I am running a marathon.
That sentence overwhelms me. A marathon is a really long way to run. The only reason people started doing it was because some Greek guy had to deliver a message to some other Greek guy in some war. And then he died. I am not in a war, and I really don’t think I need to deliver any specific messages to a person 26.2 miles away.
Based on this high school race photo, you can see why I would totally want to run another, even longer race. I promise you, I am not possessed by a demon spirit – I just really dislike the color of the shorts on the girl in front of me.
Answer me this: who voluntarily runs countless miles each week leading up to one specific day when he or she will run 26.2 miles, all in one go? That doesn’t seem normal. Sure, a fair number of people do it. But I think they’re just like me: crazy.
I actually tried to look up the number of people who have run a marathon in their lifetime. The only actual number I got came up in one of those Answers.com forums where really anybody can post an answer, credible or not. Wikipedia is actually more accurate than this website. Regardless, the page said that a man named Dave estimates 0.1% – 2% of people worldwide run a marathon in their lifetime. That’s a pretty radical statistic, especially if you assume a 3% margin of error. We’re talking negative numbers now, and shoot, I’m lost. Either way, there are enough people to make running a marathon not unheard of, but still impressive. That’s why I decided to do it, really. Plus, do you know how good a marathon will look on a resumé?
Fine, so I didn’t actually do it to boost my resumé. I ran cross country in high school and during my senior year, I decided to try and run a marathon. My inspiration actually came from reading a book entitled Do Hard Things, by brothers Alex and Brett Harris. The book is all about rebutting the myth that high school and college students are incapable of doing impressive and important things, despite their age. The book challenges young readers to do hard, “adult” things that they didn’t think they could do. I loved running long distance, and I loved a challenge; so the marathon training began.
I was not able to complete the first marathon due to a combination of injury and inability to devote the right amount of time to training (slacker me), but I did compete in my first half marathon just before high school graduation.
So why am I giving this a go . . . again? I have always known that I wanted to run a marathon. I love physically challenging things, and I love grandiose accomplishments. I want to be able to say that I ran my first marathon three days after final exams my sophomore year of college. It sort of rolls off the tongue, don’t you think?
More than anything, I still try to live my life with the mentality that I should do hard things. I want to accomplish big things later in life, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t start right now. I love the sense of beating the odds after a long run. I ran thirteen miles on my long run this past week, and yes, it was as hard as it sounds. But I did it. And I will do it again next weekend. And I will run my first marathon three days after finals.
You may call me crazy, but it’s nothing I haven’t heard before.