A Marathon Post

To all my New England readers: Happy Patriot's Day!

To anyone who doesn't know what that is: In Massachusetts and Maine, Patriot's Day is a public holiday commemorating the Battle of Lexington and Concord, which was the first battle in the American Revolution. To celebrate this holiday many schools and offices are closed, re-enactments of the battle are preformed, and the Boston Marathon is run!

In honor of this auspicious day in running,* today's post is about marathons. I've been lucky enough to watch two marathons in the past 10 days: the London Marathon was run on Sunday, April 13 and yesterday was the Bonn Marathon. Whenever I watch people running a marathon, I am surprised by my own swell of emotions.

Watching reminds me that – for every person on the course – this is the day that they have been training for, planning about, and anticipating. In the end they will be physically exaused, but energized by accomplishing an impressive feat. Whether they are elite athletes or runners in the five-plus-hour category, the level of commitment and dedication that it takes to complete the race is amazing. (When it comes to slower runners, remember that they will spend hours on their feet, doing the same thing over and over again without a break. I can’t think of anything else that people do repetitively for so long.)

*For the competitive, but nonprofessional distance runner, the Boston Marathon is the most prestigious race. Runners must meet qualifying-time standards in order to get into the race. To give you an idea of what kind of time you need, think about this: At 33 I ran my personal best marathon in 4 hours, 39 minutes. To get into Boston with this time, I'd have to be between 65 and 69 years old!