The attraction of running is that it takes no skill at all
By Raymond on Apr 30, 2009 in Life and goal
An encouraging essay published in Times Online, shared on a blog of my friend.
The attraction of running is that it takes no skill at all
What is the point of torturing yourself by doing a marathon?
Rick Broadbent From The Times April 25, 2009
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article6164085.ece
But the attraction of running is an unexplained phenomenon. For some it is a curious means to get fit by making your legs ache, your back creak and your feet blister. For others it the manifestation of a midlife crisis and cheaper than a Harley-Davidson. …
It is not surprising that young people are in the minority in any marathon. They are still of an age where they have some faint grasp on hedonism and so forgo the idea of entering a ballot to take part in a torturous 40,000-step track around your own inadequacies.
But at the age of 40 I have started running again and deduced that the unfailing attraction of the marathon is that it takes no skill. There are few things that require no talent or have no age restriction that can provoke such feelings of achievement. If you are a club-footed pensioner, the chances are you will never get to play for Manchester United, but you can do the London Marathon.
All you need is an ability to run and most of us can do that. It is natural. We do not walk for our lives after all. Nor do we play badminton in an attempt to catch the bus. By buying a fluorescent running jacket we may also be trying to get in touch with our inner child. The one that would run around the playground and never sit still. The one that was lost when we were told that sitting in an office was a raison d’être.
What tomorrow’s marathon will show, above all, is that the human spirit is only healthy when it has a goal. Sadly, we live in a country where self-betterment is frowned upon, and those lacking such a goal will wither and scoff at the man with the legs like albino porpoises. He should not care. He knows we are all born to run. It’s just that most of us have run out of steam and forgotten how.
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