I ran my first marathon on a flat course and was feeling quite proud of myself when at around mile 19 I fell into conversation with a stick figure of a guy who seemed fresh enough to have just started. He explained that he was training for an upcoming 100-kilometer race and that this was his off day, so he had decided to run the marathon. Then I noticed he was wearing hiking boots. “I need to make this a challenge,” he said. I had to stop and pretend to be tying my shoe so that I wouldn’t tackle him. ....... read on ......
I had exactly the same experience grimly grinding my way up a hill in the bike section of the Springfield triathlon when a "jolly hockey sticks" slip of girl pulled abreast of me and started chatting pleasantly - with nary a hint of exertion - about what a nice day it was. If I had been capable of summoning sufficient spare breath to reply I would certainly have repayed her courtesy with some blunt resentful Anglo Saxon.
(I learned of both the FT and the NYT pieces from Jenny Davidson's Light Reading blog; a mash up of writing on literature and training that could have been designed specifically to entertain me.)
1 comment:
Hello--I am delighted that you like the mash-up effect, I have had several complaints recently from literary readers that there's been too much about training, but of course really if anything I am going to start writing a LOT more about training mixed in with the language and literature stuff! Good luck with your own training and writing...
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