Going Bananas !!!

Ok, before you get all worked up about this being yet another article about the health benefits of eating one of the world’s best tasting fruits…(especially when eaten with peanut butter) you can relax…I am just not that deep a thinker.

I am however going to use this space to muse and reflect on running, and as I look forward to this weekend and the Scotiabank Lakeshore Marathon, I realize that this is in fact my 27th marathon… yes, you read correctly  my “27th marathon”…crazy.

I remember my first marathon…ah, the good old days, I was young and foolish (and much faster) back then, I was running 5k and 10k races with about 15 friends from work for charity, never thinking that I would someday enter and complete my first marathon… truth be told nobody in our little group did.

Then it happened, kind of like out of a movie. You know, the kind of “brothers in arms” movie, where there was lots of chest thumping and drinking around a table and then… well, then, it happened…

We had just finished a 5k, it was an evening race in June, we were on some patio drinking…um, I mean “carbo-loading” after the race… consuming a few “recovery beverages” … “recovery” was a crude science back then…but I digress…

Anyway, somebody, and I am not sure who…said “hey, let’s all run the marathon this fall”… well the gauntlet was thrown down on the table… (right beside our second pitcher if memory serves me correctly)…and then, well … then it happened… dead silence…

One by one, all my friends said “are you crazy”…”have you any idea how far that is”…”none of us has that kind of time to train”…”where is the fun in running that far”… and then, like a fool with too much to drink… emphasis on the word “LIKE” … I said,  “I’m in”.  At the end of the evening we had convinced a total of 3 brave souls to battle the asphalt on our quest to vanquish our first marathon.

The race was brutal, over 5 hours in the pouring rain and wind, none of us really trained enough, we were cold and wet and underdressed. We were miserable.

I remember the blisters and chaffing and limping along…and the arguing over who’s stupid  idea this was in the first place…I remember there was a lot of swearing that day…swearing at each other, the weather, ourselves, and some poor soul who somehow ended up driving his car on the course right behind us.

But…we made a pact that we were all going to cross the line together… “do or die”…and the “die” part was looking quite plausible…

Then the finish line… the cheering and cowbells, the music and the ominous time-clock…reading 5:46:21… we did it…we finished…!!!

At the end of that race we made another pact…that we were NEVER GOING TO RUN ANOTHER MARATHON, EVER, DISCUSSION CLOSED… I even think we gave each other permission to beat “within an inch of their sorry live”,  the person who ever suggests we run a marathon ever again.

So, what happened?  Of the three of us, I am the only one who couldn’t stop running…  Over the next 22 years, I was running at least one marathon a year… I was hooked… or certifiably crazy. Ok, maybe a little of “Column A … a little of Column B”…

I don’t to this day really know why I continue to run…I just do…
I do know that every race I learn something about myself, every race is a memorable test, every finish is an awesome achievement. I have met many wonderful people over the years and I have a wall full of medals. I am lucky and blessed, and above all else…I have no regrets about ever saying “I’m in”.