Speaking of lapped runners, wasn't there an old rule (e.g, of the AAU) which
held that lapped runners in distance races had to drop out of the race? 
The theory was, apparently, that such runners obviously have no chance to
win the race, or of even placing sufficiently high to make a difference in
the scoring; therefore their presence benefits no one, and moreover hinders
those who are still legitimately "in" the race.

Every runner I've spoken to seems to vaguely recall such a rule, but how could
one settle the issue definitively? A copy of an old AAU rulebook would do the
trick, but people don't tend to keep old rulebooks lying around. When the new
book arrives, the old one gets thrown away. Are there sports libraries
somewhere that archive this sort of thing for the good of posterity?
(A google search of "lapped runner rule" turns up nothing of interest.)   

There is a larger issue here that bears examination. What with cd burners, dvd
burners, and hundred gigabyte hard drives commonplace (and terabyte drives
just around the corner,) how can we justify throwing _any_ information
away?  Who knows? Your cache of spam mail from November 16, 2004 may be
just the key that unlocks some deep truth for a future historian!  

I've read that ours may be the last "mortal" generation, that our children
or grandchildren may come of age in an era of medical advances so profound
that life can be extended indefinitely. Ultimately, then, our successors will
have to face the downside of eternity: the fact that it takes up a lot of
time.  I predict that history will someday become a growth subject. Our jaded
descendants, having used up all novelty in their own lives, will turn to
the recorded echos of our own for inspiration. We owe it to them to ensure the
experience is worthwhile. 

So, fellow bulgers: man the camcorders, digital cameras, dvd and
ipod voice recorders. Blog away to your heart's content. Archive old email,
web caches, newsgroup postings ... Just be sure to leave over a little
time to do something worth remembering.