What the hell is up with the marathon?

I thought I had finally caught up with everyone by joining a gym. But now, apparently, it's all about the half marathon, the marathon, and the triathlon. A few years ago, when a friend did this, it was remarkable. He was strong, athletic and committed to training. Then, another friend signed up two years ago. She's moving up the running scale, but even before, she was known for her running skills.

I had thought that the need for running was a habit that was created and a pretty rare occurrence, but, THIS YEAR, everyone has been taking up training for (half) marathons like wildfire.

The marathon is a long distance foot race that takes about 26 miles to run. Named after the Battle of Marathon in the Greco-Persian wars, where the loyal Greek soldier Pheiddipides ran to Athens to announce to its people news of Greek victory, the modern marathon has a history of being won by Kenyans. I get irritated when I have to drive 26 miles. Even more so when traffic is blocked off to marathoners trying to run 26 miles, doubling my driving time and shortening my temper.

I hate seeing these on my feed:


It makes me automatically hide you and I would de-friend you if not for my narcissism.

I'm not sure what making public your marathon results is about. Is it your commitment to running? Yay, you ran for multiple hours at a time? You're fit and you want to train with hundreds of other people while running in a pack? You're bored with your average work out and you thought you'd like to join up and do something social? You're proud, I get it. It's different if you do them every year for the past... oh.. 3 years. If this year was your first and you made a big deal about it, chances are, you probably could have done something better with your time.

How is running in marathons becoming such an exercise fad? It's just another inane thing for people to talk about when they have nothing else to talk about. Boring.

The only time I run is when someone is chasing me. I thought a majority of people I knew was like this. While this hopefully is still true, a great few are turning on me, deflecting to the other side. This is perhaps the closest I have come to running a marathon:



Frankly, I am just as happy about someone else running a marathon as I am about someone else being engaged. What do these two things have in common? They have nothing to do with me. I'm proud of my individual friends that run in marathons, great job! In general, I could really care less. Sorry, it's called personal fitness for a reason.