Not Dying to Run

I’ll admit it. I’m a little intimidated about the idea of running a marathon. But, something I recently read didn’t help.

I picked up a book from the library about marathons. It’s the second one I read, and it has most of the standard stuff: training schedules, nutrition advice, setting goals, etc.

Everything seemed normal until it got to a very disturbing history lesson. The first marathon started in Greece. (I remembered that.) The marathoner was running to deliver a message from Marathon to Athens. (Sounds about right.) Oh, and then he collapsed and died right there of exhaustion! (What?! Yikes!) And, he ran only 24 miles - not the now-standard 26.2!

The funny part was the book tried give a reassuring “don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll be fine” after just explaining how the inadvertent founder of the marathon croaked after his own run.

Well, I can’t say that it’s good to find out that one of your new hobbies has the pesky side effect of death. In fact, if I had discovered that the first blogger died right there in front of his computer, I might still be writing with only a pen and paper. (I’m sure the first blogger is alive and well, though. But, if you don’t believe me on the first marathoner, you can read about his fate here.)

Don’t worry. I’m still planning to run the marathon. The history lesson actually made me laugh – only because it’s probably the last thing you’d want to hear as an intimidated yet hopeful marathoner.

Regardless, I’ll probably stick to reading this book, a very funny book that includes the word “nonrunner” (very fitting for me) in the title and makes no reference to anyone dying. It does, however, mention the side effect of toe nail loss, which is also disturbing but I think I can handle it. At least I won’t have to worry about getting a pedicure!