Interesting article from International Herald Tribune

This article was posted by Dinesh Kumar in RFL googlegroups.


The burden of being a champ


By Shari Leslie Segall
Published: March 26, 2008





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PARIS: Spring marathon season is nigh upon us. In about a month, the streets of Paris, London and Boston will belong to tens of thousands of runners.
Courageous individuals all - from the super-elite Kenyans doing the 26.2 miles in record-breaking time, to the lumbering old ladies crossing the finish line in a half-walk, half-jog howl of relieved victory. These are folks from every continent who for the past half year have been going to sleep right after dinner, rising at dawn, pounding the pavement in the kind of freezing rain or withering heat that would keep most people from leaving the house.
Eating well. Shunning parties. Living like monks. Training like brutes. Tens of thousands of determined, disciplined, dedicated, die-hard examples of guts and grit, running from one end of the city to the other: Through the streets, across the woods, over the riverbanks, down the underpasses, into the tunnels, up the hills, below the bridges, beyond the monuments, around the lakes. Past the crowds.
The 30 days leading up to a marathon are like no other in the calendar: a pre-race purgatory where if you run too much you show up at the starting line tired, and if you run too little you show up at the starting line weak. Don't concentrate on the race and you lose your focus. Concentrate too long and you lose your nerve.
In this state of limbo, the only thing for us back-of-the-packers to do is count our blessings that we're not going to win this thing. Think of it. What burdens those champions must bear. When you run at one-third their speed, look what you don't have to put up with:


New cars. In some marathons, winners are awarded big pots of cash and a car. Talk about waste. I thought these guys were runners - what do they need wheels for? The rubber that meets our road is on air-soles not tire rims.
Personalized refreshments. The elite runners up front whiz past each regularly spaced water stations to grab their ultra-custom-made sports drinks from the outstretched hands of their world-famous, exclusive nutritionists. I hate to tell you, folks, but they're missing the whole point. The real business of marathoning takes place at the refreshment tables, where 30,000 hands fumbling for the same orange wedge means a traffic jam so massive you have a built-in excuse to stop and catch your breath.
TV stardom. The pressure on the champs must be colossal. While the television cameras follow their 13-mile-per-hour cruise toward glory, they have to look pretty. As opposed to us plodders behind them, they have no freedom whatsoever to sweat, wince, frown, groan, curse, spit, scratch or - on occasion - leave their breakfast splattered on the sidewalk.
Awards ceremony. When you've just finished running 26.2 miles the only thing you want to do is limp to the nearest bus stop and hobble home. Having to climb onto the winner's podium and tolerate mega-bouquets presented by worshipful youths, waves of adoring applause, fireworks of flashbulbs, fawning city officials and the soft purr of a limousine waiting to whisk you to your press conference in the ballroom of a luxury hotel has to be one of life's greater inconveniences.
Stellar reputation. Once these luminaries win a marathon, all eyes are on them for the next one. From here on out, every second they don't shave off their finishing times means less money for their sponsors, fewer eyes for the sports channel, decreased bragging rights for their families. Those of us who cross the line three hours after them have the luxury of reasoning just the opposite way. With only ourselves to please, our future expectations stand in inverse proportion to our current performance. "Now that I've proved I can do it, I never have to prove it again. At next year's race I can take my time!"
Intelligent questions. A marathon is 26.2 miles. Or, if you will, 42.195 kilometers. That's what a marathon is. Always. Every time. In every city. Everywhere. It is not an arbitrary length of road from approximately here or so to somewhere about there. Top runners' friends and families know this, which must make life pretty boring. Imagine going to a party and never once hearing, "Oh, you ran a marathon last Sunday? How many miles was this one?" My comment - considering everyone who runs 5 km in Mumbai says he/she ran the marathon, this question is really relevant here!!!!!!
So eat your hearts out, superstars, and have a great race. And if you want an orange wedge, I'll pick up some extras for you.
Shari Leslie Segall, a writer who lives in Paris, has run and completed 19 marathons._________________________________________________________________
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