What does it feel like to run a marathon? I’ve often said that I can’t put it into words or describe it. That it’s just something that you have to experience to understand.
Anyone that has ever run a marathon understands this immediately. It’s something that you can’t put your finger on.
Running a marathon has an impact on you as a person. The impact is emotional and physical. It’s indescribable, because it operates on many levels. Running a marathon leaves a mark on you.
What makes the marathon unique is that it pushes you beyond your comfort zone. It takes you to a place that isn’t comfortable. It isn’t fun. It hurts. Yet, you still keep moving forward, because you have a tangible goal in your sights. The marathon is unique, because it takes us to a place that feels bad and ends up delivering us to a place that feels good.
Think about it for a minute. There are lots of things that you could do that might make you feel uncomfortable. You could try to eat 12 dozen Crispy Cream donuts in one sitting. That will certainly make you feel uncomfortable. But at some point you would just stop eating them. You’d say to yourself, “now why I am I doing this again?” And you’d probably stop. But that doesn’t happen in a marathon.
In a marathon you get to a point where things hurt. You want to stop. You want to lay down on the ground and take a nap. You think about how happy you’ll be to be done. You’re basically in misery. But those are the moments when your body keeps driving you. You turn on your auto-pilot and keep moving, because you know that you’ll get where you’re going eventually and when you cross that finish-line you’ll be done.
It’s that point when the body takes over and the mind just has to hang on for the ride that makes the experience so unique.
And there’s nothing magic about 26.2 miles. The distance itself is somewhat arbitrary. But it has been accepted through modern history as a benchmark for endurance. 26.2 miles is further than it takes for most everyone to feel the pain, and the burn, and the discomfort. If you make it that far, you have had the experience of running through the discomfort and persevering.
For some people that pain will start at mile 5 or mile 10 or mile 18. Everyone will push through their comfort zone in a different way. But they will all feel it. Even those few people that are blessed with bodies that cruise through the miles with ease feel it, because they push themselves harder and try to go faster. But they still feel it. We all feel it.
Anyone that has ever completed a marathon understands what I’m talking about. You’ve been pushed to the edge of discomfort, gone past it, and kept going. And that’s what’s so indescribable about the experience. We can’t individually describe the pains and discomfort we feel, but we all know that pushing through that wall to cross that finish line is what leaves the mark on us.
And once we’ve felt it, we want to go through it again. Maybe not tomorrow or next week, but we know that we need to do it again in our lives.
The marathon allows us to prove to ourselves that we can persevere.
Keep on pushing my friends.
Coach Joe
Running Wild with Coach Joe – a blog focused on marathon racing, training and motivation. Bookmark us at http://coachjoeenglish.wordpress.com or use your favorite RSS feed reader to get the latest news and articles. Running Wild is also now available on Facebook and My Space.
