Go Find Your Marathon

       As a fifty-something year old man, I tend to hang out with and feel most comfortable with folks generally my age or thereabouts – people who remember where they were when JFK was shot, people who saw the Beatles first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, people who recall growing up without microwaves, cell phones, computers and, for God’s sake even without whole house air conditioning!

      We like each other’s company because we have a lot in common.  But there is one “commonality” I do not share with my contemporaries.   I have noticed over the years that many of my similarly-aged friends – interestingly mostly women – have taken up the sport of running.  Let me rephrase that.  They have become not just runners, but runners of MARATHONS:  they travel all over the country competing in long distance running events.

      I once asked the question of one of these friends: Why do you do it? 

      She had quite a bit of difficulty putting it into words, mentioning highly idealistic concepts like freedom, accomplishment, sense of self worth etc.  To be frank, she didn’t do a very good job of convincing me.

      But I think I saw what she was trying to say to me a few months later.  Two years ago, our company agreed to sponsor a local marathon and, as the man in charge of that sponsorship,  I took an early morning trip downtown on race day just to see what we were getting ourselves in to.

      I decided to camp out at the finish line.  And that was the moment it became clear to me just why my friends and thousands of others were pushing themselves to the brink.

      One by one, minute by minute and then, half-hour after half-hour, the race participants crossed the finish line.  These were not chiseled and buffed million dollar professional athletes, their skills honed by a team of trainers and managers.  They were our moms and dads, our next door neighbors, the guy down the street.  They prepared for the big day in sweaty gymnasiums, city streets and suburban subdivisions. Many bore the scars of surgeries.  Several proudly displayed the wrinkles they’d earned by, well, by just plain living.

      Some raised their arms.  Some pumped fists.  Many cried, as did their children, their spouses, their friends who greeted them at the end of the journey.

      Those images provided the answer my friend couldn’t put into words.  You just knew that these were people who wanted to “make their mark”.  To do something that others couldn’t.  To do something hard.

      You just knew they’d been told they were crazy, that they’d get hurt, that they were wasting their time.  But as you looked into their faces, you could see through the tears, the raised arms, and the pumped fists, the words, “I DID THIS!!”   They were saying, “I was right.  I believed in myself when others didn’t”, and they didn’t have to say a word.

      Moral to the story:  We may not all be built to run a marathon, but all of us have our great goals and great passions.  Don’t let the naysayers kill your dreams.

      Just do it.

      Yeah, I am old enough to remember when JFK was assassinated.  I also remember when he outlined America’s goal to put a man on the moon by the end of the 1960’s, saying, “We do this not because it is easy, but because it is hard.”  

      Now, go out and find Your Marathon.    As always, thanks for reading.