The marathoner: Pain crazy or plain crazy?
35000 feets above the sea, from the complimentary newspaper from SIA, we came across this very well articulated article from a non-marathoner. For a moment, I admired this non-marathoner's writing skill more than a marathoner's spirit. I was totally mesmerized by Rohit's knowledge, his research and his honest opinion, on top of his distinguished writing skill. Hat's off to him. And hat's off to all the SIM marathoners too. :)
The Straits Times
Dec 1, 2007
The marathoner: Pain crazy or plain crazy?
By Rohit Brijnath
YOU'LL hear them tomorrow, even before you see them, the slap of rubber sole on concrete, the ragged chorus of painful breath.
Then they'll come into view, this marathon army, all washed in sweat, some faces impassive, some grimacing.
It's when you might ask: What's wrong with these people?
Non-marathoners and marathoners arrive from separate solar systems. Non-marathoners crave calories; marathoners count them suspiciously.
Non-marathoners gel their hair; marathoners eat gel. Marathoners think 12K is a dozen kilometres; non-marathoners think it means two six-packs of Kronenbourg lager.
Forty-two is an impressive waistline, a fine golf score on the front nine, and the age of the delightful Diane Lane. It is not a wise distance to run.
If you've ever limped your way to 2km on the treadmill, remember this: To complete the marathon, you need to run more than 20 times that distance. With no air-conditioning.
It's a thought so depressing that non-marathoners need a steak just to calm down.
It's not that non-marathoners don't exercise, for we are known to bend to pick up our golf ball from the rough.
It's just that we would not run 42.195km even to receive the last cold beer on earth on a sweltering day from the aforementioned Ms Lane dressed in nothing but... okay, okay, you get the picture.
Marathoners are scary. Haile Gebrselassie recently ran the distance in a world record 2hr 4min 26sec, and one might ask, how fast is that?
Let us say this: Could you run the 100 metres in 17.69 seconds? Probably. Could you run 42 consecutive 100m at 17.69sec? Probably not.
So imagine this: Gebrselassie ran the equivalent of 422 100m races at 17.69sec.
The very beginnings of the marathon are seen as inauspicious by non-marathoners.
Legend has it that a fellow called Pheidippides ran this distance, bearing news of the Greeks' victory over the Persians at the Battle of Marathon in 490BC.
When Pheidippides reached Athens, he yelled 'we are victorious'. It is a fine story, except this fellow then collapsed and died.
From ancient times, men have understandably required a stiff drink to even contemplate running the marathon.
According to The Complete Book of the Olympics, Spiridon Louis, the winner of the 1896 Olympic marathon, was reportedly fed two beers before the start, followed during the race with red wine, an Easter egg and more wine.
He was even delivered a brandy, but refused it. Perhaps he did not like cognac.
The race is so demanding that Bill Sherring, the 1906 Olympic winner, started the marathon weighing 51kg and finished at 44.5kg.
Still, people run, jog, walk, crawl, limp through the marathon. Still, about 12,000 people tomorrow will be driven to conquer this distance and themselves.
You have to wonder, what is it about this race that beckons people?
So I call Rob de Castella, who set a world record in the marathon in 1981 and won the marathon at the 1983 World Athletics Championships.
He is the perfect man to ask: Are marathoners crazy?
'Maybe we are a bit,' he chuckled. 'But then you have to be crazy to do anything brilliantly, to push yourself to the edge.'
It's like Sam Snead, who won golf Majors in the 1940s and '50s, practising till his hands bled.
Ah yes, bleeding. De Castella explains that nipples can chafe and bleed.
He explains there are blisters, born both of friction and constant pounding, and that these bleed too.
Furthermore, feet go numb with the pounding and, just to illustrate the point, he says it's a bit like 'hitting your finger repeatedly with a hammer'.
But de Castella says this is, gulp, only 'superficial pain', that you can run through the blisters and chafing, but what tests the runner some days is an 'overwhelming feeling of weariness, an exhaustion deep within your bones'.
Not every marathon is a trial. For there are some days, he says, when 'you're running fast and feeling as if you can run forever, and it is an incredibly exhilarating experience, like finding the sweet spot and hitting a perfect shot in golf'.
But, on bad days, it's hard to stay positive, to keep going, as part of the mind pleads stop, and the lungs scream, and the glycogen in a weeping body is depleted, till the last 5km can resemble 'hell on earth'.
But right here, perhaps, is where we excavate the heroism of the marathoner, we unearth the essence of this grand, relentless race.
Because what the marathoner does is he endures. He breaks through invisible walls of exhaustion. He goes forward, somehow, even though his right leg cramps while running and left leg cramps while walking.
He finds a way to finish what he started.
There will be one champion tomorrow, yet many winners. For the runner competes with himself, answers his own challenge, pushes the envelope of his own possibility.
Sohn Kee Chung, winner of the 1936 Olympic marathon, once said: 'The human body can do so much, then the heart and spirit must take over.'
The marathon will never be a spectator sport because its battles, and its pleasures, lie within, beyond our gaze.
Still, de Castella says, look at the faces of the people who finish after 31/2 hours, after four hours, and you might see a reflection of the accomplishment they feel inside.
'Pain', he says, 'is outweighed by a deep sense of pride and satisfaction and achievement. The only reason we do it is that the enjoyment significantly outweighs the pain.'
So perhaps this is what we, the non-marathoners, should do tomorrow. Wake up before dawn. Skip the treadmill. Drive to the East Coast Parkway or the Padang.
