At some point in your late twenties, the world expects you to pick a sport to define your entire personality. Weightlifting, bouldering, or chess, for the less physically inclined. For those that don’t have a fear of being alone with their thoughts, marathon training may be the hobby of choice. The proof that this tradition comes from a man who died at the end of the 42-kilometre distance is scarce. I was unsure whether him not dying is enough of a reason for humans to keep running marathons. So, during the Lausanne Marathon this Sunday, I asked the participants, myself included: what are you running for?
Health, enforced
Let’s look closer at the straightforward reason first. Running helps you stay in shape, be healthy. Of course, a simple question follows: why the race then? Why not simply run an impressive distance on a random day, alone, along the lake? This troubled me too. As an expatriate student, I have wondered whether I can spare 70 francs on something that is, essentially, free every other day. Similarly, banners held by supporters during the run carried similar questions (“All this for a free banana at the end?”, “Remember, you paid to be here”). The 1000-franc prize for the fastest runner that could reimburse the costs didn’t fully strike me as achievable, so why the investment?
After months of preparation, I have reasoned that this fee, apart from the medal, the t-shirt, and an obligation for your friends to stand on the street waiting for you with a banner, plays the role of what we long for in adulthood: a benevolent coercer. Something to make forcing yourself to do healthy things easy. Or in the words of one of the respondents:
“If I pay for it, it would be a waste not to participate. And if I’m participating it would be a waste not to train. So, I train for it.”
It’s something that makes you go out into the rain while absolutely hating it with every fibre of your being. Because yes, even after a year of getting into shape, I still only like running in the moments when I’m not actually doing it.
Pride and prejudice
Another reason, given less often, was “I run because I can,” which although logically sound, didn’t strike me as very convincing – it’s just a bizarre use of free will. This justification does however receive more tangibility from the female perspective – considering that up to only 60 years ago women were not allowed to participate officially in official long-distance races. Additionally, as a woman, the training provided me with an unexpected dimension of freedom: for the first time in my life, for 48 hours before the starting line, I was allowed, encouraged even, to eat as many carbs as humanly possible. After years of only restricting my pasta intake, it felt like the patriarchy was leaving my body with every bite.
Others said they wanted to show themselves, and others, that they can complete it. The reasoning breaks down with this one for me – finding out someone has completed a marathon has never made me think about them as a better person, au contraire. We dread people talking about it the same way we dread discussing morning routines with those that wake up at 5am and have a cold shower. It brings a weird feeling of jealousy, not because we want to take a cold shower, but rather because it seems like the person with those routines may be living in alignment with their own values. And maybe sometimes, we are not yet fully who we want to be. Regardless, my take is: the only way to avoid fully falling into hubris is to not talk about the race, unless prompted, for at least a few months after. (No, scratch that. Never talk about it unless prompted.) As of right now, it has been little over 24 hours since the race finished and I must, in all honesty, announce that I have broken this rule twice, once per each of my parents.
A reach towards the future
Despite those strong negative opinions on runner’s hubris, I admit that the medal and the pictures posted on Strava do play their role. In a fast-paced world where our identity keeps changing, we often look backwards not recognizing ourselves. Looking back at the person that graduated high school under my name, I barely feel any link with her. While most of us would agree that they are different people then they were 5 years ago, we tend to severely underestimate how much we will change in the future. We are inclined to believe that this is it – we have been formed and who we are today will remain forever. This illusion of the end of history causes us to judge our contemporary choices from this perspective only. So, in an effort to get out of this logical fallacy, I have decided to treat future Anna as a completely new person and offer her a half-marathon medal for free. Because for her, all the efforts will be in the past.
The pyramid scheme
I try to keep all of this in mind as I suffer from the post marathon blues: feelings of sadness and emptiness that come after achieving a goal. The advice I found online: sign up for another race! So perhaps the final reason for marathon participation is that’s the re-takers were dragged into it by an addiction-adjacent emotional spiral. The participation of newcomers can then be due to being invited by the re-takers, who feel the need for company in their new-found drug – and long for more kudos on Strava.
After all, maybe the medal and the t-shirt were worth the 70 francs. Maybe what we paid for were tangible proofs for our future elderly selves, we once hopefully will be, that we used to be able to run ridiculously long distances. And I am pretty sure we will forget how much we hated it.
Anna Halewska
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