Registration for the Marine Corps Marathon opened at noon yesterday. To my great horror, I am overwhelmed with the desire to register. Not like, haha that would be fun to do 2 marathons in 2 weeks. It’s more of an urge: could I possibly overcome such a great and wonderous feat? Doing some research on this, I find that I would not be the first person to do this, obviously. Looking at one site, I found a man who had done 6 marathons in 6 weeks for his 60th birthday…and then 7 in 7 weeks for his 70th birthday! Some people do 2 marathons in one day! Granted, the admittance of such acts were under a title of “Insanity at its purest level.” But apparently a common insanity, not one that just strikes every 50 years. This is a daily occurrence! Lots of people do this!
But I am trying to keep a level head here. I think I wouldn’t hesitate if this didn’t occur one month after my first triathlon. Why is it that the triathlon seems so tiny? It’s obviously a much bigger deal, it’s caused much more worry in all of your hearts, and I signed up so that I would have a bigger challenge. And yet I find myself poo-pooing my participation, scoffing at the 10k run at the end (is this a race or child’s play?), mocking the 24 mile bike course (so what if there’s hills? Hills are there to make your butt tight, as I read in a recent posting), and the swim? Well the swim is the intimidating part, but you use different muscles with swimming than for running, so really it doesn’t affect my running ability. Or so I’m telling myself.
Why does this idea thrill me so much? I can’t really say. I haven’t quite figured that out yet. I think a part of it is that I’m so intimidated by so much in my life. I’m not sitting in my room plagued by fear and worry, but at the same time there are some things that I just haven’t mastered yet. There are parts of my life that seem so uncertain, so complicated, and so out of control. Or out of my control. Having something like this, having a challenge like this, makes me feel like I’m stronger, more assured. I feel like I’ve found my niche and while I am lacking talent in many areas of my life (I’ve yet to learn to carry a tune for example and although I have convinced myself that I am an excellent dancer, something tells me I am actually only spinning in continuous circles….), I seem to have found some sort of natural ability in the form of self torture/running. Perhaps I’m not fast and perhaps endurance isn’t exactly a talent, but it is a habit, a part of myself that I have honed and developed. And now it is something that I want to test.
There is also the irritating fact that the Marine Corps Marathon is a mere $88. While many marathons are far more, this seems like a bargain and being the faithful shopper that I am, it’s really hard to pass up a good bargain. $88 to challenge myself and for the 4.5 hours of glory running and having people cheer me on, yell my name, and the excuse to consume GU? Man….that’s cheap.
So far everyone thinks I’m nuts…is there ANYONE who would support this? I’m so tempted to do it on the sly, but then again, how the HECK do you run a marathon on the sly?
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