Well, one marathon never happened, which is a good thing. As this cartoon by Bob Eckstein indicates, what we missed because of the cancellation was well-missed…

Bob Mankoff tells the tale of two marathons— the New York City one (that never happened), and the one to the White House— in cartoons: 

http://nyr.kr/VE9Ozw

This week in the issue, Mark Singer investigates the strange controversy surrounding Kip Litton, a small-town dentist who has allegedly repeatedly cheated in marathons in his piece “Marathon Man”. “Since the early nineties, technology has made it possible to clock runners with precision and to track them at measured intervals,” Singer writes, but Litton, who was on a self-professed mission to complete marathons in under three hours in all fifty states, appears to have exploited the running community’s faith in those systems to fraudulently win, or place in, various races.  Click-through for a summary of Singer’s piece (Subscription Required for full access): http://nyr.kr/Qn86AQ

Also, follow this link to listen to this week’s podcast, in which Mark Singer discusses Kip Litton  and the art of writing about mysterious characters with David Grann: http://nyr.kr/T13Rsf