I was a little wound up last night so I went to the gym with a vigorous run in mind. 53 minutes and 5 miles later, I felt much better, so I cooled down to a walk and pondered this crazy idea I’ve been having. It’s about doing a Marathon. I should give the background on this first, and it starts with a comic book.
Frank Miller’s ‘300’ is something you’ll all be hearing plenty about in the next year or so, as a film adaptation will be released around March 2007, following up on the success of ‘Frank Miller’s Sin City’.
300 is an incredible graphic novel that tells a loose interpretation of the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC. I won’t give too much away – history buffs will already know the outcome – but the basic plot revolves around the 300 Spartan warriors led by King Leonidas who were sent to a narrow mountain pass to buy time for the Greeks to amass a defence against the invading Persian armies of King Xerxes. Vastly outnumbered, the Spartans make a magnificent last stand in a three-day battle of epic proportions.
As usual, Miller plays to his strengths, with graphic depictions of violence and aggression, but he tells this story beautifully, with bold lines and strong writing, and his (now ex) wife, Lynn Varley, a master colorist, brings life and death to every page. Varley’s palette of blood, bronze and earth coax warlike overtones out of every shield, bare chest and smoking skyline.
What I’m saying is, you should all go out and buy and read this book RIGHT NOW.
Go on, I’ll wait.
…
..
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There now, wasn’t that fantastic?
Anyhow, to bring this back to my original statement, I’ve had this crazy idea. Although I don’t generally do New Year’s Resolutions, on the prinicple that it’s too much like saying you’ll start a diet on Friday so then you binge eat from Monday until Thursday, I have been trying to build some goals around turning 30. And since I love running and except for a brief flirtation with parallel bar gymnastics, have never had any kind of aptitude for athletics, I thought it might be nice to see how far I can push it. Thus, the marathon idea.
42.195 kilometers or 26.21875 miles is, for a steady runner, about 4.5 hours of punishing forward motion. The bad news is that the body runs out of glycogen after about 30km or 20 miles, and then has to start consuming its own stores of fat and muscle, basically eating itself. It also fucks up your feet something fierce. It takes weeks to recover from this. It’s not healthy. But the origin story for this bizarre test of will against pain is what made me mention Frank Miller and his Greeks vs. Persians story.
The name “marathon” comes from the legend of Pheidippides, a Greek soldier who, according to legend, was sent from the town of Marathon to Athens to announce that the Persians had been miraculously defeated in the Battle of Marathon. It is said that he ran the entire distance without stopping, but moments after proclaiming his message to the city, he collapsed dead tired. Herodotus also mentions Pheidippides as the messenger who ran from Athens to Sparta asking for help. Browning wrote a poem about P-dog (as I shall henceforth refer to him) in 1876, sparking an interest in the idea of reenacting this long-ass run just in time for the first modern Olympic Games in 1896 in Athens. My favorite story about that first race is that Spiridon “Spiros” Louis, a Greek water-carrier, finished fifth, despite stopping on the way for a glass of wine. Wine! Spiros, my hero!
Don’t worry: I promise I won’t write about training, since I can just imagine everyone on my f-list other than perhaps
Joanne once spent a whole year training to run a marathon, and then broke her toe the morning of.
SHE RAN IT ANYWAY.
You’re damn straight it’ll fuck your feet up: Jo never wears open-toed shoes because years of running have caused her to lose multiple toenails, and one of them never grew back. *shudder*
I lost a half of one when I did the half marathon, & it’s still not back.
Also – if you’re going to bring your iPod, I suggest putting a band-aid over the area on your skin where the clip will rub your hip/shoulder/arm once you start running more than 8 miles. It’s possible that I have a couple of friction burns on my right hip that actually kinda scarred. oops.
Amy has progressed from the 5-K clinic to the half-marathon one she did last year, and is still quite healthy – she’s starting her marathon clinic next week. They’ve got a great product called `Minute to a Marathon’ – it’s essentially that you buy yourself 4 running clinics which give you a good schedule to train for each distance. It’s been super-helpful, and healthy prep too – despite my total lack of interest in running, I am now a big RR fan.
I’m totally into anything you write about running. ROCK ON!
I’m not into the whole marathon thing because I like my knees and who needs to run for more than an hour, really? But after I saw my 60ish uber advisor this summer pick up his faded old gym bag and run 10 k in 57 minutes every friday, I decided I should be able to do as well. Two loops of the nearest ravine is 7.5 km. When I can do that in under 45 minutes, (currently at 50-53), I’ll go all the way.
“So, let’s see, first I lifted up my right foot and moved it forward, and then I put it down. Meanwhile, my left foot had already started it’s launch into a tight, graceful arc. Then, when it landed, my right foot began the cycle anew.”
Can I just say here that, against all odds, you managed to turn that into a beautiful and strangely riveting sentence? I read it three times, just to savour it.
Of course, if it could be done (and until today I was pretty sure that it couldn’t), I would expect you to be the one to do it.
In short: never stop writing. Please.
if you’re going to bring your iPod
Friendly tip: if you’re running or doing other impact exercise with an iPod, make sure it’s a Nano or a Shuffle. The other models are hard-disk based, and the repetitive impact can sow destruction and misery on their tender moving parts.
this is, it seems, to be the year(s) of the marathon. laura, the other half of fourteen finches, ran the alaska marathon AND the NYC last year. my labmate tried to do the NYC marathon last nov (but got some nasty puke bug the day of) and will be doing it this year. a second labmate and another department mate are considering running this year.
and now you.
and funnily enough, i just picked up running for fun. no marathon for me thank you very much.