Endurance

I watched a little bit of the Men’s marathon Saturday, only like 11 miles! Do the runners get bored too? There’s two hours of your life that you aren’t getting back. When they watch the sprinters are they envious? “He gets a medal for that? It was ten seconds. I’ve been running since breakfast.”

I found it interesting to look at the results. 20 dudes didn’t even finish. Isn’t that the whole point of a marathon? “Coach, I quit, this race is too long!” What will you tell your pals back home? “I ran the Olympic marathon, but I quit after 5k. I really just wanted to go to the Opening Ceremonies.” Even I could start the marathon; there is no glory in that. Finishing is the whole thing here.

The last guy that did finish was only 34 minutes off the pace, good for 77^th place. 34 minutes seems like a big gap. That works out to be about 7 miles. Photo finish. You’re not even in the same zip code. The winner could have sat down and watched an entire sitcom, including commercials, while you were still pounding pavement.

Maybe that is why some of them didn’t finish, they didn’t want me to make fun of their times.