The appeal of marathon running

What makes someone want to run 42.195km (26.2 miles)?

The marathon is an event like no other. Two days after completing the 31st Paris marathon, I am still experiencing extreme muscle ache, digestive difficulties and significant tiredness. During the last third of the race itself, my increasingly aching legs kept me in permanent pain; and in the final three kilometres, I had to summon all my mental strength to overcome some extremely debilitating cramps. Yet, I am already thinking of when and where I’ll run my next one. Some might brand me a masochistic glutton for punishment (and they’d be at least partly right), but I’m certainly not alone.

Marathon running has never been more popular than it is today. All 35,000 places for the Paris event were allocated some five months beforehand – and the biggest marathons such as London are so oversubscribed that only elite and charity runners are guaranteed a place among the 45,000 entrants. It seems that today no major city is complete without its marathon. In France, Toulouse will host its first marathon this year, while the Côte d’Azur region has announced a Nice-Cannes marathon for 2008.

So, what is it that motivates us to punish our bodies over the 42.195 km (26.2 miles) of this gruelling event? For me, the rationale is much like that of the mountaineer: simply because it’s there. There is perhaps no other physical challenge that is so taxing and yet so accessible to so many. In many ways, the popularity of the marathon is merely an extension of our increasing cultural obsession with fixing targets and meeting objectives. By signing up for the marathon, we are setting ourselves a personal challenge and giving ourselves a strong focus to build up to in the preceding months.

The rise of the marathon has also been accompanied by the advent of ‘fun running’, which is often associated with raising money for charity. The London marathon in particular is reputed for its assortment of carnival costume-clad runners who plod around the course clutching banners decorated with the name of their chosen charity or greetings along the lines of ‘Hello Mum’. Nonetheless, completing 42.195km is a task that should never be underestimated, and most fun runners are sensible enough to put in the requisite amount of training to make it round the course. However, the case of British reality TV celebrity Jade Goody is a warning that the perceived accessibility of marathon-running can have its dangers. The 22-year-old former Big Brother star started the 2006 edition of the London race after “four training sessions” (in total, not per week!), and collapsed at the 21 mile point, despite walking most of the course. She subsequently admitted she had “got bored” by training and had been binging on alcohol and curries in the lead-up to the race.

Any serious marathon training regime represents a significant commitment. For a bare minimum of two months prior to the race, participants should run at least three times a week and complete several long runs of up to 30km / 20 miles. For me, there is a great sense of achievement in this structured build-up towards obtaining one’s ultimate goal. In other words, the marathon gives a meaning to my sporting activities. I am no longer merely exercising; I am training. Clearly, you could seek a similar sense of achievement by focusing your efforts on an easier final goal (a 5km or 10km race, for instance), but the sense of challenge and fulfilment would not be as intense – especially once such lesser objectives have been met (or exhausted).

Regular and/or successful marathon runners are characterized by a distinct personality type (or brand of madness, some might say): obsessive, goal-driven and, yes, masochistic. This may sound like a disservice to marathoners, but I would put myself in this category and see nothing negative in such characteristics. On the contrary, such traits are exceptional qualities when given a ground for expression like marathon running.

To truly excel in any endurance sport, you need to know how to suffer. Elite endurance athletes have the ability to push their bodies to – or beyond – the limits of physical suffering. It can be no coincidence that many of the world’s best endurance athletes have known great adversity in their past. Seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong noted that the pain he suffered on the bike was insignificant compared to what he had experienced during his treatment for cancer. A different type of suffering helped forge the personality of Robert Cheruiyot, current leader of the World Marathon Majors series. Cheruiyot grew up in extreme poverty in his native Kenya, before being left to fend for himself at the age of eight. Such experiences necessarily put some perspective on the suffering endured during a marathon.

Most of us, of course, will never achieve such exceptional performances (nor would we want to experience such adversity). However, the mentality of testing oneself and building up to a goal seems to be finding expression in the growing popularity of marathon running. Even if certain purists are concerned that the increasingly dominant culture of fun running may represent a threat to high-class competitive athletics, marathon running is now a popular participation sport that attracts hundreds of thousands every year. Personally, I’m hooked. I missed my (ambitious) objective of doing a sub-three hour marathon by just three minutes. This, of course, means I must enter another marathon by the end of the year. After all, what’s the point in setting objectives if you don’t achieve them?

Richard Woodruff