To run a marathon

On Sunday, I went to support my friend Mihaela who was running a marathon. A marathon is a race of 42.195 km. That’s one kilometre, followed by another thousand metres, followed by another thousand metres 42 times and a bit.

She trained for 6 months, accumulating kilometres in her legs, following a weekly regimen that curtailed her social activities while expanding her horizons. She ran two semi-marathons before she reached the big day, the Montreal Marathon.

She had planned to finish in between 4 and 4 ½ hours. That meant she was due to arrive between 12h17 and 12h47. When at 12h35 she still hadn’t arrived, I was anxious. After all, Paula Radcliffe, the Olympic record-holder recently broke down in the middle of her race, 6 km before the end.

Most of what I have read and heard about marathons states that the biggest challenge in a marathon is the unpredictability of your own body’s reactions. The heat, the ups and down of the course as well as all sorts of psychological factors come into play.

The good news is she finished! In 4h26, which is a great time for her first marathon under a very bright sun. It was inspiring to watch people run the last 200 metres. There were old and young ones, athletic and not so athletic ones. Most of them were in a sort of trance. It seemed that they were somewhere between deep inside themselves and very far from the world around them. She said that at 37 km, she started wondering why she had at all considered doing this. Now that she’s done it, she wants to do it again.

Nobody’s begrudging her her waddling gait at work, since her muscles are still aching. One very cute thing I saw was one guy who was running the 10km race while pushing his baby in a pram. His girlfriend was standing on the edge, with a board to cheer him when he came. And when he arrived, there was a poster attached to the front of the pram. It said: “Maman, veux-tu épouser Papa?” They kissed amid tears and laughs.

Am I going to run soon? Hmmm… that’s a question for another day!