Running is pretty fun.
I've never run a marathon and I don't think that I ever will. But I am married to a person who has now run three marathons and the whole thing* just seems impossible and difficult, I'm not sure how anyone can physically accomplish it.
* I was originally going to say something clever like, "actually the training is harder than the race itslef", but that doesn't seem correct at all. In fact it's pedantic bullshit. From the minute you start to think about running 26.2 consecutive miles to the last step of the race, it's all difficult. Saying one part is more tough than the other is like saying that preparing one section of your taxes sucks less than the other.
My wife, Alyson Magrane, completed her third marathon on Sunday in Washington DC with her training partner and best friend Christine Boermeester. (That's them in the picture above.) I couldn't be more proud of both of them. I can gush here for 30 paragraphs about how proud I am--and I definitely will--but it's not going to be a 10% of how I feel.
The first person who ran 26.2 straight miles was a dude by the name of Pheidippides and he busted his ass from Marathon (that's where we get the name of the race) to Athens to tell the Athenians that the Greeks just kicked the Persians' ass in a battle. He literally died on the spot. To honor him and commemorate the huge victory, the Greeks decided that running 26.2 miles was going to be a thing and that it was going to be called a marathon.
Think about that for a second, each year hundreds of thousands of people pay good money and push their bodies to the limit to do something that killed the first person who did it. It's amazing.
And that's what my wife and Christine did on Sunday. They were a modern-day Pheidippides, except without the dying part. The reason? They trained. And trained. And trained some more. This is the part that no one sees. It's running 15+ miles in the Massachusetts summer heat and humidity while your goofy husband is laying around watching the Red Sox. It's eating right and finding new powders and potions to help you heal faster and better so that you can go on another run.
It's heading to the physical therapist once a week so that he can, in Aly's words, "pop you back into place" like you're an action figure who lost its leg. It's hours and hours of wondering whether you're making the right decision or whether you should just back out because this is hard and it's not getting any easier.
This isn't an easy road; it's much longer than 26.2 miles. And it's helpful that Aly and Christine had a friend who was there for each other.
Every runner has an inner voice that pushes themselves along. But it's important that a runner has a partner and friend that can turn those untold miles into, well maybe not fun, but something bearable. It's coming back from a 20-mile run with Christine laughing (yes, laughing) like loons because you both tried climbing the front steps at the same time and you both realized, also at the same time, that this wasn't a wise idea.
"Oh god. Why did we do that?"
It's having someone to talk to while running those miles and complain about what they're doing and knowing the other person is listening, relating but at the same time urging you to that it's only "one more mile" and "really, how hard could that be?"
You can say that running is the ultimate individual sport and I'd be hard pressed to argue with you about that, but if you ask Aly and Christine, I'd bet that they tell you that running is the ultimate team sport. As an outside observer, I think that each of these women are made of the toughest stuff and that they'd be able to accomplish this goal by themselves.
But would they have had as much fun? I don't think so.
When they crossed the finish line on Sunday and after making sure all of their toenails were still attached, they got some pictures (see above). What's the one thing that you notice the most? The smiles. Smiles as long as 26.2 miles. One of the most grueling mornings of both of their lives and they're smiling, no make that beaming. From their accomplishment that day, thinking of all their hard work they put in over eight months, thinking about how they did it together.
Running is weird. When you're racing you're trying to separate yourself from the pack and the other competitors but at the same time it brings people closer together.
Try telling me again that running isn't fun.
