Is This the Road All Runners Run?

In this tribute to Allen Guttmann’s long and venerable career as a sport historian and literary critic, I borrow from his insightful and poignant analysis of long-distance runners in an analysis of poems and novels to examine the scholarly roads he has run and those races in which he has both joined and parted from his colleagues. I examine his determination to follow a modernization framework in his historical work and comment on his distaste for feminist and postmodernist theorizing. I conclude with a deep admiration for his finely crafted and interesting writing and his steadfast determination to keep running on roads of his choice.