long and, for average marathon runners, their finish time is around 4 hours and 25 minutes with an average of 10 minutes per mile. Professionals can finish a marathon slightly over the 2 hour mark running every mile about 4 minutes and 40 seconds. And a walker can finish a marathon in 6 to 8 hours. Due to the movement of Earth’s tectonic plates, it might be technically possible to finish a marathon by sitting on a couch but the timescale is a bit longer than the slowest walk.

About the author

Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817 – May 6, 1862) was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher. A leading transcendentalist, he is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay “Civil Disobedience” (originally published as “Resistance to Civil Government”), an argument for disobedience to an unjust state.