Monday, April 18, 2005

Marathon

Today is Marathon Monday in Boston, a state-wide holiday and one of my personal favorite events in New England. It's the day where you get to stand around the streets drinking beer out of dixie cups (open container law waved for Marathon and St. Patty's Day, it's Boston after all) and sun yourselves merrily while watching fleets of runners haul themselves tortuously over Heartbreak Hill to retch, pass out, or cramp up in paroxyms of pain in the process. Good fun.

I've never understood marathoners. Unless you're Kenyan, it seems the human body is not designed for this feat. And yet, thousands of people do it all the time and seem satisfied by the experience. Later on today I will wander around Copley Square near the finish line and encounter scores of runners who have completed their 26.2 mile questionable decision and are wearing Superman-esque mylar capes and getting drunk off of one Heineken. This year, instead of stumbling by them in silent concentration to reach the restroom (because by that time, let's face it, I will have had more than one Heineken), I will stop. And I will ask them, why the hell do you do this? If I get a good answer, I'll pass it on.

1 Comments:

At 9:16 PM, Blogger huntsmanic said...

oh how i hope you are having good fun today. ..and yes, please ask. report back. my oft-thought seldom-expressed question, when i hear runner-types express a stiff plastic enthusiasm for the marathon, is if they know what happened to the guy who ran the first one ever? the enemy was advancing, so he took to the task of running a hilly 26.2 to his kingdom headquarters, reported that they must make haste, then fell over. dead. one would think this instance would sufficiently guide one in one's running endeavors.

now please excuse me - i'm ready for my nap.

 

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