Penny coin fountainAn art installation made up of £1,000 worth of penny coins left in a disused fountain disappeared in just over one day.The 100,000 pennies were placed in the fountain at Quayside in Cambridge at 08:00 BST on Saturday and were due to be left for 48 hours.All of the coins were gone by 09:00 BST on Sunday, but the In Your Way project is not treating it as theft.Artistic director Daniel Pitt said it was “a provocative outcome”.The work, which used money from an Arts Council England lottery grant, was one of five pieces staged across the city over the weekend.Cambridge-based artist Anna Brownsted said her fountain piece “was an invitation to respond, a provocation”.
The burgled Kiwi professor (by Chinese spies?)
Even if you couldn’t care less about distance running or world records, Kipchoge’s accomplishment is worth pondering for what it says about human endurance and what the body is capable of, in terms of cardiovascular strength and muscle efficiency. Indeed, one of the reasons marathon running has become so popular is that it enables us ordinary runners to learn those lessons about our own endurance capacity, both physical and mental. The first-time marathon groups I see out running this time of year are as inspiring to me as Kipchoge. For someone to go from couch potato to marathoner in eight or nine months of determined training is an extraordinary accomplishment.
Kipchoge, who won the gold medal in the marathon at the 2016 Olympics, has dominated marathon running like no one before him over the past five years; going into Sunday’s race, he had won nine of 10 marathons he had entered since 2013. In a profile published on Saturday, The New York Times’ Scott Cacciola called him “a man of immense self-discipline” who keeps meticulous running logs and has never had a serious injury. He is also marathon running’s “philosopher king,” according to Cacciola, distinguishing himself as much with his motivational speaking as he does out on the course. “Kipchoge is the type of person,” writes Cacciola, “who says stuff like: ‘Only the disciplined ones in life are free. If you are undisciplined, you are a slave to your moods and your passions.’ And: ‘It’s not about the legs; it’s about the heart and the mind.’ And: ‘The best time to plant a tree was 25 years ago. The second-best time to plant a tree is today.’”